Mr. Speaker, to win without risk is to triumph without glory. I am beginning with this saying as it will be the theme for my speech about the budget implementation bill.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer clearly said that this bill would be a step backwards in terms of employment: 43,000 jobs would be lost. Imagine. We are applying the brakes again to our economy, making it more fragile and endangering it. This is very important, because the 43,000 jobs that are being lost are primarily in the area of direct services to Canadians.
As members of this House—and it is certainly the case of my colleagues in the government—we see every day in our offices an absence of and a reduction in access to services to the public. It has come to the point where someone who does not have Internet access and who ultimately does not have much tax-related expertise, for instance, is literally being abandoned and held hostage by the incredible restrictions imposed on our public servants. These restrictions mean that someone who wants to understand what will happen when he tries to file his income tax return will probably never have an answer, unless he calls on a professional whose services he must pay for or, in a best-case scenario, a close relative. In both cases, that person will give an opinion, but mistakes may be made because it is always difficult to keep up to date when it comes to taxes. Therefore, it is always best to check the source, but the source has dried up: the tap has been turned off by the government.
We are talking about high-quality jobs. We are talking about jobs serving the public. I find it absolutely shocking to see the government taking these sorts of workforce reductions so lightly.
I would like to point out that in Beauport—Limoilou, we have had a disaster. A large pulp and paper mill that had 1,600 employees in 2003 has allowed a foreign investor, through Canada's lax legislation and regulations, to liquidate most of its expertise and production capacity for its own benefit. There are currently fewer than 300 employees in the mill. Retirees are losing some of the funds they contributed over 30 or 35 years. How can this abandonment be explained? What does this mean? It is just one of many signs that our economy is living on borrowed time, that things are going wrong, and that problems are piling up.
My esteemed colleague from Vaudreuil—Soulanges spoke just now of the $500 billion accumulated by our businesses. This cannot be blamed on our entrepreneurs; it is a sign that they are proceeding with caution because they are worried about the future.
There have been so many gratuitous attacks that we might even call it a disease. This $500 billion is a very clear sign of this government's poor decision-making. The government is just aimlessly stumbling along. Moreover, the government is shutting its eyes and is wilfully blind to anything other than its own ideas, which it implements without verification or validation.
Another aspect of Bill C-45 is quite shocking. I only have a little part of it, by the way, because it was impossible to staple all the pages together. When you take a look at the summaries, you see that a number of sections of the bill have absolutely nothing to do with a budget or with the budget put forward by the Minister of Finance.
We might wonder what division 9 of part 4 is doing in this bill, since it amends the Judges Act. We might also talk about division 13 of part 4, which amends the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act to transfer it to the Department of Health. Division 16 of part 4 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. This is unbelievable. A lot has also been said about the provisions of division 18 of part 4, which amends the Navigable Waters Protection Act, given that it has environmental repercussions, which the government denies, of course. Government members are not content to fling gratuitous insults at us; now they want to alter reality and are refusing to face facts.
I will use an image to illustrate the extent of the government’s bad faith and desire to drag Canadian society down into mediocrity. Bill C-45 looks a little bit like this situation. I will play the role of a rather outrageous husband who, in a single fiscal year, demands that his wife agree to a new marriage contract, a will, a contract for cable, telephone and Internet, and terms requiring that she take out the garbage and empty the cat litter. Then I tell her not to complain. All she has to do is say whether she agrees to the contract, yes or no. If she says no, she is really acting in bad faith. It is truly appalling, because she is against emptying the cat litter. She wants to leave the cat in its feces. How horrible.
That is exactly what this government is imposing on all of the legitimate representatives in the House: a fool’s bargain, something made up out of whole cloth to try to get the upper hand. It is really a hugely mediocre thing to do. It is a terribly easy victory that this government is going after. I do not know what part of the public it will be able to look to for admiration for this scheme. I find it truly appalling.
Some speakers on the other side have praised the merits of the budget. What is very interesting is that on our side, we could easily support several aspects of it or agree to look at them seriously in co-operation with the government. But when it comes to the question of seriousness, do not get me started. Seeing the Conservatives laugh every time they are asked serious questions about our constituents’ futures, we realize that the only thing they take seriously is their own behinds. Impenetrable darkness is the refuge of the weak.
My first election campaign was in 2006, in the greater Quebec City region, specifically on the south shore of Quebec City. From that first campaign, I remember five visits by the Prime Minister. He presented himself in a very favourable light, playing the good, responsible father. There was absolutely nothing threatening about him, and he made promises. He sang the same tune on all of these occasions, and one of the things he called for was transparency and accountability. He did not blush as he shamelessly sang his own praises on that score. I really do not understand why, because if we look at the track record of this government, which has been in power for almost seven years, we see that it is truly mediocre.
What is interesting is that if the government continues to carry on this way, showing contempt for most of the public, it will be leaving future generations with a state of affairs that will be very hard to fix. It is absolutely not too late to extend a hand to the opposition and agree to what it has courteously offered: to split this bill and engage in a truly democratic process that is transparent, open, and most importantly courageous.
I call on all government members to do this and I ask that at long last, they show some courage.
