Paul Calandra

[MAIN ESTIMATES 2015-16, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, our plan is this: We want to see an elected Senate. We want to see term limits in the Senate. We think Canadians have that responsibility. As members know, the Conservative Party is the only party that has actually appointed elected senators, and we would like the opportunity to continue to do that.

As I mentioned in my remarks, the Supreme Court has said that we need the unanimous consent of all our provincial and territorial partners to do that. That is something I hope the Council of the Federation will be seized with and will take a look at. These are our proposals. We certainly do not want to do what the Liberals have suggested and allow an unelected, unaccountable Senate to be appointed by unelected, unaccountable officials. We think that is completely inappropriate, and Canadians would not accept that.

Very directly, we want an elected Senate, we want term limits, and we want to continue with those types of reforms.

[MAIN ESTIMATES 2015-16, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I believe, if I am not mistaken, that the bill is with respect to betting on single sporting events. As to whether I agreed with it, the member might have to look carefully at that. I do not recall actually voting on that bill.

Having said that, I know that the New Democrats might not like the fact that there is a constitutionally mandated second chamber that has to review the work we do here, but that is the Constitution of this country, and that is something we will continue to fight for and support. We have a constitutional obligation as a government to support the Constitution and to make sure that we pass laws in accordance with the Constitution.

I know the NDP's philosophy is to unilaterally eliminate it, breaking the Constitution and what the Supreme Court has said. We will not do that. We will protect the Constitution, because that is what a government must do. Until that body is reformed, we will continue—

[MAIN ESTIMATES 2015-16, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, while I appreciate your ruling and I will certainly abide by it, the point I am trying to make is that the opposition is trying to suggest that we not fund a constitutional body of Parliament, that we starve the Senate for funds, that we break the Constitution and we kill an institution that is part of our parliamentary democracy. Opposition members want to do that unilaterally without seeking the consent of our provincial partners. They want to break the law, and the excuse they are using is the Senate expense scandal.

While I agree that what we have seen and the potential abuses that we are hearing about with respect to expenses are important to all Canadians, I can certainly tie in the fact that members of Parliament, all parliamentarians, in making a decision to hold back funding for another body, have to also be accountable for the expenses they are claiming here. It is very relevant when we look at the expenses of all parliamentarians.

The Senate is a parliamentary body and we have to look at how Parliament is spending its money. There is a very relevant connection to how the expenses of members of Parliament are operating, as well as the NDP and all of us for that matter. It is not just the NDP. It is not just a Conservative, Liberal or NDP function. It is all of us. We are sent to this place as guardians of taxpayers' dollars and when we fail that responsibility to the taxpayer, the taxpayer wants accountability for it.

Throughout this debate over the next number of hours, I am going to take every single opportunity that I can to highlight the responsibility that parliamentarians at all levels and from all parties have to the taxpayer. By the end of the debate tonight, I want to ensure that all Canadians understand that we all have a responsibility for the tax dollars they send here.

I intend to drill down and make a very important connection to the $57 million vote that we are doing for the Senate and also connect the taxpayers' $2.7 million that was redirected by the NDP caucus away from taxpayers in their own ridings into an illegal partisan office.

I intend throughout the hours here tonight to question each of these members individually and to have the opportunity to make that connection for Canadians, because in making the decision at the end of the night, we should make sure we are making the decision based on full facts and full information. I know the NDP will want to co-operate on that. After all, it was the New Democrats who brought a motion forward that suggested that answers had to be very clear and concise. By that standard tonight, I expect to question each of these individual members for many hours.

I appreciate the fact that the NDP has given me the opportunity on behalf of taxpayers to get even more information with respect to the $2.7 million it owes, as well as the appropriation for the Senate.

[MAIN ESTIMATES 2015-16, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset of my speech, I want to take a moment to highlight some of the work. This is a budgetary issue as well, and we would not be able to debate the ability of the Government of Canada to fund issues if we did not have a good President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Finance. They put the Government of Canada on the path toward long-term balanced budgets and economic stability. I would be remiss if I did not talk about that.

Specifically, we are talking about the motion brought forward by the member for Winnipeg Centre with respect to the Senate of Canada. A lot of focus has been put on the Senate of Canada over the last number of years, and it goes without saying that the Senate is a constitutionally mandated part of our parliamentary democracy. Parliament has a responsibility to ensure that both chambers have the resources they need to constitutionally fulfill their mandates. This motion would provide the other chamber with the resources it needs to continue on in some of the very important work that the Senate does.

We have been talking a lot about the Senate and Senate reform. It is obviously very important for us to talk a bit about what we have seen in the other chamber over the last while. A couple of years ago, a potential abuse of taxpayers' dollars was identified. That is something that we on this side of the House find absolutely appalling. Members will recall that when this first came out, I was often in the House answering questions regarding what we were seeing about Senate expenses. On this side of the House, we were focused on ensuring that the individuals who were highlighted were being held accountable for their actions. That is something that has been the focus of our government since we took office in 2006.

We were all somewhat surprised about the rules regarding how the individual senators handled their expenditures. The rules there were dramatically different from the rules that we follow in this chamber, and a number of us were surprised by that. There was an opportunity for the Senate to come to an understanding that the systems it had in place were not acceptable to Canadians. They were certainly not acceptable to members of Parliament, who have the opportunity to vote on expenditures like we are doing tonight. We all expected better and something different from them.

That is why the Senate made some very important changes to the structure of its finances. They are changes that we have supported. At the same time, it was the Senate that then invited the Auditor General to review all of the senators' expenses. That was a very important move. As I just said, we had very different circumstances in the House of Commons for handling our expenses. A lot of us could not rationalize how expenses were done here in comparison to how they were done there. It was important not only for members of the House of Commons who have the opportunity to approve their budgets, but, more importantly, for Canadians to understand what was happening and how, and to ensure that this had never happened before.

We heard from Canadians that they wanted the maximum light shone on how the Senate was undertaking the payment of expenses.

I want to be clear on this next point, because I have heard about it from some individuals. This was not and is not an issue with respect to the public service workers who handle expense claims. I want to be very clear on that. Those who are in the public service work very hard and do a professional job. Their job was to undertake the repayment of senators' expenses based on the rules that the Senate had brought in place. These are rules that had been in place for many years, through previous Liberal administrations. They were tightened up, but not to the satisfaction, at least of members on this side of the House, or, more importantly, to the satisfaction of Canadians. We see that change has happened.

Also, we have an Auditor General's report which was recently completed. That will be tabled in the Senate tomorrow. Obviously, we anxiously await the results of the audit.

I think it is relevant to the discussion here today that we have heard from a lot of Canadians with respect to possible changes to the Senate, how we could reform the Senate to better reflect our current democracy.

We have brought forward a number of recommendations to change the Senate, to make it an elected Senate, to make it accountable, and to place term limits on senators. We brought those changes forward. We sent it through to the Supreme Court of Canada, because we want to ensure that we could do what we were proposing. The Supreme Court of Canada has come back to us and said that the only way we could change this institution, the only way we could change the Senate was if we received the unanimous consent of all the provinces and territories.

What we have now is that the Council of the Federation, which comprises the provinces and the territories, have it within their mandate to look at the reforms that we have put forward and to come back to us suggesting whether these are reforms the provinces would like to undertake with us so that we could modernize the Senate. Failing that, we do not in the short term believe that Canadians have an appetite to enter into long, protracted constitutional negotiations with respect to reforming the Senate. We believe that Canadians want us to continue to focus on jobs and economic growth.

We know that the NDP have put forward a proposal with respect to the abolition of the Senate. While that might be a good sounding point, of course it would require a constitutional amendment, which again, as I said, would require the approval of all of the provinces. As we know, that just is not there right now.

Many of the provinces have suggested that they would want to enter into constitutional negotiations to address other issues that they have with respect to the Canadian Constitution, which would plunge Canada back into something that we saw back with the Charlottetown and Meech Lake accords. While there is global economic fragility, that is not something this government wants to entertain.

We have reform proposals. We have them on the table, the proposals that would have it elected, that would have term limits. Now it is up the Council of the Federation to come forward and address those proposals that we have on the table.

We also know that the Liberals have made some proposals with respect to changing the Senate. Their proposals would see an unelected, unaccountable Senate be appointed by an unelected, unaccountable body, which is completely not something that Canadians want.

We also know that the Liberals have come forward and said that the Senate Liberals, even though they call themselves Liberals, are not members of the Liberal Party. Well, I think they do a disservice to themselves and I think they do a disservice to Canadians when they suggest that just by changing the name from Liberals to Senate Liberals they no longer belong to the Liberal Party, when they campaign for the Liberals, when they fundraise for the Liberals, when they attend Liberal conventions, and when they call themselves Liberals. I think they are trying to fool Canadians into thinking that they are not Liberals. They are Liberals. I think that does a disservice to Canadians.

This is not what Canadians want. Canadians want these people to be accountable for the decisions that they make. That is something that we on this side of the House have been fighting for right from the very beginning.

There can absolutely be no doubt that the deliberate misuse of taxpayers' dollars is not something that any Canadian will stand for. As I have said on a number of occasions in this House, I look back to my riding of Oak Ridges—Markham, and people in my community and in communities across this country work very hard.

In my riding people are up early in the morning. They hop on the GO train and go to work. Farmers are up at the crack of dawn working their fields. They work hard for the amount of money they get to invest in their families and for that, they send money to governments, federal, provincial and municipal, and they expect that those dollars will be treated fairly and with respect. When that does not happen, when there is a deliberate attempt to misuse those dollars, Canadians have every right to be angry and they have every right to expect that their elected officials at every level will do better.

That is what we are insisting on and continue to insist on with the Senate. However, make no mistake. Senators are an important part of our system right now. We have a bicameral system. It is in the Constitution. We have a responsibility as parliamentarians to ensure that senators continue to do the work they have before them.

I will come back to how taxpayers view expenditures. As I said, Canadians work very hard. They want to be able to provide for their families. They want to be able to save some money for their futures, for their children's futures, to invest in their businesses. They expect a very high standard from us. We have put in place on this side of the House and of course now on the Senate very strict rules on how taxpayers' dollars should be used. When that trust is broken with Canadians, the very least Canadians can expect is that the funds be returned and in the instances when taxpayers' dollars are misused deliberately, that the people who do it are held accountable.

That is what we are seeing right now in the Senate. There will be a report presented tomorrow. If the reports are to be believed, some senators will be investigated by the RCMP and other senators will be asked to repay money. Here is where we have a bit of a dilemma. It is when elected officials think that they are above the law or that somehow what Canadians expect of other politicians is not what is expected of them.

When I look at the NDP right now, I find it very difficult to understand how we can be debating this motion tonight and not talk about the fact that it is the NDP that owes millions of dollars to the Canadian taxpayer. That is very important. If reports are to be believed, the Auditor General has come forward with some $900,000 worth of payments, which need, in one way or another, to be accounted for and paid back to the taxpayer of Canada. We know that right now the NDP owes $2.7 million to the very same taxpayers. Where did the $2.7 million come from? They came from resources that are provided by taxpayers, that come—

[MAIN ESTIMATES 2015-16, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the motion that is before us today. The motion obviously speaks to the motion brought forward, but it also speaks to the overall budgetary situation that the government finds itself in. I would be remiss if I did not spend at least a moment before getting to the main topic of discussion to highlight the extraordinary work of the President of the Treasury Board, and, of course, the Minister of Finance over the last number of years to bring forward Canada's economic action plan, balanced in a way that has left Canada as one of the strongest nations in terms of our competitors. We have a balanced budget. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is one that is envied around the world. We are—

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the difference between the member and me is I always believe it is better to give Canadians the option to find a job. When we ask Canadians would they rather be working or be on employment insurance, I tend to believe that 99% of the time people are going to say that they would rather be working. If they do not have that opportunity, they would rather get training so that they can provide, and become a part of the new economy. That is why we brought in new training and a Canada job grant. That is why we are supporting our apprentices.

The NDP could be focused on how to keep Canadians out of jobs. On this side of the House, we are going to focus on giving Canadians the opportunity to find jobs. That is why our reforms have created up to 1.2 million new jobs. We are providing opportunities for training. We are providing opportunities for apprentices.

The one thing that is consistent in all of this is that the New Democrats and the Liberals will always vote against it because what they want to do is exactly what the member for Edmonton Centre suggested. They want to tell Canadians what they should do and how they should do it, as opposed to giving them the opportunity to succeed. We will focus on giving Canadians the opportunity to succeed. We will let the New Democrats and Liberals try to explain to Canadians why it is that they want to tell them what to do.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Edmonton Centre is exactly right. We have seen this time and again. We are seeing this with some of our European partners which are in such difficult circumstances right now. When they try to tell people what they should do and how they should do it, it does not work.

What we have been doing is we have been unleashing the potential of all Canadians and we will continue to do that. That is what we are doing. By providing more resources for Canadians, by investing in infrastructure and by investing in small, medium and large job creators, we are unleashing the potential of all Canadians to maximize their contributions.

The member for Edmonton Centre is completely right. How many times do we have to go down this road of trying to engineer a false economy, only then to call upon Canadians or wherever they are from to actually come back, look at it again and try to fix the disaster that was an engineered economy. It does not work. It did not work in eastern Europe. It certainly is not going to work in Canada.

The best way we can move forward is to provide opportunity for Canadians, and that is what this government will continue to do.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, that is the most comical question I have heard. Let us take a look back in history, shall we? The Liberals were against North American free trade. They were against free trade with the United States and said they would tear it up, but it has created millions of jobs for Canadians today. They did not tell the truth.

We reduced the GST. Apparently, there is no GST to reduce, because Liberals got rid of it in 1993. Oh no, they did not. It is still there, but we have reduced it.

The Liberals' record on trade is an embarrassment. They call themselves the natural government of Canada. How many trade deals did they do in all the time they were in office? What did they create? They had two trade deals with small countries. They could not even get that done.

It is because of this government and this Prime Minister that we actually are creating millions of jobs, close to 1.2 million net new jobs.

Of course, we all recall the big promise that they would not cut transfers to the provinces. Yet what did they do? They cut health and education transfers by $50 billion. That is the Liberal record. They say one thing to get votes. As soon as they get into office, they do the exact opposite. At least the NDP will tell Canadians that they will take them for all of their money. They would do it. The Liberals, on the other hand, always misrepresent what it is they would do. Canadians are far better off with this government, and they know that.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, what we have done since coming to office is actually put more money back into the pockets of hard-working Canadian families. We started by reducing the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%. New Democrats voted against it. We cut income taxes for all Canadians. They voted against it. We took millions of the lowest-income-earning Canadians off the tax rolls entirely. They voted against it. We brought in the universal child care benefit for Canadian families. They voted against it. We are increasing that benefit for children under age six to $160. They voted against it. We are increasing it and giving a new benefit for kids age six to 17. They voted against it. We brought in stimulus programs to get Canadians back to work and keep them working. They voted against it. We brought in job creation measures on our east coast with one of the largest shipbuilding programs in Canadian history. They voted against it.

We have an employment insurance fund that is able to provide for people who lose their jobs when times are good and when times are bad, such as during the global economic recession. I am proud of the fact that because of this government it is safe and secure, and Canadians are better off than they have ever been before.

[Business of Supply, June 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today in this debate. The motion talks about employment insurance, but it also gives us an opportunity to talk in greater detail on the state of the Canadian economy, some of the things this government has done over the last number of years to improve Canada's economy and ultimately put people back to work.

The fact that we are debating this topic today really highlights one of the very big weaknesses in the NDP. One of the problems that the New Democrats have today, and have always had, is that they have never have, and probably will never have if we are this close to an election, a plan to create jobs and economic opportunity for people. The New Democrats always want to focus on how they would take care of people who are unemployed. I guess it is because in the past, in the provinces they have governed, they have done a really good job of putting people out of work. Therefore, they have perfected the art of putting people out of work as opposed to getting people into real jobs so they can contribute to the Canadian economy.

We are a few weeks away from the end of this session. We brought forward a continuation of the economic action plan with a whole host of very important initiatives for the people of Canada, in regions and communities across the country, and the NDP's focus is on how it would respond to the people who are out of work.

I think any member of Parliament on either side of the House would want to ensure that if people lose their jobs through no fault of their own, because of the economy or whatever the rationale, the system or state is there to give them a helping hand. That is the whole point of employment insurance. One of the things this government has focused on is to ensure the resources are in place to take care of Canadians if they need to access the employment insurance fund.

As we have seen in the past, when the economy runs into difficulty, we have to then worry about how we will make those short-term payments until the economy comes back into a more stable climate. Therefore, the government tries to have a balance when it comes to the employment insurance system, so that in good times we accumulate the necessary resources to pay when the economy takes a downward turn, as it has on occasion.

It is important to recap a bit about where we have come from and where we are going. When we came to office in 2006, we knew Canada had to do a number of things. The previous Liberal government had been focused on other areas, but not on how to create an economy that was strong and stable for the vast majority of Canadians moving forward.

Therefore, we looked at where Canada was and said that we had to do a better job of opening up Canada's market, giving manufacturers the opportunity to sell into other markets. We said that Canada was open for business, that we would get out there to provide new opportunities for manufacturers and small, medium and large job creators, so they would have larger and more markets to sell to. We started off with opening up free trade negotiations.

It has always been Conservative governments that have looked at how to expand trade opportunities and open up new markets for Canadians. We have the free trade agreement with the United States and the North American Free Trade Agreement, both very important trade agreements which opened Canada up and created millions and millions of jobs. Both of those agreements were rejected by the NDP and the Liberals.

However, we went further and said that we had to do more. This is why today we can say that we have concluded agreements with some 44 different markets and nations, and we want to go even further. We know that when Canadians are given the opportunity to compete, they can be successful. Why is that important? It is really important for a community like mine. I represent Oak Ridges—Markham, the communities of Markham, Whitchurch-Stouffville, King and part of Richmond Hill. Markham is an important centre for high-tech manufacturing. King and Stouffville are important centres for agriculture and exporting. Opening up opportunities for them has created thousands of jobs and enormous opportunity. However, we know there are challenges.

There are always challenges, and those challenges are always compounded when there is an opposition that is so completely opposed to finding and creating the opportunities for Canadian businesses.

However, we have been very successful at opening up these opportunities for Canadian manufacturers, and we will continue to do that because it helps create jobs. We do not want to focus on putting people out of work. We want to focus on putting people into jobs so our Canadian economy can grow and so we have the resources we need to provide for Canadians who, when they find themselves in difficult situations, the government or state is there for them.

I am very proud of the fact that we have been able to do that. However, there are challenges. As an Ontario member of Parliament, there are a number of hurdles that we are seeing put before us. By and large, these hurdles have been put in place by a provincial Liberal government, which has somehow been unable to understand the concept of when it is more costly to do business or when opportunities are closed down, businesses and job creators will find other areas in which to invest.

This has become a very big problem in the province of Ontario, whether it is the high energy prices that have resulted from the policies of the Kathleen Wynne/Dalton McGuinty Liberal Governments of Ontario or the recently announced Ontario pension plan, which Ontarians will not see, apparently, for some 30 years, but which will cost employees and employers thousands of dollars every year.

To put this into context, the leader of the Liberal Party has come out and said that he wants to implement a mandatory Canada pension plan contribution increase along the lines of what Kathleen Wynne has introduced for the people of Ontario. He wants to emulate that.

I know a lot of members here are not from Ontario, so they might not be focused on what it is considering. What they are talking about is this. On somebody who is making $60,000 a year, the cost to that person, to that family, would be $1,000 from their paycheque. That is a lot of money, and we understand and know this would cost jobs in the province of Ontario.

If the same thing were done nationally, it would cost jobs across the country. We know that small, medium and large job creators in Ontario have been openly critical of the Ontario Liberal plan. They have written to the Ontario premier and suggested that she rethink this. When that is combined with the extraordinary increase in hydro in the province of Ontario, there are challenges.

At the federal level, we are going in a different direction. We are finding ways to put more money in the pockets of Canadian families. We introduced, through our recent economic action plan, tax savings and tax cuts. We are providing additional incentives for our manufacturers so they can upgrade their machinery and equipment, and can compete not based on a low dollar but on productivity.

We are seeing the benefits of that. The recent job numbers have showed us that our manufacturers, particularly in Ontario, despite the challenges that are put in place by the provincial Liberal government, are starting to succeed because of the policies that this government has put in place to allow them to increase productivity. We are going to continue down that path.

Additionally, we need to support families. By supporting families, we are giving them greater opportunities. Our universal child care benefit, for example, puts more money back in the pockets of families. We have increased the tax-free savings accounts so people can invest up $10,000. These are all important initiatives that put more money back in the pockets of hard-working Canadian families.

We have the tax credits for families when it comes to fitness and arts. It is about putting more money back in the pockets of hard-working Canadian families. That has been one of the hallmarks of this government since we were elected.

Back in 2006-07, because of the hard work of members of Parliament, the cabinet, and the government at the time, we had surpluses, and there was a debate at that point as to what should happen with respect to the surplus. It was this Prime Minister who suggested at the time that we always had to be ready for what would happen in the future and that we should repay debt with that surplus. Members will recall that the opposition, the NDP and the Liberals, suggested that we go on a spending spree. The Prime Minister said that we had to be prepared, that there were signals in the global economy that were troubling, and that we should pay down debt.

In 2008, when the global economy went into a very drastic recession, Canada was prepared to meet the challenge of a global economic recession. When people were put out of work, the Government of Canada had the resources to ensure that they had what they needed to get through the slowdown.

We did a number of things. We provided increased benefits directly to Canadians by reducing their taxes. We reduced the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%. Of course, the opposition was against that entirely.

We then provided a stimulus program, because we understood that what the economy needed and what Canadians wanted were jobs. They did not necessarily want enhanced programs. They wanted to go to work so they could provide for their families and so they could pay to help other Canadians. That is what they wanted, so we brought in an important stimulus program, which saw the creation of thousands of jobs across this country, which invested in our infrastructure, and which allowed us to work with our municipal and provincial partners to address very important infrastructure challenges so that as we came out of the global economic downturn, our small, medium, and large job creators could seize on the opportunities that were created by investing in the infrastructure. Again, the opposition was opposed to these investments.

The opposition at the time, and currently, particularly the official opposition, supported by the Liberal Party, has advocated what is called the 45-day work year. To put that into context, at the same time they bring a motion forward about ensuring that we have the resources available to protect families and workers when they are left, through no fault of their own, without work, the NDP and the Liberals are seeking to institute a 45-day work year.

I am not sure we could truly calculate what it would cost Canadian workers and Canadian businesses to implement something like this. It is completely irresponsible, and it is really, in essence, the foundation of what we are talking about today. It is part of the opposition's secret agenda, by and large.

We are now seeing the Liberal Party coming forward with a plan that would basically attack Canadians' pensions. The Liberals have not even introduced the full scope of their platform yet and already they are billions of dollars in the hole. Scrambling, as Liberals usually do, to try to find out how they will fill the holes of the massive deficits, they have decided that the best way to do that would be to raid the Canada pension plan and private pension plans and hope that nobody notices.

New Democrats truly have no shame when it comes to spending Canadian taxpayers' money. They do not actually care that they would increase debt and deficits for Canadians. They would be honest about it in some circumstances, because that is just what they do. Fortunately, Canadians have looked at the NDP over a number of elections and have rejected that type of economics for Canada.

We in Ontario understand how disastrous NDP economics can be, and that is why we have consistently rejected the NDP because of that really unfortunate experience in Ontario. I was just out of university at the time, and the increase in unemployment in Ontario was staggering.

The deficit at that time, in the 1990s, in the province of Ontario, was $11 billion. The NDP government in Ontario was spending $11 million more an hour than it was taking in. It was an absolute disaster, and it was not until 1995, under the leadership of a Conservative government, which included a number of members serving in our caucus here today, such as the President of the Treasury Board, that Ontario's economy was brought back into balance. We created jobs, we opened up the Ontario market, and we unleashed the potential of the Ontario small, medium, and large job creators to create jobs. We put more money back into the pockets of Canadian families, very much like what we are doing here and what the NDP is threatening to take away from Canadian families.

I come from the community of Markham, which is the most diverse community in all of Canada. Under previous Liberal administrations, and the Liberals will know this to be true, we would go around the world and tell people who wanted to come to this country to come to Canada, because it was a great place to start a family and they would be able to get work. What we did not tell them was that although Canada was a great place and a great place to raise a family, their credentials would not be recognized when they got here.

We have heard time and time again about people with incredible résumés and incredible educations who are working as cab drivers but should be working in other areas. They should be contributing more to the Canadian experience. Under previous Liberal governments, they were sold a bill of goods. They were brought here and they were told that they could not actually participate in the Canadian economy to the fullest extent, because their credentials would not be recognized.

This government set out to change that. It is one of the reforms we brought in. We set out to change it. We worked with our provincial counterparts to have credential recognition in a number of areas. We provide grants to new immigrants so they can upgrade their credentials and fully participate in the Canadian economy.

These are some of the things we have brought forward. These are some of the things the people of Canada are financing through their taxes so that we can create jobs.

I know that the opposition is consistently focused on what it will do when people lose their jobs. On this side of the House, we think the best thing we can do if people lose their jobs through no fault of their own is provide them with the opportunity to get new jobs. That is why we have invested in training, through the hard work of the former minister of Employment and Social Development. That is why we have provided resources for our provincial partners so that they can partner with us.

A little over a year ago, we heard from the opposition, when we brought forward the Canada job grant, that it would never happen, because it would be too difficult to bring our provincial partners along with us. We said we could make it happen, because we had to keep Canadians working. The former minister of Employment and Social Development, who is currently the Minister of National Defence, went across Canada and struck a deal so that we would have appropriate job training programs in each of the provinces and territories, programs that would make sense for the local economy.

We worked with our provincial and territorial partners to find out what skills they needed. These are the people we then bring to this country so that they can contribute immediately.

I look in my community of Markham, which as I said is the most diverse community in all of Canada, and I see the results of the things we have done. Our manufacturers are prosperous. I look in Stouffville and see my farmers competing and exporting to different parts of the world and preparing to export to the world's largest economy, Europe. I am proud of that.

I look at the IMF report that recently said that other countries in the world should emulate Canada's low debt-to-GDP. Despite the fact that the global challenges still exist, Canada is doing better and has done better than almost any other country.

Around the world, people want to emulate what Canada has done. That is why I am extraordinarily proud to be in this caucus, with these members of Parliament, under the leadership of this Prime Minister, who has given this to Canadians.