Shawn Murphy

[The Budget, March 25th, 2010]

If so, Mr. Speaker, considering that we are only 371 days from the time this expires, could the Minister of Finance today provide us with the details of the initiative he is talking about?

[The Budget, March 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Page 242 of the budget states that UPEI will receive $30 million for infrastructure updates. The statement could not possibly be more clear.

I remind the minister that all members and all Canadians are entitled to assume that statements made in documents presented in the House are assumed to be accurate, correct and truthful.

My question for the Minister of Finance is very simple. Is this statement true, and if it is not, how could Canadians be expected to believe the government will honour any commitment in the budget?

[The Budget, March 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the commitment in the budget was crystal clear. The answer provided by the minister certainly was not.

There is one of three things going on here in the House today. One, the statement is correct, and I would suggest that the minister across stand up and say the statement is correct. Two, there is a horrendous screw-up going on, and I would suggest that the minister stand up and say he will resign. Three, this statement is another attempt to mislead and deceive Canadians, and I would suggest that the minister stand up and say he apologizes.

Which is it?

[The Budget, March 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very specific question for the Minister of Finance.

On page 242 of the budget, in detailing the knowledge infrastructure program, it states that the University of Prince Edward Island will receive $30 million in new money for infrastructure upgrades, but now we find out that may not be correct.

Would the minister confirm that the statement that he made, that he published in this House, is accurate, is correct and is factual in all respects?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this is an important issue. The member is quite right. Over the past 6 to 10 years we have seen a dramatic decrease in the number of United States tourists coming to Canada. It is not just one issue that is behind it; there are a number of issues. There is the thickening of the border. There was the confusion over passports, do people need them, do they not need them. There is the marketing issue. There is the price. Another issue was the whole way the government handled the GST rebates for foreign visitors. Altogether this has led to a dramatic reduction, unfortunately, for our tourism industry. It is just not a priority.

This is one of those issues the government has backed away from because it thinks it is a provincial jurisdiction. I take the contrary point of view that this is very much a federal jurisdiction. The federal government ought to show leadership. It has the power to come forward with national strategies. It could be doing a lot more to assist our businesses in the tourist industry.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the comments made by the questioner. There is a certain segment and depending on whose numbers we believe, probably 20% of Canadians do not believe in climate change. They share the comments of the Prime Minister. They think it is an unproven science and it is a socialist plot for the developing countries to take money from the developed countries.

The member makes a very interesting point that a lot of countries, such as Germany, China and the United States, are really into developing the green economy. Most economists believe that is the future, that we have to transition from carbon-based fuels to alternate sources of energy. Technology is what is going to take us there. A lot of countries are ahead of us. Canada is not doing very much. Some of the provinces are doing some things, but it is disappointing to see the role taken by the current federal government.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when I started my remarks prior to question period, I said that this is a strange debate because there really is not anything in the Speech from the Throne that I would consider has anything to do with an agenda, a vision or futuristic programs. It is a compilation of things that might have been done in the last three or four years. It talks about the situation in Haiti and it talks about the Olympic Games, but really there is nothing there at all.

There is probably a reason for that. This is the third Speech from the Throne in 14 months. It makes a mockery of the whole thing. Anyway, this is what is in front of us. There are several issues that we should be having a public discussion about and which should be in the Speech from the Throne.

The first one is the major demographic transition that is going on in Canada which will have dramatic effects on our labour force, on our future health care costs, on our pensions, on our care of the elderly. There is no public discussion going on about that at all. Some think tanks are writing reports, and some of them are quite alarming, but in the Speech from the Throne and the budget, there is dead silence. I find that alarming.

That leads to the second point, and that is the whole issue of pensions. This has become a very important issue for Canadians from coast to coast. Statistics indicate that approximately two-thirds of Canadians do not have sufficient savings for their retirement. There were no proposals in the Speech from the Throne. There was nothing in the budget. I know that some discussions are going on and there is a lot of hiding behind this jurisdictional shield. The federal government has the power to convene and to show leadership. I am looking for leadership on this particular issue and I know that all Canadians are as well.

As we look forward as a society with a declining workforce we have to look for greater productivity. Our productivity is substantially lower than that of the United States and it is falling lower. Forty per cent of all Canadians do not have the literacy and numeracy skills to compete in the knowledge economy. Nothing is being done about it. No leadership is being shown by the government. Very little leadership is being shown by any of the provincial governments. The universities are not involved in this issue. The community colleges seem to be ignoring it. It just does not get any public discussion anywhere. This issue will affect dramatically the future productivity of this nation. It is an issue that I thought would have been mentioned in the Speech from the Throne.

Dealing with the issue of productivity, there are significant barriers to post-secondary education developing in Canadian society. A lot of high school graduates are deciding not to go to university or to a community college. Their decision is based upon income. They do not want to incur the significant debt that is required. That is becoming a determinant for people to go to university. The country will suffer because of that. That issue should have been included in the Speech from the Throne as we look at the business and agenda of this House going forward.

Perhaps the item that is most blatantly not in the Speech from the Throne is the whole issue of the environment and climate change. The Conservative government is in its fifth year of governing. There have been three environment ministers. There have been three plans.

The first environment minister's agenda was to create a made in Canada plan. Did we ever get it? No. Did we get anything done at all on the environment or climate change? No.

When she was dismissed, she was replaced with the second environment minister. His program was to bring forward very tough regulations so that the largest emitters in Canada would be regulated. Was this ever done? No, it was not done. Was anything ever done? No, nothing was done.

Then there is the third environment minister. His plan is to start a dialogue with the Obama administration. Has this dialogue started? We do not know. The other day he was reported in the press as saying that the dialogue may take two or three years, and in the meantime we cannot do anything.

I, and I believe most Canadians, find it troubling that we can go from one year to two years to three years to four years and not do anything about climate change, other than suggest that at some point in time we are going to start a dialogue with the Obama administration.

I know there is a certain percentage of Canadians who do not believe in climate change. They support the remarks of the Prime Minister that this is an unproven science and it is a socialist plot. However, the majority of Canadians do not support that thought. There should have been something in the Speech from the Throne dealing with environmental issues, dealing with climate change and dealing with a future agenda and programs that this country would expect to see from the government in power regarding the environment.

I come from the political ideology that I believe there is a positive role for the federal government to play. A country as large and as diverse as Canada cannot function if there is not a strong federal government. I am not seeing it, and I am certainly not seeing it in this Speech from the Throne. I really do not see anything. It is disappointing, but there is some explanation for it. This is the third throne speech in 14 or 15 months. That is probably one of the biggest issues that I would have liked to see in the Speech from the Throne, that is, the constant attacks on democracy and the institutions of democracy, such as this institution, Parliament.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 18th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to participate in the debate from the Speech from the Throne, although I should say at the outset that I find the debate, and I guess the whole Speech from the Throne, somewhat unusual and somewhat strange. A Speech from the Throne has a very long tradition in history, in our Commonwealth, in our western democracy system, under the Westminster system. Usually, it is the agenda of the government, read by Her Majesty the Queen, or in the case of Canada a representative of Her Majesty the Queen. It basically sets out what the government intends to accomplish over the term of the Parliament, or the session, and lays out a best-case scenario, if everything goes well, of what that government intends to accomplish. Of course it is read by a representative of Her Majesty the Queen.

This document is somewhat strange because this, as we know, is the third Speech from the Throne we have had in about 15 months. We did have a Speech from the Throne in November 2008. We had another one in February 2009. And now we have one in March of this year, and it really is not an agenda. It is not a vision. Basically, what I see it being is a list of certain items that are going on in the country, the crisis in Haiti and the Olympic Games, and it is a list of programs. I think the government went to every department and agency in Ottawa and asked for a list of what they have been doing over the last five years, and this has all been appended into the Speech from the Throne. It really does not give anything in the way of an agenda or a vision or what the government really intends to accomplish over the next session of this, the 40th Parliament of Canada.

I am going to make the submission that there are a lot of issues facing Canadians. These are issues that I think should have been in the Speech from the Throne. They are issues that Canadians are talking about. Of course the first issue was the prorogation of this House, this assembly, that occurred back in December of last year. That is what they are talking about. They certainly would have liked to have seen something in the Speech from the Throne that would put some limits, some restrictions, on that right to prorogue this Parliament, this assembly.

Besides that, there are a number of other issues that I do believe warrant a public discussion, which should have been in the Speech from the Throne. The first issue I will mention is the whole demographic transition that the population of Canada is undergoing. We are becoming an older society. We have fewer children. There is a much higher dependency rate. There are fewer citizens under the age of 18 and a lot more over the age of 65, which of course increases our dependency rate.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, March 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, in her speech, the member talk about productivity, which is so important because, as we enter an era where we have a decreasing workforce, that will depend upon the increase in productivity of the workforce that is left.

However, there are a lot of issues that she and the previous speakers from that side did not touch upon which are major challenges facing this country: the demographic challenges that the country faces, the pensions that are unaddressed, and the deficit, which is the largest in Canadian history, to be followed by the second largest. The government is saying that it is only temporary but I would remind everyone that it was saying the same thing in 1993 when the previous Conservative government was here. It also said that it was only temporary.

We are facing competitive challenges and literacy challenges where 40% of our population does not have the literacy skills to function in today's economy. The most egregious challenge, of course, is the environmental issues. The Conservatives are in their fifth year of office and no one in this House can suggest that they have done anything at all. These are intergenerational issues. It is unfair. It is inequitable.

After listening to everything that has been said here today, what does the member across have to say? Considering that all these issues have not even been talked about, certainly the environment being one, what does she have to say to our children and generations to come?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, March 11th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I have listened attentively to the speeches all afternoon, and I have heard absolutely nothing on the environment. The government is in its fifth year now, and we have seen three ministers, three plans.

The first minister announced for a year-and-a-half that we would have a made in Canada plan. She did absolutely nothing. The only things she did were to cut $6 billion of existing programming and to eliminate any reference to climate change on Environment Canada's website.

We had a second minister. He said that he would come forward with tough regulations for all major emitting industries. He did absolutely nothing, nothing in whatever language one wants to use.

Now we have a third minister. His plan is to start a dialogue with the Obama administration. Of course, he has done absolutely nothing on the environment.

It is a serious issue. Canadians from coast to coast are telling members they want it taken seriously.

Why has the government not done anything on the environment?