Alexandre Boulerice

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, people have the right to know where these cuts will be made, particularly if their safety and well-being will be affected.

We learned yesterday that cuts have already been made to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. What next? Food safety, public health, airport security?

People have cause to be worried.

Can the minister assure us that none of the other cuts will affect the safety and well-being of Canadians?

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, in his latest budget, the Minister of Finance told Canadians to expect $17 billion in cuts. The problem is that he did not bother to tell us what specific areas will be affected by these cuts. Now people are worried, and rightfully so, that they will lose services and programs that are important to them.

Can the Minister of Finance tell us where the cuts will be made? Can he promise Canadians that the programs and services they rely on will not be cut?

[The Budget, June 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that pertinent question. His party said that this budget feels like the movie Groundhog Day. We prefer to use the expression "copy and paste". It is as though absolutely nothing happened between March and May, as though this government did not hear the needs and demands expressed by Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

The proposed budget cuts are worrisome, in terms of both their scope and the uncertainty surrounding exactly what is going to happen. The government is throwing around huge, staggering numbers—$4 billion in savings next year alone—without giving any clue as to who will be hit and where the government is going to cut.

We know we are in a difficult budget situation, and the government needs all of its revenues. Now is not the time to give any gifts to large corporations like oil companies and banks, and then turn around and say that the government can no longer invest because it has no money.

The NDP is proposing that the government stop giving gifts to those who do not need them. Last year, Canada's six major banks made over $20 billion in profits. If we lower their taxes, they are not going to create jobs. That would be a gift to them, when that money is needed to meet the needs of ordinary Canadians.

If we need to find $4 billion next year, why not put an end to the tax breaks? That would get us halfway there, since that would mean an extra $2 billion right away.

[The Budget, June 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Nickel Belt for his question. For a long time, the NDP has been pushing for the injection of an additional $700 million into the guaranteed income supplement to help all seniors get out of poverty. This was one of the commitments we made during the election campaign. That is the first thing. The second thing is that we must improve and protect public pension systems in Canada in order to ensure that everyone has enough income after retirement to make ends meet and pay their bills. We must also invest in social housing so that people have the opportunity to live in affordable housing where they can be independent and yet access services adapted to their needs.

Access to health care is also extremely important for seniors. We must therefore stop the slide toward the privatization of our health care system and give people access to health care with their health insurance cards rather than their credit cards.

[The Budget, June 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you right away that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

This is not the first but the second time that I have had the opportunity to rise in this House. However, it is the first time that I have really had the time to thank the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, who honoured me by placing their trust in me on May 2. I want to assure them that I will work extremely hard in the next four years to defend their interests and to defend public services in Quebec and Canada.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say hello to the students in grades four and six at La Mennais elementary school, who had the good idea of inviting me to visit after my election win on May 2. I went to their school and they asked me questions for an hour and a half. Question period in the House of Commons is tough, but there are some real up-and-comers in our Quebec schools, because the students were really excellent.

I am very proud to represent the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. It is a great, densely populated, urban riding, where people are very involved in their community. There is a plethora of community groups and a very rich civil society. It is truly exemplary. I meet amazing people who give their all to help each other and those around them. I must recognize the work of people like those at the Corporation de développement communautaire de Rosemont and the Corporation de développement économique et communautaire de Rosemont, or CDEC, who do extraordinary things, as well as those at the Regroupement des tables de concertation de la Petite-Patrie, which is located in the western part of the riding.

There are great success stories in Rosemont thanks to people in the community who get involved, like those at Technopôle Angus and the Campus des technologies de la santé. These are the ways of the future, and I am very proud to think that I will be working with these people over the coming years.

Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie is also a riding that faces major challenges, such as poverty. It is a riding where the average income is lower than that on the island of Montreal. This creates problems. People have trouble making ends meet. There are fathers and mothers who are working—they are working—and who still have to get food hampers to feed their families. This is unacceptable. This is a riding that has a high proportion of seniors. Seniors face isolation problems and poverty. The NDP will therefore put forward various proposals to urge the government to act. The riding also has a shortage of family doctors and nurses.

With regard to housing, 75% of people in Rosemont are renters. Affordable housing is thus very important to us. There are also public transit issues. We live in a city. We are therefore focusing on active transportation and biking or walking to get to work or to the grocery store. There are also environmental issues. I will come back to them. Finally, there is a wide variety of particularly vibrant cultures. It is wonderful to meet stimulating and enthusiastic people.

Yesterday, like all of my colleagues, I had the honour of listening to the government's budget presentation, which, I must say, contains some worthwhile measures. I would like to mention two here today. First of all, it promises compensation for Quebec for its sales tax harmonization, which the Leader of the Opposition and the House Leader of the Official Opposition have been calling for for some time. I consider this a victory and a real win, which can be attributed largely to the work of the NDP and the work of the NDP in Quebec. It was very interesting to hear that yesterday. The budget also renews the eco-energy program. This will allow people to renovate their homes to make them more energy efficient. That is a positive thing.

Overall, however, the rest of the budget is disappointing. The government did not hear the message sent by Canadians on May 2. I would remind the government that 60% of Canadians did not vote for its agenda and its policies. Yet it is stubbornly sticking to its doctrine.

This budget does not meet the basic needs of the people we represent and stand up for. For instance, the budget contains a series of tax credits. These tax credits can be beneficial for families like mine, but they do absolutely nothing for families that do not earn enough money to pay taxes. Therefore a huge segment of the population is being abandoned by the federal government simply because they are too poor and do not have the means to benefit from or claim these tax credits.

The throne speech and the budget were also very disappointing when it comes to fighting poverty.

I was blown away when I realized that the word “poverty” was nowhere to be found in the government's throne speech. Furthermore, the proposed measures in the budget do absolutely nothing to address poverty. Nothing. It is not on their radar, while there are thousands and thousands of people living in poverty across Canada. This is a shame in a society as rich as ours.

The NDP has a vision. We do not let anyone fall through the cracks. We must all stand together.

The situation with seniors in our country is tragic. We must respect the contribution they have made. They left us something. They worked hard their entire lives so that their children would have a better society than the one they had. By and large, they were successful. Today, I get the impression that they are being abandoned, forgotten.

The government is injecting $300 million into the guaranteed income supplement. That is a step in the right direction, but it is not nearly enough. Much more is needed. That is not even half of what we need to bring all of our seniors out of poverty. In the meantime, on January 1, 2012, major corporations, banks and oil companies will receive a $2 billion gift. We do not think that is the direction our country should be headed in.

Access to family doctors is a very dramatic situation. In Rosemont, hundreds of families do not have a family doctor. What are they to do? They often go to the emergency department. They burden the emergency departments unnecessarily because they cannot make an appointment with a doctor who can look after their problem or that of their loved ones. I understand this situation, as I myself do not have a family doctor.

The government is not coming up with any plan to train new doctors and new nurses, but poll after poll suggests that access to a good public health care system is a priority for Quebeckers and Canadians. This government is disregarding the public's priorities.

Housing is an essential aspect of everyone's quality of life. In Rosemont, we have 5,500 families who spend more than 50% of their income on housing. There are even 2,000 families who spend more than 80% of their income on their housing. Just imagine that. How do they manage? That leaves 20% of their income for everything else: transportation, food, clothing. Those people are stuck in deep poverty. The federal government is doing nothing to reinvest in affordable housing.

The government is ignoring this basic issue, which provides quality of life for families. At present, there are people in Rosemont and elsewhere in Montreal who have to settle for housing that is unsanitary or requires significant renovations to become livable.

In an urban area such as Rosemont, public transit is a vital issue. The people of Rosemont are obviously disappointed that the government has not made any provision to relaunch infrastructure programs. They are essential for municipalities.

We want investments in infrastructure, whether bridges or transfers to municipalities for water mains and sewers. It is very important. In Montreal, 30% of treated water is lost because of holes throughout the system.

There must be a vision to modernize our infrastructure and improve public transit. Improving this service would also reduce pollution and dependence on automobiles.

As for the environment, the people of Rosemont are worried about pollution. There are periods of intense smog, especially in the summer, when people with asthma and seniors suffer because of the poor air quality at certain times.

However, in listening to the throne speech, we realized that the Conservatives consider the environment to be a natural resource rather than an essential element that should be considered when any decision is made.

Global warming was mentioned once in the throne speech, but there is no action. There is a void. There is nothing even though the experts informed us this week that greenhouse gas levels are continuing to rise and that we are approaching the point of no return. It will become impossible to prevent global warming. I hope that Canada's performance at the Bonn conference will be better than at the Copenhagen conference.

In closing, it is unfortunate to see this government stubbornly making irresponsible tax cuts that deprive it of revenue it needs. The government is continuing to make bad choices. The NDP believes that we can and must do better.

[The Budget, June 6th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, after hearing the Minister of Finance's budget, we feel it is fair to question the Conservative government's priorities. It is a government that is continuing to go in the wrong direction by giving billions of dollars in handouts to big businesses, big companies. We all know that, after five years of Conservative government, we are in an extremely difficult fiscal situation. Yet this government's position—its attitude—is like that of someone trying to get out of a hole by digging deeper.

On the other hand, while the government is granting tax breaks to large corporations that do not need them and is not creating any jobs here at home, it intends to cut $11 billion in public services that provide direct assistance to our constituents.

How does the minister justify giving handouts to banks and oil companies when thousands of workers who provide public services will pay the price of his poor choices?

[The Budget, June 6th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, after hearing Mr. Flaherty's budget, we feel it is fair to question—