Bill C-48 (Historical)

An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments

This enactment authorizes the Minister of Finance to make certain payments out of the annual surplus in excess of $2 billion in respect of the fiscal years 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 for the purposes and in the aggregate amount specified. This enactment also provides that, for its purposes, the Governor in Council may authorize a minister to undertake a specified measure.

Extended Sitting Period

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Money was blown on Shawinigate. I thank my colleague for the reminder. The past prime minister, Jean Chrétien, interceded to secure a loan for a golf course and a hotel that he had an interest in.

There was also the spending on Challenger jets. My colleagues are feeding me information here to make sure that I do not forget, because so many scandals have rocked this government over the last 12 years that it is just unbelievable.

And this is the government that has the audacity to come to this place with a bill like this and expect all members of Parliament from all parties to approve it. Bill C-48 was illegitimately conceived. I would suggest that it is the illegitimate child of that union in the Toronto hotel room. The government has brought this bill before the House and expects all parties to fall all over themselves because of all the great and wonderful things it is going to address.

We are not saying that the issue of foreign aid does not need to be addressed. We are not saying that the issue of homelessness does not need to be addressed. We are not saying that there does not need to be greater emphasis on public transit. We have never said those things. Those things have always been part of our agenda, but they should not be dealt with like this.

Canadians understand that. My constituents understand that. This is no way to draft a budget. Canadians put more effort into drafting their household budget on a weekly basis than the government put into drafting this bill.

No one in Canada is fooled when told that this is somehow urgent business, that it needs to be addressed immediately and needs to be passed to the extent that we extend a sitting of Parliament to accomplish it. No one is fooled by that.

People know what Bill C-48 is: desperation in the extreme. This was conceived at a time when the Prime Minister knew that his minority government was in desperate shape and was about to fall if he did not do something. The only thing that kept his government alive in February and March was our party, because, as I said earlier, we assess each piece of government legislation and weigh it on its own merits.

We assessed Bill C-43, the original budget implementation act. We felt that there was enough good in it to support it. We took the unprecedented step, never before done in the 138 year history of Canada, of abstaining on the original budget vote. If we had voted as most opposition parties normally would have, the government would have fallen then. The NDP voted against it. The Bloc Québécois voted against it; to the Bloc's credit, at least it is consistent. The government would have fallen. We would have been in an election in March. We did not do it because we weigh legislation based on its merits and on whether we believe we can improve it.

We believed that the flaws in Bill C-43, such as the CEPA amendments to implement parts of the Kyoto accord, could be taken out. We believed that the bill could be improved and amended, so we waited, on balance, and decided to take an unprecedented step.

At that time, the NDP criticized the Conservatives for this. The leader of the NDP went to the television cameras and dumped all over us and all over the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. He said it was unbelievable that the Conservative Party and its leader would abstain and allow the survival of Parliament.

Let us be clear on that point as well. The Conservatives did not support the budget that night. We did not support a corrupt government that night. We allowed Parliament to survive. We were very clear on that. We allowed to Parliament to survive because we believed that this particular piece of legislation, Bill C-43, could be amended and on balance could ultimately be supported. And we ultimately did. We supported it on May 19 and again on June 15.

It strikes me as more than a little odd that the government House leader moments ago said that this legislation, Bill C-48, the NDP budget, is of an urgent nature. Yet Bill C-43 has been passed to the other place. That is the budget, not this. Bill C-43, the original budget implementation act, was supported by the official opposition and the New Democratic Party and went to the other place on June 15. I have been informed that there it sits.

Conservative senators are ready to pass it because it contains things that all of us are under pressure to implement. It does not matter whether we are Conservative members of Parliament or Liberal, NDP or Bloc. We have all heard from our municipalities in our ridings, from our mayors, city councillors, regional district directors, reeves, et cetera. They are all of the opinion that they want Bill C-43, which contains the gas tax transfer of money to the municipalities, passed as quickly as possible into law so that money can start flowing.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I am disappointed to see the hon. government whip rush into the Chamber and then exit again after she raised this issue.

As some of my colleagues who have been quick to point out, during her bogus point of order, this is indeed a prop in the sense that the government designed this, built it, and wrote it to prop up its government. In that sense, it is a prop. It is an NDP prop. It props up the corrupt government, as thin as it is.

In any event, before I was interrupted, I was about to explain to Canadians, who are watching these debates at home, one of the reasons why we have been so outspoken against Bill C-48. During the debate the Conservative Party of Canada and its members of Parliament carried on for a couple of days until the wee hours, up until midnight in a period of extended hours. If this motion were to pass, the debate would be extended hours again next week until midnight, which is part of the motion.

Unfortunately, and it might surprise you, Mr. Speaker, given the amount of hours that we have debated Bill C-48 at report stage, not all of my colleagues have had an opportunity to speak to the bill yet. I think there are still a few who did not get the opportunity because an interesting development took place last night.

When there was a decision by yourself, Mr. Speaker, to have the emergency debate on the Devils Lake diversion, which will dramatically affect the people of Manitoba, negotiations and discussions took place among the parties and we agreed to have the debate on report stage of Bill C-48 end at a certain time. Once that time was agreed to and was laid before the House in the form of a motion, instantly something happened.

All of a sudden we had Liberal and New Democrat members participating in the debate. Up to that time they had not been, other than the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. I seem to recall, to his credit, that he stayed here most evenings and participated in questions and comments. However, time after time we expected that members of the coalition of the two governing parties would stand up and participate in the debate, but they did not because they did not want to prolong the debate. However, as soon as there was an agreement to have an end time last night, what happened? All of a sudden they started to participate.

But I digress. The point that I am making is that the reason why Conservative members of Parliament felt so strongly and spoke so passionately about Bill C-48 and will continue to when they get the opportunity at third reading is because of that philosophical difference between Liberals and Conservatives. It is right at the very heart of why many of us, and I would suggest almost all of us here, left occupations that we loved, in which we had for all intents and purposes bright future careers.

We left those occupations and came to this place to represent our constituents. We did so because we believe in the trust between Canadian taxpayers and their government. We believe in that. We believe in a government that takes that trust seriously, not once in a while, but all the time.

That is why we get so upset when we see something like this. I am trying to treat this with great respect, but it is extremely difficult. We get so upset with something like this because of the process by which it came into existence and because of the fact that the government takes for granted that it can spend taxpayers' money any way it wants.

This is a government that is already mired in scandal. This is a government that has been mired in scandal after scandal over the 12 years I have been here. I can give the House examples of those scandals, on which the government has blown billions of dollars.

There is the failed long gun registration scheme it came up with. There was the HRDC scandal, which occurred before probably half of my caucus colleagues even came here, but we remember it.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Exactly. My colleague from Edmonton says it is overtaxation and she is exactly right.

A fundamental philosophical difference between a Liberal or a New Democratic member and a Conservative is on this very issue because what is a surplus to a Liberal is overtaxation to a Conservative.

Let us look at the very premise of Bill C-48. It is a piece of legislation conceived in the dark of night in a hotel room in Toronto by a unionist, Buzz Hargrove, the leader of the New Democratic Party and the Prime Minister of the country to spend $4.6 billion.

I happen to have a copy of this piece of legislation that I would like to show Canadians. If they ever wanted to see what $4.6 billion looks like, there it is. It is two pages. It was conceived in a hurry.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Exactly. One of my colleagues is prompting me a bit here about functions which they have committed to in their ridings. Many of those will be for next week.

Again I think I am not just speaking for the Conservative Party of Canada and our 98 members of Parliament. I think I could speak for all 308 members. I am sure they have events planned to which they have committed. Some might have been committed to some months ahead of time expecting, before this extremely abnormal request on the part of the government, that the House would rise on schedule tomorrow night at midnight. That is not going to happen.

I wanted to put that on the record just to clear any misconception there might be that we are talking about going on holiday on Friday. That is not the case. We are speaking to Motion No. 17 put forward by the hon. government House Leader, which states:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice,--

And I just talked about the usual practice.

--when the House adjourns on June 23, 2005, it shall stand adjourned until June 27, 2005; at any time on or after June 27, 2005, a Minister of the Crown may propose, without notice, a motion that, upon adjournment on the day on which the said motion is proposed, the House shall stand adjourned to a specified date not more than 95 days later; the said motion immediately shall be deemed to have been adopted, provided that, during the adjournment, for the purposes of any Standing Order, the House shall be deemed to stand adjourned pursuant to Standing Order 28; commencing June 27, 2005 and concluding on the day on which a motion that the House stand adjourned pursuant to this Order is adopted, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays shall be 12:00 midnight.

That sounds extremely convoluted to anybody that is trying to follow it. I could not even follow it and I was the one reading it.

What does it basically say? This motion allows the House to begin sitting again next week. Then, once the government is satisfied that it got everything it wanted, a minister can deem the House adjourned to a date 95 days into the future.

We have a situation where a minister can wave his magic wand and deem that the House is adjourned. Why would we support that?

Obviously, depending on when the government gets what it wants, the House could be conceivably out until November or December or whenever. Once the government gets the bills that it wants, and we have seen this happen and certainly I have seen it happen in the almost 12 years that I have been here, the government could use prorogation. The government would prorogue the House until it deemed it most advantageous for it to have the House sit again.

I do not think it is a huge secret, that I am about to reveal, that this particular government is the most scandal plagued government in the history of our Parliament. Obviously, the Liberals would just love to have some method whereby they would not have to face the opposition daily for question period and have to answer questions in this place.

I do not think it is beyond a reasonable assessment that if the government were to be granted this and were it to pass all the legislation that the government House leader said was “urgent legislation”, there would be at least in theory no reason for the House to sit much longer.

In fact, one of the things our party has been saying, with the exception of the same sex marriage legislation, is that there has not been a heck of a lot on the government's agenda for a year now.

Something else I always want to point out to people is that the Conservative Party of Canada is not in the business of opposing just for the sake of opposition. We are called the official opposition.

We assess each and every piece of legislation that comes before this place. We weigh it on its own merits. We determine whether or not it is in the best interests of the majority of Canadians. Then we determine whether we are going to support it or oppose it, whether we can support it if it is amended or oppose it unless amended. We take these positions.

We believe that is a responsible way that a political party in this place should operate. It is not a position that just because we are opposition we oppose for the sake of opposing.

It might come as a bit of a surprise not only to yourself, Mr. Speaker, but to the viewing public, that in the almost 12 years I have been here the parties that I have represented have supported more government legislation than they have opposed, even though they have been opposition parties and that continues today.

Of the current bills that are before this place, leading up to the dying days of this session, there are about 15 that are not tied up in committee or have not gone on to the other place. We support two-thirds of them, 10 out of the 15. As far as I am concerned, that would certainly indicate that, unlike what the government House leader just said, we are neither obstructionist nor are we constantly opposing the government's initiatives. We believe in weighing the pros and cons of each piece of legislation, weighing its merits and then determining our position.

The government gave its verbal commitment to the Bloc Québécois that it would only consider Bill C-48 and Bill C-38 if it got the extension into the summer. It said that if there were other issues, and I was there when we were discussing this, it would consider them on an ad hoc basis, only with agreement.

The government members failed to explain that when the House begins to vote on deferred divisions, for example, subamendments at third reading of Bill C-48 or Bill C-38, there will be times when the House will have nothing to do while it waits for the deferred division to come to a vote. It just cannot sit here idling in neutral. It is not like a government minister's limousine. The House will have to do something during that period of time. If the vote is deferred until the next day, we cannot just recess the House while we are waiting to have the vote.

The government promise to the Bloc Québécois members, to ensure they supported the extension so there could be more debate into July and the government assurance that only Bill C-38 would be discussed, is not entirely accurate.

I would also like to discuss why the government believes that it is so urgent that we get these two bills passed. A number of colleagues rose during questions and comments and asked the hon. government House leader exactly that question. They pointed out that, in the case of Bill C-48, the NDP budget companion bill, it will not come into effect until we know if there is a surplus.

I need to stop right here because one of the things that has frustrated me during my years as a member of Parliament is when governments start to talk about a surplus. Even the use of the word surplus is a misnomer in my books.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will respond directly to the hon. member's question. When he makes reference to a budget implementation bill that just passed the Senate, what he is referring to is a budget finance bill which contained housekeeping tax measures. The budget implementation bill from budget 2004 passed within months, not a year. In fact, it was presented in March and passed before the House recessed in June of last year.

I must correct the member. While he makes his argument, the argument is incorrect. I would also encourage him to look at the facts to see that the budget implementation bill itself was passed quite expeditiously, much along the same lines that Bill C-43 was passed. We hope to have Bill C-48 passed expeditiously.

With respect to disagreeing with Bill C-48, I accept the member's ability and right to disagree on legislation. I have no qualms with that at all. That is what this House is about. I think that debate is about changing minds. I do not think the debate should be about stalling the question so Parliament can decide, and the opposition members have done a very good job of trying to do exactly that.

Editorials across the country are asking why members continue to stall, why they do not allow the question and why they do not allow Parliament to decide. That is democracy in action. Members should be able to oppose, but I do not think they should be able to use debate just to delay.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, everyday I see the government stooping to new lows. Today we see threats against members of the House of time allocation and using closure to prevent appropriate debate. It goes on and on and it is getting worse, quite frankly.

The member is talking about Bill C-48, which was so unimportant to the government that none of it was put in the original Liberal budget bill. We are talking about the NDP-Liberal budget bill. Now the Liberals have to ram it through somehow. Besides that, the budget implementation bill for last year was only passed in the House a couple of weeks ago.

As my hon. colleague has already pointed out, none of the spending in the bill would take place immediately. It would be at least a year from now before the Liberals could calculate the level of surplus, overtaxation and increase in tax and spending that the government has gone through in the past few years which makes it difficult for my children and the children of people across the country to make their mortgage payments and pay off their students loans.

The Liberals keep taxing and spending more and more and now they want to spend this extra $4.5 billion that would be added on to their insane increases in spending in Bill C-43. The member should reconsider what he is trying to do. He should in fact back off on this. I am sure that is exactly what the House leader will do.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the motion is worded in such a way that if the House does sit an extended period of time, there would be an opportunity for the House to start back at a later date to compensate for the fact that we sat during this period of time. It is up to 95 days. It is the way the motion reads. It is quite fair to members of Parliament who might be in this place for an extended period of time during the summer, and that opportunity to do so is in the motion if the House passes it.

The purpose of the motion is to extend the sitting to deal with urgent matters with respect to the legislation before us. Once the House is adjourned, it allows for members of Parliament to go to their ridings to meet with constituents or go to different parts of the country to meet with Canadians.

I would think the opposition members would probably go around the country and talk about the fact that Bill C-48 itself should not have been supported. They are welcome to go to different cities to speak to different mayors and tell them how the money for transit should not go them, or the money for the new deal with respect to the gas tax should not flow to municipalities.

I am trying to provide ample opportunity for members opposite, once the House adjourns, to meet with their constituents and to travel the country so they can convey their message. I am sure they will find that the majority of the people whom they meet will disagree with their message.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the hon. member's questions, I would only draw his attention to premiers and mayors across the country. They have all indicated the need to ensure that the legislation passes immediately to ensure their planning process is at play and to ensure they are able to plan effectively, knowing full well that the federal legislation has passed the House and they can continue.

I also would draw attention, for instance, to the Premier of Quebec who talked about the more than $1 billion of funding that would go to Quebec and how there is a need to pass the legislation.

While the hon. member might have disagreement with this legislation, he is perfectly able to put forward his argument. In fact, I would argue that the opposition has done that at report stage with numerous speakers. I do not know the actual number, but I think close to 70 or 80 of the members got up and spoke to report stage. I may be incorrect, but there were certainly a lot of members on the opposite side who put forward their positions, offered amendments and we dealt with report stage. Now at third reading, I am sure more speakers will get up.

The point is that the bill itself is in the public interest and that is a consideration we should all have with respect to what other levels of government are doing.

Bill C-48 needs to pass the House. It is one of the reasons for extending this sitting. If the hon. member, on reflection, would look at what is in Bill C-48 and look at the impact it has across the country, he would support the motion to extend the sitting.

[Ken Epp, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a number of questions for the House leader. He indicated to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is a matter of great national interest and great urgency.

The fact of the matter is that Bill C-48 and the provisions thereof contain, to my knowledge, nothing that will be done within the next year. All of these expenditures are subject to there being a surplus of at least $2 billion at the end of the fiscal year 2006. The urgency of this is just simply not there.

How can the House leader claim this urgency when clearly we will have more than enough time in the continuation of Parliament in the fall to debate this, to vote on it and hopefully to hear from more Canadians who are very interested in ensuring that the economy of the country stays strong and that the democratic process in this country is preserved, namely that budget speeches are not changed on the fly after they are made, destroying a long time tradition in the House?

With respect to Bill C-38, I venture again to say that this is an abuse of democracy and is one in which we ought not to be engaging. We have had literally thousands and I would suggest probably even close to a million names on petitions on this particular issue.

For the government to use an extension of a session to go in violation of what the clear majority of Canadians want in this matter and an issue which, in the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, can be solved without changing the definition of marriage, all of this can be done in a timely and normal fashion when we return in the fall session.

Calling this an emergency to extend the session is just so specious it is almost unbelievable. I would like the House leader to try to justify his move on this particular issue.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice, when the House adjourns on June 23, 2005, it shall stand adjourned until June 27, 2005; at any time on or after June 27, 2005, a Minister of the Crown may propose, without notice, a motion that, upon adjournment on the day on which the said motion is proposed, the House shall stand adjourned to a specified date not more than 95 days later; the said motion immediately shall be deemed to have been adopted, provided that, during the adjournment, for the purposes of any Standing Order, the House shall be deemed to stand adjourned pursuant to Standing Order 28; commencing June 27, 2005 and concluding on the day on which a motion that the House stand adjourned pursuant to this Order is adopted, the ordinary hour of daily adjournment on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays shall be 12:00 midnight.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Government Business No. 17 respecting the extension of the sitting of the House. Members are aware that the House is scheduled to adjourn on June 23.

Mr. Speaker, I would draw your attention to Marleau and Montpetit on page 347, which states:

There are times when the House may wish to temporarily set an adjournment time earlier or later than the time prescribed in the Standing Orders.

The process for a motion to extend the sitting was set out in a June 13, 1988 ruling by the Speaker.

First, the Speaker ruled that it was acceptable for the government to place such a motion under government notices of motions. This is because the Standing Orders themselves do not define what is to be in a motion from the government, nor do they limit the government's ability to place such a motion under government notices of motion.

Second, the Speaker then ruled that the government could initiate a motion to suspend the sitting provisions of the Standing Orders, and the Speaker noted that precedents and procedural authorities enabled the government to put forward a motion to suspend the sitting provisions rules.

Third, the Speaker ruled that such a motion can be adopted by a majority decision of the House. The Speaker stated that “there is no doubt that the House can amend or suspend its rules by unanimous consent and the House can also do so by a simple majority decision”.

Fourth, the Speaker then reminded the House that parliamentary reforms had not changed the practice of the House and had not rendered prior precedents inapplicable.

Therefore I would submit that the motion in Government Business No. 17 is consistent with the Speaker's June 13, 1988 ruling. It is also consistent with a motion to extend the sitting of the House which was adopted following the Speaker's ruling.

The purpose of the motion that is before us is quite simple. Urgent legislation that is before the House is being obstructed. I point to Bill C-48, the budget companion bill, that would provide for $4.5 billion in urgent funding for the environment, including public transit and an energy retrofit program for low income housing, training and post-secondary education to benefit, among others, aboriginal Canadians. Also in that bill are moneys for affordable housing, including housing for aboriginal Canadians, and foreign aid.

Yesterday the premier of Quebec asked the Bloc to support the legislation which would give more than $1 billion to Quebec. The government agrees with Premier Charest that the bill is clearly in the interests of Quebecers and, indeed, in the interests of all Canadians, and needs to be passed. I would urge the Bloc members to support the interests of Quebec and to respect the request of the premier of Quebec and support the passage of Bill C-48.

In order to ensure that we have an opportunity to pass Bill C-48, we also need to consider what the official opposition is now doing. The leader of the official opposition is blocking passage of legislation that would benefit Canadian workers, students, the environment and foreign aid. Bill C-48 maintains the principles of the government's budgetary policy. It includes balanced budgets and expenditures in priority areas, and yet we have the example of the official opposition moving concurrence motions or other dilatory tactics for the simple purpose of looking to run out the clock until the scheduled adjournment of the House on June 23.

The opposition is also preventing the House from dealing with Bill C-38. The government is prepared to support an amendment to the bill at report stage that would provide greater certainty for religious institutions under the Income Tax Act. The amendment itself would be beyond the scope of the bill and it would require unanimous consent of the House. However I would hope that members across the way would give the House the opportunity to hear that amendment and that all members would wish to support such an initiative.

The government recognizes that the purpose of debate in the House is to help people make up their minds on issues. All members have clearly made up their minds on Bill C-38 so debate itself should not be used to delay Parliament from deciding.

If we were to look back to the work done by the justice committee, although I know hon. members across the way and others would disagree, but the justice committee had detailed cross country hearings on civil marriage in 2002 and 2003. We have had extensive debate in the House on Bill C-38 at second reading. I indicated to my hon. colleague, the opposition House leader and other House leaders, that every member who wanted to speak to Bill C-38 should be allowed and will be given the opportunity to speak at second reading. I think that has happened. In committee we have heard from all sides on the bill.

I want to draw to the attention of members that an editorial in today's Globe and Mail stated:

There is nothing materially useful to add. It's time for Parliament to vote on the bill, and for all parties to let the Commons have its say.

The government agrees with that and I think it is important that parliamentarians deal with this issue. Canadians elected members to the House to work in the interest of Canadians. It is not time to adjourn. It is time to look at how we can better serve the interests of Canadians. We should continue to sit until we pass Bill C-48 and work toward passing Bill C-38, which is why the government put forward the motion to extend the sitting.

I have indicated publicly that I am giving the opposition the opportunity to show that Parliament can work. If the members obstruct the motion, I certainly think that closure is always a possibility, as provided under the Standing Orders, but I certainly hope that will not be necessary and that all members would take the opportunity to support the motion so that we can continue the work in the House and continue to serve the interests of Canadians.

Transfer payments

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, we all want to make it possible for all governments to deliver adequate services to all of their citizens.

I would note on the review of equalization that Dr. Lacroix from the University of Montreal is one of the country's leading experts on this matter. He is in fact on the commission that is examining this very matter. I understand that he was even the hon. gentleman's personal professor.

I would also point out once again that to help this situation just a little bit, Premier Charest of Quebec has urged the Bloc Québécois to pass Bill C-48.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, provincial revenues exceed federal revenues. Federal debt exceeds provincial debt. Federal transfers to the provinces are going up by $100 billion over the next 10 years. The hon. gentleman could help just a little bit by passing Bill C-48.

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to indicate to my colleague from Churchill River that I do not think there is anything more unconscionable than to hear in this House that any member of this House or any party would risk someone's life and play politics using someone's life. That was proven when an offer was made to pair, and that member should be ashamed that he would continue to do that.

I do not believe that any member in this House would do that and it is unacceptable. It is unacceptable to continue that kind of an indication to Canadians. It says very little for the humanity of each and every parliamentarian.

Let us put that one to rest right now. No one is going to allow that to happen. We might have partisan differences, but no one should risk someone's life for that, and to have it come about again in this House is not something that I am going to tolerate or sit and listen to and not address.

My colleague from across the way says there was nothing in that budget for Saskatchewan and nothing for his riding. What about affordable housing? I know the communities in his riding. I know there is a need for affordable housing. Why would the Conservatives not support Bill C-48 that has additional dollars? We have specifics for aboriginal housing, for areas with the greatest need. Why he would not support that is beyond me.

Are the Conservatives suggesting that somehow farmers and rural people in small and medium businesses will not benefit from the additional dollars for education for their families? The affordable housing dollars will mean construction in the communities throughout the country and everybody will benefit. It is unconscionable that the Conservatives would not support that, but they supported tax cuts for corporations. That is unconscionable.

[Jeremy Harrison, Conservative, Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today on behalf of my constituents of Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River in northern Saskatchewan to talk about Bill C-48, the Liberal-NDP budget bill.

This is a bill that was cooked up in a Toronto hotel room late at night by a desperate Prime Minister, an unprincipled leader of the NDP, and Buzz Hargrove. We have seen the result, which is a document of approximately two pages and which I have in my hand. It has three sections to it, two of which are legalese, along with one that is about a quarter of a page long and purports to appropriate $4.6 billion of taxpayers' dollars.

That is $4.6 billion in a quarter of a page, with no accountability, no idea as to how this is going to be distributed and no plan. It is $4.6 billion thrown into a slush fund. We have seen examples of this type of Liberal spending prior to this and it has not resulted in a positive outcome, whether that be the gun registry, the sponsorship scandal or the HRDC boondoggle. We could run down the list.

As I have said, it is a four page bill, two pages of which are actually blank. Will these be filled in later? What is the story with this? Is this where the hidden agenda of the Liberals and the NDP is going to be written into this unholy agreement they came up with?

I firmly believe that this sleazy backroom deal is bad for Canada and bad for Saskatchewan. It is bad for Canada in the sense that the corrupt and criminal Liberal Party has managed to cling to power for at least another few months to squander taxpayers' dollars and fleece Canadians from one end of the country to the other.

This is a bad deal for my home province of Saskatchewan. If the members of the NDP were truly serious about caring about Saskatchewan, this would have been different. We know, however, that the federal NDP does not care at all for Saskatchewan and particularly northern Saskatchewan, because there is nothing in this agreement for agriculture.

We are facing a crisis in agriculture right across the country. Producers in my riding and across Saskatchewan have been incredibly hard hit by frost, weather conditions and BSE. The farmers have been hit very hard and this deal does absolutely nothing for agricultural producers.

Why is that? If we go down the list of priorities that the NDP claims to care about, we will not see one dollar for agriculture in this $4.6 billion agreement. That is an indication of where the New Democrats' priorities lie. Their priorities do not lie with agricultural producers in this country.

I will also tell this House about another place where there is no money: in the deal with the equalization formula. We all know that Saskatchewan is treated more unfairly than probably any other province in the country. Non-renewable natural resources are included in the formula for Saskatchewan. They were recently taken out for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, in the Atlantic accord, an agreement which I fully support and fully agree with. Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are now entitled to keep their offshore oil and gas revenue to use for the good of the people of those provinces.

Saskatchewan has not received that same deal. Saskatchewan is being treated unfairly. Every elected politician in my home province except one, who happens to be the finance minister of this country, agrees that the province of Saskatchewan is not being treated fairly.

Under the Conservative proposal, which would remove non-renewable natural resources from the formula, my home province would receive approximately a billion dollars more a year in equalization payments. That would make an incredibly huge difference for people in my province.

There has not been a word about that in this backroom deal cooked up by Buzz Hargrove, the member for Toronto—Danforth and the Prime Minister. There is not one word about any of this.

I want to quote a columnist named Andrew Coyne, who put together a piece the day before the May 19 confidence vote. It is very reflective of the point of view of many individuals from Saskatchewan and from my riding. He wrote:

I had thought the feeling of nausea that washed over me at the news was one of disgust. I now realize it was vertigo. The bottom has fallen out of Canadian politics. There are, quite literally, no rules anymore, no boundaries, no limits. We are staring into an abyss where everything is permissible.

Those exquisites in the press gallery who were so scandalized at the suggestion that the Liberals would stoop to scheduling the budget vote around Darrel Stinson's cancer surgery might now have the decency to admit: of course they would. It should be clear to everyone by now that this government--this prime minister--will go to any length to assure their survival in power. And I do mean any. All governments are loath to leave, all think themselves indispensable, but I cannot recall another that clung to office so desperately, so...hysterically.

The loss of a confidence vote is no longer to be taken as a fundamental loss of democratic legitimacy, but rather as a signal to spend more, threaten louder and otherwise trawl for votes on the opposition benches, for as long as proves necessary.

Indeed, it is an open question whether the Liberals would have even held the budget vote if they hadn't made this deal, or whether they would have promised one if it were not already in the works.

Impossible? Outrageous? But outrage depends upon a sense of where the boundary lines are, and a willingness to call people out when they cross them. The Liberals have been crossing these lines, one after another, for years, and their own conspicuous lack of shame has simply educated the rest of us into shrugging complicity. It's only outrageous until it happens--then we forget we have ever felt otherwise.

For example: Last Wednesday, The Globe and Mail published a stinging editorial calling upon the Liberals to seek an “immediate” vote of confidence, to call an election “now” or to put its budget bill to a “quick” vote.

“With each moment they linger,” the Globe wrote, “they will expose themselves as so desperate to hang on to power that they spit in the face of the Commons and call it respect.”

By Friday, the Liberals were still there, the government had been defeated two more times, the budget vote had not been held--and the Globe wondered what all the commotion was about. “To say the government has lost all legitimacy,” it lectured the opposition, “is a wildly disproportionate response”. Poof: all that outrage, down the memory hole. In two days.

Is it a constitutional crisis if no one understands it is?

A government without the support of a majority of Parliament has spent billions it has no legal authority to spend and dangled offices that are not in its power to bestow, in hopes of recovering that majority.

This is the type of government that the NDP is maintaining in office. It is a government corrupt to the absolute core, a government that cares for nothing except exercising power. It is a government that will lie, cheat and steal, and has, to maintain its hold on power. In short, it is a government that has lost the moral authority to govern our country. The NDP members should be ashamed of themselves.

Here is another issue. Today is national aboriginal day, as members know. I attended a service on behalf of aboriginal veterans from one end of the country to the other, a memorial service to commemorate the contributions of aboriginal war veterans who served in the first world war, the second world war, Korea and peacekeeping missions up to the present day.

This issue is incredibly important to me personally and to constituents in my riding. In my first act as an MP, I put forward a private member's motion that called on the government and the House of Commons to recognize the historical inequality of treatment that aboriginal veterans received when they returned from overseas conflicts. Unfortunately, all but two Liberal members voted against recognizing aboriginal war veterans. There was no reason for them to be voting against that.

Nothing in this deal recognizes the contributions of aboriginal war veterans. Nothing in this deal does anything to live up to Motion No. 193. The government and the NDP should be ashamed of themselves.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to raise a question. I want to commend the parliamentary secretary who has just spoken and the member for Vancouver Centre who spoke previously for addressing the substance of Bill C-48.

I want to commend them for actually talking about affordable housing, access to education, public transit and the down payment on beginning to meet our international obligations for international aid, as opposed to being completely unconnected with both the bill itself and reality in that kind of stream of right wing reactionary verbiage from the other side.

I have a very specific question for the member, who is a medical doctor and has a lot of concern about what has happened to people's lives in the last 15 years. I think he would acknowledge the fact that there have been casualties in our society as a result of the massive unilateral cuts made to health, education and social welfare in particular.

I have a very particular question. Would the parliamentary secretary agree that with the elimination of the Canada assistance plan we have wiped out any notion of entitlement to the basic necessities in life and the concept that no one in our society should go hungry or homeless?

There is a strong, compelling argument to be made for re-establishing a legal framework consistent with our international obligations to the covenant on social, economic and cultural rights, consistent with the previous existence of the Canada assistance plan framework.

Would the parliamentary secretary agree that one of the things we need to do is re-establish the notion that people should not just be at the mercy of charitable responses, but that actually there should be some legal protection which would build a floor to enable people not to fall through and literally--