Bill C-48 (Historical)

An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments

This enactment authorizes the Minister of Finance to make certain payments out of the annual surplus in excess of $2 billion in respect of the fiscal years 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 for the purposes and in the aggregate amount specified. This enactment also provides that, for its purposes, the Governor in Council may authorize a minister to undertake a specified measure.

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Bill Casey, Conservative, North Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly pleased to speak to Bill C-48. Since the last speaker quoted from the Globe and Mail , I think it is only fair that I quote from the National Post .

One headline reads “Spending spree continues”, and another reads, “Ottawa doling out $1.24 billion per day”. It states:

The money being doled out works out to $1.24-billion a day, including $5.75-billion the Liberals gave to Ontario.... Other provinces are now salivating over the prospects of inking their own version of the Ontario deal....

It is hard to fathom what is going on and how fast the Liberals are spending money. I love the name of the bill. Bill C-48 is an act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments. I do not know how it can be restricted to certain because it is almost any payment. They will do anything right now to buy votes. The National Post has it up to 122 different grants and programs, totalling $22 billion in three weeks to buy votes.

I want to point out to citizens that Bill C-48 is an act to put the deal on paper that the NDP made with the Liberals. The projected cost is $4.6 billion, that is $4.6 thousand million so the Liberals can buy a few months and get through the vote on the budget. The NDP votes are now worth $240 million each to get the Liberals through the budget. If that is good management, common sense and good administration I will eat my shirt.

I can just imagine how the bureaucrats in the Department of Finance must be operating. They must have whiplash. No, we do not have tax cuts. Yes, we have tax cuts. No, we do not have tax cuts. How do they keep up with what is going on? We are spending $1 billion here and $100 million there and $22 billion here. I do not know how the people in the Department of Finance can operate. It must be incredible.

The one thing for sure is that if the Liberals can open a drawer and find $4.6 billion to pay for the 19 votes that the NDP gave them, there is too much money in the drawer. That is simple evidence that we are being overtaxed. If they can, with the snap of a finger, find $4.6 billion, something is wrong with the system. The something wrong is that we are overtaxed.

We as members of Parliament have to fight for infrastructure in our ridings to save our institutions, like the Nappan experimental farm which has been in Nappan, Nova Scotia since before Confederation. At a time when farmers need all the help they can get in research and development, new products, training, all kinds of things, the government announces in the budget that it is going to close the Nappan experimental farm. It has unique soils, terrains and products. Now it is talking about closing the Nappan experimental farm because it does not have the money but then it turns around and pays $4.6 billion to buy the 19 votes of the NDP. It is absolutely incredible and makes our job of convincing people more difficult.

Even a little thing like a light bulb in a lighthouse in Wallace Harbour, a lighthouse that saves lives, we had to fight to get the light bulb changed in the lighthouse of all things. However when the Liberals need the 19 NDP votes they do not seem to have a problem finding $4.6 billion in the drawer. When we needed a few thousand dollars for a light bulb for a lighthouse to save lives, it was not available. We had to fight to get it and we did get it, I am very pleased to say.

The Atlantic accord is another issue that should be dealt with. The Atlantic accord is a very important deal for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The government will not pull it out of Bill C-43 and make it a separate deal. It will do it for tax cuts but not for Atlantic Canada. It is holding Atlantic Canada hostage because it wants to force all kinds of things down the throats of Atlantic Canadians to force them to agree to these things and only then will it agree to the Atlantic accord.

Last year's budget implementation act is going through the Senate today, a year late. I believe it was tabled on March 23, 2004, and it is only going through the Senate today.

This is the same bill where the Atlantic accord is stuck now. It is on pages 57 and 58 of Bill C-43 instead of being a stand alone bill that we could pass in the House to allow Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador to move forward. We cannot do that because the Liberals want to hold us hostage and make sure they ram all these other things through without us even considering them.

We cannot do that. It is our job to hold the government accountable. It is our job to ask questions about all these other things, like the foundations that are funded under this program, student loans, employment insurance, income tax. However the government says that we are not allowed to ask questions on those issues. It says that we should just close our eyes, grit our teeth and say yes to the budget so we can have the Atlantic accord. It is not fair and we cannot do it.

The cost of the election is something that comes up from the Liberal side. The Liberals say that they cannot afford an election. They say that it might cost $230 million to $250 million to run an election. With each NDP vote costing $240 million, I do not see how they can say $230 million is too much to charge for an election. Two hundred and thirty million dollars for an election is a lot of money but every NDP vote that they bought cost $240 million, which is more than a whole federal election.

If we are a little upset about Bill C-48, those are some of the reasons.

I wish that the Liberals would bring in the things that we have asked for, and specifically on the Atlantic accord, to pull it out of the bill. The Minister of Finance says that we cannot cherry-pick Bill C-43, that we cannot pull out what we want. However they can pull it out if they need to. They can pull the tax cuts out to satisfy the NDP and then create a whole independent stand alone bill, which is exactly what we have been asking them to do for the Atlantic accord. They can do it for themselves and the NDP but they will not do it for Atlantic Canada.

I hope they will reconsider that and pull the Atlantic accord out of Bill C-43, make it a stand alone bill and we commit to passing it in one day.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would relish the opportunity to clarify with respect to some of the remarks that he has made.

He made the comment that the leader of the Conservative Party said that he was supportive of the budget. We did not vote for the budget. The NDP voted against it.

I think we should make the point here that if the budget is as good as the member says it is, then why does it now require changing? Why does it require an additional commitment of over $22 billion by the government in addition to the budget commitments made earlier? The government is laying out additional spending every single day. It is not interested in running on the budget.

For the member's edification, I will read from an article. I have many to choose from but I will start with an article in today's Globe and Mail entitled “Liberal Spending Blitz”. Toronto-Dominion Bank chief economist Don Drummond said:

Because we've had almost as many spending announcements since the budget [as] were...in the budget, it would seem to be almost incumbent on the government to produce an update where we are fiscally.

The government is not interested in running on the budget. It is interested in spending enough money so it can be popular with every basic category of special interest group it can find in the country.

This is a one and a half page bill. The member asked how we can be opposed to spending money in each of these broad categories. We are not. We are opposed to spending money willy-nilly without a plan. A one and a half page document, such as Bill C-48 is, outlines no constructive use for the money. It simply allows for a slush fund for cabinet to dip into. In a variety of scenarios they may or may not spend money under various headings. There is nothing in the bill about a plan to use this money intelligently.

What Canadians want is for the government to operate transparently and with some sense of accountability. That has not been evident with the government for a long time.

[Joe Fontana, Liberal, Minister of Labour and Housing]

Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate the member's philosophical difference as to how Conservatives may differ from the government's position with regard to the budget. However, I think he will want to be factual. This is the eighth consecutive surplus budget that the government and the Prime Minister as finance minister and now Prime Minister have put forward. Three minutes after we presented the budget, the member's leader supported it. He said that it was a good budget, as did his finance critic.

What has changed since then other than the fact that perhaps the Conservative Party caucus sees a political opportunity because of what is going on in another place on TV. Perhaps all of a sudden it thinks and feels that the budget is no longer important to the people of the country, but the commission report is. That is why the conservatives have changed their tune and their support for the budget.

In actual fact, Bill C-48 and the new arrangements that have been put in place with the NDP relate very much to the spending that Canadians support, and they have already spoken on the issue, and that is $1.6 billion in housing. It was in our five year principal framework. We have managed to move it ahead.

There is an additional $1 billion for the environment. Is the Conservative Party now saying that it does not support the housing, or the environment, or post-secondary education or additional aid to foreign governments? What has changed other than within the five year framework there will continue to be a surplus. We are paying down debt. We have reduced taxes. Of the billions that the member is talking about spending, I want to clarify that we cannot spend money that we do not have appropriated through the House. These are existing programs that have been in place since the last budget. Therefore, we are spending money on housing. The money we are spending was in the last budget, which was approved by the House.

I am sure the member would want to clarify the record and not suggest that we are trying to buy votes again. We have a mandate that was given to us by Canadians last June to govern and that is what we are precisely doing: child care, cities and communities, housing, the environment and seniors supplements. Maybe he would want to clarify that for Canadians.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my comments on this spending blitz bill, I want to make reference to a very important and historic accomplishment this past weekend.

Those members of the House who are familiar with the sport of basketball will have noted a Canadian, Steve Nash, received the award of the most valuable player in the National Basketball Association. It should be acknowledged in this place the tremendous dedication that Mr. Nash has shown, not only to his sport but to his country, his humble and hard-working approach to the game of basketball and his triumph over adversity that typifies the Canadian spirit.

I know every member of the House and every Canadian shares in the accomplishments of Mr. Nash. We look forward to watching his future success, not just of course in the NBA, but on the international stage as he leads Canada on to a medal in the next Olympic Games.

Now back to the debacle, which is Bill C-48. The bill stands in sharp contrast frankly to Mr. Nash, who has never tried to take credit for something he has not done. The bill is indicative of the government's haphazard approach to money management. It is a departure from what could have been a legacy for the Prime Minister.

The Liberal Party keeps promoting the Prime Minister as a man with fiscal prudence in his heart. What the bill indicates is more desperation than fiscal prudence. This unholy alliance between socialism and corruption is a subset of the government's spending spree.

In the last three weeks alone the Liberals have committed to spending over $1.24 billion of new money per day by my calculation. It is not their money to spend. This is Canadian taxpayer money. It shows a complete back to the future approach to money management. It is a complete departure from the spending approach to which the Prime Minister claims he adheres.

Frankly, I think it is eating the Prime Minister's legacy alive. It is showing the desperation the government has in its heart and it is showing to what it will sink. In an effort to buy support to divert attention away from a vote buying scandal, the Liberals are engaging in another vote buying scandal. This disrespects not only the intelligence of the Canadian people, but it disrespects the fiscal responsibilities that the government should be demonstrating.

There is an old adage that says it is better to do what is right, not what is easy. It is very easy for a government to commit to spending more money in the hopes of buying popularity at the polls, but that is not what is right.

What we need here is an approach that demonstrates clear thinking and better planning. The New Democratic Party joined with the Conservative Party in supporting an initiative that our finance critic, the member for Medicine Hat, promoted and we supported. We thought the New Democratic Party supported it as well.

The initiative called upon the government to be more accurate in its fiscal forecasting. It also called upon the government to set up a mechanism whereby each of the other parties could bring in experts to evaluate the government's numbers, and produce what we call Parliament's numbers.

The New Democratic Party supported that initiative, basically on the assumption that it would help to get a better handle on the government's projected surpluses. Before the last election, we know the government projected a $1.9 billion surplus. Ultimately the reality was the surplus was $9.1 billion. Canadians were deprived of a debate about how that money should have been spent, or should have been applied to the debt or should been allocated to lower taxes.

The NDP appeared to be concerned about that accuracy or lack of accuracy in supporting our quest for Parliament to have more accurate numbers.

However, that quickly went by the wayside when the NDP had a chance to encourage the government to continue to spend money. The NDP members sold their souls for a few billion dollars of additional spending commitments by a government that has not kept its commitments. It has not kept its promises. It has a legacy of making promises and breaking promises. They showed how easy they were when they sold out for that.

The bill is one and a half pages of broad general statements about how the government will spend money, but there are no specifics to it.

What has that given us in the past? Commitments to spend more money on aboriginal housing. How did that help the people of Davis Inlet? There are no ideas coming forward about how to spend money more intelligently and how to money to effect better results. Simply put, the government is making the same mistakes that put us into the debt position we are in as a country today. Back to the future.

The Conservative Party offers a striking alternative to what the NDP and the Liberals offer. We want a plan and we developed a plan. The difference that we see between the coalition and the Conservative Party is that we are not interested in throwing money at problems and we are not interested in adhering to the false belief that it will somehow solve those problems. We understand it takes a plan. It takes a commitment. It takes belief that intelligent spending will move toward positive results.

The government on the other hand believes that if it engages in conspicuous spending, somehow that demonstrates that it cares. However, it demonstrates that it cares about itself more than any caring for the Canadian taxpayer and the Canadian people.

Liberals have abandoned their fiscal framework. The bill will not be supported by members of our caucus. It simply allows for a further slush fund to be established and used and abused, with no strings attached, by the cabinet of the Liberal government. That is vote buying of $1 billion a day. The Liberal government says that we should not support an election because it will cost one quarter of a billion dollars. That is one-fifth as much as the government is committing in additional spending every day.

Liberals make the case with their promises that there needs to be an election and that they need to be kicked out of office.

The Budget

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said that the Atlantic accord must be part of the total budgetary process and in fact that it must remain in the omnibus bill. Yet today we see Bill C-48 introduced as a separate two page piece of legislation.

If the government can introduce a stand-alone bill to legitimize the NDP buyout, why can he not introduce one for Atlantic Canadians who are losing millions of dollars every week because of government game playing?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the legislation makes very clear that the government is seeing access to funds in fiscal year 2005-06 and fiscal year 2006-07. The terms of that access are very clearly spelled out in Bill C-48, as well as the purposes of the money in terms of the broad categories.

It is now obviously up to the relevant government departments to develop the specific programs that will dedicate those funds to the purposes described in Bill C-48.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Too bad Gomery was not looking at Earnscliffe, Mr. Speaker.

We know the Prime Minister believes that post-secondary education, the environment and low incomes are all his number one priorities. He basically confirmed that earlier in question period. Yet his NDP deal, as reflected in Bill C-48, does not establish programs for any of those number one priorities. Funding if necessary, but not necessarily funding for his number one priorities.

Has the Prime Minister explained to the NDP that the money for all of his number one priorities will not flow until the fall of 2006, if it flows at all?

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Absolutely, that is fantasyland.

The member should talk to the Manitoba Child Care Association, which has been leading this fight for more than 10 years, and probably for 20 years, trying to get a non-profit, publicly administered, quality child care system from one end of this country to the other.

Finally, let me calm down a bit to say that this is an important issue, just as education, housing and support for environmental projects are important to Canadians. All of this will be lost unless members over there can get their heads around supporting Bill C-48, which is the mechanism for accessing some surplus dollars to meet the priority needs of Canadians, and Bill C-43, which provides money for child care on a very sensible, reasonable basis that is clearly in tune with Canadian families.

All of that will be lost if those members decide to keep obstructing the House in the interests of their political ambition and their search for power as they turn their backs on the Canadians they claim to represent.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening since this morning to the comments of my colleagues on both sides of the House, including members of the government, the Conservative Party and the NDP, in their questions and comments. I think that one aspect of Bill C-48 is not clear enough. Over the next few minutes, I want to shed more light on the debate so that people can understand what the current situation is.

This is not about being left-wing or right-wing, or about supporting or opposing a social measure. The Bloc Québécois members are social democrats to the core. Naturally, we support positions that lean more to the left than to the right. Overall, we use common sense and a moderate approach. At present, we are not talking about that at all.

We are talking about the fact that this is a minority government. To start, when it tabled its first budget, it did not receive the support of the House. The opposition had identified priorities that correspond to what the public we represent wants or would have wanted to see in the budget. These priorities, this consensus, were totally ignored in the budget tabled a few months ago.

The Bloc Québécois has been consistent from the start. This budget was unacceptable when it was tabled and it is still unacceptable today, even with these new measures. We cannot support a budget or an amendment to the budget, as presented in Bill C-48, when, fundamentally, we have remained consistent. We have said that this budget did not satisfy the top priorities of Quebeckers. Supporting this budget would mean betraying who we are.

As for Bill C-48 itself, we must consider the current context. We have a minority government that has not met the public's needs or listened to the opposition parties. It has acted like a majority government and has completely ignored the consensus of Quebeckers and even, in several instances, of Canadians.

Suddenly, it feels it is on the ropes. It is mired in corruption up to its neck. Everyday we learn something new from the Gomery commission, and it all adds up to the fact that a parallel group is not responsible for the corruption that occurred in connection with the sponsorship scandal, as the Minister of Transport said, but rather that this goes to the very core of the Liberal Party of Canada and even involves current ministerial aides.

The government is on the ropes. It can see power slipping away. So now it is throwing out commitments everywhere that it will not be able to keep, because it is going to be defeated this evening, with the motion of non-confidence the Conservatives have presented. So it is trying to play all sides at once.

There is one thing we need to keep in mind, however. Every time a government that is suspect, one formed by a party that is even more suspect, distributes such commitments—we are talking $1.2 billion a day for the past 18 days—this just makes it even more suspect. This government should already be in police custody. It has done enough damage to the taxpayers' money and to democracy, by investing billions of dollars uselessly in order to influence the results of the last referendum in 1995, and the 1997, 2000 and 2004 elections. Enough is enough. It should not spend, or commit to spend, one cent more. It has already done enough harm with the taxpayers' money.

Now we see the Prime Minister making commitments just about everywhere. Yet only a few weeks ago he had no leeway. When the budget was presented, let us not forget, we were told that the government would have liked to have looked after more of its priorities, but that its main priority was a balanced budget.

That is our priority too, but we are well aware that, when the first budget was presented in February, there was still considerable leeway available. The government could have looked after more priorities, such as correcting the fiscal imbalance. It could have changed the employment insurance program, as it has been asked to do for years. After two elections and commitments from the Liberal Party to improve EI, the improvements have never happened.

We knew that there was money and that the government was twisted enough to not act on the public's priorities but rather to keep some manoeuvring room secretly for itself, as it has done since 1997-98. We have a minority government continually mired in corruption, according to the ever more astounding revelations at the Gomery commission. You can check in the blues and in our public speeches. We knew there was manoeuvring room and the Prime Minister would use it when the going got tough, as it has in recent days.

There is a reason behind the $1.2 billion in commitments daily. It is not to better serve the public. A few weeks ago, he could have included it in the budget per se. He could have acted on people's priorities, served this country's most disadvantaged. He did not. Why not? Because he thought he could get out of it and because the Conservatives did not reject the budget. A few weeks later, the NDP joined in to ally officially with a government that is suspect, I repeat. When you are suspect, when you are being held for questioning, you have to stop spending. You no longer have the moral authority to make commitments of several billions of dollars, as the government has done for the past 18 days.

“Do not touch taxpayers' money”, is the message heard throughout our ridings. “Stop making commitments. You are being held for questioning, you are under suspicion.” Arguments are added daily to the public's warnings.

They talk of the sponsorships. But there is more than that. Since 1993, since this government has been in office, there have been all sorts of stories, such that we should not let it have another cent, because it is spending all over the map.

On the other side of the House, the Liberals have a tendency to forget certain events. We all remember on this side—although memories on the other side are rather faulty—the scandal over Human Resources Development Canada, for which the minister responsible at the time is now the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the member for Papineau. A billion dollars disappeared under the stewardship of this minister and could never be found. Several years later—this scandal came to light some five years ago—the money still has never been found. Where is that billion dollars?

There is also the firearms scandal. We in the Bloc Québécois are in favour of firearms control, but not at any price. This program to manage and control firearms was supposed to cost $20 million. Now it is more than $1.5 billion. Where has that $1.5 billion gone?

There are also many problems with taxes and tax treaties. Why are these problems not fixed? Once again, the government is suspect. There is a treaty with the Barbados and regulations governing corporate taxes here that, when combined, make it possible for corporations to save money. Thus the Prime Minister's family business, Canada Steamship Lines, was able to save more than $120 million in federal taxes over the last five years.

With the Prime Minister setting this example and being a suspect in the sponsorship scandal—because more and more light is being shed thanks to the revelations of the Gomery Commission—could there be any doubt that the government is not only very lax but that this slackness is also very profitable for the Prime Minister and his cronies, the large corporations involved in international shipping.

I had an opportunity to work with Mr. Jacques Léonard, president of the Conseil du Trésor in Quebec City. Together with my honourable friend from Joliette, we were on a committee to review government management. There, too, not one more cent should be entrusted to this government in view of its poor management of the public purse. When the Prime Minister used to be Minister of Finance, he liked to boast that he was one of the best managers in the world. Well, we have made some fabulous discoveries.

I will name a few. Listen up if you want to know what this government does with taxpayer dollars. While cumulative inflation was set at 9.6% from 1998 to 2003, bureaucratic spending increased by 39% during that same period. In addition, the number of public servants increased by 46,000, and payroll by 41%. In the Department of Justice alone, payroll increased by 141%, while inflation was still 9.6% during that period. The cost of political polls, which really do the public and the poorest families a lot of good, increased by 334%.

This government is quite fond of lavish spending. The cost of office furniture increased by 215%. Also, some $1.5 billion went to the gun registry, which we cannot mention enough. Furthermore, the Governor General enjoyed an 82% increase in her budget, while the average salary increase for low-income and middle-income workers, under collective agreements, was roughly 2% a year, for a modest increase of 8% during that period. Yet, the Governor General gets an 82% increase. A lot of good that does the public, the unemployed, young people who are victims of an underfunded education system.

It is scandalous. Not just the sponsorships, but all the waste, the mismanagement, the hidden funds, like the billion dollars at HRDC, all of it is scandalous. This lavish spending shows that the government has not had the moral authority to govern for a long time now.

We have been all the more convinced of this since hearing all the revelations at the Gomery inquiry targeting the Liberal Party and the staff of certain ministers, and even some ministers themselves who said they never saw nor heard anything about this scandal.

Today, we are being asked to respect the government and its new annual commitments of $1.2 billion. We will never do this. If the new commitments set out in Bill C-48 were significant, perhaps we would. However, such a corrupt government should no longer be managing our money or making commitments, but rather respecting the verdict that will be rendered this evening, when we defeat it. It is time for this government to step aside and stop spending our money.

I want to examine each of these commitments in turn. Some $1.6 billion is being invested over two years in affordable housing. There was no money for social housing a few months ago, no more than has been since 1993. Suddenly, there is $1.6 billion over two years for this sector, which needs two and a half times that amount each year in order to meet the needs of the public, which have increased since 1993. At that time, when the Liberals came to power, 1.3 million households in Canada needed access to social housing. Up to 50% of their income was going toward housing. At 25% of income, people are poor enough to qualify for social housing.

Now, 1.7 million households need access to social housing. At least 1% of the annual federal budget should be allocated to this sector to make up for lost time, following devastating measures, in the fight against poverty, by the former finance minister and current Prime Minister. With regard to housing, poverty is also caused by measures such as the drastic cuts to EI and federal transfers to the provinces for social programs. At one time, federal contributions were at 25% and even 50%, 25 years ago. Currently, it contributes about 11.5%

The Liberals are responsible for poverty. They did not invest in social housing. Suddenly, for fear of being defeated or being shown the door, they have committed $1.2 billion in initiatives in the last 18 days.

They promised $1.5 billion for access to post-secondary education. For years now, since 1995, the Liberals have been pillaging educational systems everywhere in Canada, not just in Quebec.

In Quebec an investment of $1 billion was needed every year for the next ten years in order to remedy the chronic underfunding this government has caused. We have been presented with $1.5 billion for the next two years for post-secondary education. Do you know what that represents for Quebec? Approximately $188 million out of the expenditures of $12.2 billion. The potential is there, but the NDP was too quick to sell its birthrate for a mess of pottage to a corrupt government. We are talking $188 million for post-secondary education out of the $12.2 billion in education spending.

That is just mocking the public. It that is all it took to get the NDP to sell its soul to the corrupt Liberal Party, it is pretty insignificant.

As I have said, it is the same thing with social housing. They say there will be $1.6 billion over two years, but it would take $2 billion a year just to make up for lost time. And even that figure is based on previous needs, but the latest figures indicate that now there are 1.7 million households in need of social housing.

If the government had wanted to govern properly and had not got so mired in all the Gomery revelations—with all the distasteful and undemocratic details we have been treated to in the past few months—it would have had sufficient leeway to meet all the priorities mentioned to us at the time of a meeting between myself, the Minister of Finance and the Conservatives. It could have started to resolve the fiscal imbalance by greatly increasing education transfer payments. Now federal transfers account for 11.5% of education costs, everywhere in Canada.

It could also have corrected the equalization formula, as we asked, instead of signing piecemeal agreements. Moreover, in the budget implementation bill they want us to swallow the agreement with Newfoundland and Labrador, and with Nova Scotia. They want us to swallow an agreement that has just clouded the issue as far as fiscal imbalance is concerned, making it worse than before.

With this agreement, they have put huge pressure on the other provinces. They have created an imbalance, which may be called a horizontal imbalance, that is, they have increased the fiscal capacity of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia so much that it is now higher than that of Ontario. Ontario can well get angry and cry foul, like Quebec. The special agreements confuse matters rather than treat them comprehensively.

If the Prime Minister were really concerned about correcting the fiscal imbalance, he would not operate on a piecemeal basis as he did with Ontario, and as he does with the $1.2 billion commitments he has made a day over the past 18 days. He would not be concerned about sprinkling commitments here and there in order to save his skin. He would have worked responsibly during the past 10 months and presented a budget taking steps to resolve the fiscal imbalance. He would have had the support of the Bloc Québécois and probably all of the parties.

The provinces have to deal with unavoidable expenses in health care, education and support to the most disadvantaged families. They do not have enough resources. These resources are in Ottawa. The possibilities of deficit are very real.

Last year, for example, Ontario had a $10 billion deficit. This year, its deficit is $6 billion, and on it goes. Quebec faces huge pressure over taxation and a balanced budget. This could be remedied, but, for 18 days, the Prime Minister has not been concerned with correcting this fiscal imbalance any more than with remedying the employment insurance plan.

I can hardly wait to see the NDP members in the next election, which will probably be called this evening. They will go to their riding and say that they joined with a government that did not deign to do anything of any significance to resolve the EI problem. They were the defenders and attacked the government in order to have EI reformed and 60% of the population not excluded from it.

Now, they join with the Liberals, who have forced hundreds of families into the street each year since the EI reform. They have kept them on social assistance and in a state of poverty.

In closing, I congratulate the NDP on its social and moral conscience.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

It was a stand-alone deal, but suddenly we find that this deal is included in a very large omnibus bill and we will have to vote for all the other things in order to get this bill through. This is not the budget of February 2005 that the government brought in, so how on earth can we support it?

This government is guilty of nothing less than reckless spending, deceptive practices and misrepresentation of surpluses it projected for the coming years. Worst of all, the government is in violation of the principles of running a good and honest government, because what the Liberals are doing with Bill C-48 is nothing less than making a deal that is costing billions of dollars of unscheduled spending. The government is on the road spending $1.3 billion or so a day in unscheduled spending for no reason other than that of trying to save the Liberals' sorry butts from going down as they become known as the worst and most corrupt government in the history of Canadian politics. That will be their legacy.

Claim what they may about past governments, the Liberals are part of the worst and most corrupt government in the history of Canadian politics. They think nothing of spending billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers' money in order to somehow salvage their fortunes. Canadians will not be blackmailed. Canadians will not be extorted. Canadians will not have any part of the corruption of this government and they will bring it down in the next election when it happens. We will listen to Canadians on this one.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill C-48.

There is one thing that Canadians need to know, which the Liberals have not answered yet. They put forward their budget in February of this year. It was a budget that we in the Conservative Party could support. We could support it, but what we have now is a budget that is totally different from the one they put forward in February. This is a budget that was created by the NDP. The only reason these items are in this budget is that the Liberal government has chosen to climb into bed with the NDP.

Let me say that I do not fault the NDP members. They have the principles and the things they believe on how money should be spent. Good for them. We do disagree on how we get to certain goals, but that is fine. We have different philosophies.

What is really shameful about the Liberal government is that prior to making the deal with the NDP, it did not think those things were important. Suddenly, now that the Liberal government is falling quickly and the Liberals are drowning in their own cesspool of corruption, they find a lifesaver with the NDP. They say to the NDP, “Bring on those spending proposals and we will support them because we can make people think they are important to us now”.

In fact, if these proposals were as important to the Liberals in February 2005, why on earth were they not in the budget back then instead of us seeing the Liberals wait until they are drowning in their own corruption to climb into bed with the NDP? What we have here is a pirate ship that is sinking fast. The Liberal members, the Prime Minister and the government are spending like drunken sailors to try to keep that pirate ship afloat.

Let us be clear about where this money is coming from. There is only one source of revenue for the government and that is the Canadian taxpayer. This government over the last 12 years has plundered the hard-working Canadian taxpayer through tax increases, through government fee increases and through the pillaging of the $40 billion-plus EI surplus. I do not see anywhere in this budget that the Liberals are going to put any of that money back.

As my colleague from Peace River pointed out earlier, this is the third budget revision since February. We now know that the government is doling out $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion a day in new spending announcements since the budget came out. This is money that was not accounted for in the budget. It was not accounted for in February. It was not accounted for a couple of weeks ago, but suddenly the government has all kinds of money.

What the Liberals are saying is that they found unplanned surpluses, but really what they are not saying is that they are going to use the money that they purposely did not make public, on the surpluses that are coming.

Which word is best to use here, Mr. Speaker, fibbing or fudging? This is like fudging the budget in saying that we are going to get so much money less than what the reality of the income is going to be, and then standing up and spending like drunken sailors because suddenly they found a big bag of extra money.

They ask why we do not support this budget. We cannot because it is not the same budget that the Liberals presented in February. Since then, as my colleague pointed out, they have added Kyoto to the budget in an effort to try to plant the seed so they could have a lever to somehow begin taxing fossil fuels when they decide they want to pull the cash lever a little more. We cannot support that; we all know about the Liberals' national energy program that devastated the west some years ago.

One of the members mentioned the $100 million for pine beetles. On this $100 million that the government promised to B.C. for pine beetles, let us be truthful: this represents only 10% of what the province asked the federal government for. It represents only one year of the commitment that the province asked the government for. The province asked for a commitment of 10 to 15 years. The government would not commit past one year. The government gave the province less than 10% of what was asked for.

While we in B.C. are certainly happy to get the $100 million, the government and this parliamentary secretary know that the provinces cannot operate on short term planning, especially when they have a crisis in their lifeblood industries. The Liberals know that.

We cannot support the budget or this bill. We understood from the government that in 2005 a deal had been made with the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador on the offshore oil resources. That was debated in the House. Everyone had the understanding, including the provinces, that this was a stand-alone deal cut with the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador and the government of Nova Scotia. We were happy with that. Our colleagues who represent ridings in those parts of the country were happy with that.

[Charlie Penson, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Cariboo—Prince George.

This is a very dismal performance by the government. We are debating Bill C-48 but one has to wonder why. This seems to be the third Liberal budget since the February 2005 budget was introduced. Many people call it the NDP budget because, quite frankly, the two parties together do not have a majority in the House. I say that it is an illegitimate budget.

I do not think most Canadians will be amused with what the Liberals have been doing. They have been boycotting and filibustering their own legislation to not allow these bills to be debated and voted on in the House of Commons because they have become so desperate to hang on to power. They are hanging by their fingernails. This is a pathetic performance by a dying regime. We saw it in eastern Europe.

I have been in the House almost 12 years, like some of my colleagues, and this is the worst performance I have ever seen. I see desperate people making illegitimate agreements just to hang on to power. They are not respecting the parliamentary democracy we have in this country that at some time, and the Liberals do not seem to get this, maybe they will not be in power. They cannot conceive of that idea somehow so they will cut any deal and sign anything to hang on to power.

The budget was delivered on February 23 in which the Liberals announced $42 billion in new spending. They went back and brought the numbers up for the 2004-05 fiscal year. They said that the surplus would be $3 billion. Of course we snookered them by hiring our own fiscal forecasters at the finance committee who, just six weeks later, said that the Liberals were off and that the surplus was double that. It was $6 billion. For this fiscal year 2005-06 the Liberals have estimated a $4 billion surplus. The fiscal forecasters say that it will be $8 billion, only six weeks later.

The unplanned surplus that the parliamentary secretary talked about, I do not think so. We have seen this crass practice in the last seven years of lowballing surpluses to build up huge funds that they can use in election campaigns. That is really what this is.

Next came Bill C-43, the budget implementation bill. What did the Liberals do? They snuck in a couple of amendments. One was the Kyoto amendment, which all of a sudden was tagged on to the budget. Just a few weeks earlier it was not there but they snuck it in to put greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide in particular, in the noxious gas category to allow them to tax it heavily. Of course we cannot support that. We want to see it hived off and we will try to do that in committee, if we ever get there.

Then of course today there is the NDP budget, which is Bill C-48. What has happened since budget day itself? There has been an almost $8 billion turnaround. New spending plus the cuts in the taxes that were proposed under personal tax cuts and the corporate tax side has meant that essentially there is an $8 billion difference.

What do we have here? We have a desperate government trying to buy itself another election. It is in a massive spending spree. It is trying to bury Gomery by taking away people's attention from Gomery with this budget.

Let us look at what today's newspapers are saying. The headline in the Globe and Mail on page A4 states, “Liberal spending blitz hits $19.5-billion” . Steven Chase says:

--Ottawa's minority Liberal government has grown so big it now amounts to nearly half the spending unveiled in the February budget.

It goes on to say, “the 2005 budget was only two months old when the government began piling on extra spending”.

A headline in the National Post today reads,“Spending spree continues”.

Another article reads:

Federal government spending announcements have hit $22.3 [billion] since [the Prime Minister] went on television on April 21 to apologize for the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Possibly not matters of fact, rather than matters of legend, but that is another issue.

Canada's fiscal turnaround was nothing short of remarkable and has certainly not gone unnoticed by other countries that are looking to us as an example of what to do. It was thanks to these sacrifices made by Canadians that consumer and business confidence grew. In turn that led to stronger economic growth and job creation.

Once the fiscal situation turned around, the government put more money in the pockets of individuals and families by reducing taxes more than any other federal government in history. It also invested significantly in the priorities of Canadians, such as health care, education, infrastructure, research and innovation, national security and the environment.

The bill before us today brings those investments in a number of key priorities for Canadians, priorities that the government shares. Specifically, Bill C-48 provides the framework for further investments in important areas, such as affordable housing, post-secondary education, the environment and foreign aid.

Let me assure the House that this in no way will put us in danger of going back into the bad old days of deficits. I emphasize that this will not put this government into deficit.

The government is committed to spending $4.6 billion for these investments. These investments will be financed from fiscal resources that are in excess of $2 billion in the fiscal year 2005-06 and $2 billion in the fiscal year 2006-07. Estimates show that we will still have sufficient resources to continue to pay down the debt as well. I want to again emphasize the point that these investments will only be made in the event there are resources available above the $2 billion in each of those fiscal years.

I would like to outline the details of these proposed investments for our future.

First, with respect to affordable housing, the government recognizes that Canada's communities are the social and economic foundation of the country. Whether large metropolitan areas, cities or rural hamlets, the communities Canadians choose to live in have significant bearing on the quality of their life and social and economic opportunities open to them. However, the harsh reality is that in downtown cores and poorer neighbourhoods of many cities urban poverty problems have led to increased demand for affordable housing.

In recent years the government has made a number of investments totalling $2 billion in the area of affordable housing and homelessness. These programs are still being rolled out and in most cases the funding will continue to ramp up over the next year.

We have done the following.

In 1999 the government launched a three year national homelessness initiative. A key element of that was the supporting communities partnership initiative known by most of the people in this area as SCPI, which provided $305 million for local community groups to offer supportive services and facilities for the homeless.

This initiative was of great importance to the community from which I come as we were housing something in the order of 1,400 homeless people in the riding every night. I am pleased to say that over the years, with the assistance of SCPI and other programs, the number has declined precipitously to the point where we are now somewhere in the order of 200 to 300 people per night. I would like to think the Liberal caucus in particular had a lot to do with that initiative.

Budget 2003 provided a further three year extension to the SCPI initiative at $135 million per year. Furthermore, budget 2001 announced $680 million over five years for the affordable housing initiative to help stimulate the creation of more affordable housing. Bilateral cost sharing agreements were subsequently signed with all 13 jurisdictions in Canada. On top of that, $320 million over five years was announced in budget 2003, bringing total investments in affordable housing to $1 billion over six years.

The government continued to do more in budget 2003 when it announced a three year renewal of the government's housing renovation programs at a cost of $128 million per year. These programs support the renovation and the renewal of the existing stock of affordable housing and help low income persons with critical housing repair needs. In addition, the government currently spends $1.9 billion per year in support of existing social housing units.

The legislation builds on those previous initiatives by proposing a further $1.6 billion for further affordable housing construction. It is important to emphasize that the funding is not tied to matching funds from the provinces.

In recognition of the critical shortage of adequate housing for our first nations reserves the new funding will also include aboriginal housing. That is $1.6 billion of the $4.6 billion initiative.

The second part of the initiative is in the area of post-secondary education, which is and continues to be a priority of the Government of Canada. We need to provide students with a solid foundation that will serve them well in Canada in the future.

Since balancing the budget, the government has provided significant new funding in support of post-secondary education through increased transfer and support to provinces and territories and increased direct support to students and universities.

For example, federal transfer support for post-secondary education is provided through the Canada social transfer, a block transfer to provinces and territories which are each responsible for allocating federal support according to their respective priorities regarding post-secondary education and other social programs.

Overall, the Canada social transfer will provide $15.5 billion in the fiscal year 2005-06, including more than $8 billion in legislated cash levels and $7 billion in tax points. This will continue to grow on an annual basis as the economy grows.

In addition to the Canada social transfer, the Government of Canada provides about $5 billion annually in direct support for post-secondary education. That, among other things, helps families save for their children's education.

The bill provides additional funding to complement the initiatives already taken by the government. Specifically, it provides $1.5 billion to increase accessibility to post-secondary education with a substantial portion to support students from low income families as well as training money to support labour market agreements. That is building on the $1.6 billion for affordable housing. We add a further $1.5 billion for initiatives in education and labour market training.

The third initiative is on the environment. As we know, the government is very much aware that a sustainable economy depends on a sound environment and healthy communities. To that end, we have made significant investments in the environment and in sustainable infrastructure in Canadian communities. Bill C-48 builds on those initiatives, proposing $900 million for environmental investment.

The objective of the government's issues is to have the most impact where it matters most, in places where Canadians live, work and play. Canada depends upon the cities and communities to attract the best talent and compete for investment as vibrant centres of commerce, learning and culture.

That is why, building on the current financial support for infrastructure programs and the full rebate of the GST, the government has delivered on its commitment to share a portion of the revenues from the federal gas tax with municipalities to assist with their sustainable infrastructure needs, such as public transit, water, waste water treatment and community energy systems.

I might mention that for my city of Toronto, the GST rebate is in the order of about $50 million annually and that continues year after year. Again, it is a significant sum of money.

This is a perfect example of different levels of government working together to achieve a common goal. Bill C-48 enhances the government's commitment, focusing primarily on public transit.

As members know, individual Canadians produce greenhouse gases through day to day activities, such as driving vehicles and heating or cooling homes, anything that involves energy use. Certainly, there are things that all citizens can do to play a key role in addressing climate change, particularly in their homes. That is why the bill also proposes to provide funding for low income energy refit programs.

Having talked to others in the corridors and around Parliament Hill, I know this is a particular aspect that has gained a lot of attention among certain members of the community.

Even before introducing the bill, the government had promoted actions by Canadians to reduce greenhouse gases through a range of information and incentive programs, such as the EnerGuide for houses retrofit Incentive program. This evaluation service provides homeowners with independent expert advice on the different systems of a home and information on energy efficient improvements that can increase comfort and reduce energy bills.

The government's goal is to quadruple the number of houses retrofitted under the EnerGuide for houses retrofit incentive program over the next five years. Indeed the proposal in the bill complements this plan.

I must say it is more than mildly curious that members opposite at one level oppose these initiatives and then say in the next breath that if they form the government, they will of course adopt these initiatives.

The next initiative is in the area of foreign aid. As a nation composed of people from every part of the globe, Canadians have a keen sense of the world beyond their borders. Indeed Canada as a G-7 member has a responsibility to contribute to making the world safer and protecting the vulnerable in times of strife.

If members want to see the new face of Canada, I would invite them to my riding. I do not think there is a racial, ethnic or religious group that is not represented in the riding. They are Canada's future.

Canada's recently released international policy statement sets out a vision for Canada and its role in the world. The new international policy framework delivers on the government's commitment to invest in our international role. We have made substantial progress in delivering on Canada's 2002 pledge at Monterrey to double international assistance by 2010-11. In addition, Canada will strengthen the partnership with Africa through debt relief and aid to foster private sector development and key investments to address the serious health issues afflicting that continent.

Bill C-48 forms an integral part of the government's foreign policy by proposing an additional $500 million in international assistance. That new funding, combined with our proposed new approach for foreign aid, will better ensure that money goes to where it is most effective and do the most good.

Those who have been following this debate will notice that adds up to $4.5 billion over the next two years. There is a minor discrepancy between the $4.5 billion in the bill and the $4.6 billion that has been committed to this initiative. The final initiative has to do with an agreement to invest a further $100 million from within the fiscal framework to assist in the protection of workers' earnings in the event of employer bankruptcy.

That is in sum the $4.6 billion committed over the next two years. I would like to reiterate that the proposals contained in the bill are merely a natural extension of everything the government stands for. We are proud of the contribution we have made in securing Canada's social foundations. We are proud of the contribution we have made to the securing of our fiscal foundations. We believe that Canadians are proud of what we have worked so hard to accomplish together.

I would urge all members to support the bill.

[John McKay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-48 is a bill that proposes further investments from unplanned surplus funds.

Canada's social foundations are a key to our social identity. In past budgets, the Government of Canada has made significant investments in these social priorities and this bill is merely a natural extension of those priorities. It already builds upon government initiatives taken over the past number of years and budgets.

Before outlining the measures contained in this bill, however, I would like to take a moment and talk about how the government is able to make these investments, or how we got from there to here.

As members know, Canada will record its eighth consecutive surplus in the budget year 2004-05, a record unmatched since Confederation. Indeed, Canada will be the only G-7 country to post a total government surplus in that fiscal year. Canada's much improved fiscal situation has allowed the government to make significant investments in the priorities of Canadians.

Our fiscal outlook, however, has not always been so rosy. When we took over the government from the members of the party opposite here, we were faced with a budgetary deficit in excess of $40 billion. On top of that, the unemployment rate was in the order of 11%. There was weak economic growth and weak consumer confidence, all brought on by the management so-called of the previous administration.

We recognized that something had to be done if we were to ensure a future for our generations to come. That is exactly what we did.

Our government undertook a series of measures to reduce spending and put our fiscal house in order. By 1997-98 we were able to eliminate the deficit.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that you are a bit of an athlete in your own right and without any pain there is no gain. Canadians clearly made sacrifices in support of a goal of improving our fiscal situation. However, in this case, and I know your athletic endeavours are matters of legend, the pain has paid off big time.

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, for the Minister of Finance]

moved that Bill C-48, an act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments, be read the second time and referred to a committee.