Debates of Feb. 25th, 2014

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the member's comments on the need for a national breakfast program. She might be familiar with the fact that the member for Trinity—Spadina has actually had a motion before the House and has done a lot of work. I know it has been a big issue in Toronto, but of course, it is an issue right across the country. It is something that is very important in terms of educational development and making sure kids are healthy and can participate and utilize their full potential.

There is another aspect of the budget I would like to raise, and that was a glaring omission. A lot of Canadians, particularly low income Canadians, and even those in middle income, are feeling the affordability gap. Whether it is high credit card fees, or ATM fees, or being in debt and not having enough money at the end of the month for very basic necessities, people are feeling very stretched. One of the major factors in that is the cost of housing. Being from Vancouver, and particularly Vancouver East, I know this is an enormous issue. Families, even with double incomes, basically cannot find affordable housing. They are paying way more than 30% of their income for housing. Of course, that starts impacting other things like food, educational requirements, and so on. There was nothing in the budget that really put forward a program for a national strategy around housing, something we worked on for so long.

I wonder if the member would comment on that. I know it is a huge issue in my community, and I have a suspicion that it is probably an issue in her community as well.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, child hunger is an issue across Canada. We cannot have 169 other countries feeding their children and Canada not. The U.S. understood this in the 1940s. I also want to point out that I put forward several motions to end child hunger in this country.

Regarding a national housing strategy, one thing that could have been in the budget would have been to make an immediate and transformative investment in local community infrastructure and affordable housing across the country, instead of punching a hole of more than $3 billion in federal support, as the Conservative government has done. It is going to take until 2019 to get back to even last year's funding levels. Also, how municipalities can access that money remains a mystery,

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to address what is likely one of the most lacklustre budgets ever presented in the House of Commons. I would argue that it is a very boring budget that does not demonstrate any vision for Canada. There is no reason for people to look at this budget document and say it reflects a Prime Minister who actually has a vision for the future of our country. There is a great sense of disappointment as a result. Many Canadians are very concerned about the direction of our nation and want to see more hope and a Prime Minister who is committed to building Canada, looking at things, whether our infrastructure or the many different industries throughout our great nation and how we can support them and feed growth.

I will start by providing comment for the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food because I know he is listening very closely. We have had very serious problems in the Prairies. The Liberal Party and I have raised the issue regarding grain. We have piles of grain all over the Prairies, we have empty ships in the Pacific Ocean, and the Minister of Agriculture has done very little or nothing to ensure that grain ends up in the ships in a timely fashion. He has abandoned his responsibility of ensuring that grain farmers get their grain to market and of protecting their interests. It is a crisis. We are not talking about a few million dollars, but tens of millions of dollars, which could easily turn into in excess of hundreds of millions of dollars. This budget does nothing to address that crisis.

Then we have the pork crisis, which really affects several provinces, in particular Manitoba. There is the threat to exports, and again we have not seen any action coming from the federal government, no reference, on this issue.

These issues, in particular the wheat issue, have been there for months and there is nothing in the budget to address them.

We can talk about smaller industries, which are actually fairly significant in size and contribute immensely to our economies. However, I want to focus some attention on the bigger picture and look at where we are going as a country. I have made reference to it in the past and my colleague, in her speech, made reference to the deficit situation.

Why would we believe the Conservatives when they say that the government will, at some time in the future, achieve a balanced budget? We know for a fact that when the Conservatives took office from former Prime Minister Paul Martin, there was indeed a multi-billion-dollar financial surplus.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Taken from the EI fund.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives converted that into a huge multi-billion-dollar deficit, and that was even prior to the recession.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

He has got to be kidding me.

[An hon. member]

No, he is not thinking.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

No, it is true.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

They stole from EI.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

I know the truth can hurt.

The reality is that if they take a look at the trade deficit, again something that I have raised in the past, the Conservatives will see that they inherited a multi-billion-dollar trade surplus and converted it into a multi-billion-dollar trade deficit. That is all about jobs and the impact it has on our middle class.

There was an interesting report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and a letter by Perrin Beatty, who is very well-known to the members opposite. I understand that he has served in Progressive Conservative governments in a ministerial capacity. There are a couple of things I want to make reference to.

In his letter, Mr. Beatty states that Canada is struggling to stay competitive and that in fact our country's ability to remain a leader among nations is stagnating. For the second consecutive year, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada 14th in global economic competitiveness, down two places from 2011 and five places from 2009.

The Prime Minister should be concerned when someone like Perrin Beatty indicates this. This is the bigger picture.

I love it when the government members stand up and cite stats and how well Canada is doing. That is why I think we need to look at the bigger picture. The Stats from the Conservative government often twist reality. The reality is that the information being given by the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and other ministers speaking on behalf of the PMO is in fact quite misleading.

This is coming from Mr. Beatty. Tourism is one of the greatest industries that we have. If one were to go province to province to province, one would find that they often talk about the importance of tourism. Tourism is of critical importance to many nations around the world. How is Canada doing on that particular front?

Again, we will go to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. These are the people the Conservatives often quote as endorsing their agenda. The chamber says, “Canada has slid from the seventh largest tourist destination in the world to the 18th.” That is the reality.

The tourism industry employs hundreds of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. We can see very vividly, very clearly, how the government has dropped the ball. This could apply to different industries. I cite tourism because tourism is one of the industries around the world that is doing so much better in terms of economic development, but here in Canada we are not doing anywhere near as well as we could or should be doing.

I asked questions about infrastructure. The Liberal Party has been on this issue for a long time now. We need to be able to start investing in infrastructure in a very real and tangible way. We need to sit down with the different stakeholders, our municipalities, industry leaders, and provincial governments, to develop an infrastructure strategy that will allow for greater economic growth.

If we are prepared to invest today, at the end of the day we will end up seeing more economic development because we will have a sounder infrastructure. It is a whole lot easier, for example, to transport goods across our vast land if we have a sound infrastructure.

My time has gone by quickly, but there is so much more that I could talk about. The Kelowna accord, which had a vision for our indigenous people, was thrown out by the government. Child care programs and incentives were thrown out by the government. My colleagues and others have talked about the importance of affordable housing. It is critical. We have more young adults living at home, not because they necessarily want to, as much as parents may want them to stay, but because it is becoming the economic reality. There is no housing strategy.

We need stronger leadership from the government on so many points. If the Conservatives want ideas, they should have gone to the convention that we had, where over 3,000 people were participating—

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order. Questions and comments. The hon. member for Charleswood--St. James--Assiniboia.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the remarks by my colleague from Winnipeg North.

He spoke of infrastructure, and I was quite surprised. The member may not be aware of the fact that this government introduced the largest infrastructure program in Canadian history.

The member also spoke about consultation. I was minister of state for transport and I assisted the then minister of transport in creating the building Canada fund. At some $53 billion, it is the largest infrastructure program ever.

The FCM and municipalities throughout Manitoba and across western Canada all support our infrastructure plan. Why is the member speaking ill of it when everyone else supports it? Why does he vote against it?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, a significant amount of money has been allocated to infrastructure, but we need to put into perspective the time of its allocation. For example, if we say that we are going to invest $200 billion in infrastructure over a 50-year timeframe, that is not all that impressive.

The Conservative government says it is going to spend x number of dollars on infrastructure over a lengthy period of time, but it is holding off spending a lot of those infrastructure dollars in 2014 so it can maximize those dollars in 2015, which happens to be the year of the federal election. One can understand why people would be somewhat skeptical. Just because the Conservatives say a number, my advice to Canadians is not to believe them because quite often they distort the truth.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to the Liberal member’s comments, and quite clearly, the Liberal Party does not walk the talk.

The member talked about the Kelowna agreement, a splendid agreement that was negotiated and signed. However, an analysis of the country’s financial statements shows that no financial provisions had been made. It was just a scrap of paper. With respect to Kyoto, it was exactly the same problem. We were told that something must be done, that the Liberals wanted to do something, but they did nothing. Under the Liberal government, air pollution increased as never before.

In short, I would like to know when the representatives of the Liberal Party will stop criticizing, stop talking, take real action, actually propose an innovative plan for this country and keep their promise.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect there might be many members of the New Democrat caucus who have a difficult time sleeping at night when they reflect on the issues they killed and voted with the Conservatives on. I am speaking of issues such as the Kyoto accord, which was the largest single expenditure on the environment in Canadian history. The NDP voted with the Conservatives against these accords, whether the Kyoto accord or the Kelowna accord. I can appreciate that.

The leader of the NDP was in Winnipeg the other day fully endorsing Greg Selinger. He said he would do whatever it takes to keep Greg Selinger as Premier of Manitoba. This was just after Greg Selinger lied to the people of Manitoba and did not hold a referendum on increasing the provincial sales tax.

There are all sorts of issues in the province of Manitoba.

Before NDP members start glowing, they should start reflecting on some of their own performances. I can suggest--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Pickering—Scarborough East.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today in this House to speak about economic action plan 2014.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia.

Among the many initiatives and announcements in our budget, I would like to focus specifically on the aspects affecting my riding of Pickering—Scarborough East and the people who live there.

Rouge Park contains unique and highly significant natural and cultural heritage resources. It also offers an extraordinary opportunity to expose a huge number of Canadians to their heritage, as 20% of the country's population resides in close proximity to the park.

Accordingly, the Government of Canada became an early advocate of the park in the Rouge Valley, beginning in 1988 when it pledged $10 million towards the creation of a heritage park.

A national urban park in the Rouge Valley is a unique concept in Canada. There are currently no comparable places, so this park requires a new and innovative conservation and management approach to respond to its unique urban context.

Aligned with the Parks Canada mandate, it will include conservation of the park's rich natural and cultural heritage resources, opportunities for outreach, and a range of visitor experience opportunities. The specific attributes of this urban context will also require consideration of mixed land uses, including the promotion of sustainable agriculture.

As indicated in budget 2012 and confirmed in budget 2014, the government will take action on the creation of Canada's first national urban park in the Rouge Valley in Ontario. It announced funding on May 25, 2012, of $143 million over 10 years for park development and interim operations and of $7.6 million per year thereafter for its continuing operations.

I cannot stress enough the benefits to both our community and the surrounding area that are provided by green spaces such as the Rouge River urban park.

That is why I was particularly excited to see our government's commitment in economic action plan 2014 to protect the health and well-being of Canadians by promoting a safe and clean environment. This is a fantastic government priority that all Canadians can get behind.

Since 2006, our government has taken significant action to protect our natural areas, including taking steps to add more than 160,000 square kilometres to the Canadian federal parks and marine conservation system, a more than 58% increase, and securing almost 4,000 square kilometres of ecologically sensitive private lands.

Economic action plan 2014 invests in measures to protect and preserve Canada's rich natural heritage by investing in Canada's national parks, conserving recreational fisheries, encouraging additional donations under Canada's ecological gifts program, expanding recreation trails, supporting family-oriented conservation, and expanding tax support for clean energy generation.

Our plan proposes investments of over $400 million in this area, including allocating $391.5 million over five years on a cash basis to the Parks Canada Agency to make improvements to highways, bridges, and dams located in our national parks and along our historic canals; allocating $15 million over two years to extend the recreational fisheries conservation partnerships program; encouraging additional donations of ecologically sensitive land by doubling for income tax purposes the carry-forward period for donations of such land; providing $10 million over two years to improve and expand snowmobile and recreational trails across the country; and providing $3 million over three years to support the Earth Rangers Foundation to expand its existing family-oriented conservation and biodiversity programming.

I am proud to see that our government is investing in protecting Canada's natural beauty and heritage. Hopefully many more Canadians will be able to experience first-hand the benefits that our natural space can provide.

While we are on the topic of natural beauty, Canada's north holds a very special place in my heart. During my time in the Canadian Armed Forces, I was fortunate enough to have visited the beautiful territory of Nunavut while on a military exercise. In fact, while there, I helped build the playground in Gjoa Haven, the hometown of the Minister of the Environment.

Building on the government's vision for a new north, economic action plan 2014 is taking action to ensure that the north realizes its full potential by exercising our northern sovereignty, promoting economic prosperity, and supporting the health of northerners.

Economic action plan 2014 proposes to provide $40 million over two years, starting in 2014-15, to renew strategic investments in the northern economic development program delivered by the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency.

Canada's northern territories have enormous economic development potential. To help unlock this potential, the Government of Canada will work with territorial governments and local municipalities to develop transportation infrastructure in the north.

Economic action plan 2014 proposes to provide $70 million over three years for a new targeted and time-limited fund to increase health services in the three territories in priority health areas and to reduce the reliance on outside health care systems and medical travel.

As the House may know, I have the Pickering nuclear power plan in my riding. For that reason, issues concerning nuclear power and plants in general are important not only to me but to my constituents. I was particularly pleased to see that our government is committed to investing $117 million in AECL to maintain safe and reliable operations at the Chalk River Laboratories, ensuring a secure supply of medical isotopes.

In a past life, before I was elected to Parliament, I served as both a professional engineer and a military engineer. I would like to conclude today's speech by talking about what economic action plan 2014 promises for our science and research sectors, as well as for our veterans and persons with disabilities.

Our government has committed to investing $15 million in the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo to carry out leading-edge research in quantum technologies, such as cryptography and medical diagnostics. This is especially close to my heart, as I am an engineering physics graduate. We are also dedicated to increasing Canada's prestige on the international stage by creating the Canada first research excellence fund through investing $1.5 billion to position post-secondary institutions across Canada to compete internationally.

Other areas that our government would invest in include providing $46 million to the granting councils in support of advanced research and scientific discoveries of Canada's leading universities and colleges, providing $8 million to train more graduates and post-doctoral fellows in becoming the next generation of innovators and researchers, providing $10 million to support research in colleges and polytechnics focusing on education, and integration of vulnerable Canadians, and community development.

I am proud to be part of a government that would support the youngest and brightest minds across the country through these wonderful investments. I am also extremely proud of what we have done and what we intend to do for our veterans, to whom we owe the greatest gratitude for keeping Canada strong and free.

We would honour our veterans by providing over $100 million to expand the funeral and burial program to ensure that veterans of modest means have access to a dignified funeral and burial. We would increase access to veterans services by providing $2 million to enable veterans and their families access to engage the Department of Veterans Affairs 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Finally, my constituents are particularly pleased with the attention our government dedicates to persons with disabilities. Budget 2014 specifically outlines plans to provide $222 million to create new labour market agreements for persons with disabilities to better help Canadians with disabilities get the skills they need to fill available jobs. It would also provide $15 million to the ready, willing, and able initiative and $11.4 million to CommunityWorks to help persons with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders to participate in the workforce.

This is why I very strongly support economic action plan 2014. I invite the opposition to do the same.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to hear the member for Pickering—Scarborough East talk about all sorts of things other than what is going on in the Toronto area. As a fellow member of Parliament from the Toronto area, I would have assumed that he would respond and answer the question that I get asked a lot, which is “What is the government doing to give my kids some hope for their future?”

This question arises because we have an employment rate in Toronto of just 43.5% for youth and we have an unemployment rate of over 18% for youth. It is so bad that the youth unemployment rate is driving overall employment and unemployment rates in Toronto.

What is the answer to that question? We have here a budget that does nothing, that inspires no hope, and that offers no hope to young people to find work in the Toronto area, so I am wondering how the member actually answers the question. What are the Conservatives, as a government, doing to give hope to my kid?

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member from Toronto for the question. I want to mention that my riding is half Toronto and half Durham region, so it is a specific riding.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

It's the Toronto area.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

It's the Toronto area, yes, of course, but the most important thing is that the budget is creating jobs and prosperity for our community, especially for youth. Members did not hear me talking about this because I cannot talk about everything in the entire budget in my speech. A lot of things are provided in this big book, which is economic action plan 2014.

To answer a couple of points that the hon. member raised, we are cutting red tape for small businesses and creating opportunities for small businesses to hire more people. That is very important. We are creating opportunities for training. Again, economic action plan 2014 is creating jobs and prosperity for Canadians. There are many issues outlined in this quite big book that can answer his questions.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Pickering—Scarborough East referred to this “big book”. As most members in the House have done, the government is calling it a budget, but it is not a budget.

There is no statement anywhere in this document that gives us a complete statement of revenues against expenses. There is no bottom line. There is no statement of what the total budget will be for any government department. There are random announcements of spending, but no rationalization of whether that spending is new money or old money, or whether, for instance, the $319 million Parks Canada would get in new money to repair the roads that are crumbling because of previous budget cuts would mean the budget would go up or down.

This has attracted the interest, of all things, of The Economist magazine, which has made note that Canada has departed from our time-worn tradition of ensuring that Parliament controls the public purse. I ask my hon. colleague if, in good conscience, he can call this a budget.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in answer to my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, I would like to point out that this is a real budget. I understand the budget very well. I am a technical person, not a lawyer. Lawyers put spins on words and so on, but I am a practical person and I know that if we are spending $7.5 million on something, we are spending it for that purpose.

We have a lot of good things in this budget. If the hon. member would provide some advice on how to do better, I would accept it, but if she is saying that it is not a budget and it does not contain anything, I am sorry, but that is not the case.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Mr. Speaker, to the leader of the Green Party, this is a budget, and as we go through the year, there are supplementary estimates (A), (B), and (C), which also allow us to reconcile some of the differences the member was referring to.

This budget I think is a very positive budget.

There has been a lot of talk today about infrastructure. We have the largest infrastructure program in Canadian history, with tens of billions of dollars. We consulted the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, its sister and brother organizations, and all the provincial associations. What they asked for was a 10-year term, and that is exactly what they got. They asked for a permanent transfer of gas tax money. That is what they got. They asked that it be indexed. The gas tax is indexed and goes directly to the municipalities. This government listens to what Canadians have to say.

Since taking office, the Canadian tax burden per family has decreased by $3,400.

In my home province of Manitoba, transfers are at a record high of $3.4 billion. With a $9 billion provincial budget, that works out to about 40% of the provincial budget being reliant on federal transfers. I do not think that is great, because I would much rather see Manitoba in a position to contribute to the transfer formula, but right now it is in a situation of needing to accept the transfers. That is why public policy is important.

The infrastructure program included billions of dollars for projects of regional significance, that is, projects that cross provincial boundaries. The infrastructure program, like John A. Macdonald's railway, will help bring our country together.

I have but a moment to finish my remarks, so let me just say that it was reported today that at no time in Canadian history has the Canadian family unit been more wealthy. The value has increased by 44% in the last seven or eight years. For the first time in our history, the average Canadian family is worth more than the average American family in dollar terms.

We live in the best country in the world at the best time in human history. May God keep our land glorious and free.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

It being 5:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the amendment now before the House.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?