Thierry St-Cyr

[Sales Tax Amendments Act, 2006, April 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the situation raised by my colleague does speak for itself. It demonstrates two things.

First, it demonstrates that the federal government is spending a great deal of money in areas of responsibility that are not federal. It interferes in areas under the purview of the governments of Quebec and the provinces. But when it comes to taking care of its own responsibilities, it is often nowhere to be found, as we have seen in fisheries and international issues. When asked to take action to protect the manufacturing industry, it is nowhere to be found. On aboriginal issues, it is nowhere to be found. It is somewhat odd to have a government meddle in the business of Quebec and the provinces, but not look after its own.

Second, it demonstrates how impotent this government and the members of its caucus are, particularly those from Quebec. This is a government that does not take action; it does nothing and is only spurred into action when it is up against the wall, after every pressure possible has been brought to bear. Any results delivered by this government—as we have seen in the last budget with the cash transfers to Quebec and the provinces—are due to the fact that a minority government has to cooperate.

This goes to show the important role played by the Bloc Québécois. If it were not for the Bloc pressuring the government, nothing would get done.

[Sales Tax Amendments Act, 2006, April 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, this is indeed the work that we do. It is always a great satisfaction when, in committee, through our representations and the pressure that we put on the government, we succeed in getting results that serve the interests of Quebeckers and of our constituents. That is very satisfying.

It is all the more interesting for the Bloc Québécois, because its loyalty lies strictly with Quebeckers. Our hands are not bound by a Canada-wide caucus, or by a government which all too often, unfortunately, uses its Quebec members to target Quebeckers, to carry out its deeds and to get its message across. This is deplorable.

Our daily efforts are yielding results. Personally, I had evidence of that last week, in my riding. I have been working since the beginning of my mandate to have the land of the Canada Post's mail sorting facility located on Ottawa street, in Montreal's southwest end, transferred to the Canada Lands Company which, in turn, is prepared to cooperate with stakeholders to develop projects on this land. This is beautiful land along the Lachine canal. It has a high value, but it must be developed with the citizens' best interests in mind. I have been fighting for this. We sent letters to the minister, who told us that this matter was the responsibility of Canada Post, that it was not his business, and that he did not want to get involved.

I put questions to the minister in this House, and I got the same answer. We continued the fight in the media. I also introduced a bill in the House to force Canada Post to sell the land to the Canada Lands Company. At last, my representations, along with those of all the members of our community, are producing results.

Last Friday, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities finally decided to listen to reason and announced that these lands would be transferred to the Canada Lands Company, even though he had said in this House that he had no business getting involved in this. That is what can be achieved by a member of the Bloc Québécois who works hard to put pressure on the government without having to bow to the will of a national caucus or of a government caucus.

Of course the fight is not over yet because these lands always belonged to the government and they are heavily contaminated. They will have to be decontaminated, and stakeholders are asking that it be done by the government—the polluter for many years. If the Canada Lands Company was forced to decontaminate these lands itself and include this in its development costs, the project that the community is proposing would be neither economically viable nor feasible. They want to use this site to build affordable housing, family housing, private housing, businesses, light industries, tourist attractions, parks and green spaces. It is a fantastic project.

The next step is to ask the government to pay for the decontamination of this site. It polluted the site, therefore it is its responsibility to clean it up. However, following last Friday's announcement, I am very happy about what we gained through my work and that of the community that supports me. It motivates us to go further, to continue our work and to put pressure on the government for the decontamination of these lands.

[Sales Tax Amendments Act, 2006, April 25th, 2007]

There you have it. We must face the fact that even the Conservatives who claim to understand the fiscal imbalance, in reality, obviously do not.

When the Séguin commission introduced this concept of fiscal imbalance, it did not randomly pull these two words out of a hat. It did not open a dictionary and with eyes shut point at two words at random. It chose the words to mean something. It said there was an imbalance.

Obviously something is not right between all the money that is in Ottawa and its constitutional responsibilities, and all the money in Quebec City and the constitutional responsibilities there. There is an imbalance and it is a fiscal imbalance. It is a fiscal matter. Ottawa, the federal government, charges too much tax with respect to its responsibilities. The tax base is not unlimited—there is a limit to what they can take out of taxpayers' pockets—and the Government of Quebec is not able to raise enough tax money to meet all its obligations, especially since the cost of its obligations increases much faster than the cost of the federal government's obligations. We need only look at health and education, which involve the bulk of the expenses. These two sectors represent the biggest portion of the budget of the governments of Quebec and the provinces. Everyone knows that these budgetary items are increasing much faster than the cost of living, faster than inflation and so require revenue to increase much faster. That is why Quebec is calling for a transfer of tax fields, hence the name, fiscal imbalance.

Some progress was made in the recent budget on the monetary aspect. Monetary transfers exist; they are there. However, these transfers are not permanent. There is nothing stopping a future government from backtracking. I am not the only one saying so. The Conservatives say so in their advertisements. Who knows how much money they spent to remind Quebeckers that there was absolutely no guarantee that the money they gave could be available in the future? The Conservatives paid for advertisements to tell Quebeckers that if the Liberals returned to power, they could take away this money. If we read between the lines, even the Conservatives, in the next budget or in a possible majority government, could take away this money.

I posed that question to the Department of Finance officials just yesterday in the standing Committee on Finance. They confirmed what I already knew, what all experts already know, that there is nothing to stop this money from not being included in the next or future budgets. In short, the current solution, the monetary solution, keeps Quebec financially dependent. We continue to remain subject to the wishes and whims of the federal government. That is what we find unacceptable. That is what Quebeckers wish to leave behind. They want to have real revenues that their state, their government will control completely and that it can invest as it chooses, based on its priorities.

The second problem with a monetary transfer is that its value decreases over time because it is eroded by inflation. However, the value of tax revenues increases over time because, with the collection of GST or transfer of tax points, the value of these tax revenues increases as economic activity increases.

Remember what I said earlier. Because of its constitutional responsibilities, Quebec needs an increasing amount of money. A simple monetary transfer is only a very short-term solution to part of the problem; in the medium to long term, we find ourselves in the same pattern, the same situation. That is in the best-case scenario, if future governments do not backpedal and go at it again as the Liberals did in 1995 with the draconian and deep cuts to transfers for social programs and education.

Clearly, the Bloc Québécois must continue its efforts to explain to the Liberals, who have yet to acknowledge the fiscal imbalance, and to the Conservatives, who acknowledge it but still do not understand it, what we are talking about. We must continue our efforts to find a true solution to the fiscal imbalance through a tax transfer.

[Sales Tax Amendments Act, 2006, April 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, when I heard my colleague start his remarks by saying, “I will answer the question”, I was pleased, thinking that he was actually going to answer my question. Instead, he answered his own. That is pretty strange in terms of transparency.

I would now like to speak briefly about the bill before us, namely Bill C-40. This is a very technical bill. I have already had the opportunity to go into the details at a previous reading of this bill. I will sum up our reasons for supporting it.

We believe that Bill C-40 addresses various shortcomings associated with the GST and the excise tax. Bill C-40 removes taxes from certain medical services, which will facilitate access to these services. Bill C-40 reduces the burden of taxation on charities, something we are very happy about. Bill C-40 provides for measures that will help small wine producers, which is worthwhile. It also contains legislative provisions surrounding the sale and production of tobacco, to counter smuggling. Finally, Bill C-40 adjusts the air travellers security charge to reflect the Quebec situation. For all these reasons, we will be supporting this bill.

Naturally, this bill deals with only one part of taxation in Canada. Recently, in the budget, there were a certain number of measures that changed the tax rules and I imagine we will soon see them before us. Some of them are already being examined through a ways and means motion. They will come before us again. They are not contained in Bill C-40, of course. However, the Bloc Québécois has been fighting for some of these measures for a long time. For example, there is the matter of refunding the GST to school boards. For quite some time, the Bloc Québécois has found that it was curious, to say the least, for a level of government to impose a consumption tax on another level of administration—school boards—that provide such an essential service in our society as education.

Education represents the future of our entire society. We found it hard to understand why school boards should pay the GST. We have always believed that this tax should be reimbursed and that the federal government should not tax school board funds, which already come from taxes.

School board revenues consist of the monies received directly from the provinces for education as well as school taxes. Paying a tax with a tax was quite a unique situation. For some time, the Bloc Québécois fought to change this. Naturally, we were pleased to see that the Minister of Finance had made this correction in his last budget. In the past, there was a series of events where the Liberal government refused to follow court orders and amended the legislation. We are now in a situation where this is being sorted out. We are pleased and it motivates us, in the Bloc Québécois, to continue our work and to submit constructive proposals to the government, and often to apply the necessary political pressure because, unfortunately, things do not just happen if we do not exert constant pressure on the government. When we see such results, it shows the relevance and usefulness of our work even though sometimes, over a period of a few months, there are no immediate results. However, we see that, over time, this fundamental work produces results.

There is another area where we would have liked the government to take action. It did not, though, and we will continue to exert pressure on it to do so. I am talking about the GST on books.

In Quebec, books are exempt from provincial tax. Culture is one of the foundations of our society. Books should be considered our main source of knowledge, culture and imagination. Our societies are based largely on books, at least from a cultural standpoint. The production and sale of books should be encouraged. Quebec, which does not tax retail book sales, is a model in this regard. The Bloc Québécois will continue to call on the federal government to exempt books from the GST.

There is a connection with my previous remarks about education. Most books are consumed—this may not be the most appropriate word to use in referring to culture—or used for educational purposes. They include textbooks and other educational materials, and many students use these books for research in literature and other fields. We will continue to press the government, in the hope of convincing it that this is a good thing and that it should act quickly.

Abolishing the GST visitor rebate program is another blunder by the government. Last year, the government suddenly announced that it was doing away with the GST rebate for visitors to Canada. Previously, on leaving the country, visitors could obtain a refund of a portion of the tax they had paid. The Bloc Québécois immediately said that this made no sense, because it would hurt our tourism industry.

It makes no sense to tax tourism, which is an export industry. Although tourist activities take place in Canada, we are exporting products: Quebec, Canada, the Rockies, our culture, our knowledge, our cuisine, Gaspé and the Magdalen Islands. We are exporting all that to the rest of the world to show them the beauty our country has to offer. No country taxes consumption of its exports, including tourism.

It was absolutely necessary to backtrack because this measure was wrong and unjustified. The figures presented by the government meant nothing. At the time, we were told that only 3% of travellers asked for GST refunds when leaving Canada. This figure is biased. It does not take into account the fact that most people travel in groups, or family units. This can be two, three or four people. Let us take the example of a family of four returning to the United States. We can assume that mom, dad, junior and his sister will not make individual claims. One person from the family unit will make the claim. So clearly not everyone makes a claim, and that partly explains the figure of 3% of travellers.

Moreover, this figure was calculated based on all trips, including those shorter than 24 hours. It makes sense that many people did not make a claim for a one-day trip, simply because there was nothing to claim. The fact that a person who comes to a business meeting, eats and returns to the United States the same day does not use this service does not prove that the program is worthless. It only shows that this does not apply to that person.

Once again, the calculations were biased because they did not take into account the fact that the target clientele, the real tourists, are not business people who spend one day here or Americans who cross the border to have dinner with their in-laws.

That is not tourism. That was not the goal envisioned when this rebate program was created. The program targeted real travellers. For a clearer indication of this program's effectiveness, they should have compared the amount of money claimed to the amount of money that all travellers could have claimed. Before becoming a member of Parliament, I spent some time working on this kind of thing—measuring productivity and effectiveness—and I think this is a better way to evaluate the program's effectiveness. I was hardly surprised when I was told in the Standing Committee on Finance that this comparison was never made and that these numbers were unknown. This decision was made arbitrarily, with no thought of the consequences.

The government did not evaluate the impact of this measure on marketing, either. Offering tax reductions or rebates can encourage travellers to make Canada their tourism destination of choice even if they never claim rebates at the end of their trip. Companies that provide mail-in coupons and rebates for their products know this. Electronics companies do this all the time. Consumers are told that if they buy fantastic printer X, they will get $20 or $50 back in the mail.

Many of the people who buy such products do so because they are entitled to the mail-in rebate, but they never claim it because they forget, they lose their paperwork, or they lose their receipt. This is a good deal for retailers, because the promotion means they get another sale. If consumers do not claim what they are entitled to, the retailers win in all respects. This kind of psychology also applies to tourism in Canada.

We, the Bloc Québécois, have worked very hard and I know that other opposition parties have also worked to urge the government to reconsider its decision. We now have a partial solution. For organized groups, the rebates will be maintained. However, the program will not be reinstated for individual travellers or for families who are travelling alone. Frankly, we find this unfortunate and we feel it is a mistake, especially since the tourism industry and the industry that deals with those rebate applications were willing to do so at their own expense, meaning at no cost to the government. We will continue to work on this.

Continuing in the same vein, the GST and fiscal policy, I would like to talk about the fiscal imbalance issue. When the Séguin commission completed its report on the fiscal imbalance, one of its recommendations was, in fact, to transfer the GST, currently collected by the federal government, to the governments of Quebec and the other provinces. It should come as no surprise that the fiscal imbalance must be corrected by a fiscal measure, something which is often forgotten here in the House. Before oral question period today, during members' statements, a Conservative colleague tried to cheerfully and naively insist that the fiscal imbalance has been corrected, while no party in the National Assembly would agree that the fiscal imbalance issue is completely resolved.

[Sales Tax Amendments Act, 2006, April 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House for just one year and this is the first time during a period of questions and comments that I have had to answer a question from a colleague who was supposed to answer my question. This is a funny situation.

Nevertheless, what is not so funny is that I did not get an answer to my question on tax havens. I do not see what the systems for taxing interest paid abroad have to do with the fact that, when they were in power, the Liberal Party and their Minister of Finance signed a tax treaty with Barbados. This was a tailor- made agreement to allow companies that were doing business in Barbados and generating profits there, to transfer their profits, exempt from taxation, to Canada.

This situation was denounced five times by the Office of the Auditor General. This was this case on February 22, 1994, and again in 1996. The Auditor General returned to the charge again in 1998, a fourth time in 2001, and finally a fifth time in 2002. Frankly, and I am not the only one to say so, I think we can trust the Auditor General.

Now that they are in the opposition, are the Liberals prepared to come their senses and support the end of tax treaties with Barbados?

[Sales Tax Amendments Act, 2006, April 25th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in his speech, my hon. Liberal colleague spoke a great deal about taxation and international rules. I would like to know his opinion on something that should be very familiar to the Liberals, that is, tax havens, and especially those in Barbados.

When his party was in power, the government established a series of measures intended to restrict the use of tax havens. However, they created a wide-open loophole for one country in particular, Barbados. Naturally, this offended many people in my riding, many people in Quebec and indeed many Canadians, I am sure.

While these people work hard to make a living and pay their taxes—and most citizens are willing to do so, because they know they must contribute to society—they are also disenchanted, and rightly so. The Liberal government of the day and its finance minister voted in favour of tax shelters for businesses, so that businesses could transfer home, tax free, the profits generated in tax havens.

Can my hon. colleague explain why his party never acted to put an end to this tax exemption, this gaping tax loophole?

Would the Liberals be willing today—now that they have had some time to reflect on this from the opposition standpoint—to put an end, once and for all, to all existing tax havens, tax agreements and tax treaties, especially Barbados, thereby truly respecting the people we are supposed to be representing?

When the Liberals signed this tax treaty with Barbados and retroactively changed the legislation, they were not doing their job as representatives of the people. It is about time for them to make amends, admit that they failed in their duties for 13 years and henceforth support the complete elimination of all tax havens.

[Business of Supply, April 24th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, of course, it must be realized that, when we talk about greenhouse gas reductions, we talk about reducing oil consumption and, by extension, oil production.

The hon. member is right when he says that transporting oil is also, in and of itself, a source of greenhouse gas emissions, as is transporting any good, whether it is lettuce, tomatoes, oranges, etc. In this regard, it would interesting if our society would consider buying more local products, because this would be one way to reduce transport activities and, consequently, greenhouse gas emissions.

[Business of Supply, April 24th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the Montreal Exchange has already signalled its intention to establish a carbon exchange as soon as absolute greenhouse gas reduction targets have been set. Interest is greatest in Quebec. The National Assembly, businesses, labour, all have expressed support for the Kyoto protocol. It seems self-evident to me, especially since Montreal is home to the entire derivatives market.

When day-to-day market capitalization, the stocks exchanged on a daily basis on the trading floor, was moved to Toronto, which remains Canada's top trade exchange, it was agreed between the two trade exchanges that Montreal would look after derivatives. It seems only natural to me that this agreement be honoured and that any new derivative on the market be directed to the Montreal Exchange, with all the other derivatives.

As for the first part, with respect to the so-called action, while the government has been in office for over a year, tangible results have yet to be delivered. It is amazing and rather unusual for a government to use its own incompetence to justify what it does, for a government to come and tell the House that it can do nothing.

The main difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives is that the Conservatives know that they are incompetent. Over the course of 13 years, the Liberals pretended to be doing something, but did nothing. The Conservatives are not doing anything, but at least they realize it. That is better than nothing, but it is not enough for future generations.

[Business of Supply, April 24th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this motion today in this House. To begin, I would like to digress a bit and talk about sugar bushes. You will see why. I am sure you enjoy going to the sugar bush. I love it. And I would like to thank young Félix-Antoine, who, on my last visit to a sugar bush, helped me find my BlackBerry, which I had lost. A member of Parliament feels quite isolated without a BlackBerry. So I want to thank Félix-Antoine, who saved the government money and prevented any pollution that might have resulted.

I am talking about sugar bushes because a few years ago, a battle was waged against acid rain, which required a major effort not only in Canada, but in the United States as well. At the time, we were told that plunging immediately into the fight against acid rain would mean economic disaster. We were told that it was impossible to solve this problem quickly, it was impossible to reduce our acid emissions. Yet we succeeded in making so much progress on this issue that today, the sugar bushes in Quebec and Canada are in much better shape than they were a decade ago.

There was also the fight against chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which caused holes in the ozone layer. We were told at the time—you will guess what—that it would be an economic disaster, that we could not do this kind of transition, that we would never find alternatives and that it made no sense at all. Nevertheless, we have made great progress in that area.

So when the environment minister presented his so-called report, I told myself that it was impossible. I could not believe it. How could he use this old tactic of scaring people by leading them to believe that they will lose their jobs when the opposite is true? In fact, inaction is what threatens our economy more than anything else.

The so-called government report on the impacts of Kyoto was so biased and distorted that there was nobody to support it. I was surprised. I paid close attention to the news wire and I thought that at some point the petroleum producers association would support the government, but I have not seen anything yet. I can only conclude that oil companies are not bothering to support the government on this issue, which proves how isolated the government is and how bogus its study is.

On the contrary, earlier today, during question period, we were wondering if a sensible person could claim that there would be no economic impact following the implementation of the Kyoto protocol. I am convinced that there will be such an impact and I believe it will be positive. I also think that this is another good reason to support the Kyoto protocol. Above and beyond all the environmental considerations and the importance of saving our planet, it is indeed an incredible opportunity for Quebec and for all of Canada to develop economically.

The economic cost of inaction would be very considerable indeed. Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will recall Mr. Stern's report, which advised the British Prime Minister on issues related to the Kyoto protocol. Mr. Stern might be considered somewhat of an expert in economics, being a former president of the World Bank. Mr. Stern warned that inaction when it comes to Kyoto would cost billions in economic losses. This is the real threat. The United States can certainly attest to this, considering the hurricanes that are becoming increasingly frequent, violent and severe. Obviously, this has a very negative effect on our economy. We are all aware of the changes this could cause in terms of occupancy and cultivation of the land and access to drinking water. Throughout the world, inaction will be extremely costly.

If there is any catastrophic scenario to discuss, it is what will happen to our planet if the Kyoto targets are not met. That is the real catastrophic scenario. It has nothing to do with the economic problems presented by the government.

Above and beyond the costs we would avoid by implementing Kyoto, our industry and our economy would enjoy a competitive advantage by reducing their dependency on petroleum. The oil that companies purchase and must burn, and the gas that people must buy to fuel their cars; these are expenses. This all has a cost. If, as a society, we give ourselves a kick-start and convince ourselves that we have to follow through, and if our government supports our efforts and gives us tools and clear benchmarks, and if the government contributes to the plan, we will then be able to reduce our oil dependency. This would mean lower costs for our businesses, which would then be more productive and could be more competitive on the global market.

If Canada and the United States continue to be the only two countries in the western world to refuse to implement Kyoto and to fail to reach minimum greenhouse gas reduction targets, this would mean that, of all industrialized countries, we would be the ones to consume more and more petroleum for the same units of production. Thus, we would be less and less productive. From an economic standpoint, that is what would be catastrophic.

At a time when markets are globalizing, it is totally incomprehensible that our country would content itself with failing to achieve the Kyoto targets. While the Germans, French and English manufacture vehicles that burn much less fuel than ours and their factories become more and more productive and able to produce ever more with less energy, we will content ourselves with falling productivity in comparison with theirs. That seems completely irrational to me.

The other disadvantage of failing to proceed with our commitments under the Kyoto protocol is all the opportunities we will lose. First, we will not be able to access the market for greenhouse gas emission credits, usually called carbon exchanges. We already have some in Montreal. There is the carbon exchange that the Montreal Stock Exchange wants to create. We are prepared. This is an attractive economic activity, but we will not have access to it because of the government’s refusal to adopt absolute targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Companies will be able to purchase these credits when they need them to meet their fixed targets and will also be able to sell credits when they exceed their targets. These credits will increase in value over time. The government says that we are asking it to spend a lot of money to buy these credits. In actual fact, this is an investment because production increases over time and the credits will become increasingly sought after as companies strive to achieve their fixed targets. This is therefore a lost opportunity.

I am concerned about something else as well. People around the world are talking increasingly about levying taxes on imports from countries that fail to comply with Kyoto. Companies here in Quebec and Canada will be relatively less productive than foreign companies in countries that signed the Kyoto protocol because they will not have reduced their dependence on oil as much as companies elsewhere. In addition, when our companies try to export, they will have a tax levied on them because they are from a country that has not complied with Kyoto.

Finally, there is obviously an entire technology market to develop, one that will be constantly growing. People are talking about billions of dollars worldwide. If Canada fails to adopt the targets in the Kyoto protocol now, we will be excluded from this market. People who want to invest will not do so in places where there is no market and no interest in achieving the targets. We absolutely must proceed, therefore, and implement the Kyoto protocol. I have deliberately not mentioned the environmental aspect because my colleagues have already said a lot about it.

It is for basically economic reasons that we must proceed and adopt absolute greenhouse gas reduction targets, and the Kyoto protocol is the minimum.

Anything less would be both an environmental and an economic mistake.

[Canada Lands Corporation, April 24th, 2007]

Here is another example of an announcement with no financial commitment, Mr. Speaker.

Last Friday, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities gave the Canada Lands Corporation the mandate to develop the site of the Ottawa Street mail sorting facility, in southwestern Montreal. While the purpose of this initiative is to clean up contaminated land, the government did not announce any funding for the initiative.

Beyond the rhetoric, could the minister responsible for Canada Post and the Canada Lands Corporation tell us how much money will actually be put toward the cleanup operation on the site of the mail handling facility and Montreal's new harbourfront, and when?