Scott Brison

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1999, April 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to speak to Bill C-25, the Income Tax Amendments Act, 1999.

Yesterday I attended the Business Council on National Issues' annual CEO summit in Toronto. At that summit there was an immense amount of discussion surrounding some of the issues facing not just the business community but all Canadians in the complex and hypercompetitive, globally integrated economy that we are entrenched in today.

I heard a lot of very serious and legitimate concerns about the future of our country. I was dismayed by a sense of disconnection between the people in that room, who were working hard to create greater levels of opportunity for Canadians and greater levels of prosperity for Canada, and the people here in parliament and the House of Commons.

Yesterday morning the Minister of Industry spoke to the group assembled. His speech contained some very positive messages with respect to the future competitiveness of Canada. However, in the question and answers after, he clearly disappointed those assembled by demonstrating that he lacked the vision and the leadership to provide the types of initiatives that Canada needs at this juncture to forge forward as a globally competitive country.

The minister was asked a question by Izzy Asper, the CEO of CanWest Global Communications Corp. and head of the Global Television Network, concerning the Canadian tax system. I will quote Mr. Asper.

The Canadian tax system that we're living under was last reformed 32 years ago. It is obsolete and the world it was designed to deal with no longer exists.

The (system) is a nightmare of complexity, a sea of uncertainty...The tax system is now anti-business, anti-private sector and anti-entrepreneurial.

In short, Mr. Asper was saying that our tax system is anti-growth. I would argue that is clearly not to the benefit of any Canadians, whether in the business community or outside of it.

In his response to that very serious question, the Minister of Industry said that a fundamental reform of the tax system would require an enormous amount of consensus among the taxpayers. He effectively said that it was impossible to reform the tax system because it would require a consensus.

In his statement, I think he was speaking to a larger truth, that is, to the lack of vision on the government's side in terms of these very important issues and the incrementalist, poll-driven style of this government relative to many issues, in particular, economic issues. In its tinkering, in its short term focus on next week's polls, it is ignoring the interests of Canadians well into the next century.

We heard from a number of individuals who were participating in the conference yesterday. A gentleman by the name of Tom Axworthy spoke to the group assembled. As an experienced former professor at Harvard, he indicated that in the last several years he has seen the percentage of expatriate Canadian students studying at Harvard, who returned to Canada, significantly reduced, to the extent that now virtually none of the Harvard graduates from Canada are actually returning to Canada. They are staying in the U.S.

These are very troubling and not simply anecdotal experiences. These are signs of a greater truth. The Conference Board of Canada's report on brain drain indicated that the number of Canadians leaving Canada to go to the U.S. seeking greater levels of opportunity and growth for themselves and their families has grown from 16,000 per year to over 100,000 in the last year. These types of statistics are very troubling for Canada.

We also heard yesterday from the U.S. economist Lester Thurow who, a number of years ago when the Liberals were in opposition, spoke to a Liberal policy gathering. In referring to the current Prime Minister he said that the Prime Minister's “one problem at a time” and “Canada is number one” rhetoric reflected his personal and political convictions that setting national targets, exhorting citizens to make special efforts, using his office as a bully pulpit in outlining serious challenges for citizens to consider, are all potentially fatal political traps.

While we are listed by the UN as the greatest country in the world to live, and all Canadians are quite proud of that, and while the Prime Minister pontificates about how we are the greatest country in the world, he is using that as a reason for not pursuing economically visionary policies. Whenever a politician or a government pursues policies that are visionary or forward-thinking there is risk. Clearly the previous government paid a significant price for pursuing policies that were visionary and politically dangerous.

Free trade, which is lauded now by almost all parties in the House, and certainly by the opposition Liberals who fought vociferously against it prior to 1988, was a very controversial issue in the 1988 election. In fact over half of Canadians voted against free trade. The majority of Canadians voted for parties that were opposed to free trade.

That step went far beyond the Minister of Industry's statement about tinkering and consensus. That step was one of vision and of leadership. Making the types of structural changes to the Canadian economy, which have enabled Canadians, toward the end of the 1990s and now as we have entered the 21st century, to be in a position where we can potentially take advantage of the opportunities and face the challenges of the new economy.

Similarly, the GST, against which the Liberals successfully fought in the 1993 election, is now embraced by the Liberals. In fact, the Prime Minister on foreign travels claims to have invented or implemented the GST.

The difficulty with the Minister of Industry's statement yesterday, that no steps can be taken without the consensus of Canadians, indicates that this government is so focused on following the polls that it is failing to lead Canadians. Canadians deserve better government than that. I would argue that on the GST there was a consensus. Unfortunately, it was not a consensus that was positive for my party in 1993.

[Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) Act, April 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak to Bill C-22, which will create a new agency to oversee and try to prevent money laundering in Canada, the financial transactions and reports analysis centre of Canada.

Bill C-22 would bring Canada up to date with the standards of our G-7 trading partners. It does not take us beyond the minimum standard, but it takes us up to that standard. It covers professionals, lawyers and chartered accountants, and even stock brokers and investment bankers would have responsibility to report under this legislation. It does not include, as in some other countries, a “know your client” rule, which would go much further in policing money laundering.

The responsibility to report suspicious transactions is described in this legislation, but it is not really spelled out in terms of what would define a suspicious transaction. I have some concerns about that. I would hope that as the legislation progresses we would define in a more comprehensive way what criteria would be required for an agency, an individual or a professional to define a transaction as being suspicious.

It would also expand the reporting by financial agencies of any transactions over $10,000 beyond banks. Currently banks report voluntarily. This would expand to include money marts and casinos. It does not delve into the retail side of commerce, which perhaps should be considered.

I have some concerns about that. Earlier I heard some members refer to the potential of the legislation being expanded at some point to include retail operations, for instance, jewellers or car dealers, where allegedly this type of money laundering exists quite a bit in terms of large sum purchases.

I would caution against expanding the scope too much, thereby creating a regulatory nightmare that would be extremely difficult to administer and could potentially have a negative impact in terms of the abilities of Canada's retailers to actually keep up with the paperwork and other requirements.

The legislation addresses cash transactions but does not address what is really the greater current and future issue of e-commerce or e-laundering.

It is very difficult to track financial transactions today that occur over the Internet or electronic financial transactions, particularly with sophisticated financial vehicles or instruments, for instance, derivatives. It is possible to hide transactions through derivatives and other financial instruments. In fact, cross-border electronic transactions, from a tax perspective, are becoming increasingly difficult to tax.

I would suggest to the government that the legislation is definitely long overdue, but that it addresses a problem which is really yesterday's problem, as opposed to addressing a problem which is clearly a problem of today and the future, that of electronically based money laundering.

The whole issue of smurfing, breaking large transactions into smaller units to get them below the $10,000 threshold which would trigger some level of activity by the new agency, is a real issue. For instance, in terms of deposits, several people could use various bank machines to deposit cash into the same account. Something as simple as a bank machine could play a role in money laundering, simply by breaking down transactions into smaller amounts to bring the transactions below the threshold that would trigger some level of investigation.

I am also concerned about the budget of the agency. I understand that the budget would be anywhere between $7.5 million and $10 million. Some suggestion has been made that there would be about a hundred people doing this.

I would suggest that it may be a very, very difficult job to police this type of activity with that size of budget. It sounds to some as a large budget, but I would suggest it is not really a very large budget at all.

I would also suggest to the government, as this agency and the government investigates ways to police the electronic money laundering side of it, that the government look toward some of the private sector solutions.

What I am speaking of are some of the companies that have developed technologies to deal with these issues—security issues on the Internet, et cetera—which may in fact be outpacing the technological advances capable of being developed by government. I think there will have to be some private-public sector engagement on some of these issues, particularly as we delve into the new world of electronic commerce.

I have some concerns about Bill C-22. The legislation would create a new agency that is at arm's length from the government. That is positive from the perspective of preventing political interference in an investigation, but it is negative from the perspective that this new, all powerful agency could conceivably overstep its boundaries on an investigation of an individual case.

A Canadian citizen being persecuted by this agency on a given case would not have the protection offered by ministerial intervention to potentially defend that citizen. Only if systemic abuse is suspected would the minister be able to intervene. Whenever I see these new agencies, whether it is the new Revenue Canada agency or this new agency to police money laundering, I have some concerns about the lack of direct ministerial accountability and potential intervention on behalf of an individual Canadian who may be treated unfairly by one of these agencies.

Another concern I have is that this new agency would have the power to release information to Revenue Canada in accordance with the act. If reasonable grounds existed for the agency to believe that money laundering had occurred, there would be potential for abuse.

We have to be very clear that if the agency has some reasonable grounds to pursue an individual case of money laundering, that is one thing. However, if the agency does not have enough evidence to pursue a case of money laundering and determines that while the evidence does not exist it may be able to get the person on tax evasion, conceivably the agency could release the information to Revenue Canada. This would help Revenue Canada or the new Revenue Canada agency pursue the individual. Therefore, while there may not be a case against an individual for money laundering, this agency could potentially help the new Revenue Canada agency in pursuing someone on a tax evasion charge.

That is absolutely, fundamentally wrong. The two agencies have to be separate. Unless there are very clear grounds for a case of money laundering, it would be wrong for this agency to work with Revenue Canada on individual cases or to share information. We have to ensure on behalf of Canadian taxpayers that this does not become some souped up Revenue Canada annex or addendum.

If the new agency had reasonable grounds to suspect money laundering, that is one thing. However, if it was simply a case where it did not have enough grounds to pursue someone on that basis and determined that there was some level of evidence for tax evasion, it would be clearly wrong for the sharing of information to exist.

It is still nebulous as to whether or not this agency would have the ability to do spot or random audits on banks, money marts or casinos. I would assume that would be the case but it has to be spelled out. Again, we have to ensure in our pursuit of doing something that is valuable and important, which is policing and reducing the incidents of money laundering, that we do not create some new godzilla agency that would have an immense amount of power to hurt legitimate Canadian enterprise, impede legitimate Canadian transactions, and effectively pursue some of the negative and oppressive activities we have seen from Revenue Canada in the past.

Those are my cautions. We are supporting this legislation with some concerns. We hope as this evolves, the government's policies on some of these issues will become more proactive in terms of addressing the real issues of today and in the future, and in particular embrace the notion of the electronic issues facing Canadians and law enforcement agencies.

Again these border on questions of resources. I have significant concerns with the extent to which the government has starved Canada's law enforcement agencies. It has prevented the RCMP from having the ability to enforce some of Canada's laws. As we expand these types of oversight agencies we have to ensure they are properly funded and that we give them the tools to do the job.

In that regard it may be very important for the government to consider some level of private participation. At least it should dialogue with the private sector on the electronic commerce side to ensure that the government is using the most up to date technologies to address these issues. A lot of these technologies exist in the private sector. The government should be more responsive to those forces and more amenable to work with private sector entities within Canada and elsewhere to develop solutions to these very real problems.

[Proceeds Of Crime (Money Laundering) Act, April 6th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his worthwhile intervention this morning on Bill C-22.

My question for him is, does the legislation and this new agency, and in fact does the government have plans to investigate some of the more advanced types of money laundering? I am speaking specifically of e-laundering, the ability to transmit large amounts of money via technology, the Internet in this case. These transactions are almost impossible to track today, and with sophisticated financial instruments such as derivatives it will become increasingly difficult for governments or regulatory agencies to oversee this type of thing.

I would be concerned if the government did not have a strategy to address this in the future because, clearly, with the increased sophistication of organized crime in this area, this will be a problem; not just for tomorrow, it is probably already a problem today.

I hope this legislation does not simply address yesterday's problem because of the hesitancy of the government to address the issue earlier. I hope that we are well on the way to addressing today's and tomorrow's problem, that is, electronic commerce being used as a vehicle to launder money.

[Minister Of National Revenue, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in September 1999 the Minister of National Revenue chartered a plane from Gaspé to Montreal for himself and his assistant at a cost to Canadian taxpayers of $4,280. Flights between Gaspé and Montreal run three times a day and cost about $470 per flight.

Why did the minister take a chartered plane at 10 times the cost of a commercial flight when there are three flights a day? Why does the minister's champagne tastes cost Canadian—

[Supply, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Brandon—Souris.

It is with pleasure today that I speak on this votable supply motion which will effectively encourage and instil a greater sense of accountability in this place. I think it is extremely important that we should expect from governments at least the same level of accountability, and I would suggest an even greater level of financial accountability that we expect from private corporations. Private corporations and publicly traded corporations require through the auditing process a greater level of accountability in terms of their bookkeeping and the auditing of their statements than in fact this government seems to deem appropriate.

There has been a secular decline in the role of the private member since the late 1960s. Commensurate with that there has been an increased amount of power in the cabinet and ultimately in the PMO. As such, there has been a reduction in the level of parliamentary scrutiny over spending and again starting in the late 1960s.

I would argue it would benefit all members of the House and all Canadians, regardless of political affiliation, if we were to restore greater levels of parliamentary accountability over spending.

There was a time when the estimates for departments were debated here in the House of Commons, scrutinized by committee of the whole. I would propose, as we did in the PC party's prebudget position last year, that we should restore a system which would provide the ability for parliament to actually scrutinize the estimates of a certain number of departments each year in the House of Commons without a time limit. This would ensure that first, the minister has to be very aware of what is going on within his or her department, but also that Canadians who are paying among the highest taxes, business and personal taxes, in the industrialized world, will be ensured that their money—again, it is their money, it is not the government's money—is being invested or spent in ways that are consistent with the goals and the aims of Canadian taxpayers.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the nature of some of the government spending is immaterial in some ways. What is most important, and what the motion speaks to, is that whatever government spending occurs the government is held accountable through an audit process that is open, transparent and clear to Canadians on an ongoing basis to show that the government is maintaining taxpayer money in a way that is appropriate.

The PC Party is supporting the motion. The accountability issue is critical. We should not have to go through what we went through in recent weeks with the HRDC debacle in trying as members of parliament to get information that should have been available openly, transparently and instantly, and then having the dissemination of an immense amount of information in one day, to the extent that it almost became impossible to absorb and deal with it in an effective way. This kind of information should be available on an ongoing basis and all Canadians would benefit from it.

The motion addresses some of the issues from the perspective of parliamentary involvement in this very important area of spending, but we would like to see parliament move further in this direction. We would like to see the restoration of the right to debate the estimates in the House of Commons and in committee of the whole, which would provide greater levels of scrutiny over the spending of taxpayer money. This would also increase the role of the private member whether that member was sitting on the backbenches of the Liberal government or on the opposition benches. It would benefit all of us.

In these times of hyper competitiveness on the global stage when taxes are comparatively higher in Canada than they are for our trading partners, we must recognize it becomes doubly important that taxpayer money be spent in such a way that Canadians are aware of where the money is being spent. The government should take very seriously its fiduciary role in maintaining the proper levels of financial procedural control over these investments.

The motion goes in the right direction, but we should also reconsider the involvement of government departments. Prior to the HRDC scandal I was not aware of the degree to which the government was clearly involved in projects that it should not have been involved in. I was naive enough to believe that a lot of the pork barrelling and use of taxpayer money to buy support in an election had subsided. I thought we were in a new age and that all parties in the House recognized the importance of creating sound economic policies and environments to create economic growth.

Direct government involvement in investing in some of these businesses may have been considered less important or less effective than it would have been at one point. I saw some of the most egregious examples of government spending with HRDC. I think $500,000 were given to Wal-Mart to build a store that it would have built anyway. I forget the exact sum but I believe $300,000 were given to a company to move 30 kilometres from one member's riding to a minister's riding.

Some of these examples smack of the type of old style politics of which Canadians have been skeptical. They have lost faith in governments and institutions. Any structure we could put in place to ensure greater levels of procedural accountability and audit accountability would be very positive.

We in the PC Party are supporting the motion. We hope it is just one of a number of steps that we can take to create in a multi-partisan or non-partisan way greater levels of accountability and scrutiny over taxpayer money in parliament.

[Division No. 1258, March 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his softball question. I assume he was trying to help me and not hinder me with that kind of light and fluffy intervention.

The fact is that the previous Progressive Conservative government, the Mulroney government, reduced the deficit as a percentage of GDP from 9% in 1984 to about 5% when it left office. What the Mulroney government inherited was a huge problem, in that it was like that old country and western song “give me forty acres and I will turn this rig around”. It took nine years just to slow down the velocity that Canada was heading in and in the wrong direction.

During that period not only did the government reduce the deficit as a percentage of GDP, but the government also implemented some of the most important and visionary structural changes to the Canadian economy in the last 50 years, including free trade, the GST and deregulation of financial services, transportation and energy. These were policies that recognized where Canada needed to be in the 21st century.

I wish I had an opportunity to ask the hon. member what his position was on free trade and on the GST. I believe, and correct me if I am wrong, that the hon. member was, as were most of the Liberal members opposite, vociferously opposed to some of those initiatives.

I would ask all members of the House, particularly those opposite, to recall their intransigence in opposition to some of those visionary changes. Today The Economist magazine is saying that it was those structural changes by the previous government that were responsible for the elimination of the deficit in Canada. It was not the pontificating Liberals on the other side of the House, but those in—

[Division No. 1258, March 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, as always I appreciate the hon. member's non-partisan and constructive comments. I would like to address his initial comments on my party's position on Bill C-20 and that of our leader, Mr. Clark.

The fact is that the Right Hon. Joe Clark does not need to take lessons on national unity issues from some young pup in the backbenches of the Liberal government. The near toxic level of arrogance that emanates from that side of the House is encouraging to members on this side of the House because it indicates that great change is coming.

Preceding great change and the decline of any entity, whether it is a society or in this case a government, there is always a near toxic level of arrogance: people are convinced that what they are doing is right because they are doing it. I am pleased to see that developing and would suggest it is almost an overdeveloped arrogance gland on that side of the House which will precede great opportunities for this side.

When Mr. Charest was leader of our party and there was an opening in the provincial leadership of the Quebec Liberal Party, the federalist party in Quebec, not one member on that side of the House could muster up enough leadership ability to go into Quebec and lead the federalists. Where did they have to go? They had to go to the Progressive Conservative Party because we had more abilities and credibility with Jean Charest to lead the Quebec Liberals than that party over there with its 160-odd members and I mean 160 odd members.

Beyond that, in my opinion the best federalist positions in Ottawa were the ones that helped Jean Charest become the next premier of Quebec. That is the most important and commonsensical approach to this. We need to ensure and work with the top federalist in Quebec and that is Jean Charest. I believe Bill C-20 continues to emasculate the provincial leadership in the Quebec Liberal Party. It continues to attack our federalist partners in Quebec and undermines the efforts of Jean Charest to succeed as the next premier of Quebec. Instead of those people focusing on short term poll-driven pragmatism, they should be focused on leadership that keeps Canada together and not anti-Quebec rhetoric that divides Canadians and hurts Canada.

The second point relates to the Klein government's initiative on health care. The Klein initiative is being demonized by the Liberals opposite. They are referring to it as two tier health care because either they do not understand or they are intentionally misleading Canadians about the intentions of the Alberta government's legislation on health care. I hope the Liberals are not trying to intentionally mislead Canadians by demonizing what is being done there. I hope they are not trying to throw some label on it as being anti-American.

As members are aware, patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. When these individuals talk about an Americanized health care system as being negative, they should take a look at the Canadian health care system right now and what they have done to it over the past several years. This government and this Prime Minister have been the Dr. Kevorkians of the Canadian health care system. They have done everything they can to euthanize the Canadian health care system. At the same time, these pompous, arrogant Liberal individuals, who are pounding their chests like Tarzan and walking and strutting around Ottawa like roosters so proud of what they have done with health care, have in fact decimated health care.

For them to try to operate some type of policy of brinkmanship and standing up to the provinces, whether it is Ralph Klein or the province of Quebec or any other province that is trying to innovatively approach some of these complex issues that their government has put in front of them, is absolutely ridiculous, rhetoric driven and dangerous for Canada.

I think the sooner we get these guys out and solid Progressive Conservatives in, the better for all Canadians.

[Division No. 1258, March 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his typically erudite suggestion that I get to the point on this issue, and I shall.

The point I was making was that on the Friday night of the convention the Prime Minister of Canada referred to this brave new economy in a way which disturbed me. He referred to e-commerce as a problem. He said that we have to deal with the problem of e-commerce; not as an opportunity, but as a problem; not in terms of how the Government of Canada can enable Canadians to access the levers of this brave new world and this brave new economy, but how we can deal with the problem of e-commerce.

This legislation, to a certain extent, indicates that the government is in fact more capable of dealing with regulations and their implementation than it is with the other part of e-commerce, and that is dealing with its opportunities and reducing the intrinsic impediments which hold back Canadian individuals and companies from full participation and success in an increasingly interconnected, digital highway globally.

The government is very slow to respond to some of the tax issues which continue to hold back Canadians in terms of our global competitiveness, but is quick to respond on the regulatory side. I think that speaks volumes about a government that is far too quick to regulate and far too slow to bring down the barriers to unimpeded commerce and greater levels of opportunity.

The legislation addresses some important issues relative to personal privacy in Canada on the Internet. The battle between privacy and protection is an ongoing battle with regard to e-commerce on the Internet. These issues have partially been addressed by the government. I believe that the amendments from the other place were appropriate and helpful. Again the Senate has provided a level of constructive intervention and benefit to the legislation of the House.

It seems that time and time again we see this kind of constructive interaction between both houses. We need to be reminded that there is a reason for the current structure and for the nature of the Senate. Sometimes when I am discussing issues of this importance with members of the upper house I am reminded of the incredible level of knowledge and expertise that we have in that other place to deal with some of these increasingly complicated issues, whether we are dealing with e-commerce or more traditional issues, such as finance. I believe that in many ways the Senate banking committee has a significantly greater level of expertise than the House of Commons finance committee. I would argue that members of the Senate banking committee, by and large, have forgotten more about finance than members of the House of Commons finance committee know. I speak as a member of that committee and it is just a reflection on the high quality of membership we have on some of the committees in the other place.

The onus with this legislation is on the government to utilize laws and regulations to protect the rights and privileges of consumers. We support this legislation and we support these amendments, but I see some concerns about the government's efforts on an ongoing basis to regulate but not to recognize the opportunities.

One Canadian success story of an e-commerce Internet company was Zero-Knowledge, which recently raised a significant amount of money and is pursuing an IPO opportunity in the U.S. Its business is Internet privacy.

When we look at Internet privacy, if it can be provided increasingly by private sector entities like Zero-Knowledge, I would urge the government, the ministry of industry and the industry committee to study some of these private sector alternatives. There does not always have to be a heavy level of regulatory burden to achieve some of these privacy or protection ends. Sometimes companies like Zero-Knowledge, a Canadian success story, can help provide the tools to consumers.

The issue regarding health information is particularly important as we see companies like Healthion and Dr. Koop.com involved, as we see the continued integration of e-health vehicles with hospitals and, as time goes by, the technologies that will provide effectively the ability for health professionals to diagnose and treat illness increasingly via media, including the Internet.

In my home province of Nova Scotia there are start-up companies that are developing increasing levels of expertise in these areas, companies like Techknowledge and Caduceus. They are developing technologies that will enable health care professionals to provide a greater level of comprehensive service to patients, which ultimately will be more cost effective.

When we are dealing with health care information clearly privacy issues are very important. Again I urge the government to investigate all private sector opportunities or vehicles to protect privacy as opposed to always going the government regulatory approach.

When we are dealing with the issues before us relative to e-commerce we have to keep in mind a few basic principles. First, e-commerce and the Internet are based at this juncture on private sector leadership. There should be a minimalist government role and we should avoid unnecessary restrictions. Privacy is important. We have acknowledged that some private sector entities provide products which can be used to establish privacy.

In the area of e-commerce and Internet in general we have some real Canadian success stories with bid.com and some of the enabling technologies. There is a company now in Saint John, New Brunswick, called iMagicTV, which is developing technology to transmit television signals through traditional copper wires. I believe the technology has already been rolled out in parts of New Brunswick and will be in Halifax shortly. It will revolutionize and be a very commercializeable initiative.

Some activities are happening on our financial markets, for instance, with the automation of our financial markets, whether it is with E-TRADE Canada, a Canadian entity, or e-commerce friendly investment banking such as Yorkton Securities in Canada or Wit Capital in the U.S.

We have seen great strides made in terms of venture capital for e-commerce in Canada, whether it is Digital Harbour or EcomPark that are providing the type of seed money required by Internet entrepreneurs to achieve their next step and ultimately, hopefully, public offerings. In that light we see a new CDNX, which I believe will emerge as Canada's NASDAQ north.

All these opportunities are existing now and are helping to spawn some of Canada's technology stars, whether it is Leitch Technology or Versus Technology. Whether it is a more traditional or technological leader like Nortel and JDS Uniphase, all these great things are happening because we are an innovative people. We have innovative individuals and innovative companies across Canada that are doing amazing, interesting and successful things.

Unfortunately I am concerned that we are not being led by an innovative government. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I was surprised to hear the Prime Minister refer to e-commerce as a problem in a way that did not seem to recognize from his perspective that in fact e-commerce represents more of an opportunity.

If we look at the degree to which the government is embracing some of the fundamentals of the new economy, particularly relative to tax issues, I think we can see that we are falling behind other countries.

Members opposite may look at the recent budget and say that there has been some tax reduction. However, before the recent budget Canada had the highest personal income taxes in the G-7 and the second highest corporate taxes in the OECD. After the budget Canadians will still have the highest personal income taxes in the G-7. After full implementation of these tax measures over a five year period, Canadians will have the fourth highest corporate taxes in the OECD. This is assuming that none of the other 31 countries reduce their corporate taxes when in fact 27 of them already have stated plans to reduce their corporate tax levels.

Members opposite may say that we are heading in the right direction. However a tortoise heading in the right direction on the autobahn will still be road kill. In the global environment and on the interconnected digital highway of the global environment we cannot afford to be a nanosecond behind.

My concern is that as other countries make these gigantic leaps we continue to take these baby steps in Canada. This incrementalist, caretaker, day to day poll driven style of government is holding back Canada at a time when other governments are being increasingly innovative, governments like Ireland, for instance.

Ireland has enjoyed over the past 10 years a 92% increase in GDP per capita. I believe the U.S. has enjoyed about a 20% increase in GDP per capita and I think the U.K. has been in the same ballpark. Canada has had during that same period a 5% increase in GDP per capita.

In the 1990s Canadians have seen their personal disposable incomes drop by about 8% during a time when Americans have seen a 10% increase. Again, wealth being a relative thing, as individuals in other countries get richer we get poorer in Canada.

These phenomena are reflected in the Canadian dollar. Since 1993 the Canadian dollar has lost almost 10 cents of value under this government. Every time we see a drop in the Canadian dollar it is a reduction in the standard of living of Canadians.

All these things point to a greater issue: the inability of the government to embrace the new economies and to embrace the opportunities, not just the challenges or the problems of the new economies, of the new economy and to actually present the types of policies that will reduce the impediments to Canadians for full participation and success in that economy.

While there are some difficulties in relating the Irish example to Canada as a whole, there are some significant opportunities in making a direct comparison of what is capable in Atlantic Canada with the Ireland example. We could look at what we would do by reducing corporate taxes and even capital gains taxes, specifically in Atlantic Canada, and perhaps adjusting over a period of time our current system of equalization, which actually provides impediments and barriers and bootstraps individual provinces on the recipient end. These are some of the things we need to be looking at.

With the Internet and with e-commerce, borders are less relevant now. This is a challenge. It seems there is almost a decline in the role of governments in people's lives as the Internet and other vehicles connect people individually. This is both positive and negative.

It is positive from the perspective that as individual citizens are connected, even from a social perspective, there will be more difficulty for countries or for leadership in countries to wage war on each other. It will be increasingly difficult to convince people based on ethnicity or language that they do not like other people if they are already communicating with them via the Internet.

It will be increasingly difficult for the Milosevics of the world, the Karadzics and the Tudjman type leaders in the former Yugoslavia to wage war on each other as the citizenry is empowered and connected.

Let us not always talk of the Internet and e-commerce as problems. Let us talk about the brave new world that is available. Let us talk about the free market working most efficiently in the history of the free world with individuals, regardless of borders, having access to the same information, immediate price flexibility, and the ability to trade based on that information immediately. It is a very exciting time.

While I recognize that the legislation is a step in the right direction on the regulatory side, I wish the government would be more responsive on the other side, the opportunity side of e-commerce, as opposed to always dealing with what it perceives to be the problem of e-commerce. If we actually get out of the way I expect Canada can participate and succeed globally in this exciting new world.

[Division No. 1258, March 30th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to discuss the amendments to Bill C-6, the electronic commerce legislation.

There is significant opportunity facing Canadians at this juncture as we look forward to a brave new century. In my opinion we will see the greatest levels of opportunities available to Canadians in this bold new interconnected world that we have ever seen. The changes occurring globally, in terms of technological advances relative to the Internet, will rival those of any technological developments in the history of mankind. They will make other technological developments, including the railway, the airplane and even the telephone, pale in comparison.

These are the types of challenges and opportunities that we face as individuals in Canada, which is increasingly a very connected country. It is a connected country largely based on the interests and innovation of individual Canadians and, in many ways, despite the continued malaise, inattention and efforts by the government to hinder and impede technological adaptation and opportunity for Canadians with new vehicles such as the Internet.

I was appalled at the recent national Liberal convention, which I attended as an observer for my party. I also was a commentator for CBC and CTV. I was there for the weekend and I felt a bit like an undercover rabbi at a PLO conference.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least, but the fact is that what I learned disappointed me about the leadership of the Liberal Party at this time. Frankly, I had expected that the Prime Minister would have had a better idea of where the world was going in terms of some of these new technologies.

On Friday night the leader of the Liberal Party, the Prime Minister—

[The Budget, March 29th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I asked the hon. member where he stood on free trade and the GST. According to very sound economic analyses, including probably the most credible economics and current affairs publication in the world, The Economist magazine, credited the structural changes made by the previous government with eliminating the deficit, free trade and GST, being the most important ones.

Unless the hon. member wants to be accused of being the patron saint of hypocrisy in the House of Commons today, I suggest he answer the question and tell us where he stood on the free trade and GST policies that his government would not have had the vision or courage to initiate.