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.

Civil Marriage Act

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talks about common law and judge made law. The Conservative Party is talking about that whole point.

There was a common law definition in our country about the definition of marriage and one group of judges in Ontario struck it down for the entire nation. Now, in the absence of statute law, the courts made that decision. It is still entirely within the rights of Parliament to enact statute law to address that. We can keep the traditional definition of marriage by filling the vacuum and passing that statute law.

He says that if those Liberal MPs had voted against Bill C-48 to force an election, then for 36 days we would not have had a government and we would not have addressed the vacuum in the absence of a statute.

What we would do is allow Canadians to have their say on this issue, to vote for members of Parliament who represent their views. I would propose that we would have had more pro traditional definition of marriage MPs in the House. We could have enacted the statute law to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and address the very problem about which the member spoke.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting. Today a number of members suggested that some Liberal members should have voted against Bill C-48. That would have brought down the government down and they would not have had to deal with Bill C-38 until some other time. That does not change the common law definition that is in eight provinces and one territory already. Quite frankly, it is time to address the problem more frontally.

The problem is we have a situation of court made law. I will get into that hopefully when I speak at third reading. Since we are speaking about the report stage motions under Group No. 1, could the member name one of the amendments proposed in this group?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague that there are far too many consequences for Canadians and for families.

I want to ask him a question, because I know his constituents who are as concerned about the legislation as I am will ask him the same question. A hundred years from now, does he think Canadians would be more concerned or society would be more impacted by the changing of a definition that he rightly called a fundamental part of society, or would they be more upset if we had an election, if the hon. member had voted against Bill C-48, cancelled the NDP-Liberal coalition, ceased to be a member of Parliament, but did the right thing?

Maybe he would not have ceased to be a member of Parliament. Maybe his constituents would have rewarded him for standing on principle, for doing something that he believed in. Does he think that 100 years from now, 50 years from now or even 20 years from now there would be more repercussions from changing a fundamental aspect of society than there would have been over a federal election or the cancelling of a deal with the NDP?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to once again address Bill C-38.

Let me begin with Supreme Court Justice Gérard La Forest in 1995, who spoke on behalf of the majority of the judges in the Egan decision. I want to read for members what he said, because I think it sums up a lot of what we are trying to talk about today. He said:

Marriage has from time immemorial been firmly grounded in our legal tradition, one that is itself a reflection of long-standing philosophical and religious traditions. But its ultimate [reason for being] transcends all of these and is firmly anchored in the biological and social realities that heterosexual couples have the unique ability to procreate, that most children are the product of these relationships, and that they are generally cared for and nurtured by those who live in that relationship. In this sense, marriage is by nature heterosexual.

I would like to make the point that in the 10 years since then, things have not changed. That statement is still a valid statement.

Will Rogers was a cowboy philosopher from the United States. One of his comments was, “I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts”. If he were here today, I wonder if he would be laughing or crying.

The government seems to be out of control in most of its actions. A week ago we were leaving the House and then the government decided that we were staying because we had to debate important issues such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-38. Then the government turned around and said it did not want to debate these issues; it wanted to bring in closure. It did that on Thursday night to ram through Bill C-48. There are indications that it will try that same thing with this bill. It seems as if we are in the middle of a bad joke.

Bill C-48 was a joke in many ways. We talked about that last week and about the fact that the NDP had been sucked in on the bill. If one reads the page and a half long bill, one sees clearly that it states the government “may” commit up to $4.6 billion in spending in four areas. It does not have to spend it and cannot spend it until September or October of 2006.

The bill passed, and although somebody may be stuck with it even after the next election, it really has no immediate consequences. It was a joke of a bill. It seems as though the NDP bought into that. In the end the Bloc did too, in order to carry it through and try to get Bill C-38 through.

Bill C-38 is another joke. The government has decided that it is pushing ahead with the redefinition of marriage, but in the middle of the discussion there has been a lot of debate about whether religious institutions are going to be protected. The government has assured us time and again that it will try to do that even though the Supreme Court said it could not.

Clause 3 of the bill states:

It is recognized that officials of religious groups are free to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.

That gave no protection to anybody, which was recognized immediately, so the government has come back with another clause, clause 3.1. It certainly sounds fancy, but I understand that the justice department lawyers themselves say that this gives no more protection than the charter gives anyway. We know how useful the charter is; the judges have the opportunity to interpret it the way they will. It is frustrating. Once again we are faced with what I would say is a bad joke that is being played on Canadians.

As we know, Bill C-38 is being opposed by most Canadians. We just heard our colleague across the way, who is a Sikh, talk about his opposition to it. We know that the world Sikh leaders have opposed a change in this concept. The member for Calgary Northeast talked about his riding and the opposition from the Sikh community there.

Most of the Muslims oppose this. In my riding last year we had a summer rally with the Muslim clerics at which a scholar came to speak. His words were, “This is a non-starter for us”. I thought that was as clear a statement as one could make.

Christian leaders across Canada have been fighting to preserve the traditional definition of marriage, the traditional position, which is seen as a core tenet of their beliefs.

We have had Jewish leaders who have been working on this as well and who have been a fundamental part of the fight to maintain the traditional definition of marriage.

For many of these folks, the belief in the traditional definition of marriage goes back to their holy scriptures and goes back entirely to creation and their perception of that. The Liberals have chosen to listen not to them but to special interest groups instead. In fact, the Liberals do not even listen to their own charter. As the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster pointed out, the charter talks about us recognizing the supremacy of God in this country and the Liberals have chosen to completely ignore that.

I do not know if I have enough time tonight to even go through this, but we are faced with two irreconcilable views about what marriage is. On one hand, the prior status of marriage has been that marriage is recognized but it did not have to be created by law. It was not created by law; it was recognized by our society. Heterosexual marriage had never needed law in order to be socially recognized and accepted. It had been universally accepted that the union of a man and a woman was the appropriate definition for marriage. That view sees heterosexual marriage as a natural fact, as something that unites men and women.

It has been historically recognized down through the centuries. For many, as I have mentioned, it has also been seen as part of a granting of divine revelation to people. Others see it as observable by natural reason. For those who see marriage as a natural fact uniting men and women, the binding force would be nature itself.

As Iain Benson, the executive director for the Centre for Cultural Renewal, pointed out in his presentation to the committee dealing with Bill C-38, “To people who hold this view, the idea that two men or two women could be married makes as much sense as two men trying to become sisters, or two women trying to become brothers. It just does not compute”.

This view of marriage does not depend upon the state. The state's role and function is to recognize it, not to define it. That is why in the past there have been so few statutes defining marriage.

Marriage by definition, to the folks who believe in this, is one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. To change that definition changes marriage. It just changes the definition to where people do not recognize it as marriage.

The other view sees marriage as basically a social construct, something that is not given in nature but something that is chosen and defined by humans, something that is chosen by our will, and then because of that, it is something they insist everyone should recognize. The ones who hold this view will tend to portray this as an issue of rights rather than just a redefinition of a social institution.

The interesting part of this is for the folks who hold this second definition or the second view of marriage, it is essential for them to try to bring the state in and to bring the power of the state to bear on the definition of marriage. That is what we see happening in the House. It is what we have seen over the last few months. For them the act of redefinition requires the use of all possible available means. We see that going on.

We have also been able to see the judiciary be part of this. We know now that eight provinces and one territory have had one single judge in each of those provinces and territory step forward and make a ruling. The federal government and the provincial governments have not had the courage to appeal those definitions. We talked a little about that earlier, but they just have refused to appeal. The Supreme Court actually pointed out in its decision that this change has come about by default, that basically governments have not done what they should be doing. They have not done their due diligence and because of their neglect, they have allowed the definition to change without the proper discussion of it that should have taken place.

Obviously the resolution between these two views is not going to be easy, but the government has made it even more difficult because it has basically destroyed the forum for public debate. With the extension of the sitting this week, we expect the Liberals at some point are going to try to close down debate. We see them whipping votes across the way and we see those members barely willing to come into the House to address the issue. People who have been watching the debate this afternoon will note that very few government members are even interested in talking about this issue.

We see the government rushing to radical conclusions.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would also like to compliment my colleague across the way for what appeared to be a very heartfelt and sincere speech. I agree with probably everything that he said. I, too, am a new member in the House, but I have been here long enough to know how games are played. In the last couple of weeks I have seen some incredible tricky political strategies to get things through that skirt around the democracy issue and maybe deplete the democratic process here in Canada.

Knowing full well that the only way to bring this bill down, members opposite did not vote against Bill C-48 last week. I absolutely accept that the member has a heartfelt concern about this, but I question how deep that goes when knowing how to vote against the bill was not done by the members opposite.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the answer, in short, is no, I was not part of that decision making process. No, I did not agree to having those witnesses shoved through committee so quickly and the procedural unfairness that went forward.

I would like to read a letter from the clerk of the committee as a result of that decision. The letter reads:

As a result of this decision, I had to contact 57 witnesses for the hearings, right after the end of the May 30th meeting. Based on that final list, I called the witnesses to invite them to appear on May 31st and the subsequent meetings and because of the committee's decision to hear those 57 witnesses in a short period of time, some of the witnesses had less time to prepare, especially those who appeared on May 31st, June 1st and June 2nd.

How many witnesses were not able to appear before the committee that were invited to testify?

On the final list, 7 persons or organizations declined our invitation....

They could not appear because they did not have time to prepare. It was procedurally a joke. I would use the example of Bill C-48 last week. We knew it was on the agenda but all of a sudden a fast one was pulled and we were called in from airports and everywhere else around the country in order to vote on something with half an hour or an hour's notice.

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

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to enter the third reading debate on Bill C-48. I congratulate my colleague from Madawaska--Restigouche for making some very salient points. He took many of the points that I was going to make and he made them very strongly. I will try to recover from that and comment on some features of this budget. I think I should start by laying out some of the things that we do know, some of the background to this budget.

First, we know that Canadians do not want an election right now. Second, we know they do not want the Conservative Party in power. Third, we know the Conservative Party members at one point in time were supporting the federal budget, Bill C-43 but then suddenly they saw the polls and heard the daily testimony at the Gomery inquiry and tried to bring that to the floor of the House of Commons. They thought that maybe they should not support the budget bill after all because it might be a great opportunity to try and force an election.

However, knowing that Canadians did not want an election, the government went to the NDP to see if we could form some consensus around building a better budget and how we could get this Parliament to work. Canadians want this Parliament to work notwithstanding the antics of Conservative members opposite.

What was accomplished? What was accomplished was very important. With the support of the NDP and against the coalition of the Conservative Party and the separatists, we were able to pass Bill C-43 and now we are now debating third reading of the second prong of that legislation, Bill C-48.

Members opposite talk about the government moving forward and how that will eat into all the surpluses. They seem to forget that the government has demonstrated that it can generate surpluses each and every year. This will be our eighth consecutive surplus.

The fact that parties opposite have failed to recognize is that we have turned the economics of this country upside down. We have made the sound financial circumstances that allow us to build on some of the initiatives that we have already started in terms of the environment, affordable housing, foreign aid, training and post-secondary education.

Those were not initiatives that we pulled out of the air, as members opposite would have Canadians believe. Bill C-48 builds on the very initiatives of the government. I am very proud that we are able to do that. We are able to do that because our economy is strong and the government's fiscal capacity is intact after many years of under-performance and of deficits and a deplorable fiscal situation that the Conservative Party created after its eight years in power.

If I could indulge the House, it might be useful to talk about some of the backdrop to this budget. For example, I talked about this being the eighth consecutive budgetary surplus. Within the OECD countries, Canada is considered an economic miracle. As a country, we have consistently performed at about 3% gross. We have unemployment around 6.8%, which is the lowest level in about four or five years. Of course we can do better and we will do better, but 6.8% is pretty sound stuff.

We have low interest rates because of a sound monetary policy of the Bank of Canada that is creating the environment for low interest rates. What does that mean? It means that average Canadians can buy a home and take on a mortgage. We all see that, if we are honest, in our own ridings. People are getting out of rental units and going out and buying a home for the first time. That is what the Canadian dream is all about, and that is possible because the government took the action that was necessary to turn this nation's finances around.

What else has the government done? I will lay out another fact. Because of the budgetary surpluses, we have been able to pay down in excess of $55 billion against the national debt. Is that an end in itself? Of course not. What does that mean? It means that each and every year into the future, not just today, we are saving over $3 billion a year in money that has been used to service our debt. We are going to do even better than that. Our government has set a debt to GDP target of 25%. In fact we are now at around 40%. We came from a position of roughly 75%.

That is what this government has done. While Canadians have set the economic climate, we have set the policies in motion to create the environment for sound economic growth, sound fiscal and monetary policy.

The debt to GDP is the amount of debt in relation to the size of our economy and it is a very relevant figure. In a nutshell, the country has demonstrated strong, sound fiscal and economic performance. The government is committed to moving in that direction. That is why we are able to deal with Bill C-48. It was not hatched in a hotel room on a napkin. It is based on building upon initiatives to which the government is committed.

Let me start with just one of those, affordable housing. The government has committed itself to spending money to help people with their housing needs.

In my riding of Etobicoke North, I visit people in high-rise apartments. They tell me that they spend 30% to 40%, sometimes 50%, of their income on rent for an apartment in a building that is not properly maintained. We have to do something and we are doing something. We also are doing something about the homeless. That is all part of the continuing program already in place and we are building upon that with Bill C-48.

We have many projects as a result of the Canada-Ontario affordable housing agreement in my province and city. We have a number of projects underway that will help with affordable housing for seniors and for people with low and modest incomes.

Then we have the environment. This is not a new concept for this government. Our government has consistently built a program to deal with our environmental performance. Bill C-48, does exactly that. It puts about $900 million to help with public transit and clean air.

I represent the city of Toronto. We have urban sprawl. We need to get higher living densities around public transit. We need to clean our air, reduce the smog and deal with the greenhouse gases.

All we have to do is pick up the newspaper every day and read about the impact of climate change. It is hurting our farmers and a number of people. It is hurting people in the north. We have to deal with that. We cannot put our head in the sand any longer. We have to deal with greenhouse gases.

The budget puts $1.5 billion into training programs and post-secondary education. However, this is not a new concept for the government. We have recognized for a long time that this is a new economy, it is a high tech economy. We have to build the skill sets and knowledge for the people of Canada to participate in our economy.

Finally, this budget puts another $500 million into foreign aid to help those who need our help, particularly in places like Africa. We will continue to do that.

We are committed to help countries around the world, those that are committed to good governance. We will help them show the world that they offer good governance. If they do that, Canada will be there to support them, to help them build their states and nations.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak this evening to Bill C-48, which proposes further investments from unplanned surplus funds.

Not so long ago, less than a year ago, the citizens of Canada asked us to work together here in Parliament. They asked us to make sure that Parliament worked and to make sure that we did a good job.

I want to mention that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Etobicoke North in a few minutes.

As I was saying, we have been working the way the public asked us to. They told us to work together, in partnership, and that is precisely what we have done. We have worked on making sure that the people of this country can receive excellent services. We have also worked on ensuring that their quality of life can improve.

Canada's social foundations are key to our Canadian identity. The Government of Canada has invested heavily in these social priorities in past budgets.

This bill is a natural extension of those initiatives. Nonetheless, before addressing the measures in this bill, I want to briefly explain how the government is able to make these important investments today.

As you know, Canada reported its eighth consecutive surplus in 2004-05, the first time this ever happened since Confederation. I think it is very important to point that out. The members opposite often forget that they put us into a deficit position lasting many years and that it was our government that reinstated surpluses for the Government of Canada. Who did we do that for? The people of Canada.

Canada was the only country in the G7 to show a surplus, considering all administrations, during this fiscal year. The net improvement in the Government of Canada's financial situation allowed the government to invest heavily in the priorities of Canadians.

However, our financial outlook was not always so encouraging.

When we came to power in 1993, as I just mentioned, we had to deal with an annual deficit of over $40 billion. I am not talking about a $40 billion debt. I mean that, in one fiscal year, the then government was in the hole to the tune of $40 billion. This is unacceptable. This mortgaged not only my generation's future but also the future of generations to come, including the generation to which my new daughter belongs and that of millions of other Canadians. We must do whatever it takes to ensure we never generate another deficit. In addition to this, the unemployment rate was high, economic growth was weak and consumer and business confidence was low.

We realized that we needed to act in order to protect the future of generations to follow. And we acted. The government adopted a number of measures reducing spending and restoring fiscal order. As a result, we eliminated the deficit in 1997-98.

Obviously, as athletes know, success takes work. We worked hard. Canadians worked hard. They made sacrifices to help the government improve its fiscal situation. Everyone's hard work paid off big time.

Canada's financial recovery is quite simply remarkable, and the countries that point to us as an example of what to do have clearly noted how we achieved this.

Thanks to these sacrifices by Canadians, consumer and business confidence has been restored, economic growth has picked up and, better still, so has job creation in this vast and beautiful country of ours.

With its finances in order, the government gave more money to individuals and families by introducing the biggest federal tax cuts in Canadian history. It also made major investments in the priorities identified by Canadians, such as health care. As we know, our government has invested $41 billion in order to improve health care for Canadians. Also, we have done work in education, infrastructure, research and innovation, national security and the environment.

The bill we are introducing and ultimately want adopted today, builds on these investments in a number of key areas that are priorities for Canadians. The government shares these priorities.

More specifically, Bill C-48 creates a framework for new investment in important sectors, such as social housing, post-secondary education, the environment and foreign aid.

I can assure you, however, that these measures will not eliminate the old budget deficit rut.

When the government makes decisions, they must be solid and fair. The government must have a financial framework to prevent a return to a deficit, as has been the case for many years in this country.

We also have to pay down the debt, because each dollar of debt we have costs us in interest. Each dollar of interest we pay costs the public in terms of reduced services.

The government has promised to invest $4.6 billion in these areas. These investments will come from the surplus in excess of $2 billion in 2005-06 and 2006-07. According to the estimates, we will also have the means to continue, as I mentioned earlier, repaying our national debt to make sure we can deliver the best possible services to future generations.

I would now like to summarize the investments I mentioned previously that we are proposing for the Canada of tomorrow.

First, for affordable housing, which is social housing, there is $1.6 billion of new money.

I have a very hard time imagining the people on the other side of the House coming to my riding, when we have made very important announcements on affordable housing, and telling the people of Madawaska—Restigouche and the rest of Canada, that it is not important for families to have housing. It is very hard to imagine that there are members in this place, and, worse yet, parties, that think people do not deserve affordable housing.

We, as a responsible government, are working to make sure that as many Canadians as possible get services and housing in keeping with their ability to better manage their personal finances.

Second, as mentioned earlier, the government recognizes that Canadian communities are the social and economic foundation of this country. Be they vast metropolitan areas, cities or hamlets, the communities Canadians choose as their home have a considerable effect on their quality of life and the opportunities for socio-economic success available to them.

The reality, however, is that at the heart and in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods of many cities, poverty creates a 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, which provided $305 million for local community groups to offer supportive services and facilities for the homeless. 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 provincial and territorial governments.

I do not have very much time left, so I will now say a few words about post-secondary education.

I graduated from university in 1997. I continue to pursue my studies to ensure the best possible future for myself in terms of training.

To help young people and the not so young in our society, we implement systems, better places to study, facilities to allow young people—not the wealthiest—to get the help they need the most.

Bill C-48 will provide $1.5 billion more for post-secondary education.

In closing, I call on all the members of this House to vote in favour of Bill C-48, which is in the best interest of our constituents and will improve their quality of life.

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the whole concept of clawing back was developed by the Conservative Government of Ontario. Actually, I have never heard the phrase “champions of the poor” associated with the Conservative Party. Certainly not in recent decades. It is a bit of a puzzle, given that all of the evidence suggests that the policies advocated by the Conservative Party and implemented by the Conservative Party have increased poverty and made life easier for those who already have a great deal. The question, frankly, is a bit of a puzzle and therefore, I am going to stick with my support for Bill C-48 which is where most Canadians are.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member had connected it to Bill C-48 already. Liberals do not want to hear about this, but they are going to hear about this.

These 30 Liberal MPs will not, because they do not have the courage, vote against Bill C-48 and defeat the government, so we can go to an election and through an election decide the outcome of the marriage bill. Because they do not have the courage, Bill C-38 will certainly pass. Many members of the government will not even have a free vote on the issue. There are 30 MPs who will not take a stand for their constituents. They will be responsible for same sex marriage coming into place in this country in spite of them saying exactly the opposite.

Then we have the whole two front rows in the government who do not have a free vote. They are not allowed to represent their constituents. For these reasons, Bill C-38 will pass. It is on their heads.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We have been debating Bill C-48 for a week and that is what we are on now. We are not on Bill C-38.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of Parliament for 12 years and I have worked very hard to represent my constituents in those 12 years. Today is the saddest day that I have ever experienced in the House of Commons. One hour of debate will be allowed for a bill worth $4.5 billion of my children's money and other people's children's hard earned money.

That is important, but what is most important about Bill C-48 and the third reading vote that we are about to take is that if the bill is not defeated then Bill C-38, the same sex bill, will certainly pass in this House.

We have had 30 members of the Liberal Party who have said they would do everything they could to defeat Bill C-38, the marriage bill. They are the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, the member for Mississauga South, the member for Huron—Bruce, and the member for Pickering—Scarborough East. They are 30 in total--

[Jack Layton, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to stand and speak on this improved budget bill this evening and to share a few thoughts about it.

First, I want to thank all of my caucus colleagues for the work they have put forward over the last number of months since the election in order to be able to advance the propositions that we have put forward in Bill C-48. I particularly want to single out our House leader, our finance critic, our whip and our deputy leader, who have been intimately involved in this entire project.

There is something more that needs to be said in terms of thanks. Actually, the propositions in Bill C-48 do not really come from any particular individual or even a political party, I would say. They have emerged from Canadians.

Let us take a look, for example, at education. The student organizations across the country, the professors and teachers across the country, those involved in trying to help us understand that education and training are vital for the 21st century economy but who have by and large not been heard for the last number of years across this country, they need to be thanked, because this budget is in response to what they have been calling for.

Those in the labour movement who have been emphasizing the importance of training so the training is available for Canadian workers to take on the jobs of the 21st century, they need to be thanked, because that is are why we are dealing with this budget today.

When we look at the expenditure on housing, I certainly think back to Eugene Upper, who lost his life one block from my house when he froze to death. It was a statement of shame that Canada was not providing housing to its citizens. Since that time, groups across the country have formed and have urged all of us in all parties to take action and to get back to building affordable housing again.

It was a great tragedy when the best affordable housing program in the world, as recognized by the United Nations, was cancelled in the mid-1990s and we saw homelessness grow. Now we are seeing a turnaround. We are seeing an investment that brings federal dollars to the construction of affordable housing.

We must thank organizations such as FRAPRU that have long demanded investments in social housing. We now have funding that in no way requires matching funds. So this is important.

Organizations like the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee, the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, all of these organizations, have pressed us to take this kind of action.

We could say the same thing about the gas tax. I recall meeting with the Prime Minister years ago when he was the finance minister and debates were under way about this going way back. Through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, mayors, heads of transit commissions and environmental groups were calling for us to invest in the solutions that would help us address the rising pollution that is killing our citizens. In this budget we finally have that investment coming forward.

All those people and groups need to be thanked, because in the end our action is in response to what the citizens are calling on us to do. I think this budget really reflects that. My thanks go out to all those organizations.

There is the initiative to start retrofitting low income housing so that we can create jobs, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants and provide more affordable housing, all at the same time. Organizations like Green Communities and the Better Buildings Partnership, along with the building trades, have all been pushing us in this direction.

This is only a start. There is so much more that we can do and need to do if we are to achieve our Kyoto commitment, but there is no question that this bill, if it passes here tonight, as I hope it will, will take us a further step down that road.

Let me turn finally to the whole question of foreign aid, which is very much in our minds at the present time. We are facing a G-8 meeting. We are facing an unprecedented mobilization around the world in the Make Poverty History campaign. I think all of us are looking for Canada to play a leadership role, and in the context of the balanced budget framework, this bill adds some additional funds.

In the end it will not be enough to have Canada meet its commitment to the world, which Prime Minister Trudeau signed and which Prime Minister Pearson defined. It is a commitment that Canadians have made. We are in the process now of finding reasons why we, one of the most affluent countries in the world, will somehow try to explain to the world that we will not meet our commitment to the most needy.

I think there is where we are moving away from Canadians' views. I think Canadians want us to meet that goal. Do they know it will be painful? Do they know it will mean something from their pockets at the end of the day? We are talking about their tax dollars here, dollars they worked hard to earn, and they want us to use them wisely.

I can tell members that we saw Canadians respond to the tsunami with unprecedented generosity. They wanted us here to join with them in that effort. They want to be contributors to the ending of poverty, globally and here in Canada.

Once again Canadians are pushing us. I think the half a billion dollars in Bill C-48 is a response to that fundamental moral impetus that comes from Canadians and the privilege they feel they have been given and want to give back. They understand that these things represent opportunities for us to aid and assist around the world.

This is a budget that was crafted carefully. This proposal suggested that a tax cut to the large corporations, which was never discussed in the election but emerged in the first version of the budget, bringing on support from the Conservatives, was something we could not afford if we were to make the investments we needed to make, responding to what Canadians have called upon us to do. We proposed to the Prime Minister a carefully calibrated replacement of that tax cut to the largest corporations with, instead, a group of investments, also including a wage protection package for workers who find themselves in a bankruptcy situation through no fault of their own.

Those elements were proposed. I do thank the Prime Minister for having taken the time to discuss with me the possibility of such an amendment to the budget and for having decided to move forward. I think that kind of working together on a project such as this represents what Canadians would like to see the House of Commons do from time to time, maybe all the time, although that might be too much to ask, but certainly more than we were seeing.

If we remember the context here, when the first version of the budget emerged, it was supported by the Conservatives, or at least not opposed. It was welcomed because of the large corporate tax cut that was awarded. Then the government began to become involved in political games back and forth with the removal of opposition days and challenging the democratic procedures here. That provoked a reaction.

We came forward with a strategy to help this Parliament to continue to work toward some positive objectives before we deal with the election that will be inevitably coming based on the findings of the Gomery commission and all of the other issues that are emerging.

We in the New Democratic Party have attempted to do our job here, thinking about what people wanted us to do when they voted for us across the country. They wanted us to produce some results, initiatives that responded to their needs, and that would actually have an impact on the lives of their families. Canadians want us to use their tax dollars that they work hard for to create a better society instead of for those who had already had so much.

It is with some element of humility that we are here. We are not the largest group in the House quite clearly, but we looked for the way in which we could have the most positive impact. I am very pleased that we have been able to bring it to this point and that there will be funds flowing to public transit, education and training to deal with the debts and costs of students, et cetera, and to build some affordable housing.

If there is some affordable housing built, and I have no doubt there will be as a result of Bill C-48, the New Democrats will sleep well at night knowing that we came here to do a job, not on behalf of ourselves but on behalf of Canadians by using their funds to produce the consequences, the results, and the kind of society that Canadians believe in, dream of, work for, and count on us to deliver.

In conclusion, I want to say that this is an important budget bill, which allocates funding in accordance with people's needs. We hope it will be adopted this evening.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just gave his voice to the House of Commons. I think there is a bit of a contradiction there.

I think it is important to note the past irresponsibility of the Conservatives and the fiscal record we saw under Mulroney. We saw the social deficit under the Liberals and that is what the NDP is trying to correct, but under Mulroney we saw record financial deficits at the federal level.

Last year we saw the most expensive political platform in Canadian history at $86 billion. That was before the Conservatives threw in the aircraft carrier, the HMS Mulroney . They threw that in with no idea of how to pay for it. There were all those assorted promises.

We definitely have a different approach than the Conservatives. We believe in a balanced budget and we believe in addressing the social deficit. That is what we are doing tonight with Bill C-48.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr.Speaker, first I would like to implore members to think about this important bill as we are getting very close to the vote. I implore them to think about public transit, clean air, foreign aid for poor children overseas, housing for families that cannot afford it, and post-secondary education for our youth.

I would like to implore all the members across the way, the Bloc and the Conservatives, to think individually about their constituents and also about what they would like to have on their record, on their principles. I implore them to vote for it and then hopefully they can sleep well.

Before I ask the question of the member, I would like to make sure that people remember how long this plan has been in place. When the Prime Minister first became leader of the party he put in his vision for the country, his vision of foreign policy, Canada's place in the world, rebuilding Canada's social foundations, lifelong learning and a new deal for cities. He has carried this on with integrity through the throne speech and into the various budgets. Then, in this agreement with the NDP, Bill C-48, we have added another 1% to Bill C-43 to extend the funding for those elements.

Here is what I would like to ask the hon. member about. If we lose this vote, which will of course cause us to go to an election, how does he think the Bloc and the Conservative candidates would feel going door to door telling people that they caused an election by voting against clean air, foreign aid for children overseas, housing for people who cannot afford it and lower tuition fees for our children going to universities?