Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand to speak in opposition to the budget implementation act, Bill C-50. New Democrats have been very clear that we feel the Conservative agenda fails working and middle class families, that this budget is taking Canada in the wrong direction and, in fact, will actually cause some grief for many Canadian working and middle class families.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, in its alternative federal budget, clearly outlined some of the concerns. I want to quote briefly from its paper. It says that budgets are all about making choices. That is certainly true of this budget and previous budgets. It indicates:
The legacy of this minority government is one of neglect: the Conservative government has failed to address some of the most pressing issues of our time. Climate change is the most pressing planetary issue in terms of its potentially catastrophic environmental, human and economic consequences, yet the [Conservative] government's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been widely condemned as ineffectual.
It went on to say:
Canadians are working harder but are struggling to afford the basics: housing, child care, post-secondary education. There has been nothing in the previous two Conservative budgets to address these issues. Canadians have not been able to count on the government to get them through shaky financial times.
That is a very good summary of why New Democrats have been so strong in opposing implementation of the budget. I want to thank the member for Trinity—Spadina for introducing an amendment that would allow us to put a halt to this absolutely wrong-headed initiative.
My own riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan has been working very hard over the last several years to diversify its economy, but it is still heavily reliant on the forestry sector. Despite the $1 billion community development trust that was announced prior to the budget, this budget implementation bill and the economic statement before it, although it acknowledged the difficulties in both manufacturing and forestry, that $1 billion disadvantages B.C. in that it does not recognize the percentage of GDP that is reliant on forestry. The New Democrats have consistently called for a national forestry and manufacturing strategy. We do not see the kind of movement to make sure that those important sectors have the kind of support that is needed to keep them healthy.
On one hand, people talk about corporate tax cuts, but if a company is going into receivership, corporate tax cuts do not mean a darn thing. In my riding, just in the last two weeks, another company that makes products for the forestry sector has gone into receivership. That follows on two other forestry companies over the last couple of months that have closed their doors. This represents hundreds and hundreds of jobs in my riding. Yet the government is indifferent to the plight of working families in my riding and other ridings across this country.
I want to talk about housing for a moment. The budget failed dismally on the housing front. In a recent meeting of provincial housing ministers, the government once again failed to talk about a national housing strategy. In fact, the minister who attended for a brief period of time would not commit to extend some of those very important funding programs, and I will address that in one moment.
I want to mention a couple of numbers relative to my riding, from CMHC's statistics. This is a credible organization. It talks about trends. In Nanaimo apartment rents are rising and the vacancy rate is dropping. Many people on fixed and low incomes rely on rental accommodation for their living space. As rents rise, as vacancy rates drop and as no new units are being built, people are being squeezed out of their homes. For people who have lived in the same place all of their lives, it is unfair to tell them that they have to move now because they simply cannot afford or cannot find accommodation.
In the south end of the riding, in Cowichan, there was a study done on inadequate shelter in the Cowichan Valley from the fall of 2006. It reported:
No new rental units have been built in the Cowichan region during the last twenty years, therefore,the supply is scarce. Vacancy rates in private rental buildings in the City of Duncan and in North Cowichan have declined in recent years from 8.4% in October 2002 to 1.6% in October 2005.
In 2001 more than 6% of households in the CVRD, the Cowichan Valley Regional District, had incomes of less than $10,000 and an additional 14% had incomes of between $10,000 and $19,000.
Those kinds of numbers show that a significant proportion of households in my riding are paying far more than 30% of their income for housing. Housing is one of the social determinants of health. When people cannot access affordable accommodation, it impacts on every other aspect of their lives. In a country as rich as ours, we should not be asking people to pay more than 30% of their income for their housing. They should have access to safe, affordable, clean housing.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been highly critical of the government. It talked about the fact that there needs to be a national housing strategy. In its plan, Recommendations for a National Action Plan on Housing and Homelessness, it says:
Housing is a basic and fundamental issue affecting individuals and communities and an important determinant of health and well-being.
The federation went on to talk about the fact that it is not only a social issue, that it is an economic issue. If workers are not well housed, it is very difficult for them to go to work each and every day and be productive. In fact, people who are forced out on the street often lose their employment because they have no place to shower, no place to get adequate sleep, no place to store their work clothes.
Housing is a fundamental human right. We should not be having this conversation in this day and age in Canada.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has laid out a very concrete action plan. It has a five year target and specific things around ending chronic homelessness, expanding the stock of affordable non-market housing, reducing the backlog in core housing needs, preserving and modifying Canada's existing social housing stock, and extending and revising the residential rehabilitation assistance program to improve conditions in existing private stock and to rehabilitate 10,000 homes annually. That is some of the funding we are going to see disappear over the next couple of years. That funding has been absolutely critical for the economic and social health and well-being of our communities.
I want to briefly talk about transit. In my riding we have what we think is a jewel in a rail corridor with some functioning rolling stock. Although there was money announced in the budget around transit, there was no money targeted for Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island is growing by leaps and bounds.
The organization Our Corridor talks about the importance of investing in rail in our community. It can lead to sustainable economic development, reduce greenhouse gases, and support the efforts in terms of greening our transit systems. What it needs is some very specific federal attention.
This is an opportunity for the federal, provincial and municipal governments to come together in a very strong partnership to invest in rail on Vancouver Island. This initiative has been driven by municipalities and a number of businesses and first nations on Vancouver Island. I would urge the government to look at this very important investment.
In the time remaining I want to speak about first nations education. Consistently the Conservative government has talked about education as being a way out of poverty, yet the Conservative government has consistently underfunded education for aboriginal people. To put this in context, article 13 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states:
Indigenous peoples have the right to revitalize, use, develop and transmit to future generations their histories, languages, oral traditions, philosophies, writing systems and literatures, and to designate and retain their own names for communities, places and persons.
States shall take effective measures to ensure that this right is protected--
Article 14 states:
Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages--
These set a context that although Canada did not support the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, countries all over the world have supported this declaration. Canada must agree that education is not only an economic driver and an important way of culture, but it is also a fundamental right in terms of ensuring that first nations and Inuit people across this country have access to education.