Ted Hsu

[Business of Supply, March 20th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Minister of State for Science and Technology spoke about scientific knowledge being used to help the government form public policy. He also talked about cleaning up Lake Winnipeg. I know my colleague understands that in science it is important to do experiments to understand things. I am wondering if he would agree that it is better to do an experiment on a small lake than it is to do an experiment on Lake Winnipeg.

[Business of Supply, March 20th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a question about the last part of the motion regarding the Experimental Lakes Area. In response to questions in question period on the Experimental Lakes Area, the DFO minister said his department is still doing research on freshwater at the Winnipeg Freshwater Institute. However, I do not know if the government realizes that scientists at the Winnipeg Freshwater Institute actually use the Experimental Lakes Area as a place to do experimental work. I am wondering if my colleague could comment on that.

[Business of Supply, March 20th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the most important part of a science conference is the informal discussions that take place in the hallways, not the formal presentations in the seminar rooms. What happens in the hallways is that people have ideas and data. They are 80% sure they understand what is going on and they share their ideas among their colleagues, who push, pull, squeeze and test the ideas. Then after those conversations, they may be 90% sure or perhaps 0% sure because someone shot down their idea. That 90% then becomes 95% and people keep talking. That is how scientific ideas are tested, hardened and refined.

I do not know if the government properly appreciates the importance of communication and of trying out ideas that one is not quite sure about, which might be wrong or embarrassing, or the effect of having media handlers follow scientists around at scientific conferences. I am wondering what my hon. colleague thinks about that.

[Petitions, March 19th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I present a petition today signed by my constituents in the city of Kingston. It concerns Canadian citizens who happen to have been born in the United States but have never worked there or lived there permanently. They are considered citizens by the U.S. government and therefore have to file tax returns and disclose maximum amounts in their bank accounts here in Canada.

They are calling on the Canadian government to forcefully demand that the U.S. government remove the unfair and burdensome requirements imposed upon them.

[Questions on the Order Paper, March 18th, 2013]

With regard to Correctional Services Canada: (a) how many inmates can currently be accommodated at the Regional Treatment Centre (RTC) in Kingston; (b) how many inmates are expected to be accommodated in the psychiatric facility to be established at Bath Institution; (c) how many inmates are expected to be accommodated in the psychiatric facility to be established at Milhaven Institution; (d) how many beds are currently at the RTC in Kingston and how are they broken down in terms of single occupancy units, double occupancy units, and multiple occupancy units; (e) how many beds are expected to be available in the psychiatric facility to be established at Bath Institution and how are they broken down in terms of single occupancy units, double occupancy units, and multiple occupancy units; (f) how many beds are expected to be available in the psychiatric facility to be established at Milhaven Institution and how are they broken down in terms of single occupancy units, double occupancy units, and multiple occupancy units; (g) how many locked pharmacies are currently established at the RTC in Kingston; (h) how many locked pharmacies are expected to be set up in the psychiatric facility to be established at Bath Institution; (i) how many locked pharmacies are expected to be set up in the psychiatric facility to be established at Milhaven Institution; (j) how many common rooms are currently at the RTC in Kingston; (k) how many common rooms are expected to be set up in the psychiatric facility to be established at Bath Institution; (l) how many common rooms are expected to be set up in the psychiatric facility to be established at Milhaven Institution; (m) how many private interview spaces are currently at the RTC in Kingston; (n) how many private interview spaces are expected to be set up in the psychiatric facility to be established at Bath Institution; (o) how many private interview spaces are expected to be set up in the psychiatric facility to be established at Milhaven Institution; (p) how many cubicles are currently at the RTC in Kingston; (q) how many cubicles are expected to be set up in the psychiatric facility to be established at Bath Institution; (r) how many cubicles are expected to be set up in the psychiatric facility to be established at Milhaven Institution; (s) given that corrections officers at RTC received instruction from clinical staff to ensure that they would be able to work safely and effectively with inmates with psychiatric illness, will the officers at Bath and Milhaven receive similar instruction; and (t) how many officers from RTC will be directly transferred to work exclusively at the new RTC at Bath or Millhaven?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Return, March 8th, 2013]

With regard to FedNor: (a) when did hospices become ineligible for FedNor funding under the Community Economic Development priority of the Northern Ontario Development Program; (b) when was the decision made to do this; (c) what were the last five hospices funded through FedNor; and (d) which ridings are these last five hospices located in?

[Canadian Medical Association, March 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate my constituent in Kingston and the Islands, Dr. Chris Simpson, who was elected Ontario nominee for president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association and is expected to assume the post of CMA president in 2014.

Dr. Simpson is chief of cardiology at Queen's University and medical director of the Cardiac Program at Kingston General and Hotel Dieu hospitals. He is the chair of the Canadian Wait Time Alliance and the chair of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society's standing committee on health policy and advocacy.

Dr. Simpson has asked important questions about the future of Canadian health care. How can physicians be leaders to achieve health and deliver timely, quality care? How can the family medicine and specialist communities work better together? How can we make sure that we have the health care professionals we will need? What is the role of the federal government in health care and health promotion?

I congratulate Chris and I look forward to working together with him for a healthier Canada.

[Petitions, March 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, helmets can prevent serious injuries and save lives. If consumers do not know that helmets actually do not provide the protection they think they are providing, that can be harmful to the consumer.

I have a petition today handed to me by a constituent that asks for the Government of Canada to amend the Hazardous Products Act so that all recreational sports helmets must meet the Canadian Standards Association standard CSA-Z263.1.

[Disability Tax Credit Promoters Restrictions Act, March 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-462. When I thought about what I wanted to say concerning this bill, I thought about what a great country we live in, where people can get together across Canada and offer support to those who are less fortunate, those who may lack some of the things that the rest of us sometimes take for granted, and that we can offer financial aid to help make more equitable some of the accidental inequities we have in our society.

One of these things is the disability tax credit. This a credit that allows people with certain long-term disabilities to get some funds to compensate for the fact that a lot of things become more expensive and may require an outlay of funds, if a person has a long-term disability. This tax credit is a non-refundable tax credit, and so for the time being a person has to have a taxable income to claim this tax credit. However, I hope that in the future the House would consider making such a tax credit, and a number of other tax credits, refundable so they are available to help members of our community whom we want to help, but who may not have taxable income against which they could claim a credit.

The Liberal Party and I support this bill in principle and we support moving it to committee to look at some of the details, and it is important to look at the details.

This bill proposes to put some limits on the amount that preparers or promoters could charge individuals to help them make a claim for a disability tax credit. It proposes to set some maximums, according to an as yet undetermined formula, and to create some new offences and penalties in cases where these maximums are exceeded. There is a good reason for that. We have seen reports that rather large amounts have been charged to people seeking the disability tax credit by promoters, preparers who are in the business of helping people make their claims. One of the reasons their fees are charged is that under the legislation it is possible to go back 10 years and claim retroactive amounts for the disability tax credit, so to some extent there may be complications. For that reason there is a small industry that has grown up to explain the disability tax credit to people and to help do the paperwork to file the documents that are needed to claim the credit.

Why is it that the House should get involved at the committee stage to perhaps put some more detail on these maximums? The reason is that we should be looking at a number of things. First, whenever we feel we need to create a new offence and some new penalties, we should think about whether there is another way to help achieve what we want to achieve and not solely rely on creating new penalties and new offences. For example, in this case it may be possible at committee stage that we might decide there are ways to simplify either the tax code or the forms one needs to file to reduce the chance that people need to hire somebody to help them prepare these applications, and so to reduce the chance that the people who need the disability tax credit would have to pay 10% or 20% or sometimes more to these preparers. That is something we should look at, because if there is a way to avoid making a new crime and new punishment, we should be following that.

The other thing one might want to consider is something I will illustrate with an example. This is another thing that should be considered in committee. When I do my taxes, I use an Excel spreadsheet, and most of the time my tax situation is the same from year to year. The first year I set up the Excel spreadsheet, it took a long time to program it and put all the formulas in the cells, but in succeeding years it is much easier. It takes very little time for me to put together my tax return and do all the calculations. Sometimes the laws change and I have to adjust the spreadsheet, and sometimes my personal situation changes, as it did last year, and I have to spend more time changing the spreadsheet and looking at what the rules are.

In the case where, for example, somebody is claiming the disability tax credit, there is a lot of work to do in the first year. People have to look at how this tax credit interacts with all the other parts of their tax situation. In the first tax year, there is a lot of work to be done. We might consider giving more leeway in the first year of a claim for the disability tax credit and then maybe tighter limits in succeeding years when there will be less work to be done. These are the sorts of details that can be considered in committee.

In the proposed bill, there is no definite dollar amount set for the limits. For example, there could be a certain number of dollars for the first few hundred dollars of claims under the disability tax credit and then a percentage for anything above that amount. We need to figure out the right place to put the boundary. On the one hand, we know there is quite a bit of work to be done and people have to know what they are doing. They need to be trained and able to do a good job filing claims for tax credits. On the other hand, we want to discourage people from charging too much or discourage people from not bothering to claim the tax credit because it costs too much to hire someone.

We need to hear from witnesses in committee and look at where that boundary should lie and what is a fair limit to put on the amount tax preparers can charge for preparing a disability tax credit application. We have to be careful not to place a limit that is too low. We might think we have to make sure preparers do not get too much money, but it is also possible to place a limit that is too low, which would discourage people from claiming it because they may not find a tax preparer willing to do the work for the money. We all agree that when people have skills, experience and ability, they deserve to be paid for the high-quality professional work they do. We should be very careful about these sorts of unintended consequences, and that is another reason the committee should hear witnesses on this and not simply rely on the Governor in Council to set all of these numbers. It would be a good idea to hear testimony from witnesses and perhaps make some amendments to the bill in committee.

My colleague who introduced this bill decided to bring forward a bill in the House based on her experience with constituents who are worried about the high fees they might have to pay to claim something they need to help compensate them for their disabilities. I want to congratulate my colleague for doing that, for listening to her constituents and bringing their concerns in the form of a bill to the House of Commons.

[The Environment, February 14th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Environment Commissioner stated last week that the Conservative government does not know if securities placed on deposit are enough to cover the final decommissioning and reclamation costs of mines north of 60. Not knowing if they have money to pay what they owe and having taxpayers bear the risks is not sound economic management.

When will this incompetence end, and will the Conservatives follow the foundation of their environmental liability regime, the polluter pay principle?