Scott Brison

[Public Safety, 2002, October 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak on Bill C-17, the public safety act.

First, nobody in the House argues with the need for us to be vigilant in protecting Canadians against terrorism and in playing a meaningful role, working internationally and through multinational forces, in fighting the scourge of terrorism that was brought home to us on September 11.

Clearly, there are many things we can do both domestically and through continental security, in cooperation with the U.S., to improve protection against terrorism for Canadians. These can include a greater focus on parameter security, more adequate funding for the RCMP, ports police and funding for the Canadian Coast Guard.

Internationally, we need to invest in our Canadian military. We need to refocus our efforts on strengthening the hard power side of our foreign policy and our ability in a meaningful way to provide the kinds of cooperation to our military partners that is necessary. That means, for instance, having a well equipped Canadian armed forces that can provide the type of light, mobile and lethal military service that is required.

I happen to agree with a lot of what has been written in recent months by retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie on not just reinvesting in our Canadian military but actually reforming it to reflect the realities of a post-cold war environment and providing the kind of Canadian military that can dovetail effectively in a multilateral coalition in fighting the war against terrorism.

All these changes can occur and Canada can strengthen its role in fighting terrorism domestically and internationally without this legislation.

The federal government has failed to demonstrate to Canadians why the legislation, which does represent an attack on civil liberties of Canadians, is required when we already have adequate legislation on the books in the form of the Emergencies Act.

Further, this is not a government that has maintained an adequate commitment to the RCMP, the Canadian military or to protecting the sanctity of our parameter. These are all issues and policies that can be addressed in a meaningful way without in any way, shape or form reducing or attacking Canadian civil liberties.

We would propose that the government focus on those sorts of meaningful initiatives, work with the U.S. and develop a common approach to parameter security to take some of the pressure off the 49th parallel security and to help again restore a seamless movement of people and goods between the two countries.

Currently in post-September 11 there has been a significant growth in non-tariff trade barriers between the two countries and a lot of that has emanated from legitimate U.S. concerns about the porosity of Canada's parameter and the lax approach of our government to issues of security on a wide range of fronts.

We ought to work to develop a common approach to parameter security to enable us to have a more seamless movement of people and goods between the two countries and to move toward a checked once policy whereby a shipment or container load of goods that comes into Halifax, or Vancouver, or San Francisco or Baltimore is checked once, resealed and free to move within the economic space of Canada and the United States. That could be achieved quite easily if the government focused on that.

That kind of approach, focusing on defending the sanctity of our parameter, would do more to protect Canadians against terrorism and would in fact keep up our end of the deal in terms of working with our partners, in this case the United States, and a multilateral coalition fighting terrorism around the world.

If we were to properly invest in our military and Coast Guard, restore ports police, improve funding for the RCMP, improve perimeter security and invest significantly in airline security, as the government has moved partially in this regard, that would accomplish a great deal on behalf of Canadians in terms of the war against terrorism.

We can do a lot to protect the security of Canadians without in any way diminishing or threatening to diminish their civil liberties. As such, we have great concerns, as many members on the opposite side of the House have expressed, about this legislation and we do not support it. There are opportunities for the government to do a lot and take significant and important steps to fight terrorism and protect Canadians without this legislation.

We would urge the government to make those investments and demonstrate that will to seriously address the issue of security and the fight against terrorism without resorting to measures as draconian as Bill C-17.

[Income Tax Act, October 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I speak to Bill C-325. I strongly support any measure to improve conditions of emergency service volunteers across Canada, particularly in rural Atlantic Canada.

I think many people from larger urban centres do not realize the degree to which emergency services in rural Atlantic Canadian communities are overwhelmingly provided by volunteers. They risk their lives and are subject to significant injury. They take time from their careers and their families to go out and potentially make the ultimate sacrifice in trying to protect us, whether it is in search and rescue operations, or in first response paramedic services, which many of our rural fire departments are now providing, or in simple fire protection.

There has been a tremendous increase in the burden placed on our rural volunteer fire departments and emergency service volunteer organizations in recent years. If we were to ever consider the cost to government, federal, provincial and municipal, of trying to provide adequate emergency services to rural and small town communities, we would find that providing a federal tax benefit, either a tax credit or a tax deduction, would seem to be a pittance compared to the actual cost of government run infrastructure to provide emergency services, or fire protection, or search and rescue or first response services to rural communities.

I live in a community called Cheverie in Hants county, Nova Scotia. This is the community in which I grew up. We benefit from the local fire protection of the Summerville volunteer fire department, as well as the Walton volunteer fire department. In many cases, when there is a fire, we see volunteer fire departments work together to deal with the situation. The level of emergency services that we enjoy in that small community or the protection we have against disaster there is extraordinary, and the services are all provided by volunteers .

The fact is it has expanded beyond simple fire protection, to the extent that if something were to happen to a member of my family or myself from a health perspective, a medical emergency, the first people to the scene in all likelihood would be the first response team of the Summerville fire department. They are well trained but they are still volunteers.

The idea of finding ways through the tax system to encourage volunteerism in our emergency services makes so much sense. I know one argument I heard during other debates in the House by members opposite, even in the debate about a motion that I presented to the House in 2000 to provide a tax credit for emergency service volunteers, was that if we provided a tax credit or tax advantage for volunteers in the emergency services, then we would have to do it for volunteers in youth recreation, sports, the Boy Scouts or Girl Guides or whatever.

Emergency service volunteers are by definition different from any other sort of volunteer. When we talk about emergency service volunteers, we talk about people who risk their lives to protect us from things whether it be our house burning down or a medical emergency, or to protect us during a search and rescue. It is during these life and death situations that these volunteers take time from their lives, their families and careers. It is an extraordinary commitment that goes well beyond ordinary volunteerism, frankly.

I have some excerpts from the 2002 annual report of the Windsor, Nova Scotia, volunteer fire department. It states:

We have been responding to unprecedented numbers of Mutual Aid calls over the past few years and indications are that this situation will continue into the foreseeable future...most of these responses occur during what are working hours for the majority of our volunteer firefighters, which makes it difficult for us to continue to muster up the people we need for an adequate response...on the other hand, we recognize the fact that we too require assistance on a more regular basis than we once did, as we are much more conscious of our obligation to keep our station adequately staffed during times when we are out on calls.

Based on the annual report of the Windsor fire department in Windsor, Nova Scotia, there are more and more calls for volunteer firefighters and those calls are happening during working hours. It is not just the firefighters themselves who are making a contribution. Their employers are also making a contribution indirectly by providing that level of career and work flexibility to enable volunteer firefighters to provide that level of protection.

With regard to the issue of finding enough local volunteer firefighters for the proposed South West Hants fire station, the Windsor fire chief cited a lack of funding and acknowledged that:

We have seen very few people in the area express an interest in becoming firefighters.

It is becoming harder to find emergency service volunteers. If we consider the sacrifice to careers, time with families, the risk of life and the dollar cost of being a volunteer, whether it is the cost for equipment or the cost for fuel and car expenses to travel to the emergencies, we ask a tremendous amount of our emergency service volunteers. If we were to consider the cost of providing this sort of infrastructure through a cooperative level of government, whether federal, provincial or municipal, without the involvement of volunteers, it would be basically impossible to afford the kind of protection that is taken for granted in a lot of rural communities.

I know a lot of people from urban Canada who, when they visit me in rural Nova Scotia, find it almost unfathomable that basic fire protection is provided by volunteers, but it is. We have to find a way to recognize the incredible contribution that our emergency service volunteers, our firefighters and first response paramedics, make on a day to day basis with a benefit through the tax system. Year in and year out these individuals are there to protect us.

I agree with the hon. member for Elk Island and his suggestion that it would be better to have a tax credit than a tax deduction. It probably would be simpler and it would provide a more direct benefit. The gross amount could be reduced to reflect the difference in terms of the actual tax benefit of a tax credit compared to a tax deduction.

I support Bill C-325 in terms of what it is trying to accomplish. I urge all members of the House to take a very positive step and recognize in a meaningful way the extraordinary commitment and contributions that emergency service volunteers provide across Canada. This type of legislation, whether it be a tax credit or a deduction, has been debated for many years in this place.

I have been here since 1997 and we have had these sorts of debates on various private members' motions, including my own. We have debated them ad nauseam. We have discussed this at finance committee as well as in the House during prebudget discussions. It is time for a multi-partisan response to the crisis that exists across Canada of the growing demands on our emergency service volunteers and the diminishing number of Canadians who have the time or the willingness to risk life and limb, to spend their own money, to sacrifice their career time and their time with their family to protect the rest of us.

The right thing for us to do would be to support this sort of tax deduction or tax credit and to move forward with a firm commitment to making Canadian communities safer while recognizing the extraordinary commitment of our emergency service volunteers.

[Government Assistance, October 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, that is cold comfort for Nova Scotians and the Nova Scotia government that has been waiting since 1999 for the federal government to pay the unpaid bills.

There is a double standard at play. Internal government problems with HRDC or the privacy commissioner go unchecked, while the provinces which have suffered disasters are subjected to shamelessly lengthy audits.

Will the government commit to the immediate payment of the four outstanding claims from Nova Scotia and make an advance payment for this week's disaster, the fifth to hit the province in five years?

[Government Assistance, October 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of National Defence said that “now is not the time to be dealing with money”, in relation to disaster assistance for Nova Scotia.

Meanwhile, in Halifax, the member for LaSalle—Émard, the Prime Minister-in-waiting, said Ottawa must respond quickly with disaster funding.

With unpaid claims, outstanding for four previous disasters in Nova Scotia, dating back to hurricane Hortense in 1999, will the minister tell the House when exactly is a good time to be dealing with the money?

[Government Assistance, October 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, going back to 1999 and five disasters later, there has never been a good time for this government to pay its bills or to deal with money. It is about time that this government pays its commitments to the province of Nova Scotia. The federal disaster financial assistance program does not currently cover claims related to agriculture or the fishery. Both these sectors have sustained incredible losses due to hurricane Juan.

Will the government commit to including both agriculture and the fishery under the disaster assistance program?

[Government Assistance, October 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, hurricane Juan may be the worst storm to ever hit Nova Scotia. Will the Prime Minister commit to an advance disaster assistance payment from the federal government to the province of Nova Scotia and will he commit to the immediate payment of the four outstanding claims for previous disasters dating back to 1999?

[Supply, October 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure today that I rise to discuss and to support the motion to see a gas tax transfer to Canadian municipalities. It is one element of fiscal imbalance that exists. I agree very strongly with my colleagues from Quebec that the issue of fiscal imbalance in Canada between the federal government and the provincial governments is a reality and I agree with the provincial Liberal minister of finance in Quebec.

I agree with the Quebec finance minister, Yves Séguin. The fiscal imbalance must be addressed. It is not fair for the federal government to have almost all the powers to levy taxes and for the provincial governments to be responsible for providing all the essential services such as health and education.

It is wrong to have a government federally that has the power to raise money and has most of the tax levers, and then to have provincial governments with so much constitutionally enshrined responsibilities to provide the essential services of health care and education. These are growing costs. The cutbacks from the federal side in terms of the transfers to the provinces, combined with the rapid growth in costs of providing the essential services at the provincial level have led to a tremendous fiscal imbalance between the federal and provincial governments. I will be coming back to that later in my comments.

First, the responsibilities of municipal governments in terms of the expenses to provide necessary infrastructure and investment have grown significantly over the last 10 years or 20 years. The municipal governments have even fewer fiscal levers than the provincial governments.

When there are federal cutbacks which lead to provincial cutbacks and ultimately to less money for municipalities, the buck stops at the municipal level. There is really no place except for property taxes for municipal governments to turn to try to raise funds.

The infrastructure programs have been flawed by partisanship in a lot of cases and political interference. That is one of the flaws of it. We have municipalities that know exactly where their infrastructure investments have to be made and ought to be made but then we have the role of the federal government which is getting more involved than it ought to be in terms of the direction of infrastructure money. I do believe that partisanship has played a role in terms of the infrastructure programs that has reduced the ultimate effectiveness of the infrastructure programs.

With the infrastructure programs there is the issue of the candy toss approach. These programs appear every several years and there is a rush by municipalities to submit applications for funding. To have that sort of cyclical approach to important infrastructure funding and investment is simply wrong.

There should be an ongoing program or vehicle through which municipalities can obtain the funding they need to make the types of important investments that are required. It ought not to be cyclical in this sort of candy toss approach where there is a rush for the money every several years when these infrastructure programs appear. This would be a step in the right direction.

We also have to recognize that the municipalities and the municipal governments that are closer to the people being affected by these decisions have a better capacity to determine where to spend the money. There is a democratic accountability issue too, that the same government that has the responsibility to provide the service ought to have the ability to raise the revenue. Without that there is no democratic accountability. It is hard to hold a politician at the municipal or in fact provincial or federal levels accountable for the decisions being made.

I also believe we should work with the provinces and consider the idea of federal tax free or federal tax advantaged municipal bonds. These exist in the U.S. Tax free municipal bonds have helped municipalities across the United States raise billions of dollars for infrastructure investment. The beauty of that system is it represents an indirect transfer from the federal government to the municipalities because of the federal tax free nature of the bonds.

The power ultimately is with the municipal unit, the municipal government and the municipal leaders who can determine how much money they need and where the investment will take place. These bonds are regulated through bond rating agencies. It is good from a Canadian investor perspective. It provides another relatively safe and secure investment for Canadian investors.

These bonds would be good for the investment community. They would be good for municipalities and really good for all Canadians. Canadians would find that they would be well served by their municipalities having the capacity to raise the money and invest in the types of infrastructure requirements that they know are the appropriate ones for their unique situations.

That is an idea that we ought to study in this place and in committee. We could determine whether or not it would be possible and what the advantages or perhaps the disadvantages would be of a federal tax free or a federal tax advantage to the municipal bond approach here in Canada. It would be just another idea that we ought to be considering when we are talking about finding ways to address municipal infrastructure.

The infrastructure issue is extraordinarily important. We have had a tremendous deficit in infrastructure funding and maintenance across Canada. I do not think there is a municipality in Canada that has not faced significant problems in terms of meeting basic infrastructure. We are talking about sewage and water type infrastructure requirements. These are not the types of requirements that can be ignored.

The cost of not dealing with them on an ongoing basis from a preventive maintenance perspective and an ongoing investment perspective is compounded by a decline in the infrastructure. It is bad economics to let the infrastructure requirements of our municipalities grow, and in fact, to let the quality of Canadian infrastructure decline.

Whether we are talking about highways, sewage systems or water systems, it is simply bad economics not to provide a funding mechanism through which provincial or federal governments can raise the money they need to pay for the essential infrastructure that their constituents require.

I would like to return to the federal-provincial fiscal imbalance issue. It does not make a lot of sense to have a federal government that has not been very good at dealing with issues such as trade disputes, has yet to provide a coherent foreign policy that is in Canada's national interest, and has not been able to invest in or manage a military effectively. It does not make a lot of sense to have a government that has not been very good at those purely federal areas of trade, foreign policy and the military, just to give three examples.

To have a government that has not been good at those areas interfere in areas that are purely under provincial jurisdiction, such as health care and education, does not make a lot of sense to me. It does not demonstrate a respect for the constitutionally enshrined jurisdictional rights of the provinces.

Beyond that, it is bad economic policy because in the same way that municipal governments have a better ability to recognize their own infrastructure needs and the best way to meet those needs, provincial governments in many cases have a better ability to analyze their own unique situations and to provide unique and, in some cases, novel approaches to health care and education.

It should not be a constant battle between a federal government that wants to have the control over the constitutionally enshrined jurisdictional enshrined areas of health care and education. It simply does not make sense from a fiscal perspective to have that level of interference.

We need to provide more respect for the provinces. We must encourage the provinces to try new approaches, whether it is in health care or in education.

We must keep in mind that medicare, our national socialized health care system, evolved from an experiment in the Province of Saskatchewan. Provincial experiments, whether in health care, education or other areas of public policy, can lead to national policy. However, that can only happen if we encourage provinces to try new approaches.

We must respect provinces not just in terms of them being best able to analyze their own situations and make the appropriate investments in the right areas, but also to respect the potential role for provinces as laboratories in public policy, and to, in fact, harness that sort of entrepreneurial approach that can occur at a provincial level that is more difficult to emulate at the federal level, particularly in the areas of health care and education.

Therefore, I think we need a new approach in federal-provincial relationships. They should be based on respect and a recognition of not only what is the appropriate role from a constitutional perspective for provinces but from a functionality perspective.

We should look at how we can develop better public policy in a wide range of areas by working with the provinces as laboratories for new approaches in public policy and best practice approaches. We should encourage the sharing of information between provinces and where there is a role for the federal government, for instance, to help identify best practice models from around the world.

I would assert that there could be a role where the federal government identifies some of these best practice models from around the world, whether it is in health care or education or any other area, even in terms of new approaches to infrastructure investment and makes available to the provinces, on a pilot program basis, funding if the provinces want to try a new approach in a particular area.

That would be very different than ramming down the throats of the provinces grandiose federal schemes to address issues. It would enable provinces to try new approaches on a voluntary basis and to participate in or to utilize some of the great ideas that have been developed outside of our borders to address some of these issues. That is just another idea on how we ought to consider federal-provincial relations.

One of the things we should always consider is the principle of democratic accountability. I will give an example in terms of federal-provincial relations. Currently, say in the Province of Ontario, if an individual goes to a provincial MPP and complains about the health care system, that provincial MPP will say that it is not the fault of Ontario, that it is the federal government that cut the transfers to the province. The same constituent then goes to the federal government MP in the Province of Ontario and complains about the health care system and the cuts to the transfers to the provinces. That federal MP might just say that it is not the federal government's fault, it is the fault of the provincial government. There is endless finger pointing. At the end of the day, the constituent does not know who to blame or where the accountability lies.

The provincial governments that face electorates every three to four years--and God help the provincial governments that do not do their utmost to provide the best quality in health care and education because those are two areas of public policy Canadians are very demanding of--face electorates based on those issues.

Therefore, it stands to reason that they are going to do their best to provide the best quality education and health care to their constituents in those provinces. As such, if they were to have access to the funding to provide those services, I think we could have a lot of trust in provincial governments to do their utmost to provide the best services.

We must get away from that patriarchal approach of the federal government, that sort of nanny state, and the federal government knows best approach on a wide range of these issues. It is not only consistent with respect to provincial jurisdictional rights but beyond that, it is good policy and will result in better services, better infrastructure, better health care, and better education for Canadians.

For a variety of reasons, it makes sense to find ways to provide a better ability for municipal and provincial governments to raise the money they need to provide the services they require.

Another debate we can have at another time in the House is how we can change Canada's equalization system to get back to the original principles of providing equal levels of services with equal levels of taxation across Canada and change it from what it is today.

It is a static approach that needs to be updated. It is an approach that is designed to take recipient provinces and find ways for them to grow their economies and prosper. The objective is to grow from being recipients to being contributors to equalization as an end game as opposed to accepting that the equalization system will continue to provide these equal levels of taxation on services. Instead of being satisfied with that, provinces would actually focus on changing equalization so that we strengthen the ability of the provinces to grow their industrial base to go from being recipients to being contributors.

That is a debate for another day, but it is an important one, particularly in light of the recognition that tax levers have a greater impact on growth and prosperity than would have been the case 10 to 20 years ago.

This is about respect for municipal governments. It is about enabling municipal governments to raise the money they need to invest in the infrastructure their constituents require. It is good fiscal policy. It is good from a democratic accountability perspective and we are supportive of this motion.

[Income Tax Act, September 25th, 2003]

On the idea of individualized EI accounts, it would not simply grow based on one's contributions because, clearly, one's contributions would be used to top up those who draw more frequently. There would be a growth in one's account over a period of time if one did not draw or draw from the account infrequently. It would be as large an amount as the hon. member suggested, the $580,000, but it would represent a significant amount that would, over time, reward people for not drawing EI.

There was a study that I would reference for the hon. member in The Economist magazine in 1998. The Library of Parliament has the study which was conducted by a U.K. group of academics on this idea of individualized EI accounts.

[Income Tax Act, September 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member needs a hearing aid or something because he obviously was not listening. We are supportive of these changes in Bill C-48 and we have stated that.

The hon. member talks about tax policy. I will not question his knowledge of the tax system based on the expression of his views in the House today. I would accept the invitation to debate him any time on tax policy or the government record on the economy. I think that debate is great as long as both parties take some time to actually understand the issues.

On this side of the House, we have. We have taken time to understand tax policy in a way that is focused not on partisan bickering but is actually contributing in a constructive way to ideas that can build a more competitive, prosperous and productive Canada.

[Income Tax Act, September 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I cited the Irish example in explaining regional taxation and regional development. In fact at their peak, E.U. transfers to Ireland only represented 8% of the Irish GDP. At their peak, federal transfers to Atlantic Canada have represented as much as 40%. When we consider the percentage of the Atlantic Canada economy that comes from the transfer system, it is actually far greater than what the Irish economy derived from the E.U. transfers.

On the national level when I talked about corporate tax reform and reduction done in lockstep, I addressed where a lot of that money would come from. A lot of it would come from corporate welfare programs currently existing in HRDC and Industry Canada and regional development programs as previously cited. It would be revenue neutral.

I am sure that the hon. member would agree that we would achieve far greater levels of economic growth if we actually created a more competitive tax system than by direct investment decisions being made by bureaucrats and politicians.