Scott Brison

[Pensions, May 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday evening, we asked the government how much money it was going to save as a result of the proposed change to the old age security program.

The government is refusing to give us that information and is saying that the chief actuary will give members the information after the budget implementation bill is passed and not before.

Why is the government hiding this information about old age security? Canadians have the right to know.

[Study on Income Inequality, April 25th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question very much. Given the level of poverty in Canada, it is clear that now is not the time to be withdrawing resources from groups that are looking for solutions and ways to reduce poverty.

I do not understand why the government has cut funding from such programs. It is clear that we must invest more and try to come up with more ideas. We must involve other groups in Canada, such as community groups and churches that work to address challenges in our communities every day. We must work more closely with the other levels of government, the municipal and provincial governments.

I agree with the hon. member. In my opinion, this is not the time to be cutting funding from important groups that are working to find solutions.

[Study on Income Inequality, April 25th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I guess if Canadians watching this debate were hoping that perhaps we were starting a less partisan approach to this important issue, they would be disappointed by hearing from that hon. member.

As the Conservatives mock and laugh at income inequality and Canadians who are living below the poverty line, I hope they can consider the immaturity of their approach and the effect of their pithy partisanship on the way Canadians look at Parliament. I find it very disappointing that the hon. member would not take his work as a parliamentarian seriously and actually try to address this issue that I and my party are seeking to address in a non-partisan and constructive way.

[Study on Income Inequality, April 25th, 2012]

moved

That the Standing Committee on Finance be instructed to undertake a study on income inequality in Canada and that this study include, but not be limited to, (i) a review of Canada’s federal and provincial systems of personal income taxation and income supports, (ii) an examination of best practices that reduce income inequality and improve GDP per capita, (iii) the identification of any significant gaps in the federal system of taxation and income support that contribute to income inequality, as well as any significant disincentives to paid work in the formal economy that may exist as part of a “welfare trap”, (iv) recommendations on how best to improve the equality of opportunity and prosperity for all Canadians; and that the Committee report its findings to the House within one year of the adoption of this motion.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce my motion M-315, on the issue of income inequality in Canada.

I would like to start by telling the House a bit about my dear friend the late Wallace McCain, a great Canadian who passed away last year. At his funeral, Frank McKenna gave the eulogy, and in describing Wallace, Frank said:

He was a steely-eyed capitalist, competing and winning against the biggest and best in the world. On the other hand, he was also a deeply patriotic Canadian, committed to a caring and sharing society. He believed the government has an important role. He believed in public health care. He believed in early childhood development, he believed in progressive social policies. He believed that we truly are our brother's keeper.

Wallace McCain used to say, “I pay a lot of taxes. I don't mind paying taxes. Everybody's got to pay their taxes. We get a lot for our tax money in this country”.

I share this story about Wallace's vision on the role of government because I do not believe that the issue of income inequality should be reduced to one of class warfare. It should be about creating and protecting equality of opportunity.

Wallace McCain would have wanted Parliament to study income inequality because he would want us to continue to ensure that Canada is a place where we can grow up in Florenceville, New Brunswick, and with education, hard work and a lot of determination, go on to conquer the world. Then when we succeed, it is about giving back. It is about building a Canada where we can hope for a better life for our children, our grandchildren and our neighbours' children and their grandchildren. It is about making sure that regardless of where we start, we can work to make a better life for ourselves and our families, that we have a chance.

As MPs, we have a responsibility to make sure that Canadians can access the tools they need to succeed, regardless of where they start. Unfortunately, in Canada opportunity remains far from equal. Income inequality across Canada is in fact growing. This has been the trend for the past generation under federal and provincial governments of all stripes.

Inequality is growing between Canadian regions as our economy is divided between resource-rich provinces and those without. Inequality is growing between urban and rural Canada, and it is growing between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians. These growing inequalities result in tremendous costs for our economy in terms of lower economic growth and higher demands on health and social services.

The economic cost of growing inequity and inequality for aboriginal Canadians is particularly alarming, and the trend is getting worse. On the issue of aboriginal poverty, we face the growing cost of Canada's youngest and fastest-growing population also being the most economically disadvantaged and socially disenfranchised.

Growing income gaps have been the trend across OECD nations, although some countries are doing better than others. When it comes to the growing gap between rich and poor, no political party in Canada has a monopoly on answers or the blame, but in recent public opinion surveys, Canadians have identified growing income inequality as the most important issue they want their members of Parliament to be working on. That is why I proposed this motion: so that parliamentarians could work together across party lines on ideas to strengthen equality of opportunity for all Canadians.

The issue of growing income inequality in Canada has recently been identified as a major public policy challenge by the OECD, by the Conference Board of Canada and by Canada 2020. The level of inequality in Canada is in fact above the OECD average, and while it is true that the U.S. still has higher income inequality than Canada, income inequality in Canada is now growing at a rate faster than that in the U.S.

Even Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney agreed that this recent growth in inequality is an important challenge, and Mark Cameron, a Conservative and a former director of policy to the Prime Minister, has argued that addressing the issue of growing income gaps should be a priority for the Conservative government. Let me read from Mr. Cameron's recent paper on the issue:

A society in which a small group is perceived to be benefiting unfairly, or where there are wide gaps between social and economic classes, can lead to dissension, jealousy and anti-social behaviour, even if the less well-off are still making material gains. This, in turn, can lead to increases in crime, loss of participation in social and charitable organizations, and greater demands for government intervention to help deal with these social tensions. Such a scenario should concern not only social democrats or liberals..., but also conservatives who are concerned about maintaining public support for free markets and limited government.

The fact is, equality is good for the economy. Howevever, on that front our economy faces strong headwinds. The problem of Canada's shrinking middle class has been somewhat masked by cheap credit as Canadians borrow more and increase personal debt in order to make ends meet. Canadians now owe, on average, more than $1.50 for every dollar of annual income.

The record levels of debt-financed consumption we see by Canadian households cannot continue forever. The Bank of Canada has already identified Canada's record levels of household debt as the biggest risk to our economy, and it is just a matter of time before rates start to rise. The problems of growing income inequality will grow as rates go up.

Recent studies also show that income inequality is not just growing between individuals; it is also growing between Canadian neighbourhoods. In fact, incomes in the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada are not just stalling: between 1980 and 2005, their incomes actually shrank, making the poor even worse off. However, in the top neighbourhoods, incomes continue to grow rapidly. As a result, Canadian cities, communities and towns are becoming increasingly ghettoized. This division leads to weaker communities, increased crime and worse outcomes for health and education.

The Code Red study in Hamilton, Ontario, looked at the link between income inequality in Hamilton neighbourhoods and the health of its citizens. The results are startling. It found a 21-year difference in life expectancy between those living in the richest neighbourhoods and those living in the poorest. In fact, the poorest neighbourhood in Hamilton would rank 165th in the world in terms of life expectancy.

People living in poorer neighbourhoods also require significantly more time in the hospital. They are more likely to find themselves in emergency rooms.

Healthy birth weights are an important indicator of future health. The average rate of low birth weights in sub-Saharan Africa is 15%. The study found seven Hamilton neighbourhoods where the rate was more than 20%, including one where the rate was, astonishingly, 47%.

The study described some of the poorest neighbourhoods in Hamilton as living with

...Third World outcomes and Third World lifespans—all the more shocking in a city with a major medical school and top teaching hospitals, in a country with universal, publicly funded health care.

Income inequality can be a life-and-death issue. Stats Canada has been looking at income levels and the probability of dying prematurely. The results show a Canadian male in the top 20% of income earners only has a 27% probability of dying prematurely. However, that risk rises to 35% for average-income males and 50% for those in the bottom 20% of incomes. It is 52% for an aboriginal, and there is a 69% chance of premature death for those living in a shelter or rooming house.

The issue is also about hope. For generations, Canadians have prided themselves in calling Canada a land of opportunity, a place where someone can arrive with nothing, but with hard work and perseverance can make a better life for themselves and their family, and while they are struggling to make it, Canada's social safety net will be there with them.

The economic mobility project recently asked Canadians about their current thoughts on economic mobility and their level of hope for the future. Only 47% of Canadian parents—less than half—now believe that their children will be able to match the same living standards of their parents.

As parliamentarians, we should consider that fact carefully. When people no longer have hope for the future and for their children, that is when they start getting into trouble.

When it comes to specific measures that can both reduce income inequality and improve GDP per capita, the focus of the proposed finance committee study, there are some areas in which Canada is already adopting some best practices at both the federal and provincial levels.

I believe one good idea is the working income tax benefit. This refundable tax credit helps remove disincentives to work by bridging the welfare gap faced by low- and modest-income Canadians. It helps the recipients and it helps the Canadian economy. It is an idea that was first introduced by the previous Liberal government in the 2005 fall mini-budget and the subsequent election platform, and it was implemented by this Conservative government in budget 2007 and increased in 2009. It is an idea that builds on successful provincial programs, such as Saskatchewan's employment supplement and rental housing supplement and Quebec's work premium, which are also designed to help Canadians in those provinces climb the welfare wall and get out of the welfare trap.

Another area where investments both grow the economy and help address inequality is investments in early learning and child care. Together with the provinces, communities and parents, we can support initiatives for early learning and child care and help make sure Canadian kids get a good start.

Income inequality is a complex issue. Complex, challenging issues are exactly what we as parliamentarians have a responsibility to take on here. There are groups and individuals with expertise on income inequality. There are faith-based community organizations and churches that are on the front lines of this issue. We can hear from them and learn from them. We can hear from other levels of government to help inform federal policy and help us tackle this problem together.

After 15 years as a member of Parliament, I am not so naive as to believe that a study by the House of Commons finance committee will solve income inequality once and for all, but it will be a start. It will engage Parliament in a constructive non-partisan effort to deal with an issue that Canadians care deeply about. It will help us understand this issue better and put Parliament on a path of progress where we can work with other levels of government and other stakeholders to address it. Canadians want us to deal with income inequality, and we should not disappoint them.

I would like to conclude on a personal note.

Growing up, I went to Dr. Arthur Hines Elementary School in Hants County, Nova Scotia. It is an area where a lot of people face very deep rural poverty. Wendy Elliott of the Kings County Advertiser has written about this issue of rural poverty. She has also written about the fact that Canada is the only G8 country with full day classes and no national school meals program.

The fact is that where I grew up, a lot of the kids went to school hungry. Of the 23 students in my grade 6 class at Dr. Arthur Hines school, fewer than half went on to graduate from high school. Those who did had one thing in common: they had access to some early learning, generally from parents who read to them. Some of the kids did not have that opportunity, not because their parents were bad parents but because their parents had trouble reading.

Today the Hants Shore Community Health Centre provides early learning to local children to help all the local children get a good start. Thanks to pioneers like former principal Hazel Dill and restaurateur Michael Howell, nutritional education is helping kids eat better food. As a result, not only are more kids from Dr. Arthur Hines school graduating from high school in Hants County, they are winning scholarships and going on to post-secondary education as well.

Let us learn from these success stories. Let us approach this with an open mind and open hearts. Let us develop ideas that can help all Canadians. Let us understand this important issue better. This motion and this study are an important step for the Parliament of Canada to understand income inequality better. It is an important step in helping us address income inequality, which is an issue that Canadians say is a top issue they want us to deal with here in Parliament.

I hope that we can, as individual members of Parliament and as political parties, put partisanship aside and approach this issue by supporting this motion. I certainly look forward to this debate now and in the coming weeks. There will not be a vote until June. I would urge all members of Parliament from all parties to keep an open mind and an open heart, and hopefully we can show Canadians that we can make Parliament work for a more equal and more equitable Canada.

[Financial Statement of Minister of Finance, April 3rd, 2012]

Madam Speaker, the member referred to one of the changes to EI, which is to reduce the clawback if recipients take some part-time work. That specific change makes some sense.

The changes in the budget to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, which the member for York West proposed to this House, would protect disability pensions when companies go bankrupt. That makes sense.

However, all those small programs to create jobs that the member described, their potential impact pales in comparison to the significant negative effect of raising payroll taxes by $600 million every year for the next three years. That is what this budget does. It is a bit of a shell game. The government puts $50 million or $10 million in this program and do something over here but then it increases payroll taxes, a direct tax on jobs, by $600 million per year at a time when unemployment is 1.4% higher than it was before the recession. That is the part that I have a quarrel with in this budget.

[Financial Statement of Minister of Finance, April 3rd, 2012]

Madam Speaker, it is utter hypocrisy that a government would preach restraint to Canadians and the public service when at the same time it is increasing by 30 members the House of Commons. In reality, there is no other parliament or congress in the world that, as population grows, increases its numbers; not the Bundestag, not the Congress in the U.S. and not Westminster. What they do is redistribute, which is quite reasonable. At a time of restraint, to add 30 new members of Parliament is madness. We are the only ones in the world who are doing that.

The leader of the Green Party also raised the issue of the inconsistency of the government spending over half a billion dollars on quasi-partisan government advertising and at the same time cutting CBC, which Canadians depend on, by 11%. At a time when we should be investing in public broadcasting and cutting partisan waste and advertising, the government is doing the opposite to promote its own agenda and not to promote Canadian culture.

[Financial Statement of Minister of Finance, April 3rd, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I want to focus my remarks on this budget on the issue of income inequality.

According to some recent polls, Canadians view income inequality as the most important issue facing the country. The gap between rich and poor, the increasing challenge for young people and low-income Canadians to make ends meet, is an issue of grave importance to a lot of Canadian families from coast to coast.

This budget does not discuss income inequality but, perversely, it does address it. I say perversely because it actually makes income inequality worse. The cutting of OAS makes the most vulnerable Canadians wait two extra years for their old age security. The Conservative excuse of sustainability is false. We have reports now from the Chief Actuary, from finance, from the OECD and from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that tell us that OAS is sustainable. The fact is that OAS, in 1993, was 2.7% of GDP. Today, in 2012, it is 2.4%. By 2030, it will be around 3.1%. But then later, by 2060, it will go down to about 2.3% of GDP. It is totally sustainable.

The Conservatives referenced that other countries have changed their pension systems. Well, they had to change their pension systems because their pension systems were not sustainable. In Canada, under the Chrétien and Martin governments, the changes made to CPP have enabled it to be sustainable for generations, in fact for the next 70 years.

The Conservatives are making a false argument. The OAS is sustainable in its current form. Even if sustainability were an issue, and we needed to address it, we would not address it by raising the age of OAS qualification. That would be a regressive step, punishing the most vulnerable, the poorest of the poor.

Let us look at who depends on OAS: 40% of Canadians who live on OAS make less than $20,000 per year; 53% of Canadians who live on OAS make less than $25,000 per year. Older, single women living in poverty depend disproportionately on OAS. Physical workers, those carpet layers, carpenters, pipe fitters and those working in a fish plant on their feet in a cold, damp environment all day, by the age of 65, their bodies are ready for a break.

It is important to realize that to qualify for GIS, people need to qualify for OAS. So the very poorest of the poor, Canada's most vulnerable, have to wait two more years, and that is about $30,000 for people who are living below the poverty line.

I would like to blame this on the law of unintended consequences, that somehow the Conservatives did not foresee this unintended consequence. The reality is that this is part of a Conservative agenda. When it comes to income inequality, this is not an unintended consequence. The Conservatives seem to be waging war on the poor.

In previous Conservative budgets, they introduced non-refundable tax credits, boutique credits for caregivers, volunteer firefighters, people with disabilities and a children's activity tax credit. Perversely, they did not make them refundable. As a result, low-income Canadians do not qualify. We have raised this over and over again.

The Canadian Association of Retired Persons, and organizations representing the disabled have raised this issue. Simply making these refundable as opposed to the current form of non-refundable would benefit low-income Canadians who need the help the most. However, the Conservatives refused to do this.

In terms of some of the changes they have made, the tax-free savings account and income-splitting that they are proposing at some point in the future when they achieve a mythical surplus, do not do anything for low-income Canadians. If people can afford to pay into retirement savings, the TFSA can help. If they cannot, then they do not get TFSA, I guess they get SFA.

The fact is that income disparity in Canada is a big issue. The gap between rich and poor, and income inequality is a major issue for Canadian families. It is important to realize that this recovery that the Conservatives speak of is an uneven recovery.

Unemployment in Canada is 1.4% higher than it was before the downturn. It has gone from 6% to 7.4%. Youth employment is at its worst in 10 years. If we break it down across the country, 60% of the jobs created in the last year were created in just two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, which depend on oil, gas and mining.

We realize that oil, gas and mining is good for the whole country but the reality is that other provinces are hemorrhaging jobs, such as in Ontario, Quebec and the maritime provinces. This could have been a great budget for the Conservatives to renew the ecoenergy retrofit program, creating jobs for young Canadians and the jobs of tomorrow in the green economy. The Conservatives cancelled that program three times but this time, I guess with the strong, stable national majority government, they do not need e to worry about these election type things at this point.

It is also important to realize that, in terms of income disparity, more than half of Canadian tax filers make less than $30,000 per year and two-thirds of Canadian tax filers make less than $40,000 per year. These are the people who are actually filing taxes. What about the number of Canadians who do not file taxes?

In this budget there were a number of attacks on Atlantic Canada. There were cuts to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, ACOA, Marine Atlantic, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the elimination of the Atlantic investment tax credit.

I want to talk about my part of Nova Scotia in the Annapolis Valley. In Kings county, Hants county and Annapolis county, we have 10,000 fewer net full-time jobs compared to the fall of 2008. Seventeen hundred more people are unemployed and looking for work. The unemployment rate in my riding in the Annapolis Valley and in the riding of the member for West Nova has gone from 5% to 8.7% since 2008.

I also want to speak to the fiscal disparity between the provinces. This budget does nothing but increase it. It will impose billions of costs for new prisons onto provincial governments. It does nothing to preserve health care for the future and preserve the capacity as we see the gap between rich and poor provinces grow, as we see deficits pile onto the provinces that do not have a wealth of natural resources. This is a concern.

This is a “you're on your own budget”. If people are doing great in Canada right now, if they have a job, if they are in oil, gas and mining, that is fine. However, if they do not have a job, this budget leaves them behind.

We in the Liberal Party, believe we can do better. We need an economy and a recovery that benefits all Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Therefore, I move:

That the amendment be amended by adding after the words “ideological reasons” the following:

j) force Canadians to make tremendous sacrifices by cutting their retirement income but fails to similarly increase the qualifying age from 65 to 67 for the Prime Minister's retiring allowance of two-thirds the sitting Prime Minister's salary; and

k) not make cuts to the budgets of ministerial offices or the Office of the Prime Minister.

[Financial System Review Act, March 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's remarks today on Bill S-5.

First, in recent weeks when the Minister of State for Finance appeared before the finance committee, he acknowledged that in fact credit for the prudential strength of the Canadian banking system belongs to more than one government. He acknowledged that the stewardship of the previous Liberal government had contributed to the governance of the Canadian banking system, and I am being modest when I say that.

Would the hon. member agree that in fact the Liberal government of Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Martin was responsible for the decisions at the time in the nineties, which resulted in not following the global trend to deregulation, which led to the challenges and the disasters faced by other countries in their financial services sector and the resultant relative strength here in Canada? Would the hon. member agree it was those decisions during that period of time that helped us today?

[Financial System Review Act, March 27th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with the hon. member at committee. He comes from a small business entrepreneurial background and brings some good common sense to committee. I have always found his interventions to be valuable.

On this particular intervention, yes, the government did reverse the decision it had made initially to extend 40-year mortgages with no down payment for the first time in Canadian history. In fact, I would ask the hon. member to speak with the finance minister and urge him to actually say the Conservatives were wrong when they pushed for and changed the rules to 40-year mortgages with zero down payment. The only thing that changed their mind was when the bottom fell out of the global banking system. That was the only thing that changed their mind. They were saying, “Giddy-up, let's go. Let's rock and roll. Let's join the global trend of deregulation. The Liberals wouldn't let us do it, but by gosh, let's get on that horse and ride off over the cliff”. Thank goodness, they did not have a lot of time before the global financial crisis to do more deregulation of that sort, but I am sure the hon. member will agree with me that it was the right decision to reverse their earlier bad decision.

[Financial System Review Act, March 27th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, just to give the hon. member some background, I was elected in 1997 as a Progressive Conservative, and I was elected again in 2000 as a Progressive Conservative, but at the time of the merger in 2003, I bolted. I got the heck out of there and joined the Liberal Party because I wanted to belong to a moderate centrist party.

Just to clarify, yes, I personally was wrong in the late 1990s when I was opposing some of the decisions made by the government, but I am tremendously proud to have learned and not only to admit my past mistakes but to embrace the strong, prudential policies of the Liberal Party when it comes to the financial institutions of banking.

Specifically to her question of any amendment that will strengthen transparency and accountability, I do not expect the government to support anything that will strengthen accountability or transparency. This is the most secretive, least accountable government I have ever seen. I have never, in almost 15 years in Parliament, being both in opposition and government, witnessed a government that would not provide even the costs of its legislation to the House of Commons and has to be dragged kicking and screaming and, in fact, has been found in contempt of Parliament.

I appreciate the hon. member's party amendment for greater transparency, but I am concerned that the government will not understand or appreciate that.