House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2019, with 60% of the vote.
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, in budget 2007 the minister deleted advocacy from the mandate of Status of Women Canada.
Let me remind the minister that if it were not for the women depicted in the Famous Five statue outside this very building, and the advocacy efforts and demands for equality, women would not have the right to vote and she would not be here.
Why has the minister deleted equality from the mandate?
Business of Supply May 16th, 2007
Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with the members for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River and Madawaska—Restigouche, and we will be asking questions for five minutes.
Committees of the House May 16th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 19th report of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women entitled “Proactive Pay Equity Legislation”.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women recommend to the government to immediately introduce proactive pay equity legislation as recommended by the 2004 federal pay equity task force.
Immigration and Refugee Board May 11th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, under the Liberal government there were only five vacancies on the board. Under the Conservatives the number has grown to 60.
When he resigned last month, the former IRB chairman said that he had left the minister with 80 qualified candidates to choose from. He also said that the backlog was “growing at a rate of 1,000 a month on the refugee side”.
In her attempts to stack the IRB with hand-picked right-wing appointees, the minister has made a mess of Canada's refugee system.
When will she take immediate steps to resolve the crisis?
Immigration and Refugee Board May 11th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, the minority Conservative government is dragging its feet on filling vacancies on the Immigration and Refugee Board as more refugee cases become statistics in the swelling backlog.
The minister has personally claimed that she is filling positions but the fact is that there simply are not enough judges to handle the overload of casework.
When will the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration fill the 60 vacancies on the IRB and get to work on reducing the backlog?
Canadian Executive Service Organization May 10th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, this year marks the 40th anniversary of a unique Canadian organization.
Since 1967, the Canadian Executive Service Organization, CESO, has successfully completed over 40,000 projects in 50 different countries, including Canada's aboriginal communities. CESO volunteer advisers are Canadians who share their professional experiences with those in need to strengthen the economies and build more self-sufficient communities.
I am, therefore, proud to report that one of my constituents, Mr. Charles Scott, recently returned from Sri Lanka where he helped train 32 people in the management of a large dairy operation that has been facing problems with sales and distribution.
A dedicated professional and a true volunteer, Mr. Scott and many Canadians like him have made a positive impression throughout the world ensuring that Canada is a respected member of the international community.
I ask all members of the House to recognize the important contribution that Mr. Scott and his fellow CESO volunteers are making on behalf of Canada.
Business of Supply May 10th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of seniors in my riding who have written to me and who have stated that they trusted the Conservative government when it made a promise that it would never tax income trusts.
They invested their money in income trusts, and suddenly, lo and behold, on October 31, we got this 31% tax and seniors lost their savings. The market took a dip. We have lost $35 billion in total. How are the seniors ever going to recover it?
I would like to bring something to the attention of the House. The NDP has always claimed to be the party of social justice, but it has worked against seniors, against Kelowna, against Kyoto, and against everything, and it has lost--
Business of Supply May 10th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, it just amazes me how very uninformed the Conservatives seem to be on economic matters.
When they make a promise to constituents, to Canadians, that they will not tax income trusts, and then they break that promise, there is no trust left of the Conservatives by Canadians. Seniors have lost money. It is seniors we are talking about. Where is the social justice? That is incompetence to the hilt.
Then we go and hobble our very own homegrown Canadian businesses that create jobs by not allowing interest deductibility. What are we trying to do?
I have been to the Fraser Institute and seen that they would like to have private enterprise and private everything. Where are we going to go as Canadians if we do not have economic security or economic independence?
I would like to say to the member opposite that the National Post, which is a friend of the Conservatives, talks about the flip-flop of the Minister of Finance, who is really not very competent. An article by Diane Francis, who is a real good friend of the Conservatives, talks about how the whole cabinet lacks economic astuteness. Cabinet ministers do not know globalization. They do not understand it. They are hobbling along because they do not know economics.
Business of Supply May 10th, 2007
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kings—Hants.
I rise in the House today to speak to the Liberal motion, which reads:
That...the government's mistaken policies with respect to interest non-deductibility and income trusts are making it increasingly difficult for Canadian businesses to succeed internationally, while making Canadian businesses increasingly vulnerable to foreign takeovers, thus putting Canadian jobs, head offices and investment at risk....
Budget 2007, the second Conservative budget, contains what the former chairman of the Canadian Tax Foundation, Allan Lanthier, called “the single most misguided policy to come out of Ottawa in 35 years”.
I am not referring to the disaster caused by the Conservatives in the income trusts sector last October. I will return to that issue later. Rather, I refer to the tax measure tucked away on page 242 of budget 2007 regarding interest deductibility and foreign affiliates. It would easily throw a major hurdle in front of Canadian firms who want to make foreign acquisitions by removing the interest deductibility from money borrowed to carry out those transactions.
As I was listening to the member for Winnipeg North, I was flabbergasted by her lack of knowledge to the fact that it is the small and medium size enterprises that create jobs, that are in an expansion mode and in a growth mode. Those are the businesses that create jobs. Why would she be against those corporations trying to expand? Where would her constituents find jobs? Who creates those jobs?
While the Conservatives may fancy themselves as a party of free enterprise, the fact is that the Minister of Finance has no credibility. I would refer to the article by their biggest supporter, Diane Francis, talking about the total incompetence on the cabinet benches of the Conservative government.
As we move forward and we look at who the real job creators are, the engine of competitiveness, we destroy them by removing that interest deductibility. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Tom d'Aquino, has said that the decision to remove this deductibility may seriously undermine the competitiveness of Canada's homegrown champions, the companies that are most active and most successful in building global businesses from head offices in Canada.
I would hardly call that faint praise for a budget that is ironically entitled “Aspire”. What does it aspire? Does it aspire to remove the economic security of Canada? Does it aspire to destroy Canadian companies? That is what interest deductibility does.
We live in a global competitive world. We need to be smart and let our companies, the small and medium size enterprises, which are in expansion mode, expand.
I am afraid that what the Minister of Finance calls a tax loophole is actually a competitive edge for Canadian firms to compete globally on an even playing field with firms enjoying similar tax measures in the United States, Japan and Europe. It is beyond me why the minister is so determined to hobble the Canadian economy.
According to tax specialist, Neal Armstrong:
it is typical for a Canadian parent company to arrange most of its borrowing in Canada, then use the funds to invest in foreign acquisitions.
However, the Conservatives want to take this tool away from business. It makes no sense whatsoever.
As Mr. Armstrong points out, the result is that Canadian banks will lose income from those loans and in turn the government will lose the tax benefit from that income.
Mr. Armstrong goes on to say:
And that doesn't do us any good, because the bank in the foreign country isn't paying any [Canadian] tax.
What should businesses in Canada expect from the proposal of the Minister of Finance?
Tax specialist, Karen Atkinson, predicts that many companies will have to “jump through hoops” to create financing structures, calling the finance minister's proposal a “make-work project for lawyers and accountants”. Is that what we want to do? We must remove red tape in order to make our companies competitive. We do not need to hobble these companies.
Len Farber, a former senior official at the Department of Finance, is equally baffled by the proposal. According to Mr. Farber, what the minister calls double dipping is what gives Canadian corporations the competitive edge internationally. He suggests that the minister could have the measure apply to only foreign multinationals operating in Canada but exclude Canadian companies. That is why the Liberal motion today calls on the Minister of Finance to rethink his strategy and enter into meaningful consultation.
At this stage, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague, the member for Markham—Unionville, who has done a splendid job in bringing this issue to the attention of all Canadians. The hon. member is a well-recognized economist and former minister who eloquently points out that:
[It] is not that we should oppose foreign ownership, but that we should oppose tax measures that tilt the playing field in favour of foreign companies and at the cost of homegrown Canadian companies.
This is not the first major misstep by the Minister of Finance. I am still receiving desperate letters and phone calls from constituents in Don Valley East who took the Conservatives at their word when they made an election promise to not tax income trusts.
Thousands of investors, many of them seniors, lost the bulk of their retirement savings because of this finance minister, when he broke his promise in October last year. What are my constituents going to aspire to when half of their savings have been wiped out by the Conservatives' incompetence?
Sadly, it is a fact that many of the Prime Minister's cabinet just do not have any experience in the business world. The result is simply bad policy and bad business environment.
Instead of tapping into this country's entrepreneurship, the Conservatives are hobbling Canadian businesses. Instead of being proud Canadians, being economically independent and competing in the global market, we are hobbling our Canadian companies, our pride, our enterprise, and our ability to create and maintain jobs.
Instead, we are now becoming economically dependent on other countries and foreign takeovers. In the past few weeks we have seen foreign takeovers by China, the United States and India. Where are the high-paying jobs going? They will go south, or anywhere, except stay in Canada.
The policy of non-deductibility is not a very intelligent policy and I would like to urge the government to rethink it.
Mr. Speaker, the detainee debacle has exposed the Minister of Defence to unrelenting criticism, not only in Canada but with our allies around the world. This has also shaken the confidence our troops have in their own government and its ability to defend our forces as they serve bravely in the face of many hardships in Afghanistan.
The Minister of Defence has already had to apologize for misleading Parliament by wrongly insisting that the Red Cross was responsible for monitoring detainees captured by Canadians troops and then turned over to the Afghan national army.
Last week, I asked the Minister of Public Safety if he was satisfied that detainees handed over to Afghan authorities were treated humanly and were not subject to torture.
Could the parliamentary secretary assure the House tonight that no detainee has been subject to torture?