Debates of Oct. 25th, 2010

Chris Charlton Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House this morning to participate in the debate on Motion No. 518, which reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) recognize that improved competitiveness will continue to stimulate economic growth and create jobs for Canadians; and (b) continue to diversify and expand markets for Canadian goods and services by encouraging investment in Canada through lower corporate tax rates, maintaining a stable economy and the signing of free trade agreements.

I cannot imagine a better opportunity for debating the very different vision that we in the NDP have for the economy, for jobs and for fair taxation in our country.

Given the motion that is before us today and the successive government budgets and trade agreements that have been brought before this House by the Conservatives, it is abundantly clear that the NDP vision for the economy is very different from the government's vision.

In our view, the primary focus ought to be the creation of jobs, decent jobs with decent family-sustaining wages. We need to focus on creating and building a strong domestic economy. We need to develop an industrial strategy that will build a sustainable economy for the future; an economy that fuels growth by investing in green technology, green jobs and renewable energy; an economy that is built on a commitment to the principle of fair trade, not free trade; and an economy that is built on a fair and just distribution of the wealth of our nation.

Clearly, that is not a vision shared by either the Conservative or Liberal Parties in the House but it is a vision that is increasingly shared by Canadians as they struggle to survive this recession. And, make no mistake, we are still in this recession.

The Prime Minister points to soaring bank profits and takes that as proof that the recession is over. For him, if his banking friends are out of trouble, everyone is out of trouble. However, Canadians see it differently. One and a half million Canadians are still out of work. Six out of every ten Canadians live paycheque to paycheque. Household debt is at record highs and life is more expensive than ever. Unlike the Conservative government, New Democrats will not declare this recession over until middle-class families are back on their feet. A true recovery must not leave anyone behind.

That is why we are working so hard to protect well-paying jobs, to make life more affordable for families and to maintain Canada's stimulus funding commitments so that cities like my hometown of Hamilton get the support they need and to ensure the protection of pensions and retirement savings.

Canadians are counting on us in this House to take bold and strategic steps and they are looking to us to have courage in the face of adversity. However, nothing that the Conservative government has brought forward to date matches the urgency or the depth required to protect working families in this economy. Let me be clear: our number one job is to protect Canadians during this economic crisis.

I have heard members speak about the need to stimulate the economy. Others have rightly pointed out that we do not just need to stimulate the economy but that we need to stabilize the economy. The difference is more than mere semantics.

However, the bottom line is that the economy and the market are not some supra-natural phenomena, neither were they created by divine law. They are man-made constructs and, as such, they are relationships that are governed by rules that we created. These rules create a framework for determining winners and losers and that makes it incumbent upon all of us to recognize that the economy is a moral issue. As Tommy Douglas used to say, “The economy is made for man, not the man for economy”.

We have built economic structures that serve powerful global forces acting in their own interest, presenting profit as the chief spur to economic progress, free competition as the guiding norm of economics and private ownership of the means of production as an absolute right. The sky was the limit and there seemed to be no concomitant social obligations.

We are all led to believe that governments are the problem and the market is the solution, and that is exactly what the motion before us today wants us to believe. However, if the current economic crisis has proven nothing else, it is that markets cannot do it alone. Yes, markets can bring prosperity but governments not only have a role to play but they have a responsibility to act.

Clearly, Conservatives see things differently. That is why they believe in shifting taxes from corporations to individuals and families and that is why they have continued the Liberal corporate tax cuts that began in the 1990s.

In the last budget, $6 billion was allocated to further tax cuts for the wealthiest corporations. It is outrageous. The big banks just reported their profits for the first three-quarters of this fiscal year at $15 billion. Did they really need an additional $645 million in tax cuts?

What about Canada's top CEOs? The Conservatives would rather bail them out again than help hard-working Canadians and their families. Corporate profits may have been down last year, but shed no tear for their top executives. The average paycheque among Canada's top 100 CEOs was $7.3 million, or 174 times what the average Canadian makes, which is $42,305. By 1:06 p.m. on January 4, the average top 100 CEOs had already pocketed what takes the average Canadian all year to earn.

Anger over executive pay is brewing the world over. The British have upped taxes on bankers' bonuses. U.S. President Obama has capped pay for executives receiving stimulus funding, but our Prime Minister is protecting loopholes that let CEOs duck taxes by accepting pay as stock options, and that is on top of his corporate tax giveaway. That is what this motion is asking us to continue. Let us remember what it says. It says that we need even lower corporate tax rates to stimulate investment. It really is outrageous.

However, that is not all. The Conservatives gave an additional $6 billion to the Governments of Ontario and British Columbia to bribe them into implementing the HST. That tax has resulted in a huge tax shift from corporations to individual Canadians who are already paying the majority of the costs of federal government programs. And, despite the rhetoric, it is important to point out that the HST certainly is not helping all businesses.

It would be good for members to remind themselves that the real engine of Canada's economy is not the wealthy corporations, but rather its small businesses. Therefore, let us look at this through the eyes of someone who runs a restaurant, drives a taxi or does home renovations. For them, the HST means asking customers to shell out more tax for their basic goods and services.

Their products used to be PST-exempt. For them, harmonizing the PST and GST is not about reducing paperwork. For them, it adds a major new tax on everything from food to funerals. The HST has added more tax to hundreds of products and services that are disproportionately delivered by small businesses. That is neither smart nor fair.

Instead of helping small businesses drive our economic recovery, the HST pits them against consumers who are already struggling. In the middle of a recession, it asks them to look these customers in the eye and say, “You have to pay more”. The notion that small businesses were clamouring for the HST is simply false. It certainly is not what I was hearing in my riding of Hamilton Mountain.

I have risen in this House on numerous occasions to talk about building an economy that works for Canadians. We have talked about our plan to create jobs and build an economy that allows us to emerge from this recession by ensuring every Canadian who wants to contribute can have a well-paying, productive job. The economy is built on employment.

I have talked about our plan to build a green economy. I have talked about our plan to support and foster an educated, skilled workforce, which, I might add, enhances our competitiveness much more than corporate tax cuts or ill-conceived free trade agreements, such as the ones I have spoken to in this House on so many occasions in the past few weeks.

If we really want to be competitive, we need to ensure that every child, teenager and young adult has access to an affordable education so that we can build a country that can succeed in the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century. That is how to build a modern economy in the world of today.

I also believe in an economy where no one is left behind. That is why my NDP colleagues and I always analyze every economic proposal by evaluating how it will affect the most vulnerable among us: seniors, children and the disabled. We know that the strongest chain is built by ensuring that we take care of the weakest link.

I wish I had more time to address each of these points in more detail. There are literally dozens and dozens of examples where the Conservative government has implemented policies based upon the principles outlined in the motion that is before us today, only to exacerbate the already growing gap between the rich and the rest of us.

For far too long now, our economy has failed to serve the needs and aspirations of the Canadian people. It is time to change course. It is time to build an economy where no one is left behind.

Chris Warkentin Peace River, AB

Mr. Speaker, I stand in the House today to support the motion. I would like to highlight a number of things the government has already done in making our country more competitive and innovative in order to have an economy that will lead to jobs today and tomorrow.

As set out in “Advantage Canada” and supported by Canada's economic action plan, in budget 2010, the government is committed to improving Canada's competitiveness and creating the economy of tomorrow. We have focused on building a long-term advantage based on competitive taxes, renewed infrastructure and skills, a tariff advantage, reduced red tape, openness in international trade and our strength as a global financial sector leader.

Even before the global recession, the government was making progress toward these goals and through our efforts we are emerging from the recession with a stronger economic advantage than before. Indeed, our plan is yielding results. Canada has returned to economic growth. Canada is leading our G7 peers in the recovery in the first quarter of 2010, and the growth is approximately 6%. The impressive job growth of 285,000 jobs since July 2009 truly is impressive.

In promoting competitiveness and innovation, we are advancing several objectives, including fostering an innovating and knowledge-based economy, improving and modernizing our marketplace framework policies and refining our approach in working with businesses to boost global competitiveness. Through these efforts, Canada will be even better positioned to compete globally.

A competitive business environment is a key to economic growth. As demonstrated by the government's commitment to improving competitiveness, last year we implemented key recommendations of the competition policy review panel. These reforms modernized the Competition Act and Investment Canada Act and reduced foreign investment restrictions on the air transport sector in order to increase our international competitiveness.

As part of a broader strategy to make the Canadian economy more competitive, we also announced the removal of existing restrictions on foreign ownerships of the Canada satellite system, allowing firms to access foreign capital and know-how and invest in long-term and new advanced technologies. This will allow Canadian firms to develop strategic global relationships that will enable them to participate fully in the foreign markets.

Our government also strongly reinforced the importance of small businesses and entrepreneurship in the Canadian economy. Given the role of small businesses as the engine of job creation and economic growth, the government has strengthened its support for this key sector. For example, budget 2010 provided $10 million in new funding for the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. This builds on our past record of supporting success. Since 1996, the CYBF has invested in more than 3,500 young entrepreneurs who have created over 16,900 new jobs. This funding will help launch more than 500 businesses over the next 12 months, generating an estimated 2,500 new jobs in the coming year.

Beyond the competitiveness of our business environment, our government is active in improving the innovativeness of our economy. Science, technology and innovation are instrumental in forging Canada's competitive advantage in the international marketplace. Our government recognizes that research and development are key drivers of long-term economic growth. We know that the driver of this economic growth will come when we have discoveries stemming from research that help improve the quality of life for every Canadians.

Canadian talent in science and engineering is one of the most important resources. Our university researchers and students are second to none and our public sector research capacity is among the strongest in the world. Among the G7 Canada ranks at the highest in terms of expenditures on research and development in the higher education sector as a share of our economy.

Recently our government announced a $350 million investment in natural science and engineering research council's discovery grant program. These grants support the ongoing work of more than 10,000 researchers based at universities across our country. In addition, $122 million was announced for scholarships that would be awarded this year through the NSERC post-graduate scholarship and post-doctoral fellowship programs and through NSERC's share of the Canada graduate scholarship program.

However, funding scientists and engineers is only half of the equation. We also need leading-edge facilities in which to work. Budget 2009 committed over $2 billion over two years to repair and renew the R and D and training infrastructure of our Canadian universities and colleges.

Our government recognized that, in addition to academic research, increasing business investment in research and development would be critical for our long-term competitiveness. Accordingly Canada's economic action plan provided of over $1.1 billion over two years to commercialize technologies advancements and encourage local businesses to invest in innovation. This included enhanced funding for the industrial research assistance program and funding to support clean energy and technologies research and the development of these technologies.

Government investments constitute one part of the equation. However, the real responsibility lies with the private sector to adopt and adapt these innovative technologies as strategies that can help advance their own business interests. Budget 2010 builds on the existing federal investments with over $260 million in new funding to encourage Canadian businesses to invest in research and development and to commercialize these innovations into new products and services. New funding will be used to foster regional networks innovation across the country, through the National Research Council technology cluster initiative program.

On advancing innovation and driving competitiveness, one area that holds particular promise is the digital economy. Fostering the digital economy is a key component of our economic strategy moving forward and will underpin our competitiveness for decades to come. Canada can and should be the leader in the digital economy.

As we announced recently at the launch of our digital economy consultation process, in developing our digital economy strategy, the government will focus on enabling the ICT sector to create new products and services, accelerate the adoption of digital technologies and contribute to increased cybersecurity. Pursuing the strategy means fostering a culture of innovation in Canada supported by all sectors of the economy. This will require the concerted efforts of government, academia and business all working together.

In addition, our government is committed to ensuring the necessary digital infrastructure is available in remote and rural areas with the broadband Canada connecting rural Canadians program. It was recently announced that the first 52 projects conditionally approved under the funding of the broadband Canada program had been identified. These projects will bring the power of broadband Internet access, for the first time, to approximately 168,868 households located in nine provinces and territories.

Further, we have committed to modernizing copyright and intellectual property laws in order to encourage new ideas and to protect rights of Canadians whose research, development and artistic creativity contribute to Canada's prosperity.

We are attempting to create a climate to encourage business innovation and productivity. This type of climate is one that will allow us to innovate, to move up the global value chain and to compete globally. These measures will continue to fuel our recovery from the global recession, forge a competitive advantage, support growth and prosperity and help to create an economy of tomorrow.

Through this record of successes, we are making Canada's economy stronger, more vibrant, more innovative and more competitive.

Scott Brison Kings—Hants, NS

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. 518 as brought forward by the member for Calgary Centre.

I would like to address the first part of the motion. I believe every member of the House recognizes the importance of strengthened competitiveness, the importance in terms of stimulating economic growth and of creating both the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. This debate is not on whether we should work toward greater competitiveness for the Canadian economy, but rather how best this can be achieved during a time of fiscal restraint and deficit.

Motion No. 518 proposes that the Government of Canada continue to lower corporate tax rates and to diversify and expand Canada's trading relations.

First, I take issue with the notion that the government, “continue to diversify and expand markets for Canadian goods and services”. My contention is with the word “continue”. If we look at the Conservative record of government, we see that Canadian trade has become less diversified since the election of the government and the Prime Minister. They have steered Canada into trade deficits for the first time in 30 years. This is not a record we want to continue in any way. I will have more on that later.

The desire for lower corporate tax rates and more diversified trade relations is a desire that, in general, the Liberal Party of Canada supports. In fact, the Liberal Party has a proud record of both lowering corporate tax rates and diversifying, expanding, and deepening Canadian trade relations with some of the fastest growing economies in the world. We implemented the largest reduction of Canadian corporate tax rates in history, reducing the corporate tax rate from 28% to 21%.

The difference between now and then was we were in a surplus. It was not on borrowed money. Today we are in deficit and we contend that this creates a very different calculation economically. The Liberal Party supported, believed in and implemented corporate tax cuts when in surplus. We do not believe that right now it makes sense to increase the federal deficit and deepen the federal debt to provide corporate tax cuts on borrowed money.

I will provide some context by contrasting the Liberal record, one of a thoughtful and prudent economic approach, with the record of reckless measures that have been put forward by this borrow and spend Conservative government.

As I mentioned before, the previous Liberal government implemented the largest corporate tax rate cuts in Canadian history, when we reduced the corporate tax rate from 28% to 21%. We did this while providing Canadians with 10 consecutive balanced budgets. We did this by maintaining prudent fiscal measures, including the $3 billion annual contingency reserve.

In fact, the Conservatives inherited a $13 billion surplus from the Liberal government, but by pursuing reckless fiscal policies, gutting our contingency measures and increasing spending by 18% in the first three years of its government, the Conservative government actually put Canada into deficit even before the economic downturn.

This is the biggest borrowing, biggest spending finance minister in Canadian history. He has missed every fiscal projection he has ever set. Now with the $56 billion deficit, he has given Canada its largest deficit in our history. To suggest that Canada should continue with this kind of reckless policy and stay in deficit, in fact, deepen our deficit by cutting corporate tax cuts on borrowed money right now, is misguided at best. The fact is we need to return to balanced budgets.

Canadians get it when they look at their family budget. They know they are struggling to make ends meet. They want help with the rising cost of home care and education. They are worried about how they will save for retirement. They wonder what they will get for this record $56 billion deficit.

Canadians see these borrow and spend Conservatives wasting their tax dollars with $1.3 billion for a 72-hour G20 photo op and on $10 billion to $13 billion on American-style mega prisons to lock up unreported criminals as the crime rate actually declines.

They are concerned about spending $16 billion on a bad deal and an untendered deal for stealth fighters. They are worried about a record $130 million spent by the Conservatives on shameless self-promoting advertising for the Conservative government. They are worried about billions of dollars more for corporate tax cuts that we cannot afford right now.

Canadians want this reckless management and waste to stop. They deserve a government that will act responsibly with their hard-earned tax dollars.

These borrow and spend Conservatives must stop trying to delude themselves into believing that corporate tax cuts on borrowed money will somehow make Canada more competitive in the long run. Canadians get it. They know the difference between cutting corporate taxes while in surplus, which is defendable, versus cutting corporate taxes on borrowed money leading to deeper deficit and deeper debt, which is economically untenable right now.

Deficits are simply deferred taxes with interest. So by providing a corporate tax cut today on borrowed money, we will be forcing corporations and citizens in the future to pay higher taxes. That is morally and economically questionable.

The proposed corporate tax cuts do not come for free. We will be paying for them down the line as Canadians pay higher taxes. With Canadian debt levels dangerously high, we need to focus on eliminating the deficit and paying down the debt once again.

When we consider total government debt in Canada, our debt to GDP ratio is not the best in the G7, as the government likes to pretend. In fact when we consider the debt of all levels of government and compare it internationally, our debt to GDP ratio in 2009 was 81.6%. That is actually worse than Germany, France and the U.K. Now is not the time to be reckless and continue with billions of dollars of tax cuts we simply cannot afford right now.

On the issue of international trade, the Conservative record has been troubling. Last year the Conservatives oversaw a trade deficit of $4.5 billion. That was the largest trade deficit in Canadian history and Canada's first annual trade deficit since 1975. This is an ominous sign for a country like Canada, a small open economy that depends disproportionately on exports to create jobs and prosperity.

So far in 2010 Canada has a trade deficit of $4.9 billion. That puts us on pace for an even larger trade deficit than the record trade deficit we saw last year. Not only are we seeing trade deficits but our trade is actually growing less diverse. We are becoming in fact more dependent on the U.S. economy, and we know the dangers of that, given what has happened the last couple of years with the U.S. economy and the decline of the U.S. economy and the rise of protectionism in the U.S. These are dangerous and ominous trends for Canada.

The fact is that the government spent its first three years with the Prime Minister being churlish with China and ignorant of India. The government has had four trade ministers in four years, denying any of them any opportunity to really build important sustainable relations with other ministers in other countries, trade relations, foreign relations or simply relations between people. Changing trade ministers almost every year is not good policy for defending Canadian interests abroad.

The fact is that a Liberal government would take a different approach. We would focus on global network strategy. A Liberal government would work in partnership with business, universities, civil society and private citizens in order to better leverage Canadian relations with the world.

We would harness our multicultural communities as natural bridges to the fastest growing economies in the world. We would return to the very successful team Canada missions focused on sectoral areas where we have a comparative advantage, like education and including clean technology and clean energy technology.

A Liberal government would clean up the fiscal mess that these borrow and spend Conservatives are going to leave. We would, once again, reduce corporate tax rates once the books are balanced and once we can afford it, but we have to balance our books first and get Canada into the black before we do that.

Dennis Bevington Western Arctic, NT

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Motion No. 518, a motion from the member for Calgary Centre, taking up his private member's opportunity with a motion that basically tries to debate the continuing direction the Conservative Government of Canada is taking with its economic policy.

For one who, after five years in the House, is only getting his first private member's bill in front of the House for debate, I find it was a very large sacrifice on the part of the member for Calgary Centre to put forward a motion like this when he could have been doing something much more useful for his constituents.

Having said that, of course I am very pleased to have the opportunity to debate the issues within that motion. I note that our previous speaker from the Liberal Party did not dwell overlong on the corporate tax cuts in the history of the Liberal Party. Quite clearly the New Democratic Party has believed and continues to believe that the corporate tax cuts that were initiated in the 1990s and carried through to this day have fundamentally altered the tax system of Canada to a point where it is no longer recognizable.

The burden has fallen directly upon average Canadians, who when they do make a profit on their income, so to speak, would invest this in Canada. Certainly average Canadians take their dollars and put them directly into the Canadian economy. That is the case, and what is happening since we have moved the tax burden over to the individual is that is those individuals do not have the same capacity.

What has happened within the system for businesses? The very best businesses do very well in Canada. Canada still has, if we look at it, a resource-based economy. Where businesses are doing well is in selling the natural resources, taking the natural resources out of the ground here in Canada and selling them to customers who require these resources in order to conduct their business in this country as well as in other countries.

We have an economy that is robust in its sale of natural resources. Those resources, of course, are finite and will eventually be extracted and be no longer part of the Canadian economic equation. That is a deficit that we are building within our natural resources sector.

Profitable companies and Canadian resources go hand in hand. Those are two things that go hand in hand in this country. So when we talk about reducing corporate income tax, we are talking about reducing the value to Canadians of the exploitation of their resources, to a large degree.

Whether it is in the financial sector where much of this money is made or whether it is directly in the resource companies, it is coming from virtually the same source.

Since the advent of free trade, we have seen a huge decline in our manufacturing sector. That will not come back with free trade because, of course, free trade encourages the movement of manufacturing to the lowest cost labour situation. That is exactly what has happened now.

We see that free trade has caused an imbalance in the world's economy, with huge surpluses of capital in those countries that were most successful at harnessing their low-cost labour and applying it to products. So we see that China and India are very strong right now with their ability to influence the world economy and to do well in that. All the much better for them.

Getting back to corporate income taxes, what can we do in Canada to promote what we are doing better? Let us take a look at the Mackenzie Valley gas project. It is one that has gone through environmental assessment. It has gone through a process and has now come to a point where we in the north can support this project, because we have identified what has to happen with it and what can make it go well.

I had the opportunity to read more about this in the last few days, and one of the things that is clear is that we will not see the development of the Mackenzie gas project without investment by Canada. Where is the investment going to come from at a time when we have billions of dollars of deficit in our fiscal situation? Where is that money going to come from to do the things we need to do? Should it come from the average Canadian, to invest in an opportunity for a large corporation to move ahead with the further exploitation of our resources? No, I would say it probably should come from corporations, which will benefit in the end from those investments.

When we look at the investment there, we see quite clearly that we need infrastructure. The cost of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline is extremely high, yet it could be reduced to a huge extent by the building of the Mackenzie highway prior to the development of the pipeline. That would not take a very large investment on the part of government, whether it be our government in the Northwest Territories, which is still suffering from a borrowing limit lower than that of our major city in that territory, or it could come from the federal government if it chooses not to cut $6 billion out of the budget through corporate tax cuts every year. Then we would have some money that we could see invested in things like the Mackenzie Valley highway, which would create the opportunity for the Mackenzie Valley pipeline to be built at an economical rate, much as we are competing with the Alaska pipeline project that is to be built along the Alaska highway.

We are in a situation in the Northwest Territories where we are trying to compete with a project that has better infrastructure than we do. So we need investment that will make corporations more money and they will be able to pay more taxes. It is a good situation. We are agreeing to the exploitation of the resources, but we need investment by the federal government in this type of activity.

Will the federal government have the fiscal capacity to put that into the Mackenzie Valley pipeline if the Conservatives continue with their rather poor policy of reducing the corporate taxes benefiting those that are in place already, that are wealthy already and are in a good position to exploit Canadian resources and to take profit from that?

No, we need the investment of government in order to make that possible. Right around the world, we are the one single country left that is an energy exporting country that does not have a national presence in the energy business. Where are we in Canada? Why are we taking this path rather than the path that every other energy exporting country around the world is taking? Why are we doing that? Why are we continuing to look at our economy in a fashion that rewards the very best and does not help out those who really need help?

The NDP in the last while has proposed that we look at the potential for reducing taxes on small businesses, which employ many Canadians, which give opportunities to Canadians to expand their local industry to work in their communities. That is where tax reduction will give the biggest benefit. So what we have is a situation where the government continues to favour the very large corporations and does not look at the economy in a holistic sense, does not look at how we can invest to ensure the best return to all Canadians. It thinks that by giving it to the corporations we are somehow going to get it back in a better fashion, and that just does not make sense.

Ed Holder London West, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise with pleasure this morning to support Motion No. 518 by the member for Calgary Centre. I speak as a proud Londoner and a member of a government committed to doing what is necessary to bring opportunities to Canadians.

The Government of Canada has been capitalizing on every opportunity to tell the world about these and our many other competitive advantages. From natural resources and energy to digital media, life sciences and advanced manufacturing, the government is working closely with its partners, the provinces and the territories, to reach out to business leaders and investment decision makers around the world. We are proud to highlight Canada's competitive offering and eager to welcome them to look at growth and investment opportunities in Canada.

Last year, Canada's trade commissioners in 150 cities and markets around the world reached out to thousands of investment decision makers and influencers. They met with hundreds of high-potential investors and helped prepare solid business cases for making investments in Canada. These efforts by our trade commissioners abroad helped to attract more than 100 new greenfield and expansion investments in Canada last year, and created more than 3,500 high-value jobs across Canada. Our efforts also helped to generate a great deal of positive media coverage of Canada in the international press.

I commend my colleagues, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Industry, for their efforts to make Canada more competitive and attractive as a business destination.

In budgets 2009 and 2010, the government responded to recommendations of the Competition Policy Review Panel, reduced foreign investment restrictions in the air transport sector, introduced measures to make Canada's investment review process less restrictive and more transparent and to remove restrictions on foreign ownership of Canadian satellites, in uranium mining and to open the door to foreign venture capital. Investors took note.

Wherever we meet with global investors, we are proud to have such a great and compelling story to tell about Canada's advantages as a destination for business and investment. We are proud to tell them about our top-performing economy, about our excellent business conditions, about Canada's tax advantage, our world-class transportation, education and research infrastructure, and about the many leading-edge companies and industries in Canada.

That is a great story to tell, but even more rewarding is what we are hearing more and more from global business leaders. Many say they are most impressed with Canada's people advantage. Increasingly they see Canada as a great place to find capable, creative, loyal and supportive workers, so essential to innovation and to gaining competitive advantage in today's economy.

Canada's high quality of life is another advantage that is not lost on these business leaders. They see Canada's safe, family-friendly cities, beautiful natural environment and world-leading research and education institutions as providing a wonderful backdrop against which the best and most creative workers in the world can thrive.

In my own city of London, we have an exceptional workforce. The University of Western Ontario is a world-leading research institution, and along with Fanshawe College, we train a very sophisticated workforce.

No wonder the Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Canada as the best place to do business in the G7 over the next five years. KPMG has also confirmed that among industrialized countries, Canada leads in terms of business cost competitiveness. We enjoy a cost advantage over our American partners and offer the lowest research and development costs in the G7, in fact 12.9% lower than in the United States.

It is no wonder that people look to Canada first. Quite simply, Canada is a great place for foreign business and investors looking for a foothold in the North American market. Why would they not choose Canada? Why should they not choose Canada?

There is a lot of interest from around the world in Canada's offering: our economic stability, our commitment to innovation, our position in the North American marketplace, and certainly the excellence of our private sector and our superb workforce.

Since before the onset of the global economic crisis, and as reiterated again in budget 2010, the Government of Canada's economic action plan for Canada has been quite clear. Lasting economic recovery requires more trade and more investment, not less. For Canada and indeed the rest of the world, jobs, prosperity and opportunities are created when we keep the doors open to trade and investment.

Canadians have every reason to be optimistic and confident in the future. As a nation, we were well prepared for the global downturn, as challenging as that was around the world and for Canadians as well. However, the government acted quickly to respond to the crisis and today, our performance is world leading and we stand poised to emerge from the global downturn stronger than ever.

The Government of Canada is committed to giving Canadians every opportunity to succeed and prosper. This motion speaks to the heart of what defines us as a nation. I urge all members of the House to support Motion No. 518.

I would like to share with the House one more time what this motion says:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should (a) recognize that improved competitiveness will continue to stimulate economic growth and create jobs for Canadians;--

Can anyone in the House disagree with that? I think not. The motion continues:

--and (b) continue to diversify and expand markets for Canadian goods and services by encouraging investment in Canada through lower corporate tax rates, maintaining a stable economy and the signing of free trade agreements.

Can anyone in the House disagree with that? Many may, but as someone with 32 years of experience in business and understanding what it means to make this country succeed and our economy prosper, I say we must support the spirt of this motion. We must support this motion.

Nathan Cullen Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate this morning, in some small part to correct some of the government's statistics that we have been hearing.

It should be news to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, because earlier today a Conservative member rose in the House and tripled Canada's performance this year as compared to what the bank itself predicts for our growth, which is somewhere just north of 2%. The government believes it is somewhere north of 6%, which is remarkable news for the people on Bay Street. They should really get on this. The government must have access to new data that nobody else has, which puts it into some level of suspicion.

This motion is interesting to me and many of my New Democratic colleagues. It speaks not only to the current circumstances in this country in the midst of a recession, and the very serious threat of a double-dip recession, as the Canadian housing market has completely cooled off and is not pulling our economy back out of its flatline growth, but also, it is a great comment on the government's ideological underpinnings, its basic philosophy. The government continues to make decisions that seem to poorly fit with the ideas of Canadians and what this country actually needs, which is true investment and true development.

The government's philosophy speaks to a basic sentiment that we can cut our way to prosperity. As any sound businessperson would tell us, if a corporation is in any kind of trouble, one of the temptations is to cut its way to such a small, lean point that prosperity will return. However, the evidence in the corporate cycle shows us that is not true, that true investment is the way to attain, or re-attain in some cases, wealth generation prosperity.

The government has never met any kind of tax cut it does not like, except when it raises taxes, which is another fond, yet strange, element. I represent a riding in British Columbia, one of the hardest hit ridings in this country with respect to the economy. In the midst of our darkest days, this government working in cahoots with the Campbell government in Victoria, British Columbia, decided--and follow the logic if you can, Mr. Speaker, because it is a perverse one--to borrow money from future generations to bribe the province of British Columbia to raise taxes on those same taxpayers, to borrow money from taxpayers to bribe another level of government and then to raise taxes on the province. That is exactly what the harmonized sales tax does.

We are running the largest debt in Canadian history. I would like the Minister of Canadian Heritage to correct me on that one. Are we running the largest debt in Canadian history?

James Moore Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC

No, not even close.

Nathan Cullen Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

We are, Mr. Speaker. Second, the money borrowed for the HST is going to the Campbell government to bribe that government to raise taxes through the HST. Taxes will be higher for British Columbia residents. Perhaps the hon. member would like to counter that point. That somehow taxes will be lowered for British Columbians under the HST simply is not true. Taxes go up. It is an undeniable fact.

I know the government likes to portray itself as the slayer of taxes, but in this case, and in the case of EI premiums, it has in fact raised taxes on people. The government has raised taxes through the EI premiums on employers and employees. To suggest that is not true is a falsehood, and the minister knows that because he is a smart guy. When the government raises taxes on businesses, as the Conservatives have done, the effects are that businesses hire fewer people.

The ideology that we see underpinning everything else that the Conservatives do has been proven a falsehood. Canada just came through a generation of tax cuts which the Liberals made previously to the largest corporations. Companies only get to take advantage of these tax cuts if they are making profits. The companies that are actually suffering, the ones that are laying off employees, will tell us that a tax cut to a suffering company does nothing. If a company is writing off losses, it is not paying taxes, so an 18 point rate decreased to a 17 point rate means nothing. Real investment in education and infrastructure and all those other things that our competitors have done is really where the investments need to be for those struggling parts of our economy.

We have seen CEOs in the corporate banking sector take some of the largest windfall profits ever and at the same time also receive tax cuts from the government, as if that somehow would have made them more competitive.

I remind the Conservatives in the House that it was their party that fought for the mergers of banks, that fought to allow banks to sell insurance at the bank wicket. I can remember the current Prime Minister actually using the example of AIG in the United States, which is one of the largest banks in the world, saying that Canada needed an AIG.

We saw what happened to AIG. We saw what happens when we try to make things so big that they cannot fail. They become a destabilizing factor in the economy. Eventually, they start to fail, as they did in England and the United States. The secure Canadian banking sector, which was conservative in its planning, even though it wanted to merge, faced resistance in the House of Commons, particularly from New Democrats, who said the merger would make neither the Canadian banking economy nor the national economy more competitive. New Democrats resisted this.

At the time, the Conservatives favoured the merger. They wanted to let them get so big they could not fail. There is no such thing. These types of economic philosophies and policies have proven to be a failure.

If the corporate tax rate really triggered productivity, we would be more productive than our counterparts in the U.S. or the European Union. But we are not. Canada is not more productive than either of those places, even though we run far lower corporate tax regimes.

When one looks for evidence to support this lower-is-better philosophy, other than a knee-jerk response, it seems that we are asking the average citizen to pick up the tab that was previously paid for by corporations.

Good corporate citizens understand their role and do not mind paying for the benefits and services they receive: the road to their plant, the trained workers, the abundant energy resources, many of which came from public investment.

Many companies tell us they locate in B.C. to take advantage of the low energy rates, which resulted from public investment in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. They have better access to cheap renewable power. In Alberta, where energy was deregulated, it is a disincentive to investment. It pushes businesses away. When Alberta deregulated its energy sector, which was supposed to make it more competitive, better for business, power rates across the province went up $750 million.

What did the genius Alberta government do? It cut a cheque for $750 million and sent that around to individuals and businesses. They were happy to receive the money, because they were hard up. It was their own money. The government was cutting them cheques for their own money.

Mixing politics with economics leads to failure. It has proven to be a failure time and time again. A fair taxation rate requires corporations to pay their fair share.

The other day, I asked a corporate accountant how low a rate he wanted, and he told me zero. I asked him if he felt a duty to share responsibilities, to pay for all the great things we receive as Canadians, like health care and public education. He said he would be happy to leave that privilege to the employees. How generous of the corporate sector, to leave the privilege of paying taxes to the employees. That is wrong.

This way of thinking will do nothing to build this country, to give it a fabric we can be proud of. The way we manage our natural resources makes a difference. We see this in Skeena—Bulkley Valley in the northwest of B.C. We are deindustrializing right now, as we have been doing for the last 10 years. We lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs in the recession. The government claims a certain number of jobs are back. Most of them are not in the industrial sector, and most of them are not in the value-added sector. Most of them are not well-paying jobs that one can raise a family on. These are more temporary jobs, lower-paying jobs without benefits.

That is not a recovery, but the government is going to flash out the number, try to pull the wool over our eyes, and tell us we are just the same as we were before the recession started. We are not. We have fundamentally changed.

Motions meant to enshrine this type of ideology into government policy are idiotic. Members have to take a calm breath and realize that to build this nation we must gather together and make up our minds to impose fair taxation rates on both corporations and citizens, rates that will help restore this country to its previous glory.

The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin

Is the House ready for the question?

The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.