Massimo Pacetti

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I find it odd that a Conservative member, a cabinet minister, would ask me a question that is specific to his own riding and how moneys are spent.

In the budget book there are some comparative numbers. I hope, especially since the member is the President of the Treasury Board, he understands where money is being spent. In this budget book there are comparative numbers where the government has said it spent between $130 billion to $140 billion on programs. I am hoping some of that money is accounted for reasonably and there are some controls in place.

I stated that most of the money was committed for programs. I do not think I have to tell the hon. member how that works, but the programs are developed. These are some of the arguments that we hear from the heritage minister when she says that the details for allocating the money for festivals have not been finalized yet and that is why the money cannot be allocated.

I am not sure where the hon. member is going with this, but in answer to his question, the money had been allocated for project green. The criteria on how the money was going to be spent were to be developed with the industry, environmental groups and stakeholders across Canada.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I did not get a chance to talk much about environmental issues, nor am I an expert on those matters. There are hon. members in my party who are much better at it than I am, but I could provide a couple of numbers and some information on what the Liberals did in 2005.

Some of the facts have changed because we have lost two years in advancing on project green which the Liberal government announced in 2005. The federal government's action to implement the Kyoto protocol peaked with the release in 2005 of a climate change plan which set up a series of funds and initiatives designed to assist with the costs of achieving them. It also set sector by sector targets and a mix of voluntary and regulatory measures.

In budget 2005 the Liberal government had committed $10 billion by 2012 to meet all those targets. That spending included a climate change fund of $1 billion over five years which was booked to create a permanent institution for the purchase of emissions reduction and removal credits on behalf of the Government of Canada. The focus of this program was by and large to encourage and fund domestic projects that would qualify under the Kyoto protocol.

We also introduced a partnership fund that was created to work with provincial governments on the reduction of greenhouse gases and a role in combating global warming. Budget 2005 also booked $250 million for large projects to be undertaken in conjunction with the provincial governments toward national objectives. Funding was scheduled to increase to $1 billion and would have provided $538 million to support closing coal fired electricity production in Ontario and a further $328 million to support Quebec's Kyoto plan.

We also introduced a one tonne challenge and the EnerGuide retrofit program, which I mentioned in passing in my speech. The Conservative government decided to cancel that and reintroduce it with less money. This program had been assigned $120 million to reduce emissions. The EnerGuide retrofit program included EnerGuide for low income housing. It was designed to help Canadians save energy and money by making their homes and buildings more energy efficient.

There was also a wind power production incentive and renewable power production incentive. The Liberal government set aside $1.8 billion in funding over 15 years for that initiative. There were some other initiatives for sustainable energy and science and technology strategies in budget 2005. Some $200 million was dedicated for that.

When we hear that there was no plan and no moneys put aside, I am not sure what members of the Conservative government are thinking about when they make those statements.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, June 11th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007.

As vice-chairman of the Standing Committee on Finance, the committee and I had the opportunity to study the bill in detail and we heard from numerous witnesses on some of the bill's more contentious issues.

For the past 16 months, one of my major grievances with the government has been its lack of vision. Since my time on Parliament Hill, I have never seen a government anger and disappoint all sides of the political spectrum the way this Conservative government has. It has not only managed to alienate its former supporters but it has also failed to endear itself to its adversaries.

At several points during its mandate, the Conservative government enacted piecemeal legislation that had not been well researched, developed or consulted upon. It has botched several files, most recently the Canada summer jobs program where hundreds of community organizations were left without funding. Even worse was the fact that these groups had no contacts and could not receive straight answers from the ministry because of government mismanagement.

First the Conservatives cut the program and then they reintroduced it but with less money. They received thousands of complaints and put more money into the program. At this point we still do not know which group is getting funding and how much. This is just another example of how far removed Conservative values are from the values of most Canadians. It took intense pressure from this side of the House, as well as protests from groups across the country, to get the government to backtrack on its ill-conceived plan and to reinstate funding to non-profit community groups across Canada.

I have spoken to the budget on several occasions and have highlighted all my preoccupations with the Conservatives, mainly that they lack any vision whatsoever and look only to immediate, political gain instead of long term goals for Canada. A perfect example of this are the green levy and the auto eco-rebate. Those are the only green initiatives contained in the budget and they were developed without any consultation with the automotive industry.

Encouraging Canadians to purchase fuel efficient vehicles is a step in the right direction, but an additional tax on certain vehicles is not the answer. In fact, it is a simplistic solution to a complex situation that instead requires a multi-pronged and careful approach.

According to testimony the committee heard from both industry and environmental groups, the proposed green levy and auto eco-rebate will fail to produce any meaningful change in reducing carbon emissions. These programs damage domestic automakers by placing $67 million worth of levies on domestic vehicles, which is about 80% of all the levies that will be collected. The transfer of $47 million in benefits to one company, which is 75%, for one vehicle that is produced offshore.

We should remember that when Canada imports foreign cars, greenhouse gases are produced by ships that cross the ocean to get them here. The more cars Canada imports, the more emissions the ships produce. Therefore, when the government offers a feebate benefit to only one foreign produced car, not only is it discouraging people from buying cars made in Canada, it is also encouraging increased emissions from a greater volume of imports which essentially cancels out the emissions difference the rebated cars produce.

Only three of the twenty-one eligible cars under the feebate program are made in Canada. While I do not want to give cars that are not fuel efficient an easy pass, I do think the government should not be punishing Canadian automakers at a time when our industry has suffered so many job losses in the last decade.

2006 marked the first time in 18 years that Canada had an automotive trade deficit. This was down from a $15 billion trade surplus only seven years earlier. In those seven years, Canada has gone from being ranked number four in auto assembly worldwide to being ranked number nine in 2006.

Companies such as Ford, Chrysler and GM account for eight out of every ten auto workers in Canada. However, with these measures in the budget, Canadian workers are being punished. These measures also damage the Canadian economy segment in vehicles. The $1,000 rebate for one vehicle, which makes up half of all rebates, undermines the ability of other dealers and manufacturers to sell equally beneficial subcompacts competitively on the same basis. Perhaps the biggest failure of these measures is that they fail to help get older cars off the road.

The majority of greenhouse gas emissions produced by Canada's on road fleet of cars are produced by older vehicles. There are significant differences between the amounts of emissions a 1990 model creates as compared to its 2007 counterpart. The Conservatives were better off putting more money and more energy into getting older cars off the road than they were by punishing new cars.

Recently, the finance minister has been quoted on committing another flip-flop by announcing that he would reconsider the way that the green levy and the auto ecorebate would function. This is a good sign, but it is too vague to have much meaning.

During the clause by clause of this bill in committee I put forward a motion to remove the clause dealing with these measures in order that the government would be able to rethink its policy on this issue, but without success. I only hope that the minister will stay true to his word and look at alternative measures to deal with the auto industry. These measures should not punish Canadian automakers which is currently the case, and should emphasize getting older cars off the road.

As I mentioned earlier, these vehicle feebates were some of the only green initiatives contained in the budget. The Conservative government is failing to protect the environment and Canadians are getting fed up.

The environment minister has attempted to douse the fires by putting together more piecemeal legislation but, guess what? That has also failed. By not consulting environmental groups the government demonstrated its arrogance and its ignorance on the issues of climate change and the environment.

One specific example that was raised during the finance committee study of this bill was in the crucial area of ocean conservation. The government has reduced the budget of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans by $105 million and has only allocated $18 million over two years to the conservation of oceans in our economic zones.

It is a sad statement when experts agree that it will take over $100 million per year to get Canada on track to meeting its international commitments in ocean conservation.

In 2005 the Liberal government announced the Canada's oceans action plan and had begun allocating money when a premature election was called. Since coming into power the Conservatives have mismanaged all environmental files, but perhaps they have done the most horrendous job of protecting Canada's oceans.

Canada has only protected less than 1% of our economic zone and with the Conservatives in power that figure will surely not improve. I cannot understand how the Conservatives can spend millions of dollars buying military equipment to protect Canada's Arctic region, but allocate practically nothing to protect the Arctic Ocean.

They can spend millions on patrol boats, but refuse to allocate money into protecting our oceans, which directly employ approximately 98,000 Canadians. Seafood exports account for about $5.5 billion of our economy, yet the government does not deem the oceans important enough to properly fund their conservation.

These measures contained in the budget have not endeared the government to environmentalists and we can forgive climate change experts for doubting the Prime Minister's new found devotion to the environment. We can also forgive these same experts for going one step further and calling the government's environmental plan a fraud and sellout.

As I was saying, the Conservatives have not only raised the ire of the left, but they have turned their backs on their allies on the right. I am talking of course about the energy sector in Alberta and its dissatisfaction with the government's decision to tax income trusts. I suppose that when he came into power in 2006, the Prime Minister never imagined that the Liberal Party would come to the defence of so many energy corporations in Alberta and the way in which they want to structure themselves.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance delivered a low blow to investors and corporations when they blindsided them on Hallowe'en with a 31.5% tax rate on income trusts.

Several months ago, the Standing Committee on Finance tried to understand how the government calculated the so-called tax leakage in the income trust sector. After the committee was repeatedly denied access to these documents, it came to the conclusion that the government's decision to tax income trusts was based on imprecise data and was another case of mismanagement. Unfortunately, the Conservatives' mismanagement of the income trust matter cost Canadian workers $25 billion. These working people had found a high performance investment mechanism for their retirement. From one day to the next, the Minister of Finance destroyed years of savings. And the government has the audacity to claim that this measure is part of its tax fairness plan. I do not see what is so fair about liquidating Canadians' savings or the consequences of this decision to the energy sector in Alberta.

Small oil companies are having trouble because of reduced access to capital. These companies are using all of their resources just to stay afloat. That means that they have less to invest in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and making their production systems more environmentally friendly. Moreover, the income trust decision is threatening our energy corporations. They are at risk of being taken over by foreign interests. Recently, we have seen a number of takeovers and takeover attempts by foreign companies, which will weaken the Canadian economy and reduce the government's tax revenues. Rather than help Canadian companies, the government has hurt our industry and has made an unprecedented number of foreign takeovers possible.

The Liberal Party proposed a fair solution to income trust taxation. It was a solution that experts, businesses and investors agreed on. Unfortunately, the government ignored our proposal, which was rejected by the Standing Committee on Finance. Then the Liberal members proposed adopting the Bloc Québécois' income trust amendment. The amendment would have extended the grace period from four years to 10. Thanks to Liberal support, that amendment would have been passed had the Bloc members not changed their minds and voted against their own proposal. This proves that the Bloc Québécois has no useful solutions to offer to Quebeckers and that it is not protecting Quebec's interests.

During a meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance, a Bloc member said:

Let's not forget that when we examined the report, the bill had not been submitted to us. We wanted to find the best possible solution. However, in the present context, what we really hope for is speedy passage of the bill so that the budget can be implemented as soon as possible.

In other words, the Bloc members are here for the sole purpose of protecting their own interests. An amendment could easily have been adopted to allow Quebeckers and all Canadians to benefit from a four- to 10-year grace period. After speaking out so vigorously against taxing income trusts, the Bloc members changed their minds. Moreover, they lack courage when real changes have to be made.

I doubt that the many people who have invested in income trusts in Quebec and Canada are pleased with the Bloc's about-face.

Another area where Canadians will be feeling the crunch from Conservative mismanagement is set to begin as the summer gets underway. With Canada's tourist season in full swing, a thriving section of our economy must deal with the elimination of one of its greatest selling tools, the visitor rebate program.

The program gave Canada's tourism industry a valuable tool to help it compete for global tourists. Once again, without any consultation with the tourism industry, the government eliminated the program. Only a small handful of developed nations do not have a federal sales tax rebate program for tourists. Thanks to the Conservatives Canada can count itself among these few. It is difficult to understand why the government wants to weaken Canada's tourism industry since so many Canadians are dependent on this industry.

After the special finance committee's hearing requested by Liberal MPs to study the visitors rebate program, and along with the help of industry stakeholders, the continued pounding of the government on its ill-developed decision finally convinced the finance minister to announce a federal foreign convention and tourist incentive program in Bill C-52. That measure in the budget partially corrects the mistake made by the government when it first eliminated the GST rebate program, but it does not go far enough.

Why was the government determined to destroy a program that worked as it did with the Canada summers job program? The argument surrounding the GST rebate could not be timelier as summer is now upon us. I am glad to see some reversal by the government on this matter, but there is another set of seasonal problems for which the government must account.

As we know, summertime is also a season of festivals in Canada. My hometown of Montreal is host to an endless number of world renowned festivals which draw millions of visitors each year. Anyone who has seen the international jazz festival and the just for laughs festival understands how important festivals are to Montreal's economy. I wonder if the current Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women has been to Montreal during festival season because her actions have led us to believe otherwise.

Just a few weeks ago, the presidents of Montreal's two largest festivals spoke out against the minister's lack of action to secure funding in time for the summer. Festivals are a huge economic boost to local economies across the country and the minister's inability to assure funding for these festivals is a complete failure on her part and on the part of the government. I cannot understand how the Conservatives can mismanage such an obvious and crucial file such as this one.

Art groups across the country have been criticizing the government for months about the disastrous underfunding of the arts. Cultural groups in the country have felt insulted and ignored by the government and it has caused well-known authors and artists to speak out. We cannot allow Canada's vibrant arts community to suffer under the Conservatives' ideological program cuts and mismanagement.

We have already seen them mismanage countless files by closing Liberal programs and then reopening them only a few months later under a new or different name, whether they wanted to take credit for these supposedly new programs or whether they just thought that no one would notice that they were gone remains unclear.

This began in September 2006 when the Conservatives cut a number of effective Liberal programs. The Liberal Party protested these ideological cuts, as did the public. Since then we have seen the government re-announce these programs under new names and pretend as if the Liberal initiated programs never existed.

Canadians deserve better than what the government has given them, ill-conceived, piecemeal programs that will not help Canada advance into the 21st century. The government is much better at photo ops and slander than it is at governing and our country is not any better for it.

[The Turkish Community, June 5th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on April 28, 2007, I had the pleasure of attending the children's festival organized by the Turkish community in my riding, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel. Also, last month, community leaders from Montreal's Turkish community centre organized an outdoor event for children and families. Both gatherings were hugely successful.

I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the Turkish community's exceptional degree of involvement in greater Montreal, in Quebec and in Canada, and their contribution to society.

This group and other associations also play a leading role in Canada-Turkey relations. They are an important cultural, academic, economic and political bridge between our two countries.

I would like to thank them for their contribution to Montreal and to the entire country.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there are different ways in which the whole income trust issue could have been addressed. It is not for me to say, but the Liberal suggestion is the one that I would have chosen.

The government's solution was to hit the seniors with a $25 billion to $30 billion hit and then give them an extra $1,000 on income splitting if they made $50,000 to $60,000 on their pension incomes. I am not sure that is a solution. I would rather have seen more of a delicate approach toward the income trust aspect announcement so Canadians in general would not have been hit with a $25 billion to $30 billion market devaluation overnight.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of issues. I have no problem with the hotel and convention industry getting their GST back, but I think part of the problem was that the program was not made better. It was cancelled and then reintroduced only for the foreign convention and tour aspect. Meanwhile, visitors who come here and rely on getting a GST rebate back are not going to get it.

We are in a competitive world. We are competing for tourism dollars. One of the attractions that Canada offers is this GST rebate, whether we believe it or not. In his previous business maybe he found this not to be a profitable type of business, or nobody obliged him. However, the witnesses we heard before the finance committee felt this business was not only profitable for them, it was also profitable for the tourism industry in Canada and it was able to attract additional visitors to Canada.

We should be listening to those people and finding a way to make the program work so Canadians benefit from the tourism dollars that come into the country.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on Bill C-52, the budget implementation act. My time today will give me an opportunity to address some of the points I did not have time to cover in my response to the budget.

Again, my main objection to this budget is that it accomplishes so little with so much.

The Conservatives managed to spend more money in this budget than in any one that preceded it and yet they have managed to help truly no one. I compare this Conservative budget to taking an entire crate of oranges and squeezing only one glass of juice from it.

In order to help solve the many problems facing our country, the previous Liberal government had created a number of social and economic programs, including the Canada millennium scholarship foundation, the summer career placement program intended for students and not-profit groups, as well as the CANtex program for the textile industry. We recognized the needs and came up with solutions. In some cases, the solutions found did not solve all the problems, but constituted an improvement nonetheless. We, the Liberals, showed Canadians that the federal government supported them and implemented action plans.

What do Canadians see from this government?

They do not see new programs. They do not see new initiatives. They do not see a government standing beside them.

They see a government that is obsessed with cutting programs and that uses smoke and mirrors to fool people into a sense of trust and confidence by spending more money than any other previous government in Canadian history.

Canadians can see that the current government does not support them and is interested only in slashing programs.

This is not a claim that the Conservative government's budget does not include any positive news. Nevertheless, the few good measures included in this budget are not enough to properly address the needs of this country.

I can use many examples to illustrate my point, but I will begin with perhaps the Conservatives' biggest failure: child care.

The Liberal government had signed deals with every province in the country to create new child care spaces. The Conservatives had no right to cancel these agreements. No new child care spaces have been created since their time in office, and paying a monthly allowance of $100 to parents for each child under six does not make Canadians forget about their broken promise.

Child care advocates and experts have stated that if the government is identifying child care as one of its priorities and then turning around and giving money to the provinces, it is an admission of the failure of their original so-called child care plan. One advocate even said the Conservatives have conceded that the former government had the right plan and it is following in those footsteps, with the huge exception of having 80% less of the funds that were available.

In terms of social policy, the previous Liberal government had an overall plan for Canada when it concluded child care agreements with the provinces. While respecting provincial jurisdictions, the agreements were modelled after the Quebec child care system.

The Liberals had a vision for Canada that took into account the needs of the modern family and also took into account a vision for the country that looked decades down the road. The Conservative answer is cheap vote buying that might look good in the short term but guarantees nothing for our future.

The poor platform in this budget does not stop at child care. The Conservative government has been abandoning Canadian businesses, especially the small and medium sized businesses that are the job creators in this country. The government expects that with a few piecemeal announcements Canadians will not see the effect of the numerous slashed federal programs.

I have received countless letters from business owners and their employees about the negative effect the government's actions will have on their businesses and jobs. One of these actions was the cancellation of the visitors rebate program. As vice-chair of the finance committee, I heard from various industry stakeholders about the terrible impact this cancellation will have on their industry.

The government did not give a satisfactory answer as to why this program was cut. As a result, the finance minister admitted his mistake by establishing a federal foreign convention and tour incentive program, but this solves only a small part of the problem the government created, as it does not address any tourism initiatives for individuals visiting the country. American tourism is on the decline in this country and the Conservative government seems intent on doing nothing to change that.

The budget also shows serious deficiencies when it comes to adult literacy. The Department of Finance announced funding for literacy programs, but this gesture appears somewhat hypocritical after the drastic cuts made to adult literacy programs last fall. The Conservatives must know that giving with one hand while taking away with the other is a hypocritical and deceitful way to govern.

One of the most dishonest showcases of the government is that of the environment. The announcements contained in the budget and those being debated today are positive ones, but some of these are simply a reintroduction of the previous, proven Liberal environmental programs.

Canadians do not believe the government's sudden about-face on environmental issues and Canadians still do not trust the Conservatives on this issue. This distrust is with good reason. In the recent budget, the Conservatives cut back Canada's commitment to renewable energy to 4,000 megawatts from 5,500 megawatts of support for clean and sustainable production.

The budget also keeps tax breaks for new oil sands expansion in place until 2015 to help with their plan for explosive growth. It slows our planned cleanup of lakes and waterways. It replaces rewards for those who make energy savings changes with gimmicks that cost thousands of dollars for every tonne reduced. It reduces funding to our provincial partners by half. There is no plan to make sure polluters pay for using the atmosphere as a free garbage dump.

It is obvious that the government has no plan for the environment. The public cannot be fooled into thinking that a few announcements or a rebate on a dozen cars constitute a vision for Canada's environment and for combating climate change.

In my presentation today, one focus has been on how the budget has failed Canada's business community, which helps Canadians by providing jobs, goods and services. During the budget debate, I spoke about how just the fact that the government refuses to lower the income tax rate to the Liberals' rate of 15% is reason enough that I cannot support the budget, in that it does not treat all Canadians fairly.

I have already discussed the failure of the Conservatives on the tourism front, but I would like to pay attention to some specific initiatives that were being promoted by business groups during the finance committee prebudget consultations and have been ignored by the government.

Canada is not keeping up the pace as it should be in the global economy. Not many people dispute the fact that one of the most important challenges before us as a country is lagging productivity, but the budget has the country standing still on this issue.

Other countries are moving forward. The changes for accelerated capital cost allowances are definitely a good measure, but it is not enough for industries, especially those in the manufacturing sector that have previously invested in capital and equipment either last year or even this year prior to the budget. They get no help.

The problem is also there with regard to industries that do not require capital investment but rely heavily on human resource investment. These industries also need help to keep Canada at the forefront of global competition and they have been shown nothing in the budget.

Money has been invested in universities to ensure that tomorrow's workforce is on the cutting edge, but the paltry sum allocated to the Canada foundation for innovation is barely enough to ensure its survival.

Although there are investments for Canada's 4,000 post-graduates, how about the hundreds of thousands of undergraduates who are being left out in the cold?

Although the changes to the sustainable technology development fund will help bridge the financing gap between ideas and commercialization, there is much work to be done to make our tax rates internationally competitive as well as expand access to Canadian goods in overseas markets.

The Liberal government had solid plans and programs in place to deal with the challenges facing our industries.

In 2005 we put forward the CAN-Trade strategy, which provided $485 million over five years to help Canadian businesses succeed in emerging markets. The Conservatives scrapped this initiative and have now replaced it with $60 million over the next two years.

The Conservative budget also cuts $970 million from the indirect costs of research program, which provides support to Canada's universities.

These are only a few examples of this government's catastrophic lack of vision. Some of the measures announced in the budget and debated here today constitute a few steps in the right direction but those steps are too little and too late.

[Textile Industry, March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to rise here today to speak to Motion M-158, which reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should act on the motion proposing to help the textile and clothing industries adopted in the House on October 5, 2005, and worded as follows: “That, in the opinion of the House, the government should establish, in compliance with international agreements, a policy of assistance to the textile and clothing industries in order to enable the industries to compete throughout the world, particularly by allowing clothing made with Canadian textiles but manufactured abroad to be imported without customs duties and by creating an income support program for older workers”.

It would be easy enough for the government to implement this motion. It would help to preserve the few jobs that remain in Canada in the textile and clothing sectors.

For years, my Liberal colleagues and I have been exerting pressure to obtain support and to force the government to move this file forward. The Bloc decided to join our fight, but as a party that will never be in power, it can hardly make things happen.

Furthermore, much of the progress achieved in this file comes as a result of the hard work of my former colleague, the former member for Ahuntsic, the hon. Eleni Bakopanos. I would also like to commend the work undertaken in this file by the Liberal Party's new labour critic, the hon. member for Davenport.

Personally, as the member of Parliament for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, a riding where many clothing and textile factories once did business—which, sadly, is no longer the case, I often had the opportunity to meet and speak with people who owned and worked in those businesses and to learn more about the challenges and obstacles facing their industry.

As my hon. colleagues know, the Canadian textile and clothing sector still represents a major source of economic activity and revenue in Canada. Located primarily in large urban centres such as Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver, textile companies employ many Canadians of all ages.

Canada's apparel and textile industries began to adapt as soon as they were faced with increasing competition from abroad. From my discussions with various stakeholders, I know that the industry is ready and has been working on ways to confront the new challenges as it faces the move from conducting business with local or domestic clients and markets to competing against huge international players with vast financial resources.

With the continued development of the world, and in particular the rise of third world nations, these industries are being forced to transact in a global economy. Consequently, the Canadian apparel and textile industries have had to transform themselves over the past decade by focusing on higher value added products, on innovative ways to work, on producing attractive new goods, and by identifying and winning niche markets for their products.

However, further change continues to be the order of the day. As I have mentioned, many domestic producers in all industries are faced with strong competition and obstacles internationally, but Canadian manufacturers also have particular problems that other global players do not necessarily have to deal with.

For starters, in the last few years we have seen the appreciation of the Canadian dollar versus the American dollar, which has added to the price of goods manufactured in Canada compared to goods coming from other parts of the world.

Second, the wage disparity between a country like Canada, with its higher standard of living, versus third world countries where wages are a fraction of the cost is also a factor in Canadian goods being more expensive.

Third, the Canadian industry has also had to deal with the dumping of goods by foreign competitors into worldwide markets that are less regulated, whereas Canadian goods are less protected from regulation abroad.

Although many of these changes are not unique to the apparel and textile industries, they are nevertheless having an impact upon the conditions in which these industries have operated and continue to operate. It is in the face of these challenges that the former Liberal government established numerous initiatives to enhance the long term viability of the textile and apparel industries. It is why our party voted in favour of Motion No. 164 in 2005. That is why I will be supporting Motion No. 158 in this session.

I would like to briefly speak to some of the accusations by members of the House that the previous Liberal government did not come to the aid of the textile industry and outline some of the former Liberal government's past measures. It is unfortunate that political grandstanding by members of the opposition and the government can get in the way of facts and that members conveniently forget about the many initiatives the Liberal Party undertook to help this industry because we recognized its urgent needs.

In 2005 I made an announcement on behalf of the Liberal government at Peerless Clothing, located in my riding. I announced the elimination of tariffs on textile inputs not produced in Canada as well as additional measures to help strengthen the competitiveness of these industries.

In 2004 the Liberal government introduced the $26.7 million CANtex program to help Canadian textile manufacturing firms become more competitive and to help them get ready to take advantage of new opportunities. This was a program developed to help save the Canadian textile industry and Canadian jobs.

This past September, the Conservatives viciously and without reason cut dozens of cherished and useful programs in all departments and slashed the CANtex program's budget by $25 million, effectively shutting it down and stripping it of the power to help numerous businesses. This meanspirited attack on Canadian textile producers is a perfect example of how this government just does not get it.

Getting back to Liberal initiatives, in 2003 the Liberal government created CATIP, a three year program with a $33 million budget. Thanks to this program for Canadian apparel and textile manufacturers, funding was allocated to over 350 innovative strategic projects to enhance productivity, improve efficiency and identify new markets.

In addition, in 2002, the Canada Border Services Agency was allocated $0.9 million to combat the illegal transshipment of clothing and textiles by less developed countries.

The former Liberal government also advanced the cause of older workers. In 2005, the former member for Ahuntsic, the hon. Eleni Bakopanos, on behalf of the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, announced a payment of $5.9 million from the sector council program to four projects administered by the Textiles Human Resources Council. Those projects were designed to support skills development in the textile industry, to promote the economic growth of the country and to increase Canada’s competitive capacity in this sector.

Moreover, Quebec signed an agreement for more than $3 million with the former Liberal government as part of the pilot projects designed for older workers. Under that agreement, the Liberal government of Canada made a commitment to continue to cooperate with Québec to address the needs of older workers and to find long-term solutions.

I would like to emphasize how much the efforts made by the former Liberal government contrast with the actions of the current Conservative government. When they were in opposition, Conservative members attacked the government for its so-called inaction. Today, those attacks seem completely empty because the Conservative government has done nothing special to improve the situation of the Canadian apparel industry or to ensure the security of older workers.

Last week the finance minister had a golden opportunity to deliver real help to the apparel and textile industries when he tabled the budget. He also had a chance to make up for his government's $25 million assault on the CANtex program. Stakeholders in the industry were paying close attention, hoping that the government would heed their pleas and deliver some aid to one of Canada's oldest and most important industries. Unfortunately, the textile and apparel industries received nothing from the government last week.

Some time ago, the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology adopted some 20 recommendations concerning the manufacturing sector. Out of that number, the Minister of Finance included only one recommendation is his budget. The changes to allow accelerated write-off are certainly useful but for the companies that had already invested capital in machinery last year, or this year before the budget was tabled, that is not enough. What about those companies who do not need to invest in machinery but in human resources instead? Those companies also need help in terms of exporting and marketing their products. This latest budget does not give them very much to keep Canada in the forefront of international competition.

One must conclude that workers and stakeholders in the textile industry simply were not fortunate enough to be included among the chosen few that this Conservative budget is addressed to.

This was one of the highest spending budgets in Canadian history, yet the finance minister did nothing worthwhile to help this industry in dire straits. It is truly a sad testament to the short-sighted priorities of the government. In its narrow list of priorities, Canada's textile industry did not make the cut again. Many industries and communities did not either.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2006, March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there is no easy answer to the member's question.

Members of the finance committee looked at visiting places in the north. We ended up going to Whitehorse, which I do not is a typical place to get a snapshot of what the north is all about. It has a booming economy. Some people hold two or three jobs. People go up there for all kinds of things, whether it is winter sports, hunting, fishing, or tourism. It is the gateway to Alaska. I do not think that was the answer.

We talked about maybe going to Iqaluit and other places in the Arctic and up north because we understand there is a problem. Canadians are overtaxed. There definitely needs to be some tax fairness. That was my point, to get money to come back to Canada. If we could get them to pay the proper amount of tax on the money that actually belongs here in Canada, then perhaps we would have enough money to help people in the north.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 2006, March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member across the way is not only a member of the governing party, but he is also a minister who can do something about these tax avoidance vehicles.

I think we are going to be in favour of it. It is a 500 page document that is quite complex from what I make of it. I read a bit of it. I am in favour of it, but I will have to see if I am in favour of it after second reading.

The government has other ways in which it can handle tax avoidance and it has not done anything. There are four or five pages that talk about international tax treaties and ways in which the government wants to address international investment, but it is not doing anything to attract international investment. It is not going to attract any additional revenue from people who are avoiding tax.

There is nothing in the budget to address tax avoidance. If anything, it is going to hurt even more. The legislation the government opposite is going to table regarding income trusts is actually going to encourage foreign entities to come into Canada, pick up our energy trusts at a discount price, and write off all the investment related to those income trusts, especially in the energy sector, and not pay tax on them.

I would like the minister to tell me which party is for tax avoidance.