Dear Constituents,

I hope that all is well with you and your family.  On the cover, I am pictured at my first spring event at Mississauga’s Maple Syrup Festival.  In this householder, I have written a brief article on the amazing Bradley House where the event was held.

This edition was prepared during the Spring Break so there are no details on the Federal Budget which will have been presented by the time you get this report.  Copies of the Budget documents are available in my office and I would like to hear your views on the proposals of the Government.

The Environment and how Canada will contribute to reducing greenhouse gases continues to be the top issue in Parliament.  I expect this discussion to continue for some time.  At the same time, we all have a role to play to curb climate change and therefore, I have included some suggestions for you and your family.

Two other important issues have also seized the attention of Parliament. They are the Health Care Wait Times Guarantee which was promised in the last election but not delivered and the decision to tax Income Trusts after it was promised that they would not be taxed.

Finally, I have written about poverty in Peel and Mississauga, particularly among seniors.  We can and should do better on alleviating poverty in all its forms.  I hope that you agree.

As always, I thank you for your constructive input and welcome your comments or questions on these or any other matters of importance to you and your family.

Sincerely,
Paul Szabo

Over the March Break, I had the opportunity to help out at Mississauga’s Maple Syrup Festival at the Bradley Museum.  There was horse-drawn wagon rides, pancakes, guided tours, kids’ crafts and fun.  They have been conducting maple-related school programs and public activities around the grounds of the 1830s farmhouse since 1983.

I did get a chance to serve pancakes with real maple syrup.  That syrup is made from the sap of maple trees which is about 98% water and only 2% sugar.  That means that you have to boil down about 40 buckets of sap to get one bucket of maple syrup. The darker the syrup, the stronger the taste.

The Bradley Museum consists of an Ontario Regency style cottage on the grounds of the museum.  Once the retirement home of Royal Navy officer John Skynner, the early 19th century home was moved from its original site on the shores of Lake Ontario to the Bradley Museum in the mid 1970s.  It now houses changing exhibits and a Sunday afternoon tea room.  A short walk across the grounds brings you to a small saltbox style farmhouse that was constructed in 1830 by Lewis and Elizabeth Bradley. This United Empire Loyalist couple and their seven children called this home. It has been restored to reveal the everyday life of early settlers in Ontario.

Mississauga museums are real gems to be discovered.  The February newsletter of the Canadian Heritage Information Network features the Museums of Mississauga who have over 2,000 artifacts on their database.  This work was done thanks to a Museums Assistance Program grant from the Department of Canadian Heritage of the Government of Canada.  For more information about our museums, call (905) 615-4860 or visit their web site at www.museumsofmississauaga.com

The discussion of approaches to address global warming is wide-ranging and complex but there is one fact that is accepted by all authorities – human activity is the cause.  Large emitters of green house gases like oil producers and refiners, hydro generators and manufacturers will be required to make major changes in the way they operate.  Individuals also have a role to play.  Here are a few suggestions on how we can reduce global warming:

• Keep your car in good condition. Get your engine tuned up regularly, change the oil, and keep your tires inflated properly -- proper maintenance can increase your car's fuel efficiency by 10 percent and reduce emissions.
• Carpool and generally cut down on driving.  Cutting your driving by just five kms each day would contribute to keeping tons of carbon dioxide from entering the air.
• Leave the car at home. Get in the habit of riding buses or trains as often as you can and ride a bike or walk whenever possible.
• Next time, purchase a more fuel-efficient, less polluting car.
• When buying new appliances or electronics, shop for the highest energy-efficiency rating.
• Switch to compact fluorescent bulbs which will keep half a ton of carbon dioxide out of the air over its lifetime.  They also last ten times as long and can save as much as $30 per year in electricity costs.  They use 57% less energy.
• Move your thermostat down 1° to 2° in winter and up 1° to 2° in summer will save about 900kg of CO2 a year. Don’t forget to change filters on the furnace and air conditioners.
• Turn off lights and other electrical appliances such as televisions and radios when you're not using them.
• Use appliances more efficiently.  Resist the urge to open the oven door to peek, as each opening can reduce the oven temperature 25%. Preheat only as much as needed, and avoid placing foil on racks - food won't cook as quickly. Your second biggest household energy user after the fridge is the clothes dryer. Clear the lint filter after each load, and dry only full loads. 
• Weatherize your home. Drafty homes and apartments allow energy dollars to leak away. Seal and caulk around windows and doors. Make sure your home has adequate insulation.
• The cheapest and most energy-efficient light and heat source is often right outside your window. On bright days, open blinds, drapes, and shutters to let the sun light your home for free.
•  Recycling saves resources, decreases the use of toxic chemicals, cuts energy use, helps curb global warming, stems the flow of water and air pollution, and reduces the need for landfills and incinerators.
• Buy recycled products. Look on the label for the products or packaging with the greatest percentage of post-consumer recycled content, which ensures that the materials have been used before.
• Composting reduces the burden on overcrowded landfills and gives you a great natural fertilizer for plants and gardens.
• Buy products with less packaging. A large percentage of the paper, cardboard, and plastic we use goes into unneeded packaging -- much of it wasteful and unnecessary.
• Use durable goods. Bring your own cloth bags to local grocery stores and farmer's markets. Replace plastic and paper cups with ceramic mugs and disposable razors with reusable ones. Refuse unneeded plastic utensils, napkins, and straws when you buy takeout foods. Use a cloth dishrag instead of paper towels at home, and reusable food containers instead of aluminum foil and plastic wrap.
• Leave grass clippings on the lawn which make good fertilizer when they decompose. Leaving them on your lawn keeps them from occupying the limited space available in landfills.
• Install a low-flow showerhead. Showers account for 32 percent of home water use.
• Install an ultra-low-flush toilet. About 40 percent of the water you use in your home gets flushed down the toilet. You can make an old toilet move efficient by putting a brick or plastic milk jug filled with water or pebbles in the toilet tank.
• Fix those leaking and dripping faucets which can waste dozens of litres of water per day.
• Get an energy audit of your home to identify the most significant improvements you can do to make your home energy efficient.

Recently, I was approached by a constituent who needed cancer surgery but who had been waiting for several weeks.  They wanted to know what ever happened to the Wait Times Guarantee that was promised in the last election.  The following is some background.

In 2004, the former Government negotiated a $42 billion, 10-year Health Accord with the provinces.  This included a requirement to establish benchmarks for waiting times for the following priority areas: knee and hip replacements, cataract surgery, heart surgery, cancer surgery and diagnostic MRIs and CT scans.  In 2005/06, 42,000 additional surgeries were performed in these high priority areas but still fell below the growing demand.  Other types of surgeries remained at the same level as the prior year.

In 2005, the Supreme Court warned the Government of Canada that they must either reduce wait times or allow people to purchase care privately.  This would cause even more problems since more specialists would opt out of the public system to provide private care for those who could afford it, which would lengthen the wait time for others.  More resources and doctors for our health care system should therefore remain an important priority for Canada.

In the last election, the current government promised a surgery wait time guarantee as one of its 5 priorities.  As described, if you could not get the surgery you needed within the establish benchmark of time, you would be transferred to another hospital out of Province or out of country with an accompanying family member.  The costs were to be paid by the Government.  If the costs were to be paid by the hospital, they may be pressured to take resources away from other non-priority areas.  Similarly, if the costs were to be paid by the Provinces, they might reduce hospital funding.  No matter how you looked at it, the Federal Government would have to invest more money to fulfil its promise.
Since hospital surgery and diagnostics are the jurisdiction of the Provinces, there were questions about how this would work.  During Question Period in Parliament, the current Health Minister initially said that the cost of the guarantee was included in the 2004 Health Accord.  It didn’t take long for the Provinces to tell the Minister that there were never any discussions of a guarantee nor was it mentioned in the Accord documentation.  This was the first hint that the promised guarantee was in jeopardy.

Soon after, the Health Minister changed his story and decided to push Provinces to meet the established bench marks for wait times.  This would mean no one would have to go out of Province and therefore the promised guarantee would be met because it wasn’t needed.  In fact, this just shifts the burden to the Provinces which would effectively cancel the promised guarantee.

The Minister suggested that there could be new money for technology for health care data records, patient records, electronic registries and diagnostic tools which help manage wait times.  However, in February 2007, the Minister met with the Provincial Health Ministers at a wait-times conference.  He confirmed there were no negotiations and that money was not on the agenda.

The Provincial Ministers were unanimous that more money must be part of the solution.  The current government response was to move forward with pilot projects such as prenatal care in Aboriginal communities.  This further annoyed the Provinces who said they were never consulted on these projects and that the money for them was coming from the Health Accord funds which was committed to wait times reduction rather than the guarantee.  Notwithstanding, a survey by the Canadian Medical Association found that doctors believed that the Federal Government strategies to reduce health-care wait times was not working.  In addition, the Canadian Institutes for Health Information confirmed that wait times have increased in non-priority areas.
In February 2007, the Health Minister finally admitted that the wait times guarantee will not be delivered before the next election.  He was quick to add that there was no date set for delivery of his campaign promise.  He also suggested that climate change priorities are competing with health care for Federal funding.  This is concerning because these are the top two priorities of Canadians.  What other plans of the government could be more important?

The latest data on the priority surgeries shows that demand for hip replacements is up 12%, knee replacement up 20%, cataract surgery up 10% and modest growth in cancer and heart surgery.  In short, we need to invest more resources in our Health Care system.

This conclusion is supported by the Canadian Cancer Society who recently released data for 2006 as follows:

In Canada:

• 153,000 Canadians were diagnosed with cancer which is 4,000 more than in 2005.
• 70,400 Canadians died from cancer which is 900 more than in 2005.

In Ontario:

• 57,200 people in Ontario were diagnosed with cancer or about 157 per day.
• 25,900 people in Ontario died from cancer or 71 people per day.

In our riding of Mississauga South:

• 514 residents were diagnosed with cancer.
• 233 residents died of cancer.
• Over the lifetime of the 113,000 people in Mississauga South, it is estimated that 29,561 residents will die from cancer and 45,735 residents will be diagnosed with cancer.

For more information call 1-888-939-3333 or visit www.cancer.ca

On October 31, 2006, the Government announced a 31.5% tax on most Income Trusts starting in 2011.  This lead to the drop in the value of these investments by about $25 billion in just 2 days.  What is worse is that most of the investors were seniors or those nearing retirement.

In 2005, finance officials held consultations about their concerns that the taxation of income from income trusts was much lower than the taxes paid by corporations and investors receiving their dividends.  The decision was made to increase the dividend tax credit to narrow the estimated tax leakage.

In the last election, the Conservative Party explicitly promised that they would not tax income trusts but they broke that promise with their announcement that devastated so many seniors.

The Finance Committee of Parliament called for public hearings in January and February in which I participated. At the hearings, Finance officials refused to provide full details of their analysis of the tax leakage and expert witnesses revealed a number of errors in the Government’s methodology of calculating the taxation impact.

The Government and the NDP continue to fully support the 31.5% tax and the Bloc Quebecois gave conditional support.  The Liberal proposal was to reduce the tax to 10% and make it applicable only to foreign investors.  According to expert opinion, this approach would effectively eliminate the modest tax leakage and recover about two-thirds of the loses incurred by devastated investors.

The Finance Committee Report #14 is available from my office or can be viewed on the web at www.parl.gc.ca.  In my view, the Government has made an unnecessarily damaging decision and I would appreciate hearing your views on this serious controversy.

In 1999, I authored a book entitled “The Child Poverty Solution” in support of my Parliamentary initiatives to address poverty in Canada.  Child poverty is really family poverty and its causes are both social and economic.  The solutions must also be balanced between helping those who are poor as well as preventing the incidence of poverty.

Recently, I discussed poverty and affordable housing issues with a representative of the “905 Multi Faith Community Leaders-Peel”.  This organization has a two fold purpose: first on addressing social justice concerns in the region, and second building relational bridges between the different faith communities.

Over the past 10 years the 905 Multi Faith group focus has been on regional social concerns such as poverty (e.g. Campaign 2000 –Child Poverty, and Make Poverty History), homelessness and has been an advocate for affordable housing, including appropriate and affordable rental and ownership housing options. The following are some of the alarming statistics on the Region of Peel regarding poverty and homelessness:

• In 2004, almost 10,300 admissions, including almost 2,300 children, were made to homeless and emergency shelters across Peel.
• Peel’s waiting list for social housing has grown to about 14,101 households in 2006 from 5,000 households in 1995.
• Wait times have climbed from 3-5 years to an average of eight years in the same time period. Some families are currently waiting up to 12 years for an available unit depending on the number of bedrooms required.
• About half of social housing applicants surveyed in 2003 were paying 50% or more of their income on housing; a rent level equivalent to 30% or less of household income is considered to be ‘affordable’.
• There are approximately 115,000 people (10% of the region’s population) living below the poverty line, a number which is equivalent to the population of the City of Barrie.

 
According to the 2001 census data, more residents living in the region are doing better financially than what was reported in the 1996 data. However, a closer look at the data reveals a growing gap between those residents who are doing well and those who are not. Most vulnerable to experiencing poverty are recently arrived immigrant families, single parents (especially mothers) and singles (especially youth), victims of family violence, individuals with mental health issues and seniors (mostly unattached women).

The following are some revealing statistics regarding the older adult population in our region:

• By 2031, the forecasted number of older adults, 55 plus, will nearly triple to make up almost 30% (443,000 older adults) of Peel’s total projected population of 1.5 million people.
• Of the 14,101 households on the waiting list, 2,164 are seniors. This number is comparatively higher than other region’s numbers such as Halton at 365 and Durham at 852.
• Expected waitlist timelines range from 3-7 years.
• Peel seniors (especially 75 years and older group) have a lower average income than all seniors in Ontario and Canada; For example, the median income for seniors in Peel is $17,900, compared with York $19,000, Durham $21,400, Halton $24,900.

In Mississauga, there is a similar trend when compared to the rest of the region. There is an increased incidence of low income status from age 55 through to 75 and over, and as well, there is a higher incidence of poverty in the elderly unattached female category. According to the census data, Mississauga South has a higher density of older adults than most other communities in the Region.  As well there is a similar trend of low income status with elderly women.

Seniors represent the most vulnerable in our society because they have the least opportunities to change their income situation.  I fully support the efforts of the 905 Multi Faith Community Leaders-Peel in advocating for sound strategies to reduce poverty.

If you would like to receive more information on this matter, please contact my office at (905) 822-2111.

Each week, I receive dozens of letters and often they include suggestions for inclusion in my householder.  While I do not have room to publish everything, a couple of letters caught my interest.

One constituent wrote to say that politicians use too many words that people just don’t understand.  Oddly enough, another wrote me to suggest that the English language was often too confusing and provided the following examples:

• The bandage was wound around the wound.
• The farm was used to produce produce.
• The dump had to refuse refuse.
• You can lead if you get the lead out.
• Insurance was invalid for the invalid.
• I was too close to the door to close it.
• I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my jacket.
• Same challenge with the words present, bass, object, row, sewer, wind and subject. The language of politics is indeed a little confusing so I will be a little more careful in choosing my words.

Another constituent wrote about politicians casually talking about billions of dollars as if it were small.  He suggested that I consider:

• A billion seconds ago was 1959.
• A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive.
• A billion hours ago was the Stone Age.
• A billion days ago, no-one on earth walked on two feet.
• A billion dollars ago was 8 hours and 20 minutes ago based on the rate of spending of the Government.
• On October 31, 2006, the Conservative Government wiped out $30 billion of the savings (mostly of seniors) when it broke its election promise and decided to tax Income Trusts.

The Government doesn’t have any money of its own.  It has the responsibility to properly manage the money collected from taxpayers.  The Budget for this year is $211,690,351,000.
The last constituent wrote to question why politicians talk so much.  This person has watched the debates in Parliament and questioned why Members of Parliament needed to speak for 20 minutes each often repeating each other and often having very little to offer.

Canada’s Parliament has Standing Orders which are rules of procedure.  These provide that any member wishing to speak will be heard on a Government Bill.  The first speaker of each party gets up to 40 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions.  For the next five hours of debate, each speaker is limited to 20 minutes plus 10 minutes of questions and all speeches after that are limited to 10 minutes plus 5 minutes of questions.

The constituent is however correct in his assessment.  There is too much repetition and the art of public speaking is losing ground.  In the British Parliament, their rules limit speakers to 4 per party which encourage speakers to focus on the principal issues.  Bills get voted on much quicker but very few MPs get opportunities to speak.  The reality is that not everybody speaks on every Bill and MPs know that their reputation is on the line every time they speak in public.  The media follows everything and from time to time they catch someone in a mistake or exaggeration.  Speaker beware!

Recently I received an article which suggested the following gems:

• There are two kinds of cleverness and both are priceless.  One consists of thinking of a bright remark in time to say it.  The other consists of thinking of it in time not to say it.
• To make a speech immortal, it doesn’t have to be everlasting.
• The human brain is a wonderful thing.  It starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.
• Smart people speak from experience.  Smarter people, from experience, don’t speak.
• Best formula for making a good speech – have a good beginning and a good ending and keep them as close together as possible.

 

PAUL SZABO, C.A., M.P.

OTTAWA OFFICE Room 175 Confederation Building House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Tel: 613-992-4848 Fax: 613-996-3267 Email: szabop@parl.gc.ca

MISSISSAUGA OFFICE 1684 Lakeshore Road West Unit 20 Mississauga, Ontario L5J 1J5 Tel: 905-822-2111 Fax: 905-822-2115 Email: szabop1@parl.gc.ca

Visit us on the Internet: www.paulszabo.com


Mississauga Office Hours: Monday to Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Appointments can be scheduled during office hours or other arrangements can be made by calling the office.

Constituents may write to any Member of Parliament or Cabinet Minister postage free. Simply address your envelope to the particular Member, c/o House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6. Your views and suggestions are important.

VISITING OTTAWA Any groups or individuals planning to visit Ottawa who wish to attend Question Period or have a tour of the House of Commons may contact my office. We will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements. As well, if you are interested in obtaining information regarding parliamentary debates, the House of Commons, the Senate, student information kits, federal government departments, or Ottawa tourism, please call my office.

 

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