Bill No. 123 - Sales Tax Act. - Second Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on Bill No. 123 which, I believe, has been kicking around in some form or other in this Chamber for over a decade, and I appreciate the comments of my colleagues on both sides of the House.

I guess I want to take a moment first to address the question put to me by the minister just now, which is that our bill is universal, it's not income-tested. That's the theme of our legislation. We believe that, in general, there are some basic and compassionate services that should apply across the board. Although we sometimes disagree on taxes in different ways in this Chamber, in this case I think we would say that we ought to all agree we don't have to tax people in the grave. That's really what this does.

I want to talk for a moment about the fact that at least in Dartmouth South - and I imagine this is true for the member for Glace Bay, the member for Hammonds Plains-Lucasville - I have some poor seniors in my constituency. We all do, all across Nova Scotia and it's a huge issue. We have demographic challenges in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotians are getting older and many of those Nova Scotians have significantly limited incomes.

Recently, we have been hearing in our office that Nova Scotians who are on ESIA at age 60 are being forced to apply early for CPP - that is a policy in the Department of Community Services. The upshot of that policy is that they receive about 36 per cent less of their CPP benefit for the rest of their life. Relying on CPP alone is already an extraordinary difficult thing to do - probably something none of us in this Chamber will ever have to do, but which many, many other Nova Scotians do. Even that is sometimes being compromised.

Not only that, I think across the board all of us at various stages think about what will happen when we retire, when we're not earning income. I don't think anyone wants to be a burden on their children and so I think we want to make sure that people can age and die with dignity, and part of that is not having concerns and stresses. This is what we hear from seniors, I hear this in my office and I suspect my colleagues do all of the time. Just a deep amount of stress - stress about income, about housing. It's a stressful time for all of us but particularly if you live in Nova Scotia and you are retired and you're older and you have a fixed income. This is a real issue: What's going to happen when I die and who's going to pay for it?

We can't solve that issue in its entirety today, but - and I'm going to paraphrase because I don't have the tabling document - Darrell Dexter once said something to the effect of, it's not a very compassionate tax when you're taxing people to the grave. The reality is, we're taxed our whole lives and I think we in the NDP are happier than most to be taxed our whole lives. We believe in taxes because they pay for social services, they pay for education, they pay for community services, they pay for many of the things that make this a good place to live. We all think many of those things need improvements, but that's how we pay for them. We pay for them out of government revenues, but when are those taxes appropriately applied and those revenues appropriately collected?

As I said, this legislation has been kicking around for over a decade. I think it's something that could easily have all-Party support in this House. It was proposed by the Liberal Party. None of us passed it when we had the opportunity, so we're all equally culpable. Some of us may have talked about it more than others. This is Opposition Day, and as such we don't have the opportunity to call legislation for a vote, but hearing the thoughtful comments of my colleagues on the government side, I would request that the minister and Executive Council really take the time and look at this and think about bringing it back and moving it quickly. It will have all-Party support I believe - I can only speak for our Party.

It's a relatively simple change. We removed the tax on home heating oil. It's not the same circumstance, but it's not totally different. Here in Nova Scotia we are hard-pressed to get through a winter without heating our homes, so we decided that that was a basic thing that all Nova Scotians needed, and that tax should not be applied. Similarly, I can guarantee you that none of us will manage to escape death - not possible. Therefore, it doesn't make sense for it to be taxed. It just doesn't. It's not kind. It's not compassionate. It's not in keeping with the way that I think we all aspire to take care of people in life.

We know that, in general, estates can end up with all kinds of fees. I have a constituent who has a $10,000 fee because they were the recipient of a grant from DCS for a lift in her mother's home. The mother died, but if the mother dies within six months, that grant has to be repaid. It's a glitch, it's a gap in a policy, but these things happen all the time. Estates are saddled with all kinds of strange bills. I think that whatever we can do to ameliorate that kind of awful bureaucratic nonsense that can be financially punishing for families in the wake of the death of a loved one, we should all endeavour to do it.

The minister spoke eloquently of his own experience in his first year in this Chamber. I know there are other members who have experienced the loss of a parent in this Legislative session. It's not so far from all of us. We'll go through it, but we will be lucky enough, probably, to not really have to worry about paying a funeral bill. We are not in the majority on that. It's a heavy burden, and it's something that everyone will have to face. I think it would really show some leadership and mostly just some compassion for the members of this House collectively to decide that we're going to lift a small part of that burden.

That concludes my remarks. That also concludes Opposition business today, so I will turn it over to the Government House Leader to call hours for tomorrow.