Mr. Speaker, I am proud to speak to the report stage of Bill C-9, the budget implementation act. This act may more properly be called the Godzilla act because it is a monster act.
The government has taken a budget implementation act and it has thrown in everything but the kitchen sink to make this monstrous, multi-headed act that it is now trying to bring through the House. Fortunately, in this corner of the House we in the NDP do not stand for bullying and we do not stand for these kinds of incredibly dishonest tactics. We are fighting this and bringing forward amendments that will split things off so that we do not have the Godzilla act in front of us.
As members know, Godzilla is a mythical creature in Japanese movies. At least we thought he was mythical until we saw the Prime Minister at work. Godzilla used to run roughshod over people. These report stage amendments address that running roughshod over people. Coupled in Bill C-9 is the removal of $57 billion in employment insurance moneys that are properly owed to the unemployed workers of this country, the Canadians who paid into the fund.
The government is taking out the EI surplus and basically legalizing that theft. One has to wonder what the Conservatives did to replace that. They gave us the HST. In British Columbia, a record number of British Columbians are signing the referendum initiative. That is something that I believe British Columbians and many people in Ontario simply do not accept.
The other thing that Godzilla did was to be very destructive of institutions and buildings. What we see in the Godzilla act of 2010, Bill C-9, are things like Canada Post and the AECL offered up. They are fine Canadian institutions that are being slowly destroyed by the Conservative government. However, the one thing I should say in Godzilla's defence is that he came out of the sea because of the toxic wastes that were being dumped in the ocean. In this case, I think Godzilla was much more environmentally inclined than the government.
In this Godzilla act, Bill C-9, we see environmental assessment being gutted. That is fundamentally important. People around the world are focused on what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico. We have countries moving forward and saying that we have to tighten our environmental policies and the procedures to ensure this kind of thing never happens again.
What do the Conservatives do? They weaken the environmental assessment process, not strengthen it, in reaction to one of the greatest environmental and ecological catastrophes in human history. They are moving to phase out the kind of important environmental assessments that protect our environment and Canadians. It is absolutely ridiculous.
We are bringing these report stage amendments forward because this Godzilla act needs to be pulled apart so that Parliament can vote in an appropriate fashion on each and every aspect of this Conservative hidden plan that it has tried to introduce with this monster legislation.
I know I will be speaking more on this later in the week but I will add that the idea that this HST would be imposed when British Columbians are saying no and up the taxes that are paid under the softwood lumber sellout is particularly reprehensible to British Columbians—