Stephen Harper

[Bill C-18, May 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the government House leader. In spite of twice trying, the government House leader has been unable to persuade the Senate to pass Bill C-18 and stop electoral redistribution.

Yesterday a Senate committee passed substantial amendments to the bill. Will the government give serious consideration to these amendments, or better yet, withdraw its support for Bill C-18 and stop the waste of Parliament's time and money on this legislation?

[Supply, May 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I have enough time to answer both of those, but let me try.

The hon. member raised a couple of issues in terms of the recent expenditures of the Reform Party executive. It is a well known fact that I had indicated I was not happy with the structure of those particular expenditures and I had recommended to the council that it go about receipting any legitimate expenditures that our leader incurs. The executive council of the party I understand has in fact endorsed that kind of a policy.

The reason I said that was that we are here in the House of Commons, the Reform caucus, trying to get our current non-taxable, non-receiptable expense allowance that we all enjoy of $21,300 a year receipted. This is one particular expenditure. This type of expenditure should not occur. It should not occur in the Reform Party and it should not occur in this House of Commons where in addition to being non-receiptable it is also non-taxable.

I would hope that having gone though that particular controversy and kept our policy consistent as we did that we now have the support for the hon. member for the scrapping of that particular kind of non-tax allowance that we as members of Parliament all enjoy. I would expect to get that support.

The member also asked me more specifically whether Reform Party funds have a subsidy component. The answer in my view is that they do because of course they are funnelled through a tax credit system that all political parties enjoy.

We have urged that this government bring forward legislation to end that kind of special tax credit status for political parties in a number of areas. We have urged that we do this for all political parties. If the members of the government feel so strongly on that particular issue I would urge them to take action on it as soon as possible.

[Supply, May 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to this motion by the hon. member for Calgary Centre on reforming, simplifying and making more equitable our income tax and other tax systems in Canada.

I originally had planned today to speak primarily on the issues of fiscal federalism in the few minutes that I have. In this country right now we are undergoing a series of studies and serious examinations of a number of policy areas that include social policy, not just transfers to individuals but transfers to provinces, and we have a budget that is impacting on a number of transfer programs to provinces, both this year and in future years.

All of those things are really proceeding in a number of different ways. There are intergovernmental negotiations going on. We do not have any details about that but we know it is happening. We have a social policy review. Of course we have budgetary policy and a review of the GST.

There is a wide number of studies into issues of fiscal federalism but there is no overall integrated approach to making the tax system fairer and more efficient between levels of government. That is the primary point I want to address today, some of the things that some organizations are putting out that could be done, some of the things that our various academics have proposed.

I have been sidetracked somewhat by an issue that I got into last week. It came up on the floor of the House yesterday. I want to digress and spend most of my time on that because it seemed after what was said yesterday in the House that it was a perfect opportunity to address this particular issue because it is really so relevant to the way taxes and the tax system are functioning in our country today.

I am referring to the mini controversy we have over the federal overseas tax credit. This is a tax credit that is available to Canadian workers who are working overseas for six months or more of the year, enduring hardship and separation from their families and work related expenses in that capacity. There have been recent stories, one in particular in Alberta Report , that draws attention to the fact that the federal revenue department is basically considering retroactively disallowing the use of the overseas tax credit by certain Canadian workers, much to their detriment.

This story appeared and has been on the scene. I know members of Parliament, not just myself but other members have been making inquiries into this particular matter for some time because this has been on the public record now for a couple of months. They are not getting very far with Revenue Canada I understand.

I am not a tax expert and I am not a lawyer. I would never claim to be for obvious political reasons. By implication neither am I a tax lawyer. But I did find this story quite interesting. Given the government's current unwillingness to address the issue I decided to raise it in the Commons in statements.

Yesterday in response to one of these gratuitous set up questions we have periodically, the Minister of National Revenue said I had erred in my statement and provided the House with some incorrect information and that there were in fact no legislative changes involved in this area.

What is wrong with that statement is that it has nothing to do with what I in fact said to the House or what the problem is here. Mr. Speaker, you may have seen the movie last year, The Firm . It was one of my favourite movies last year. In one particular scene-it is about tax lawyers-Gene Hackman plays Avery Tolar speaking to Tom Cruise who is playing Mitchell McDeer. He is teasing him about his upcoming tax law exam. He has a multiple choice question for the young upstart. He says: ``What is the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion? Is it: (a) what the IRS says it is? (b) A good tax lawyer? (c) Five years in jail? (d) All of the above?''.

Just to Canadianize that we will substitute Revenue Canada for the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service in the United States, and I think the same applies here. The point I am making is that whether there have been legislative changes is too often irrelevant. Tax law in this country rarely has much to do with legislation.

We recently have been passing in this House tax changes that were brought in by the previous government, well over a year before its defeat in some cases. We have been passing those things. We have been agreeing to them on this side. We have no choice. They have been implemented for some period of time. Legislation has little to do with it and little to do with the question I raised.

The question I was raising was not a question of legal technicality or of the latest version of Revenue Canada tax rules. It has to do with the administration of the tax system in the country and the application of tax law which often leads to the second point I was raising, the far more important point, the whole issue of tax fairness and in particular issues of scope and timing.

Timing in this case is the whole issue of retroactivity of administrative and application changes in terms of the administration of the law. Scope is in terms of the application of this particular provision to some workers and not others, in particular this one provision that depending on how interpreted or how applied affects workers of foreign parented companies differently than workers of Canadian parented companies whether or not those workers are Canadian.

These are very important questions and I do not profess, nor did I in my statement, to know the right answer or what the correct policy should be. I do not know and I can understand that there are certainly legitimate costs involved in these kinds of working arrangements.

My point is that if we are going to administer a sensible, fair and improved tax system in this country it is important that we take these kinds of issues seriously and listen carefully. Neither of those things was reflected in the kind of answer that the minister gave in the House to this dilemma yesterday.

Specifically, whether or not one agrees with the overseas tax credit it is not difficult to understand the concept that fairness and retroactivity of application are two entirely different things. We should be very careful in retroactivity of either legislation or application especially when it involves substantive tax penalties for some people.

Second, it is also not hard to understand in terms of fairness that all Canadian workers should be treated as equally and as equitably as possible. I happen to believe that in the kind of new economy we are moving into capital, with the porous international borders we have and with the technical evolution we have and with many of the well run countries in the world, will do a pretty good job in the long haul of taking care of itself. I do not think it needs protectionist measures such as this.

I noticed that the revenue minister rationalized this measure as effectively a protectionist support for Canadian based companies. However, Canadian labour in the future is going to need not necessarily our help in the old sense of giving handouts but help in the sense of ensuring its full participation in this dynamic, capital driven economy. This kind of tax measure is a perfect example of one that is driven by needs, old kinds of protectionist, nationalist needs that are not consistent with the needs of Canadian workers.

Whether this particular tax credit is essential or well structured or not, I do not know. I do know that if a Canadian worker is participating in his economy, whether here or abroad, surely the application of that should not be based on the status of his employer. Canadian workers and Canadian labour should be the focus of those kinds of measures.

I see, Mr. Speaker, you are asking me to wind up. I did want to spend my time on that. I hope the government is listening and I hope it takes not just the big concerns that we have about the tax system but some of these smaller day to day tax problems that Canadians have much more seriously in the future.

[Petitions, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition concerns a national referendum on the issue of the two official languages in Canada. It is signed by 36 citizens, mostly from the city of Calgary. I think such a referendum could succeed better with a policy based on the territorial principle proposed by the Reform Party of Canada.

(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

[Petitions, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions pursuant to Standing Order 36. The first is signed by 31 residents mainly from the city of Calgary that ask the government to amend the laws of Canada to prohibit the importation, distribution, sale and manufacture of killer cards.

I note with some satisfaction that the government has tabled draft legislation relevant to this subject.

[Bill C-18, April 29th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the Liberal member for Vancouver East who stated in an interview in the Hill Times on April 28 that she realizes the provision in Bill C-18 for imposing a two-year suspension on the redistribution of ridings does not do her province any favours. In fact it would make it almost impossible for the process to conclude before the next election. The hon. member goes on: ``One year would probably be the right approach''.

If this is the case I wonder why so many Liberals, including the hon. member for Vancouver East, chose to defeat the one-year amendment when it was brought forward by the Reform Party in the House.

This is a perfect example of why Canadians are so cynical of the representation they receive in the Chamber and why democratic reform such as free votes are essential to restore the confidence of Canadians in their elected officials.

[Overseas Tax Credit, April 27th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadians who work abroad in natural resource industries benefit from the federal overseas tax credit. In return for spending six months of the year away from their families and working often under very difficult conditions, these Canadian workers have had their annual tax liabilities reduced by the credit.

Now as reported by Alberta Report magazine, Revenue Canada has decided to retroactively disallow the overseas tax credit to those Canadian workers employed by U.S. parented companies. In some cases this disallowance may extend back three years. This move will be an annoyance to the companies in question but it will do great harm to hundreds of ordinary Canadian workers, most of them Albertans.

I am told that the unforeseen tax bill of up to $50,000 will cause some of them to lose their homes. This is a shameful way for the Minister of National Revenue to accomplish his goal of closing a so-called tax loophole.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment, April 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am obviously disappointed with this answer.

There has been considerable speculation about the motivation for this bill. The Globe and Mail reported on March 25 that the government House leader promised in a closed meeting of Liberal MPs in early March that he would block electoral redistribution in response to the partisan and political needs of Ontario Liberal MPs.

Will the minister confirm for the House that the meeting reported in the Globe and Mail took place?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment, April 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, today as South Africans are voting in their first genuinely democratic election Canadian democracy has been taking a backward step.

Bill C-18 which is designed to block electoral redistribution until the next century has been roundly condemned in Canada, especially in British Columbia where it has been condemned by all parties, including B.C. Liberals.

My question is for the government House leader. Will the government withdraw its support for Bill C-18 now that public hearings are under way and thereby avoid possible constitutional challenges and an unnecessary confrontation with the Senate?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, April 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to participate in the debate on third and final reading of Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act. First of all, I want to state my party's position. We in the Reform Party are against this bill and continue to oppose it. It is obviously a waste of the time of independent commissions established under legislation passed by this House. Also, it is rather strange to stop the process as public hearings are starting or about to start.

I will be discussing the policy of this government as well as its motives. I must also comment on the remarks made by my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois and his party's position. I understand that the Bloc supports this bill, but I cannot figure out why.

Basically, I do not see why the Official Opposition would support the government in establishing boundaries in Quebec for elections which, they say, will never be held because Quebec will have achieved political independence. I understand the Bloc Quebecois's position on Quebec's independence, but not their position on representation in this House. I do not understand their position on this bill, not at all. I am puzzled by a number of things.

The hon. member for Bellechasse mentioned that we Reformers had moved amendments to this bill yesterday. We made the points we wanted to make. Five or six of our members have spoken on the bill. Now the Bloc, which supports the bill, continues to debate the amendments we moved and that they oppose, thereby delaying passage of a bill they support. I do not understand that and, as I said earlier, I do not see the point, for the Bloc Quebecois, of supporting suspension of the readjustment of electoral boundaries and of the number of seats in a future election if, as they claim, they are not interested in those seats because they would have no use for them in view of the events to come in Quebec.

It is a position I do not understand. I understand somewhat better the position that the government has put forward. I listened very carefully today to the words of the parliamentary secretary who gave for the first time somewhat of an explanation of how the government arrived at its position and how it has conducted itself. I will not comment on that at length. I have said a great deal about it already in the House and in committee.

If one examines very carefully the position of the parliamentary secretary, what he really is saying is that politicians should decide whether these boundaries are appropriate or not. Many of us, Liberals and apparently Bloquiste aussi, think they are not and therefore that really justifies the bill. I know there was more

sophistication to the argument than that. But I heard that as the core of the argument and that troubles me a great deal. It is a fundamentally different concept than the one we have about the redrawing of political boundaries. It is the reason we are concerned about delaying the process for two years and diverting it to a parliamentary committee, dominated by the government majority and then, of course, having on that committee an official opposition that does not think these seats are going to be important to it four years from now.

Let me just comment a little further on that. We had a committee hearing on this bill. We passed the bill on the Thursday before the House rose. Within hours we were in committee and within a couple of hours of that the bill was passed.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster and I were there. Officials from Elections Canada including the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Kingsley, appeared before the committee. I want to put on the record part of the exchange from that committee if I could because it is very instructive on what the motivations for bringing this legislation were. Let us be clear. They have very little to do with the process that is now under way. I will summarize a few points from that hearing.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster asked Mr. Kingsley:

-were you yourself or Elections Canada in general consulted about the suspension of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act prior to its introduction into the House of Commons?

Mr. Kingsley: -there was not what I would call consultation with me or my office about this bill.

Mr. Hermanson: Is this unusual?

Mr. Kingsley: Well, I've been in the position for four years, and previous amendments to legislation relating to the office have involved consultation with my office-

Mr. Hermanson: -I want to know if the commissions have completed their work under the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act to this point? Would that be fair to say overall?

Mr. Kingsley: The answer is yes, they have. They've done their work in accordance with the schedule and in accordance with the requirements of the statute. They are on time.

Mr. Hermanson: Do you know whether they're on budget?

Mr. Kingsley: In terms of the budget that had been fixed, the answer is yes, they are on budget.

Mr. Hermanson: Were the commissions themselves properly constituted as required under the act?

Mr. Kingsley: To the best of my knowledge, yes.

Mr. Hermanson: Was there any indication of incompetence on the commission? Were there any obvious errors or mistakes reported to you or that you observed in supervising their work?

Mr. Kingsley: The answer is no.

Mr. Hermanson: Are you aware of any meetings having been held improperly, say, without a quorum or something like that?

Mr. Kingsley: I am advised the answer to that question is no.

Mr. Hermanson: Do you feel Elections Canada was able to meet the needs of the commissions by providing the maps, the census information and other information you were required to provide to them?

Mr. Kingsley: That is certainly my view because I have heard absolutely nothing to the contrary from anyone.

Mr. Hermanson: There has been no suggestion there were inaccuracies in any of the information received? The census information was correct?

Mr. Kingsley: No information to that effect at all.

Mr. Hermanson went on to ask whether the commissions have the latitude if they hear representation from the public in the public hearing process to make more largely definable changes in the boundaries. Mr. Kingsley replied that in accordance with the statute the commissions have all the latitude they wish on that matter. That is the point of the exercise. I will go on.

I had asked Mr. Kingsley to confirm that the first notification was really with this particular bill. Did it occur after the tabling of the new proposals or the new maps? In other words I was asking if the government showed any particular interest in this to Elections Canada before there were specific boundary proposals that affected Liberal members. Mr. Kingsley confirmed essentially that yes it was after the tabling of the maps that the question was drawn to his attention.

Mr. Hermanson: Are there already a number of people who have applied to meet before these commissions? Are you aware of that?

Mr. Kingsley: Apparently requests have come in throughout the land.

I know that because I was one who along with several other members of our caucus had prepared submissions and made contact with the commissions. I should add that considerable money had already been spent setting up the public hearing process which is now under way.

Mr. Hermanson asked if a review were going on in committee, in other words the review proposed under the government's motion to look at the process, would it hamper in any way the current work of the commissions. Mr. Kingsley replied that from a purely technical point of view he would have to answer no. Of course we do have the bizarre situation that the hearings are now proceeding because the commissions have to do that in law. Of course there is still the intention to shut down the process.

I asked Mr. Carol Lesage, assistant director of operations, electoral boundaries, whether some of the people on the commissions were qualified. Mr. Lesage made the following observation: "In the majority of cases the commissioners are university professors in political science and in most cases specialize in questions dealing with representation".

In fact when I asked my research assistant to find some detailed articles on these questions so we could call some witnesses it turned out that many of the names she came up with were in fact commissioners.

I asked Mr. Lesage whether to his knowledge the commissioners had any particular partisan background. Of course the answer to that was no.

Mr. Hermanson: Has Elections Canada received extensive complaints that the process is too slow, or too fast?

Mr. Kingsley: I am advised that we have not received any complaint in that respect.

Mr. Hermanson: Have you had a large number of calls requesting more information or registering complaints regarding the maps that were distributed?

Mr. Kingsley: I remember looking at some statistics. The number of calls has increased recently as a result of this exercise at the 1-800 number.

It would appear furthermore he went on to say, that a number of those calls were directly related to the fact there were advertisements that the public hearing process was about to begin. It is now under way.

It is fairly clear there is no malfunction in this process. It simply does not suit the political self-interests of members of Parliament, particularly members of the government. It apparently does not suit the political interests of members of the Bloc Quebecois. However I do not understand precisely what those interests are. I am sure they have nothing to do with the referendum in Newfoundland 50 years ago.

There has been a certain amount of public reaction to this event and this bill in the media. Let me just review that because this is what people are reading across the country concerning this piece of legislation.

I will not go on and on about this but the Vancouver Sun said: ``So much for fair play''. That was its editorial on March 25.

The Calgary Herald of March 25 urged the government to play by the rules. The Calgary Herald said: ``The Reform Party is right. On this issue, Reform at least appears willing to play by the rules rather than work them to its own self-interests''. I have to mention that because I certainly do not have an endorsement from the Calgary Herald for the election and I do not suspect I will have one in the future. However, I think it is worthwhile to note that endorsement.

Winnipeg Free Press , March 26: ``A Liberal fiddle''. It goes on to point out the inequities that this legislation will perpetuate.

The Montreal Gazette : ``Redrawing the boundaries. Ridings should reflect reality, not Liberal politicking''.

In La Presse of March 29, Pierre Gravel wrote: Electoral map-millions wasted''. He points out, and I agree with him, thatSince they arrived in Ottawa, the Bloc has pleasantly surprised its opponents, even in English Canada, by behaving as a responsible opposition party.'' This is an editorial from Quebec. But he also adds that ``This is the first important issue on which one can criticize it for not playing its role.''

The Ottawa Citizen , March 26: ``So much for principles. Crass partisan interference by the Liberals in the redrawing of electoral boundaries ensures the next elections will be unfair''.

Edmonton Journal March 26, Norm Ovenden: ``Liberals protect personal kingdoms. Proposals from independent commissions for new riding boundaries would have cut some MPs out of the political picture''. Of course some of them may be cut out in any case.

The Globe and Mail wrote a number of articles on this. One in particular I want to quote at length: ``Ottawa moves to scuttle revisions to riding boundaries. Grits cut off debate, introduce law to help process of redistribution. Using arguments that affected MPs traditionally raised at boundary revision time, Liberal MPs said yesterday that the proposed changes would disrupt traditional communities and social links within ridings and would eliminate historical riding names. The realignment of rural ridings to give them similar numbers of residents to urban ridings would also make them larger and more difficult for MPs to travel''. That is what we heard.

"However, at a closed caucus meeting two weeks ago, Liberal MPs from central Ontario said that the boundary revisions would adversely affect local campaign organizations especially in weakly held ridings. The MPs burst into applause when Solicitor General Herbert Gray, the minister responsible for elections legislation, promised that the government would block the process. The government's move to close off debate yesterday prompted some dissension within the Liberal caucus. Some senior ministers objected to using time allocation so early in the party's term on an issue not crucial to Liberal policy or programs".

"Sources say some Liberal MPs facing another four years with hugely overpopulated constituencies were persuaded to support the move with warnings that realignment could boost the Reform Party's chances in Ontario. Other MPs were told the government will assign additional constituency staff to crowded ridings". I should add that all three parties have agreed to assign this additional staff through the Board of Internal Economy, which we did in any case.

We all know we cannot believe everything we read in the newspapers. However this is a disturbing report, not refuted to my knowledge by anybody in the government to this point. I think the motivations, perhaps not as openly painted by Liberal members as in the article, have been clearly expressed in the Commons that this does affect personal political needs.

I want to shed a little more sympathetic light on this situation. First of all I am glad to see in that article, and I did suspect and have reason to believe there are Liberal MPs and cabinet ministers who do not support what is going on. I wish they had been listened to here.

However I do think there is a problem we should be frank about. Why has this particular issue proceeded this way at this time? In the past there has been a ruckus and concern about riding redistribution. There always will be. Sometimes in the past Parliament has intervened to change the process but it has always given a public policy reason before. It has changed the amending formula in the Constitution that only it can alter, some of the particulars of that. It has through that suspended the process and it has restarted again. Never has it stopped the process without a clear public policy objective other than to study it.

Why did that happen this time? I think the reason is very clear. I saw the map in the Ottawa airport recently. The partisan map of Canada after the last election is very interesting. I know there are some differences here and there, but if you stand back a few feet you see a green bar on one side, the Reform Party and our strength in Alberta and British Columbia. You see a red bar through Ontario where the Liberal Party won most of the seats. You see a purple bar through Quebec where the Bloc Quebecois won almost all of the francophone majority ridings; most of the ridings won by the Liberal Party were ridings with larger anglophone or allophone populations. Then there is another red bar on the other side of Quebec in Atlantic Canada.

What does that mean? It means that you cannot go to an independent commission and make proposals that appear to be sticking up for your own riding without appearing to be against a caucus colleague. You cannot say your riding should be altered a certain way and therefore change the riding next to yours, unless of course you get together as caucus colleagues. That has made it more difficult. I sympathize with that situation because we have had to deal with that in our caucus in terms of preparing our own submissions.

As difficult as that situation is, that cannot block redistribution forever. It certainly is not right to have people represented in the year 2000 on a census that was conducted in the early 1980s. That is ridiculous.

With that all said this is an argument for many, many things. It is an argument for the independence of the process. As the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster pointed out to me today, it is probably also in many ways an argument for the Reform Party policy of fixed election dates every four years.

It is an argument for some of the things that have been raised to restore the Senate to its role of regional representation. It is also an argument for the need for a second chamber. When there is a dominant majority in this Chamber that operates on confidence and insists that the most wildly unjustifiable thing go through and it slams it through as quickly as possible, there is an argument for an elected independent or second legislative chamber. I repeat elected. It would reconsider that measure and force the government and force the House of Commons into some reasonable compromise.

The Senate itself is in a very awkward position in these kinds of situations. The Senate has a clear legal and constitutional mandate which allows it to revisit and to block any piece of legislation. Its unelected status puts it in an extremely difficult position. I am not going to mince words on this, but I hope the Senate studies this thing as carefully as it believes it should be studied. I hope it examines very carefully all the questions, including the constitutional question. To delay this past the year 2000 is in fact a potential violation of our Constitution.

If the Senate believes that is the case, the appropriate thing for it to do, because of its unelected nature, would be not to block the bill, not to vote it down, but insist that the government get a constitutional reference to the Supreme Court on this so that we can be sure that we are not doing anything that is constitutionally or legally untoward. That is very important.

I have spoken a lot on this bill before. I have spoken at length today. Our point is clear. There will be other speakers from the Reform Party and I believe they will all be opposing the bill and we will be opposing it at third reading.

In closing I would like to move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting the following therefor:

Bill C-18, an act to suspend the operation of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, be not now read a third time, but that it be read a third time this day three months hence.