Bill C-50 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget

Part 1 enacts a number of income tax measures proposed in the February 26, 2008 Budget. In particular, it
(a) introduces the new Tax-Free Savings Account, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years;
(b) extends by 10 years the maximum number of years during which a Registered Education Savings Plan may be open and accept contributions and provides a six-month grace period for making educational assistance payments, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(c) increases the amount of the Northern Residents Deduction, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(d) extends the application of the Medical Expense Tax Credit to certain devices and expenses and better targets the requirement that eligible medications must require a prescription by an eligible medical practitioner, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(e) amends the provisions relating to Registered Disability Savings Plans so that the rule forcing the mandatory collapse of a plan be invoked only where the beneficiary’s condition has factually improved to the extent that the beneficiary no longer qualifies for the disability tax credit, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(f) extends by one year the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit;
(g) extends the capital gains tax exemption for certain gifts of listed securities to also apply in respect of certain exchangeable shares and partnership interests, effective for gifts made on or after February 26, 2008;
(h) adjusts the rate of the Dividend Tax Credit to reflect corporate income tax rate reductions, beginning in 2010;
(i) increases the benefits available under the Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program, generally effective for taxation years that end on or after February 26, 2008;
(j) amends the penalty for failures to remit source deductions when due in order to better reflect the degree to which the remittances are late, and excuses early remittances from the mandatory financial institution remittance rules, effective for remittances due on or after February 26, 2008;
(k) reduces the paper burden associated with dispositions by non-residents of certain treaty-protected property, effective for dispositions that occur after 2008;
(l) ensures that the enhanced tax incentive for Donations of Medicines is properly targeted, effective for gifts made after June, 2008; and
(m) modifies the provincial component of the SIFT tax to better reflect actual provincial tax rates, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years.
Part 1 also implements income tax measures to preserve the fiscal plan as set out in the February 26, 2008 Budget.
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, the Excise Act, 2001 and the Customs Tariff to implement measures aimed at improving tobacco tax enforcement and compliance, adjusting excise duties on tobacco sticks and on tobacco for duty-free markets and equalizing the excise treatment of imitation spirits and other spirits.
Part 3 implements goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed or referenced in the February 26, 2008 Budget. It amends the Excise Tax Act to expand the list of zero-rated medical and assistive devices and to ensure that all supplies of drugs sold to final consumers under prescription are zero-rated. It also amends that Act to exempt all nursing services rendered within a nurse-patient relationship, prescribed health care services ordered by an authorized registered nurse and, if certain conditions are met, a service of training that is specially designed to assist individuals in coping with the effects of their disorder or disability. It further amends that Act to ensure that a variety of professional health services maintain their GST/HST exempt status if those services are rendered by a health professional through a corporation. Additional amendments to that Act clarify the GST/HST treatment of long-term residential care facilities. Those amendments are intended to ensure that the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate is available, and the GST/HST exempt treatment for residential leases and sales of used residential rental buildings applies, to long-term residential care facilities on a prospective basis and on past transactions if certain circumstances exist. This Part also makes amendments to relieve the GST/HST on most lease payments for land on which wind or solar power equipment used to generate electricity is situated.
Part 4 dissolves the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, provides for the Foundation to fulfill certain obligations and deposit its remaining assets in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and repeals Part 1 of the Budget Implementation Act, 1998. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 5 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act and the Canada Student Loans Act to implement measures concerning financial assistance for students, including the following:
(a) authorizing the establishment and operation, by regulation, of electronic systems to allow on-line services to be offered to students;
(b) providing for the establishment and operation, by regulation, of a program to provide for the repayment of student loans for classes of borrowers who are encountering financial difficulties;
(c) allowing part-time students to defer their student loan payments for as long as they continue to be students, and providing, by regulation, for other circumstances in which student loan payments may be deferred; and
(d) allowing the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to take remedial action if any error is made in the administration of the two Acts and in certain cases, to waive requirements imposed on students to avoid undue hardship to them.
Part 6 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to give instructions with respect to the processing of certain applications and requests in order to support the attainment of the immigration goals established by the Government of Canada.
Part 7 enacts the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act. The mandate of the Board is to set the Employment Insurance premium rate and to manage a financial reserve. That Part also amends the Employment Insurance Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 8 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the recruitment of front line police officers, capital investment in public transit infrastructure and carbon capture and storage. It also authorizes Canada Social Transfer transition protection payments.
Part 9 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to Genome Canada, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, The Gairdner Foundation and the University of Calgary.
Part 10 amends various Acts.

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, when I look at the track record of my leader, whether it is on environment, or immigration or on social justice issues, there is no one who comes close to him. I am very proud of my leader and I am in full support of him.

I appreciate the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety asking the question, but this is exactly what I mean. When it comes to the government, it is playing politics with immigrants. It has put this as part of the budget bill. I can say—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

How are you going to vote?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

If the member for Langley is in the House, he will find that out.

However, every group in our country is avoiding the drastic changes the government is bringing to the immigration system because businesses and families in Canada will suffer.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague from Newton—North Delta regarding immigration. I know it is an important issue for the hon. member, being an immigrant himself.

In the budget, surprisingly, the Conservative government indicated that it intends to give more discretionary power to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. We all know about the hidden agenda. It seems a little paradoxical to say everyone knows about the hidden agenda, but we could say that everyone suspects that the Conservative government, which is reactionary, might have a hidden agenda.

I would like to ask the hon. member for Newton—North Delta how the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration will use her new discretionary power, that is, the power that will allow her to make decisions that go against all existing rules. Why does he think this government is granting itself this discretionary power? For what purpose and how will it be used?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I thank the hon. member for her work on the very important files.

When it comes to the transparency and accountability of the government, the member is well aware of the bad practices of the government, whether it be the Brian Mulroney-Schreiber affair or the Afghanistan issue. These are issues of which the member is aware.

It worries me that the minister can pick and choose which immigrants she wants to bring into our country. When I look at the system, perhaps she will want to bring in skilled workers, depending on the demand, but the provinces already have that program in place. It is the PNP program. Under that program, provinces can bring in those immigrants.

This is exactly what the government is all about. It is playing politics with every single issue.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was pleased and honoured to have spoken last week about Bill C-50, Budget Implementation Act, 2008. I spoke about various aspects of this bill. Let me begin by putting things in context. This may seem like a good budget and it may work for some, but there is nothing in it for Quebec. Quebec's Conservative members were not able to meet a single condition that the Bloc Québécois set down on January 23 on behalf of the majority of Quebec ridings. At that time, the Bloc Québécois presented Quebec's immediate and urgent needs. I will list them for you, but first, I would like to remind you that these needs were identified by Bloc members during our prebudget consultations, not only in Bloc ridings, but in other ridings as well. You will note that one very important, very urgent need was not included in the budget, and that is direct and immediate assistance for the manufacturing and forestry industries.

Nor did it include any assistance for workers in the manufacturing and forestry industries. Yet Quebec and Canada have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs because of this manufacturing crisis. As you know, Quebec and Ontario have been particularly hard hit. The Bloc Québécois members are here to defend the interests of Quebeckers, and we condemn the fact that the budget contains no measures to resolve the current crisis in Quebec's manufacturing and forestry industries.

The dozen or so Conservative members elected in Quebec two years ago now have not followed through on their promises. These members were elected based on big promises: they asked to be put in power in return for millions. And I am not talking about the Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec, who even had the courage to say something. Courage is not the right word, but I would not dare use the word that comes to my mind right now. It is certainly not courage, perhaps it would be gall, to use a slightly nicer word than the one I am thinking of. So, he had the gall to promise a Marshall plan, with billions of dollars and called it the “Blackburn plan”. I apologize for using his name, but he said it himself two days ago in the House of Commons. He then spoke about another plan called “his name II”.

First of all, when I heard this, I had little hope that his second plan would be any better than the first, since his first plan was a bust. He spoke about the “his last name II” plan, which made me think about Star Wars—we started with the fourth episode, before seeing the first three. Second, we realized that it was not the [his name] II plan, but the “Blackout II plan”. In short, there was absolutely nothing in his first plan or in the second one.

The Conservative government gives absolutely nothing to Quebec in this budget implementation bill. The Conservative MPs from Quebec were absolutely incapable of obtaining anything. I imagine that they have no power in caucus. Nothing has changed for Quebec and that is why the Bloc exists. Federalists have been elected and sent to Ottawa. Since 1993, that has happened less and less. A minority of Conservative or Liberal members are sent to Ottawa because Quebeckers understand what goes on. Conservative members who have promised to defend Quebec's interests and wield power get elected. Some will become ministers and will sit with the other Canadian ministers in cabinet or in their caucus. And there they do nothing, absolutely nothing. They very seldom are able to obtain anything for Quebec. The Conservative ministers scurry on all fours to collect the crumbs thrown by the cabinet.

The same thing happens with the caucus: it throws some crumbs to the starving Conservative members who keep quiet and ask for nothing in public. They do not speak up publicly because they are told to keep quiet in the name of party discipline, in the name of Alberta, which does not need money but receives it nevertheless, because that is where the stronghold of the Conservative Party is. These Conservative members are incapable of doing anything for Quebec. This budget before us is ample proof of that once again.

I promised to list the Bloc Québécois's demands made public on January 23. We asked for direct and immediate assistance for the troubled manufacturing and forestry sectors, as I explained a little earlier. There was no help in this budget for the workers and communities affected by this crisis. We have been calling for an older worker assistance program for a long, long time. Again, there is absolutely nothing in the budget for that. And yet it is precisely that kind of program that could help the workers get through the crisis in the manufacturing and forestry sectors.

I want to take a few moments to explain POWA. It is a program that gives working people generally over 55 years of age an income roughly equivalent to employment insurance. It actually does fall under the employment insurance umbrella. This income helps them bridge the period between becoming unemployed, for example at 57 or 58 years old, and the moment they qualify for a government pension at 60 years of age. It covers a year or maybe two, or sometimes just a couple of months. In most cases, it helps these people avoid having to resort to welfare. POWA provides very parsimonious benefits to people who cannot easily change jobs and find themselves in what I would call desperate straits.

Some of us were lucky enough, of course, to be born with the gift to learn things quickly and easily all our lives. Others find it more difficult. They get close to retirement and for them to learn about computers at that age is just too big a mountain to climb. We need a program like POWA for people who find themselves in a difficult situation and cannot easily learn new skills. That was one of the Bloc’s demands.

We also wanted compensation for the seniors who were swindled out of the guaranteed income supplement. This program was a scandal under the Liberal government and the scandal continues under the Conservatives. I remind the House that it was the Bloc Québécois that exposed the GIS problem. Hundreds of thousands of seniors were entitled to benefit from it and receive annual payments of as much as $6,000 to add to the meagre government pensions they were already getting. It afforded them an almost decent income and raised them over the poverty line.

For years, though, the Liberal government of the day did all it could to ensure that seniors did not find out they were entitled to this supplement. The Liberals did all they could. The call centres were real labyrinths where people could never actually reach anyone. We know how difficult it is for the average person to deal with an answering machine and can only imagine what it must be like for someone who is older. In addition, the people who qualify for the guaranteed income supplement are usually among the poorest and have the least education. Often they have difficulty speaking one of the two official languages, or even both, and are also ill and isolated.

The guaranteed income supplement was one of the Bloc Québécois's demands. A few improvements were made to it, thanks to the Bloc. When we in the Bloc say we are helpful, there is no need for any more proof. Assistance for older people, thanks to the guaranteed income supplement program, is another specific accomplishment of the Bloc Québécois.

My time is running out, unfortunately, because I still have a lot to say. The Bloc Québécois will vote against the budget implementation bill, therefore, because it fails to meet our minimum demands. I did not have enough time to mention the environment, culture or a single securities commission, but these issues were also included in the Bloc’s minimum demands, which the Conservative government failed to meet.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in addressing Bill C-50, it is important to see the context in which this budget bill has come forward and the economic policies of the government that underwrite it. In that regard, it is important for us to look at the policies the government has implemented since it has been in power, and in particular the Conservatives' absolute obsession with their ideology around the importance of tax cuts to move economic development forward in this country.

We saw the process kick into high gear in the fall of 2007, when we saw the governing Conservative Party and in fact the Liberal Party bidding each other up as to how much in corporate tax breaks and corporate tax cuts should be given to the large corporate sector in this country. Those cuts went ahead fully supported by the Liberal Party to the tune of billions and billions of dollars.

The cuts were to be concentrated in the oil and gas sector and the finance sector. In the finance sector the banks alone were earning an annual profit in the $20 billion range. Those corporate tax cuts gave that sector an additional $2 billion. The oil and gas sector received similar types of benefits from the government.

We see the consequences in the budget. The budget is very close to being balanced. Depending on revenue this year, it is not beyond the pale that we would fall into deficit. It is very clear that at the very least a number of programs that are sorely in need of assistance from the government will not be funded because of those decisions.

By hollowing out the ability of government to pursue valid social policy programming by this type of tax cut, we ensure that on an ongoing basis governments are not going to be able to protect their citizenry and develop all of their potential as individuals in our society. That is what is going on here. That is the context in which we see Bill C-50, the current budget bill.

I want to address the consequences to the auto sector. I come from a community where the auto sector is the dominant industry. It is rather interesting to watch the conflicts that go on between the finance minister and the industry minister, but the finance minister and the Prime Minister say that they cannot pick winners or losers.

That is not accurate. The government is quite prepared to intervene in the market. I am going to quote some statistics from a group that is not particularly friendly to the NDP, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. These statistics were printed in this morning's newspaper.

During their first fiscal year in office, the Tories paid out $25 billion in grants, contributions and subsidies. Here is where we are into this inaccuracy on the part of the finance minister when he says they are not prepared to pick winners or losers. That included $350 million to Quebec based Pratt and Whitney Canada and $47.5 million to the Mont Tremblant ski resort, again in Quebec. In the spring of 2007, the government announced a $900 million fund for the aerospace sector.

Where is the auto sector? The auto sector creates at the present time 140,000 jobs in this country. The aerospace sector creates 75,000 jobs currently. The number in the auto sector is dropping dramatically. The aerospace industry is stable at this point.

It is interesting that the industry minister at that time, now the foreign affairs minister, said we needed that $900 million fund “for the defence of the aerospace industry”. The auto industry is in much worse shape and in much greater need of defence than the aerospace sector is.

My party repeatedly speaks about the need for assistance to the auto sector, and we heard the same this week from the Liberals, but what do we get? We get the platitude from the finance minister and to a lesser degree from the industry minister that they do not support winners or losers. That is simply not true.

The government has made a very clear decision in its economic policies and it is reflected again in the budget, in Bill C-50. It has made very clear decisions that it is going to support certain sectors of the economy and give them preference and priority over other sectors. Oil and gas, finance and aerospace are all getting preferential treatment. There is direct assistance and subsidies in the form of tax cuts or direct dollars going to those sectors and nothing to the auto sector.

In the auto sector in my community alone, in direct and indirect jobs over the last three to three and half years, 17,000 jobs have been lost. That is in a total population of less than 400,000. It has the second highest unemployment rate in the country and this budget does nothing, I repeat, absolutely nothing to assist the auto sector.

I want to make a point and perhaps it will be of particular concern to the finance minister since he comes from a riding that is immediately adjacent to Oshawa, a major auto sector dependent community. Windsor is at the very forefront of these losses and devastation in the auto sector, but his community is not far behind, nor is Oakville, St. Catharines or London. They will be facing the same kinds of problems that Windsor is facing.

The problem is that, either because of its obsession with tax cuts based on that very warped ideology that has been proven not to work around the globe or because of its desire to support specific sectors like oil and gas, aerospace and finance, the government is unwilling to help the auto sector. This is reflected by the absolute absence of any assistance in this budget to the auto sector.

There are a great number of programs and policies that could be put into place within the auto sector and then funded to some degree by the government. The NDP has been working on a green auto policy, for instance, for well over five years now, with very specific, detailed proposals as to how we would put that into place. We need to understand that this budget totally ignores any of that. This is not just the NDP speaking. It is the auto sector, the major corporations that produce and sell cars in this country and, of course, the labour unions that work in those plants.

It is a cohesive policy. It is one that has very little disagreement within that sector of what needs to be done, the roles that all of the participants in the sector need to play and the need for a partnership from the federal government in order to be sure that policy can be put into place and the results of that work deployed into the economy generally so we create many more jobs while saving a great number of jobs as well.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague very intently. He touched on a number of issues.

I would like to ask him why he voted against the environment when he voted against providing funding of $1.5 million to help the provinces improve their environmental positions by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Why did he vote against providing $30 million to the Great Bear Rainforest? Why has he voted against carbon capture and sequestration? It is a technology in which Canada is a world leader but he voted against that.

On one hand, the NDP speaks as though it supports the environment, but when it actually comes down to voting for funding for the environment, the NDP votes against it. Why is that? Why do we see that inconsistency in the NDP?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I regularly get up and point out the hypocrisy of questions. That question has got to be near the epitome of it when we see what is going on in the environment committee right now. For the first time in Canadian history, a government is filibustering a committee.

What is that about? It is about the environment. It is about dealing with global warming and climate change. It is a bill that the three opposition parties all support. It is a bill that all of the major environmental groups in this country support. However, what is going on? The government, for how many hours, how many days and how many weeks, has tied up that committee. It is just absolutely hypocritical that I would get that kind of question from the government.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would expand on his last comment about committees. He is on the justice committee, where the chair has walked out four times in a row, leaving witnesses from across Canada stranded, witnesses for whose attendance Canadians have paid.

I was glad the Conservative member mentioned the carbon sequestration project, which we started.

However, my question is for another area of the hon. member's expertise, that of the justice agenda. He is a very thoughtful participant in that area. I think we can agree that the government had a large number of misguided bills in that area, many of which failed, and thank goodness for Canadians, considering the damage they would have done to Canada.

Nevertheless, bills did get through and that agenda had financial consequences. I would like to ask the member if he thinks the government's budgets, estimates or anything even analysed and then reflected the financial costs of the agenda that was presented in legislation.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Yukon raises a very valid point. The government, and I will say this both about the justice ministers and the public safety minister, has consistently moved forward with programs and law that impose additional burdens on the provinces.

For instance, when it comes to our police forces, we are still waiting for those 2,500 police officers the government was supposed to fund. There is money in the budget. I question whether that money is in fact going to flow, because up to this point in the previous two budgets it did not. We did not get any of those police officers whatsoever. We had been assured that we were going to get 1,500 more RCMP officers. We got hardly any of those.

There is no question that the prosecution and judicial wings of our courts now are significantly overburdened. Again, first, the government has not done the assessment of how much it will cost the provinces and, second, has certainly given no indication of willingness to assist the provinces in those added costs. On those costs, by the way, both the prosecutors and our judges were already substantially overwhelmed before that new legislation came forward.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to speak to Bill C-50, the 2008 budget implementation bill, which contains many of the measures set out in the government's budget.

After over two years of lavish spending, the government decided, wisely, to be a little more fiscally prudent with this budget. We have heard many times before in the debates that this is indeed the first Conservative government to have a balanced budget since Robert Borden's government in 1912.

The only reason why the government has not plummeted into deficit is the sound fiscal inheritance of the previous Liberal government. When the Liberal government left office there were billions of dollars in surpluses. Also, the Liberals managed with eight consecutive balanced budgets. Canada had the best fiscal record in all of the G-7 economies.

This year the title of the budget was “Responsible Leadership”. It is rather ironic, I would think. We have heard from many that we are indeed on the cusp of a deficit.

The government went on a foolish spending spree when times were good. It made irresponsible tax cuts, taking $12 billion out of the fiscal framework with the two cuts to the GST, and now that the economy is beginning to slow, our financial situation becomes more precarious. Responsible leadership and sound economic management, I would say, are certainly questionable.

When the government delivered its budget speech, it appeared like a straightforward document, only for the government to deceive Canadians with the bill before us, which contains what I would call a zinger clause. With the budget implementation bill, the government has imposed upon Canadians immigration measures that would give the minister unprecedented power: unprecedented power to pick and choose, unprecedented power to determine who gets in and who stays out, and unprecedented power to play favourites.

What the government is saying yet again is “trust us, we know best, we will make the rules and you will be better off”, a pattern we have seen with the Wheat Board and the government's manipulation of processes and numbers. We have seen it with the censorship activities of Bill C-10 and with the lack of consultation on the repeal of section 67 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the list goes on.

In this case, the government wants to be trusted, trusted to decide behind closed doors if one's mother, father or children can come to Canada, again with no consultation, with no input from those most affected on any of the impending changes, whether they are families, settlement groups, employers or provincial governments.

Just this morning in committee, the Auditor General was before the committee and spoke to the importance of consultation in the development of any policies of government. The government wants us to believe that it will meet its goal, as articulated, of reducing the backlog with an increase in the budget of approximately 1%, and it is asking for trust.

Immigration needs to be taken out of the bill and properly studied in committee. A few years ago, I was part of the committee that revamped the immigration bill. The consultations were widespread. The chorus was not unanimous by a long shot, but everybody had an opportunity to put forward his or her position and the consequences of decisions taken and decisions not made, and I would say that we have to do that again this time.

The government plays mind games with Canadians. It talks about being tough on crime, yet it stalls its own justice bills in the House and uses them to play petty partisan games when they get to the Senate.

When I look at this budget, I have somewhat the same reaction that I did to last year's budget. A little money was spent, with a sprinkle here, a dash there, a pinch for this and a pittance for that. Once again the government tried to appeal to everyone, but has spread its funds too thinly. One of my constituents calls the Conservatives' style of government and budget making “fast-food government”.

We know that our cities and communities are in vital need of investment. We have all heard about the billions of dollars of deficit Canadian municipalities face with respect to their infrastructure. We have also heard from the finance minister that potholes are certainly not his responsibility.

My own city of Winnipeg, like other cities in members' ridings, has significant financing challenges and yet there has been no recognition by the government of these challenges faced by cities. What the Conservatives did finally incorporate was the step the Liberals promised, and that was to make the gas tax permanent, and I commend them for that.

Budget 2008 provided $500 million for public transit out of the 2007-08 surplus. However, within days of that, we learned that $108 million of it was going to restore a train service to run through the minister's riding. Nobody had asked for that and no advice had been given on it.

The government has refused to answer questions about Manitoba's infrastructure program. We know that the floodway for Manitoba is non-negotiable. We know how important it is.

It was over a year ago when funding for the floodway was announced under the Canada strategic infrastructure program. A month later, it was decided to allocate the funding under the building Canada fund, which, I might add, is full of moneys committed by the previous Liberal government. This would shortchange the province of Manitoba by $170 million in infrastructure funds that could well go to a host of other issues.

I also want to talk about Lake Winnipeg. We heard grant announcements on what we in Manitoba call “our beloved Lake Winnipeg”. We heard that an additional $11 million would be headed toward the cleanup of Lake Winnipeg, bringing the total, with moneys committed previously, to $18 million.

Examination of several websites, coupled with conversations with many researchers and scientific experts on the restoration of the health of the lake, show that few funds indeed have been forthcoming to date. Again we have heard empty words and hollow commitments.

The Conservative government continues to treat the women and children of Manitoba and this country as an afterthought. Many of the issues of importance to women have largely been bypassed. The programs that most women talk about as important and transformative, such as housing, child care, education, health care, unemployment insurance, and legal aid, are of limited interest to the government.

We hear members opposite espouse family values and talk about children as the future. We also hear members opposite talk about skill shortages and the need for skilled workers. However, social programs go hand in hand with economic programs.

I have spoken many times here in this House about the need for quality child care. What about it? Nothing is forthcoming except that cheque through the mail. Where are the promised spaces? In my riding, there are huge waiting lists. Parents are forced to leave their employment. Parents, and particularly single mothers, do not have the necessary supports.

In the last few months, the waiting list at one day care in my riding has grown from 300 to 400 children. It receives five to ten inquiries a day about spaces. The government has not made the connection on the availability of child care spaces to economic growth.

Although I do not have time to read for members an email on this, I will take another opportunity to do so. I received an email that listed all the parents with respect to that child care facility, the jobs they do, and the contributions they make to the economic growth of the city of Winnipeg. Coupled with that is the desperate need for space in their day care.

I wanted to talk about the government's shortcomings with respect to aboriginal people, whether it is in education or in how the government is ignoring them in the consultation process on the repeal of section 67. We heard in committee this morning from a group of aboriginal women who have very grave concerns about the matrimonial real property legislation, which I look forward to reviewing.

However, we know that the government has not addressed the needs of aboriginal peoples except in this piecemeal, cherry-picking, fast-food manner of a little bit here or a little bit there. We will see what we can do.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians]

Mr. Speaker, inasmuch as I would like to ask the member for Winnipeg South Centre a number of questions on a file we both share, I will leave that to the time I have in committee.

The question I have for her is in relation to the statements she made with regard to the changes to the immigration policy as proposed in the budget.

In a democracy I feel individuals who are elected to the House of Commons have the opportunity to put forward ideas and changes in policy and represent, in the House, the reasons why we feel they are right for the country. The member opposite also can stand in her place to advocate for a different position.

Is she philosophically opposed to the position we have put forward to the point that she would vote against our government and force an election?

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is taking lessons from members opposite in not answering questions.

It is incumbent upon us, as duly elected legislators, to have the opportunity to hear from those who are most affected by the legislation. It is important that the legislation go to a separate committee, that it be dealt with in a comprehensive manner, that we hear from those who are involved in the immigration world, those who are most affected by the legislation, and then decisions will be made as to whether to support or not support the legislation.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I especially noted the member's comments about the lack of early learning and child care facilities and services in her city. We face the same issue in Victoria. I heard last night that there was a large meeting in Nelson held by the mayor, wherein it was expressed that the lack of child care really prevented economic development because people could not go to their city.

The question I have for the hon. member is this. I introduced a bill that would enshrine principles of accessibility, universality and affordability into home care to create a program across Canada. I know the member supported the bill. Would she continue to support this, to have a law in Canada, instead of simply the kinds of agreements that her government negotiated, which, as she knows, were cancelled at the stroke of a pen.