Diana Whalen Opposes Bill 120
MR. SPEAKER « » : The honourable Minister responsible for the Liquor Control Act.
HON. GRAHAM STEELE « » : Mr. Speaker, I move that Bill No. 120, an Act to Amend Chapter 260 of the Revised Statutes of 1989, the Liquor Control Act, be now read a second time.
Mr. Speaker, this bill adds another procedural option, namely the possibility of a civil injunction, in the event that there is an anticipated or continuing violation of the Liquor Control Act or the regulations. It is a procedural change, not a substantive change. In other words, anything that was legal before is still legal and anything that was illegal before is still illegal. This will help to ensure that there is consistency across the province, as well as quicker action in the event of an actual or anticipated violation. The wording is similar to wording in the Technical Safety Act and other provincial regulatory Statutes. The purpose is also the same; namely, to ensure that the public is protected as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Mr. Speaker, the regulation of intoxicating liquor is a long-standing public policy objective. In the Liquor Control Act, the first objective laid out for the Liquor Corporation is promotion of social objectives regarding responsible drinking. Members of the House will have heard our public health officials speaking recently about issues associated with alcohol consumption. In this regard, it is important that those charged with upholding the existing law should have the tools necessary for effective enforcement. That is the purpose of this bill.
MR. SPEAKER « » : The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park.
MS. DIANA WHALEN « » : Mr. Speaker, you know, we have before us here this bill from the government that really is empowering the NSLC with, you know – and let’s remember that the NSLC is a retailer. That’s its primary purpose. It’s a retailer and if their primary purpose is to ensure that there is safe and responsible drinking, I don’t think their concern would be with small-business people who allow you to brew your own wine and beer on premise.
I noticed the minister has been very careful to stay away from any specific examples of the kind of legalities that he’s referring to. It would be helpful if he had been more clear because we know there must be some particular thorn in their side, something that’s bothering them, something that’s an irritant and they’re bringing in a law now, to change all the rules, so that the NSLC, which is one monopoly retailer, can go after other retailers. I think this is really, you know, a terrible idea of public policy or action here in the Legislature.
Mr. Speaker, you know, I have a bill that’s before the House, it’s not the first time it’s been on the order paper, Bill No. 39, and it calls for the government to make it clear and change the law so that it would be absolutely legal for a business to allow you to buy a kit, a wine or beer kit, and actually mix it up on the premises and leave it there to ferment. If the minister is suggesting that this is somehow going to promote irresponsible drinking, I completely disagree. If you’re talking about underage drinking or binge drinking, this is not something that young people are going to wait 30 days to get their wine or their beer. That’s just not the way it works. The people who use these stores – and I can speak from the experience I have seen in my riding – are people who live in apartments and don’t have a lot of space to leave it to brew in their own premise. If they take the kits home and mix them up, they have to have space to let sit and it takes up a lot of room. I have over 9,000 families that live in apartments in my riding; there are more than 9,000 apartment units. They don’t have space so they would love to have the opportunity to go to a store where they could mix it up and leave it on the premises to brew.
That has been something that has been unclear in our laws here in Nova Scotia and something that the minister clearly has the power and the ability to change and to clarify. But instead he has chosen a law which gives undue powers to a retail organization, the NSLC, which we give a monopoly to. They can now have quasi-police powers because what this bill says in the explanatory note “This bill adds authority for the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation to obtain an injunction against a person with respect to an anticipated. . . ” – so it doesn’t even have had to have happened – “. . . or continuing violation of the Act or regulations.” So they can go straight to the courts and get an injunction and not bother with the police as the intermediary. The reason they are doing this is because there is ambiguity in the law on this and the police haven’t been cracking down on the u-vints and the brew-on-premises stores, or perhaps not uniformly doing so, and the minister wants to clarify that and make sure that the NSLC, without any bother to the police forces, can circumvent them and go in and get an injunction.
I’m not a lawyer but I call that quasi-police rights to a retail organization; I think it’s wrong. I think that in the time that this has been fought in Nova Scotia, I’ve had bills before the House for a number of years, perhaps four or five years, and I’ve kept that bill current each time we’ve had a change of government or a new Speech From the Throne. I bring that back because I believe it’s an unnecessary threat to small business to do this. To make my point, in our very area of this part of Canada, in the time that this has been being discussed and letters have been going back and forth to the Department of Finance and back and forth to the owners of these stores, PEI and New Brunswick have both brought in legislation and approved this activity; it’s allowed, it’s fully legal; there’s nothing wrong with it in those two provinces.
Previously, we know that there were people here in Nova Scotia travelling to New Brunswick to do just that, to mix up their wine, leave it there for 30 days – this would be great news for all of those members who live close to the New Brunswick border, one more reason to go to New Brunswick because that’s allowed there and they can go back and they can bottle it themselves and bring it home. They don’t want to do that. They’d like to be able to do it in their own communities, supporting our own business. Those businesses provide jobs right here, small business, yes, but jobs.
I was just speaking to the store owner in my area who has his store right below my office. It is the Wine Kitz store in Clayton Park West, and it’s owned by Ross Harrington, who had actually been the subject of a police operation a couple of years ago where police came in plain clothes, mixed up a batch of the wine, set it on the shelf to brew and then charged him with bootlegging, or something that meant bootlegging. He went to court and the court found him not guilty of manufacturing and not guilty of the use of premises for storage. So those two things are clear, and perhaps that – now the Minister of Finance seems a little bit upset about this, but the minister had his opportunity, Mr. Speaker, the minister could have explained it. The minister could have said what’s in his craw right now, what’s bothering him, but he didn’t.
MR. SPEAKER « » : Order, please. The honourable member or Halifax Clayton Park has the floor. There will be ample opportunity for others to speak if they wish.
MS. WHALEN « » : That’s right. Hopefully the minister will speak when he closes because he has avoided the issue; he is speaking in circles about any illegal activity can now be acted on faster and more efficiently. Well, I see that as a very punitive measure that he’s talking about to crack down on a legitimate small business, and not just one but one that’s in many of our ridings. I know there’s a Wine Kitz store in the valley, I believe in New Minas, so maybe the member that represents New Minas will be interested in that. There’s one in New Glasgow that has been offering this service, to let people come in and brew their product in the store. It’s your product, you own it; you simply leave it in their store because they have space. You handle it, you come back yourself and bottle it, it’s your batch of wine or beer. That’s how the process works, and it’s perfectly legal in New Brunswick, in Prince Edward Island, in British Columbia. For more than 20 years it’s been legal in Ontario and it has done nothing to hurt the bottom line of the Ontario Liquor Commission.
I think this is nothing more than a turf war, essentially, with a great big giant company – the NSLC – which is funded by the Government of Nova Scotia and ultimately puts their profits back into the government coffers – taking on a kind of David and Goliath thing. They are already taking on the little guy with undue powers, and now we’re going to give them the power of injunction to go and take, as I said, very punitive measures, to essentially become a policing organization.
I strongly oppose this move. I think it is so regressive. I think that the members of the governing Party, the NDP, might do well to remember where they were a few years ago when this issue came up and it was realized how ridiculous it was that our police would be taking their time to dress up in plainclothes and go and charge a small-business person for allowing you to mix up your wine kit on the spot and not take it home to your apartment and mix it up. That’s foolish, and the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal at the time, the member for Timberlea-Prospect, said very clearly that he was sympathetic to what that business was doing and what others could be doing by adding more employees and increasing their profitability, paying more taxes back to the Government of Nova Scotia. That’s exactly what they’ll do. They’ll hire more people and they’ll pay more taxes.
I’m sure the minister is well aware that there are a number of these Wine Kitz stores – and I’m not sure they all have that name – but the stores, there may be others as well that are doing this brew-on-premise and they’ve actually been doing it in different parts of Nova Scotia for the last number of months. In speaking to the owner of the small business in my district, I heard that he began to do this again in July of this year. I knew I had seen some signs out saying that you are welcome to come in and you have the opportunity to brew your wine on the spot. I know that has been very popular with, as I said, the people who live in an urban area with no big storage places in their apartments to store and keep this product. This is a perfect thing for them.
I should also mention that it’s a perfect thing for seniors, and I have a lot of seniors who live in my area. They can’t handle the great big vats that you have to move, those great big glass jars that you have to move if you fill them. I know I would have trouble to lift and move those. It’s really convenient for them to be able to put them into a nice storage room where they sit on a shelf in some other place and they can go back to it 30 days later, when it’s time. So we’re talking about a convenience for seniors, for women, for people who live in apartments and don’t have a lot of space.
The marketing of that for these small businesses is great. They can invite you in; you can do it there. It’s perfectly responsible. They’re absolutely not going to be doing anything irresponsible in terms of encouraging any kind of binge drinking or inappropriate drinking.
The customer profile for a store like that, a store that allows you to test and try different wines at a reasonable price – because you can make a batch and it’s reasonable – those people tend to be people who are beginning to try different wines and are sort of interested in getting to know more about wines. It’s really something that’s more of a hobby than anything. I’m sure many of us have friends who have made homemade wine and it is a hobby. They try different grapes and they try different types. As they get more familiar with them, they actually increase the sales at the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, because then they want to try what they made and try what the Liquor Corporation is selling and see how those grapes taste if they get it from Chile or from South Africa or somewhere else. So it’s actually a good thing for the Liquor Corporation as well.
The Liquor Corporation has had this bee in its bonnet for a number of years. I’ve been told it was 10 years that letters have been going back and forth with the government. We’ve heard the most ridiculous reasons why this should not be allowed, and today we heard another one: that these small-business owners, who are operating clearly in the malls and shopping areas of the province, are somehow going to be irresponsible and encouraging irresponsible drinking. That’s the last thing they want.
I think the minister in his opening comments said that this bill before us – Bill No. 120, the bill that says it’s an Act to amend the Liquor Control Act – is supposed to somehow make responsible drinking better, that it’s going to make sure that there isn’t irresponsible drinking by stamping out illegal activities.
I think the minister should be very careful in telling the House why this is so necessary. His comments were very carefully worded – veiled, in fact, I believe – in terms of what illegal activities he is going after. The only thing I can say – oh yes, he smiles; it’s that sort of smug smile that says I know something you don’t know. Well, he does because he’s not sharing it with the rest of the House.
I really think that the members of the House should consider what is the major illegality that they’re going after, and why is it the NSLC’s job to go after this – if there’s bootlegging, if there’s an illegal sale of alcohol, an illegal manufacture of alcohol, shouldn’t that be a police matter? That’s a serious matter. I’d like to see the police move in on that. I don’t want to see the NSLC take all the action and be the policing body in this matter.
I think the NSLC wanted this power because they have a few businesses that are irritating them. In their giant monopoly, they have something they want to stamp out and that is the activity of the small businesses that are allowing brewing on premise. This very bill before us today is a clear threat; it’s a clear signal to those businesses – stop what you’re doing right now because there’s a new game now, you don’t need to wait . . .
AN HON. MEMBER: Go to New Brunswick.
MS. WHALEN « » : Go to New Brunswick; tell the customers to go there; tell your employees that, yes, I’ve got you on full time now, but we’re going to have to cut you back to part time, or maybe lose that job, because we won’t have that revenue anymore.
Again, I can only point to the one business I’ve had the opportunity to speak to this afternoon, and in that business they said this year, allowing the extra service that they could provide through the brewing and leaving it on their premises, they had three of their worst months of the year – that are usually the worst months, I should say – June, July and August, when people are away and there are less sales of wine in general, primarily because people are travelling, those three months this year were three profitable months for that company.
That little business made a profit in all three months. Normally those are three months they just try to weather, so that they can stay in business, but this year it was a profitable three-month period. They were able to take a staff member who had been part time and offer full time – now that will obviously have to be reversed if this comes through. They’ve been able to actually see a real opportunity to be innovative; to offer more service to people, and that’s exactly what they want.
Members of the House might remember that there was a petition brought here that had – I can’t remember the exact number, but over several hundred signatures, saying, we want this service; we depend on it; we want it to be available. And these are not lawbreakers. These are elderly people who want the opportunity to be part of this hobby. As I say, it’s an interest and a hobby that’s fun, and it allows them to be involved and to make wine; to talk about it with their families and test it. It’s a lot of fun. All we have to do is look at all the wine clubs that there are. Go to the Italian Club – they have all kinds of wine clubs. This is a hobby for a lot of people, and it’s meaning that you can no longer do that.
Again, I have to point out that the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal was very well familiar with this issue and had spoken to the owner of the Wine Kitz store – I might remind the minister, it’s the Wine Kitz store in Clayton Park that we’re referring to now. But it’s an activity that is taking place across the province and the Minister of Finance doesn’t like it. The Minister of Finance has decided to find another way to circumvent the current laws that require a complaint to be laid before the police will even investigate this. The police have said they don’t want to waste their time on frivolous things like this; they know there is no harm being done and they know that this is legal in many other provinces and has not caused any harm to the public.
I’d be the first to step up if I thought that this was going to be irresponsible and it was going to harm young people or create chaos or just be damaging in any way, but this is not. The damage – if we’re talking about binge drinking – is coming from people who are buying it at the liquor store. The NSLC has a lot to speak up for and be responsible for here – this is just something that irritates them. I think they believe it’s going to cut into their bottom line and it’s ridiculous, because the NSLC has a huge monopoly and these stores are very small. Even if there was one in every neighbourhood it wouldn’t really make a dent in the income of the NSLC.
I really think the minister should be upfront and should spell out exactly what illegal activities are being aimed at or squashed with this new power that is being proposed in this bill, Bill No. 120. As I say, I think it really is astounding that as a relatively new government, the concern for the little guy has evaporated. A few years ago, there were members of the NDP caucus in Opposition who had an understanding, a concern, an empathy for the situation of these little guys who are just trying to make a living in a small business, trying to offer the same kind of services as their counterpart – sometimes these are chain stores, some of them are franchises. They wanted to be able to offer the same thing on a level playing field, even with our nearest neighbours, New Brunswick.
Now, clearly here’s a new government with the power of a majority. You’ve got the numbers in the House to do what you like. Instead of correcting an anomaly, correcting a mistake that could have been simply set aside and made legal with an easy change to the Act – because it isn’t clearly illegal right now. There’s ambiguity. That’s why there hasn’t been a big crackdown.
There was somebody with enough courage to take it to court to try to show that he has the right licensing and permitting, that he was doing everything above-board, that he was paying taxes to the Nova Scotia Government. Everything was above-board, and he had to go there and fight that at his own expense for lawyers and so on. Since then things have been relatively quiet, but now, with this new bill, that’s an end run. That’s a way to shut them down and intimidate them.
I’m really shocked at the change in attitude from understanding and looking and trying to help small business or to help eliminate some red tape or unnecessary regulation. The government has done a complete U-turn, and what’s really interesting is that they are spouting the exact same line that we got from the Progressive Conservative Government when the minister was Mr. Goucher from the Progressive Conservative Party, and prior to that, Carolyn Bolivar-Getson. Am I allowed to say past members’ names? I believe so. She was the minister. I have seen letters that came back with her signature, with Mr. Goucher’s signature, or Minister Goucher’s signature, and now we’ll see the same thing coming from the current Minister of Finance.
It’s really astounding, because we would have expected a different attitude, a different approach. It makes you wonder, who’s running the show? Is it the bureaucracy that’s running the show? The policy, the official line, coming from government has not changed. It’s the same. They see a potential threat to the wine industry, our little wine industry that’s starting to flourish in Nova Scotia, but when I’ve spoken to the Wine Industry Association, they haven’t been aware of it at all. We’re creating a wine tourism approach and so on and everything is going really well. They’re not the least bit concerned with companies that are selling concentrate and allowing you to mix it up yourself. That’s a very different market, and again, as I said, if you get people who start to try different wines and learn more about wines, they’ll be interested in visiting our wineries. They’ll be buying our local product as well, because they’ll become wine people.
AN HON. MEMBER: Like the rest of us.
MS. WHALEN « » : Yes, that’s right, and they’re going to buy more of that wine from the NSLC as well. It’s really just part of that continuum of learning about wine, because people don’t usually start drinking wines until they get to a certain age or they have a little bit more money. So it’s not something that’s threatening. It does not threaten the industry, and again, who is NSLC to tell us that this is a threat to the wineries of the province? Wouldn’t that be Economic and Rural Development and Tourism’s job? Perhaps the Minister of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism, if he felt there was a threat, would write a letter or let us know if this has some impact on the economic development (Interruptions)
We would like to see that, but in the meantime this is clearly – we’ve talked about the big Bill No. 102 and whether that kills jobs, but no question, in small businesses in this province, in the wine brewing and brew-on-premise for beer, this will kill jobs – absolutely.
The minister hasn’t shown us any jobs that have been created. Every time we ask him, he talks about money that they’ve poured into different industries. Here’s some tangible proof that there’s a way you can create jobs by actually meeting the demand that Nova Scotians have.
I’ve said why it’s important to have this. I’m just astounded that the NDP Government has turned its back on the very people that they previously said had a strong case. They previously totally agreed that the government was off base, off track, and doing the wrong thing when they wrote back letters saying that this little retail operation could threaten our wine industries or somehow threaten the NSLC. We all thought that was absolutely ridiculous, and so did members of the NDP.
But now, all of a sudden, the NSLC is dictating the policy here, through the Minister of Finance, to see before us undue policing powers being given to the NSLC, and they are now going to determine what they think is illegal.
Remember, Mr. Speaker, when I read the explanatory note, it says that they can get an injunction against a person with respect to an anticipated violation. Now what is that? How have you broken the law that is an anticipated violation of the Liquor Control Act? I mean that’s really interesting. I don’t know if that’s legal in itself.
I think there are some real questions in this bill that need to be addressed. I would like to call on the minister to go back and look at Bill No. 39, which is on the order paper right now, which is simple and it’s a very simple change and it says, let’s simply allow and make legal the activity of the brew-on-premise stores, which is legal in P.E.I. In fact, that was brought in and passed regulations written within one year. It was just done lickety-split. They said that’s silly, we’re going to correct that, but not in Nova Scotia because no, we’re dictated by some other rule and our rules are unduly cautious, in this case and, in fact, have no bearing on the health or safety or maintenance of good government.
It’s really, I think, very much a territory war; it’s the NSLC not wanting any competition whatsoever, even if it’s not direct competition. I think the minister really should be clearer, if he thinks there are other activities that this is aimed at, then I think it would be great if the minister could go forward, pass Bill No. 39, or your own version – the government’s own version, sorry, Mr. Speaker – make it clear. Let’s get rid of the ambiguity. Let’s make it clear that that’s legal, just as it is in our neighbouring provinces.
MR. SPEAKER « » : Order, please. The chatter is getting a little loud. If there are conversations that need to take place, please feel free to take them outside the Chamber.
The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park has the floor.
MS. WHALEN « » : Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m sure that we will hear from a number of people at the Law Amendments Committee when this does come to that process. I think it’s right that people have the opportunity to come and speak and let us know when they see a government that has done an about-face and has tried to actually harm small business, not only bringing in more regulation and more difficulty in running a business but actually stopping something that is not harmful, that is supported by the public as we can see from one small store coming up with hundreds of signatures. We can see that for the member for Halifax Clayton Park, myself, saying that in my riding I know so many people who like that service because they don’t have the room to take those kits home, because they don’t have the strength to mix them up and handle the heavy product themselves.
Now is that wrong? Should they be denied the opportunity to make their own wine and to have that opportunity?
AN HON. MEMBER: Send them to New Brunswick.
MS. WHALEN « » : But they will, they will go to New Brunswick and I’m sure that the members from Cumberland, and that area in particular, will see it even more and all of us, even from Halifax Clayton Park, they’re going to New Brunswick and having to travel back with their product. Now that is just silly.
This whole introduction of this bill is a great disappointment to me because I really did think – silly me – I really thought the NDP were going to act on some of the obvious problems, like small problems that are easy to correct in this province, things that have been kind of ludicrous in the past – the police officers taking their time to go in and charge somebody for brewing on premise and considering that to be something else, something illegal, something like bootlegging. That has been proven, it’s not bootlegging. You own the product if you’ve purchased it, it’s yours sitting on the shelf. It’s not bootlegging, it’s innovation. (Applause)
Mr. Speaker, you can tell that this is a subject that I have spent time looking at over the years. I felt strongly enough about bringing in a Private Member’s Bill in the past, I’ve continued to bring it in because it’s one of those small things that could make a better business climate in Nova Scotia, just small things that don’t really – no skin off anyone’s nose, just a small change that would help our province to be a little bit more competitive, to give our business people a little bit of a hand up. In the province with the highest HST in the country, the highest value added tax in North America, in a province that has high business taxes, high property taxes, as we know, high power rates, high transportation costs, all of those things go against a small business in this province.
When they try to be innovative and they try to do something better, something that’s going to create a little employment, which has been shown that it actually has in that one business, and I know we can hear from others who have also had that experience. No, what does the government do? They follow the line of the NSLC. Instead of using their own sense and their own judgment, they’re following the same line that was given to the members that were in the Progressive Conservative Government a few years ago. They’re writing the same letters and they’re saying the same arguments.
So where’s the innovative thinking on that side of the House, Mr. Speaker? I’m really astounded and this is an example of that narrow-minded thinking that seems to have invaded the NDP’s psyche. With that, I’m looking forward to hearing from the people who do come to the Law Amendments Committee.
MR. SPEAKER « » : The honourable member for Preston.
HON. KEITH COLWELL « » : Mr. Speaker, I didn’t intend on speaking on this bill today but after some of the comments received from across the way, I just simply had to stand up and talk about it. You know, as we talk about this bill, Bill No. 120 – and my honourable colleague who just sat down made some very, very good points. We have a situation in the province today that people have less money to spend. Now, she didn’t go there and she didn’t talk about that but that’s one thing I want to talk about.
You know, when this government got elected, shortly after that they put the price of alcohol up in this province. Now, for a lot of people, you know, most of the people in this province socially drink and they enjoy that and, indeed, if you’re trying to battle with paying your grocery bill and your light bill, your rent, your insurance, your water bill, all these bills and all these increases that have come up on the electric bill, all these things, all of a sudden you can’t afford the bottle of wine that maybe you bought once a month, or whatever the case may be. The only alternative to that is to maybe brew your own at home and, indeed, if people live in apartments like my colleague has been talking about, it’s impossible to do it there, or if it’s a senior who can’t handle these big containers. They’ve taken that away from them.
I know the Minister of Finance with his income and his family’s income can afford to buy a $500 or $600 bottle of wine anytime he wants. Most Nova Scotians cannot afford that. So if they can get a bottle of wine for $2 or $3, a good-quality wine, then indeed it’s a benefit to them. It goes back to all these taxes that have been raised by this government, the government that said they’re not going to raise taxes. They put taxes up on everything pretty well in this whole province – almost on everything. It has cut the disposable income down of the average family substantially, substantially cut it down, and yet they sit there and say that it’s a good deal for today’s families. Well, I don’t know what the good deal is, we’re still waiting for it. If it gets any worse, there’s going to be no deal and a lot of families aren’t going to make it.
You know, I had totally forgotten about the fact that they put the price of alcohol up in this province and I totally forgot that they increased the price of tobacco. When you look at tobacco and the cost of tobacco – and I’m a non-smoker, an avid non-smoker, but I don’t say anything or I don’t interfere with anybody who does smoke because that’s their right to do so if they so wish, but it’s another tax that the no-tax regime of this government – before they got into power they said, we’re not going to tax anybody. So here we are taxing again and they’re going to give the Liquor Corporation the ability to enforce, something that might happen – might happen. That’s pretty interesting. Maybe somebody is going to do something wrong and they can charge them. That sounds like a good deal. I wonder how they’re going to defend that in court.
It’s unbelievable, just unbelievable that this government has got this arrogance to bring this forward, but it doesn’t surprise me any, you know, it’s the same, the Premier gets up here and says we didn’t increase taxes. Well, they increased. Let’s see what they increased now: alcohol, tobacco, the HST, every service, every fee in this province, and some of them twice – some of them twice – over 1,400 of them. Income tax has gone up continuously under this government. We’ve seen power rates go up continuously and then the Premier says, well, we took the HST, the provincial share of it, off the power bills. Then they put another tax on to replace it. What’s the difference? People are still paying the bills and it’s getting so expensive to operate in this province, it’s not worth it. It’s simply not worth it.
As we see more and more and more of this happen, we wonder why we’ve got 12,500 fewer jobs in this province and no targets from Economic and Rural Development and Tourism of where they’re going to develop any new jobs and they wonder why the jobs are disappearing. I can tell you why because this government’s got no plan for economic growth in this province, absolutely none, they don’t have a clue how to do it, not a clue. No targets, they got no real plan. They write lots of checks and boast about the checks they write but I would rather them seen talking about checks that are written by employers to employees for doing a job in this province, that they have to pay income tax on and put something back into our province. That is beginning to fall apart in this province.
When the better deal for today’s families was spouted for a couple of elections, with great big four-by-eight signs – I got to remember signs again here in a second. But these great big four-by-eight signs, better deals for today’s families – nobody in this province had an idea that what the better deal was higher taxes, tax people to death, fee them to death, cut services but don’t cut any employees, you don’t do anything else. I can tell you, the government has grown and grown and grown and grown. I talked before about the inability in this province to support what this government’s doing because after a while, there is a time that comes when you tax things so much, you’ll have a negative growth in your income from the tax you have on. That’s a fact, there’s been studies done on that, and I think we’re just about to that point right now.
As this government claims that they’re not increasing taxes, although they’ve put all these taxes up, and claims that they’re creating jobs when we’re losing jobs every day in this province – how are they going to make all this happen? Well they’re not making it happen. Now they put this bill in place and are probably going to wipe out these u-brews, the one thing that a senior can enjoy on a fixed income and I can tell you I’ve got a lot of seniors in my riding that don’t have very much disposal income, unlike the Minister of Finance who again can afford these $500 or $600 bottles of wine and not even think about it. Then you got some senior out there at a very difficult time, probably affording a bottle of wine once a month.
Indeed, are they going to take everything away from people, absolutely every little pleasure that they may have in life? Well that’s what it appears to be, I guess that’s part of the better deal for today’s families. Better deal for today’s families – that was the NDP’s slogan, this government’s slogan before they came to power. I guess the deal is getting better and better – more and more taxes, and fewer jobs.
Then when they talk about jobs, they spout this huge shipbuilding contract, which is great, it’s wonderful that is anticipated, and I stress “anticipated”. Mr. Irving himself said there’d be only 1,200 new jobs – 1,200 not 11,000 – at the shipyard at the peak and then it will drop to 900 jobs a couple years later when the construction of the new facility is completed. We’ll have several elections between now and then, the time that this contract is actually awarded because it hasn’t been awarded yet. The government is basing their whole – I don’t know what they call it, their goals and objectives for employment, even though the Minister of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism says they have no goals. There’s no targets, there’s nothing there for employment in the province. I guess it’s easy not to have targets because if you don’t have targets you don’t have anything to achieve. This government is achieving lots of things – fewer jobs for Nova Scotians, higher taxes and the list goes on and on.
This sort of bill is regressive as time goes on. As you see this unfold and as people in the community realize what will happen, first thing you know they’re going to be assuming that the wine stores are going to brew wine in their facilities and they’ll shut them down, just in case they might. That bill says that could possibly happen. What’s going to really happen with this whole process, as you go through and you look and see the devastating effect that this government has had on the people of Nova Scotia and see exactly what’s going to happen down the road.
I’m not saying this because it’s political. (Interruption) I’m saying this . . .
AN HON. MEMBER: That’s a good one.
MR. COLWELL « » : You can laugh over there if you want – the government is laughing about this – but you explain that to the people in my riding, and in your ridings, who come in and say, we can’t make it anymore, we cannot make it anymore. Do you know why they can’t make it anymore? Two per cent of their total income is now gone in HST, gone. Add to the increase in income tax with bracket creep, that this government has not eliminated, and that’s more money gone out of your cheque, more money gone. If you buy any kind of alcohol, beer, wine or anything at all, that has gone up in price, so that reduces your disposable income.
If you decide that you have to register your vehicle or get a driver’s licence or anything else you might have to do – 1,400 fees in this province have gone up, that reduces your disposable income. The incomes of people in this province have not gone up but the taxes have gone up disproportionately. Also, this government does absolutely nothing, or makes any effort at all, on trying to get the power rates down in this province. That reduces your disposable income.
You add all these things together and all of a sudden people are having severe difficulty in buying and paying for essentials such as food, shelter, electricity and all the other things a family needs. If you have children in a family, it may mean that your child cannot join organized sports and as we all know, as all members of this House know, if you get a child into organized sports they are less likely to be involved in other activities that you don’t want to see children involved in. It teaches them sportsmanship, it teaches them teamwork and all those important things. If that child is not given that opportunity because this government taxed them to death on everything else and the families can’t afford to pay for it, then what happens? Then we see the crime rate go up. All the things are interconnected.
As we go through this process and see what this government is doing to the people of this province under the better deal for today’s families, you wonder where this is all going to end up. I can tell you, there are going to be a lot of families bankrupt. There will be a lot of families that will lose their homes. I’ve already seen it in my area, going up for property taxes because people can’t afford to pay their property tax or insurance. I’ve had issues with people not being able to buy insurance on their properties and fires destroy their properties. They have nothing left, absolutely nothing left. At least they had a home before that happened. If you are paying this all in taxes, you can’t afford to pay for your insurance, so where do people turn? Luckily in our community there are fundraisers but that never replaces all the things that have gone.
So as we see this government go on and pat themselves on the back for the wonderful job they’re doing for today’s families, it makes you wonder how they can ever possibly conceive that they’re doing a better job for people in this province. They’re not, they’re absolutely not.
When you see someone come in almost in tears, talking to you, who has worked their whole life, and saying I cannot make it anymore. I am considering bankruptcy. What do you tell someone like that? What do you tell them? How do you help them? I wish that these members over here who are setting all these things in place and all the members sitting in the back who aren’t allowed to say anything, all the ministers who aren’t allowed to answer questions because the Finance Minister and the Premier answer them for them – ask them, what do you tell these people?
I can tell you one thing, they’re very upset with this government. They realize – they’re starting to realize I should say – why that dollar they had two years ago that could buy a dollar’s worth of goods and today it is worth nowhere near a dollar. Think about that. How do you expect people to survive? How do you expect people to do things they should? It just makes you wonder.
You know you look at the Yarmouth ferry which has devastated that end of the province and they said, well, it only hurt Yarmouth and the area. Well I can tell you it is hurting my area, too, because tourism numbers are down because a lot of people used to take the ferry from New England to Nova Scotia and stay here in Nova Scotia and spend money here. Those are real dollars into the community, not just money back into government and re-circulated. That doesn’t help our economy at all. Those services are important, very important, but it does not help our economy, it does not make our economy grow, it doesn’t put businesses in place.
Now they’re talking about more legislation that’s going to make it almost impossible for Nova Scotian businesses to operate. Well, I can tell you that those businesses are upset, very, very upset, and indeed over time I think that they will make their voice very clear as time moves forward. It’s unfortunate that that has to be the case. This is a wonderful place to live; it’s a wonderful place, and it has wonderful people, hard-working people in Nova Scotia, but people will only take so much.
When you talk to people who are retired, talk to people who have retired, ask them, if they move to Ontario, how much less tax they would pay, I can tell you they’re looking at it. I have several friends who have moved to Ontario after they retired and, you know, they save a substantial amount on income tax, and they save a substantial amount on other taxes. So why would the people with a disposable income stay in Nova Scotia?
It’s important that the people who retire stay here because they will get the local carpenter to come to fix their home; they’ll get a gardener or someone to maintain their lawn; they’ll do all kinds of things to spend money here – but if they go the money goes with them. And when the money goes, the gentleman who was mowing lawns for the summer may not have enough work next summer and he’ll be in trouble and his family will be in trouble because he won’t be able to look after his family.
So this has a chain reaction through the whole system and it takes quite awhile for that chain reaction to sort of work its way through, but it’s well in progress now and you talk to any family today and ask them how they’re doing financially and every one of them will tell you, every one of them, it’s more difficult today than it was two years ago when this government took office.
I almost forgot about the pothole sign that this government puts up, you know, congratulating them on every pothole they’ve fixed – they put a four-by-eight sign up, it must cost, I don’t know, $2,000 or $3,000 to set these signs up, to fix a couple potholes – and there’s the Premier’s name and the name of the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal on it. That’s pretty neat, you know – political campaigning and the taxpayers are paying for it. Well, let’s put the money into fixing the roads – the minister will say we put in more money than anyone else, and that’s fine – why don’t you put this money into it as well.
As this goes on and we see this kind of regressive bill like Bill No. 120, it makes me wonder what the real intention of this is because this government always seems to have a hidden agenda somewhere hiding there in the background. Is it to eliminate the u-brews at home? Maybe it is. That would be interesting. Maybe if you have more than one carboy at home brewing some wine, maybe it’s interpreted that you’re maybe going to sell that, and then they’ll come in and charge you that you might sell it – I don’t know anyone who brews wine that ever sells it. It’s just inconceivable, but that could happen.
They could come and say, look, you’ve got two jugs here, that you’re brewing wine, we’re going to charge you with that because you might be going to sell that down the road sometime – you might sell a bottle, we’re going to charge you – then you’ve got a big battle on your hands to go forward. That could happen. I would hope that the liquor inspectors would have more common sense than that, and I’m sure they do, but it’s possible by this law that could happen. It could happen.
You can’t say what’s going to happen. There could be a big crisis somewhere and somebody will be all upset, well, you know, we didn’t mean to do that, it wasn’t really what we meant but indeed it’s in the Act. So it makes you wonder why they would put this seemingly, you know, innocuous amendment to the Liquor Control Act. Well, as we go through and see all the things that this government has done, there must be some kind of reason why they’ve decided to go with this bill and change it.
The bill says in Section 107A(1): “In the event of an anticipated or continuing violation” – an anticipated, anticipated. I’m no lawyer, but anticipated to me usually means that somebody might have in their mind that they might be going to do something or someone might have perception that someone’s going to do something, and maybe that’s anticipated. I would be interested in seeing what the minister says about “anticipated” when he gets up to close the remarks on this – but it just shows how far off some of this legislation is.
It is unfortunate that Nova Scotians have to put up with this, very unfortunate. It is unfortunate that the government doesn’t care about families and the small pleasures that families get in different ways in this province. By the time they are done all the taxation they’ve put on – and I did forget about this alcohol increase and I will remind the government about that again, the taxes on that when they were elected early on. But, again, the Premier says we didn’t increase any taxes – well anyway, the people of Nova Scotia will judge that in the next few years and realize that they don’t have as much money to spend on the essentials of life.
Mr. Speaker, I would talk about this for a very long time, but I’m so discouraged in Nova Scotia and so discouraged to see where Nova Scotia is going, where job prospects in this province are going, all the jobs that are being lost, more to come I’m sure, more to come, which is not good – how are we going to survive here and make a really good place for our children to stay and work and grow our economy?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER « » : If I recognize the minister it will be to close debate.
The honourable Minister of Finance.
HON. GRAHAM STEELE « » : Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I did want to note one thing before I close. The member for Halifax Clayton Park started her discourse by saying the Liquor Corporation is just a retailer. I did want to remind the House that since its creation 80 years ago, the Liquor Corporation, or its predecessor the Liquor Commission, has had a substantial regulatory function. The retail operation is the part of the Liquor Corporation with which the general public is most familiar, but it is not in any way the only thing that the Liquor Corporation does.
Just for the information of the House, if I could read or refer to a few sections of the Liquor Control Act enumerating the duties of the Liquor Corporation. It does say in Section 12, Mr. Speaker, “. . . the duty of the Corporation . . . to (b) control the possession, sale, transportation and delivery of liquor in accordance with this Act and the regulations;” Another example, (j) “appoint officials to issue and grant licenses and permits under this Act.” Another example, (l) “control and supervise the advertising, promotion and marketing methods and procedures of manufacturers, distributors, agents and their representatives;” and so on, and so on. The Liquor Corporation has always had, and still has, a substantial regulatory role.
I would also like to remind the House that the bill that is before the House is a procedural measure, it is not a substantive change in the law. In other words, Mr. Speaker, anything that was legal before this bill is passed, is still legal. Anything that was illegal before this bill is passed, will still be illegal. This bill does not change anything from one category to another, it simply provides the regulatory authority in Nova Scotia with an additional tool to enforce the law in the public interest.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
MR. SPEAKER « » : The motion is for second reading of Bill No. 120. Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
Ordered that this bill be referred to the Committee on Law Amendments.
