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.

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

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Eighth? I am sorry. It is the eighth consecutive balanced budget. I was underestimating how good we are.

We have this budget bill, Bill C-48, which will assist those who are less well off in our society.

The hon. member across has said, in a kind of Hobbesian state of nature way of looking at things, to just reduce taxes and let people fend for themselves, presumably where life will be brutish and short, as Thomas Hobbes used to say, and that will fix everything.

I do not agree with that way of looking at it and I do not believe Canadians do either. We are here for the greater good as well as ourselves individually.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me just end my remarks with the NDP logic and what it looks like. That logic says to get rid of tax relief for auto companies, to hurt the quality of life for Canadians by passing Bill C-48, and to hope there is enough money left over after Liberal year end spending sprees to try to replace the quality of life the NDP hurt in the first place.

It is no wonder that the NDP has never formed a government in Canada. It is not likely to do so. We all remember Bob Rae. Canadians will come to their senses, too, when it comes time for the next election.

To sum up, Bill C-48 is a bad deal cut on the back of a napkin. That is not sound fiscal management. It defies the budgetary processes of the House for thorough prebudget hearings and everything else. A couple of people met in a hotel room to prop up a government; this is how they do fiscal management here in Canada. It is a bad deal. I look forward to voting against it.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

There is incivility on that side of the House. That is quite the hypocrisy coming from the New Democrats.

We want to pay off debt so we can relieve generations to come of crippling bills. The New Democrats want to send a major $500 billion bill to my children and my children's children rather than paying off the national debt.

We want an arrangement whereby we have real jobs here in Canada, not overseas in China. We in the Conservative Party of Canada are fighting for auto workers, for family farmers and for others who deserve to work here in Canada.

Bill C-48 is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The New Democrats are peddling paradise while they are flouting the open and transparent budgetary processes of the House. They are peddling paradise using deceptive reasoning.

I want to probe a couple of the arguments that the NDP has been putting forth in favour of Bill C-48. The first is that the New Democrats are simply taking the tax cuts for corporations like Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and reallocating them to other areas, to what they call their priorities. This is not actually true. This is not a simple reallocation within the same fiscal year.

Bill C-43 offers corporate tax relief. It is a guaranteed budget expenditure, so it is accounted for in a particular year's fiscal arrangement. Bill C-48, the NDP's budget wish list, is a conditional expenditure that triggers only beyond a $2 billion surplus. It does so no sooner than 18 months from now.

A national crisis could emerge. There would go the surplus and the NDP's Bill C-48. We could have downturns in the economy, which could eat up that fiscal room. We could have further provincial demands that need to be satisfied.

Corporations like General Motors, Chrysler and Ford need guaranteed relief to keep jobs here in Canada. They need to know that a guaranteed expenditure is coming to help them so they can plan to stay here and keep jobs in Canada. The NDP is promising, with smoke and mirrors, something that may not even come true.

The NDP will argue that there is plenty of fiscal room and says not to worry about it. The NDP also wants a child care system that would cost $10 billion a year more than the Liberals are currently funding in Bill C-43. That will mean a disappearance of any fiscal room and more. That will necessitate increased taxes, and there may be program cuts from health care and education in order to reallocate money to this national day care.

Or there may be deficit spending. We had plenty of that in Ontario. We remember Bob Rae. We certainly remember the $11 billion deficits that were run in the province. We remember Rae days, on which people could not visit their doctor because the doctor's office was closed that day. Why? There was no money for the doctor to get paid that day. That is what we remember about New Democratic fiscal prudence, or what they like to call fiscal prudence.

This means that maybe child care is on the mantel, to be chopped off. Maybe child care will not be pursued. Where are the dollars going to come from? Will they go to fund Bill C-48? Will they go to fund national day care? They cannot do both with the same fiscal surplus.

Let us look back in time. We have had $90 billion in unplanned surpluses since 1997. The actual surpluses were astoundingly higher, but the Liberal government made an art of end of the year, empty the cupboard, politically driven spending sprees to shrink surpluses so Canadians would not be so alarmed by their size.

I see a train wreck coming for the New Democrats, who actually think they may get something with Bill C-48. They are not likely going to see a dime go to funding their priorities when their Liberal cousins empty the cupboard by year's end. They have been duped. Either that or they are trying to dupe Canadians into believing that something will be there. They know it will not be. The NDP has been keeping the Liberals afloat and the NDP gets nothing. That is a raw deal and those members do not even see it coming.

Let us talk about corporate tax cuts for a moment. The NDP has been claiming that corporate tax cuts simply benefit the rich while claiming that New Democrats are helping regular Canadians.

First, the Conservative Party believes in tax relief, not simply tax cuts. Canadian families,along with corporations having trouble competing because of the high dollar and other reasons, need relief now, and not just a simple one time tax cut. They need sustained relief in taxation. Real people struggle every week to make ends meet. They deserve tax relief.

Second, tax relief for corporations actually benefits Canadians in the workforce. I am Parliament's first auto worker. Let us talk about auto workers for a moment. Having our dollar going up in Canada is hurting our exports. Canadian auto companies' productivity is being hurt. Their ability to compete globally from here in Ontario is being hurt.

Massive layoffs have begun in the United States. We have seen layoffs in my community of Windsor and in the communities in the riding of Essex. We have seen them across Ontario. This is happening not just with Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, but with our parts makers and parts suppliers and our tool, mould and die sector, which has had a 38% attrition rate in Essex county in the last decade under the Liberal watch. Those jobs have gone to foreign labour markets such as China and the United States.

Buzz Hargrove, a friend of the New Democrats, the one who actually helped them cut this backroom deal, says that these layoffs are coming to Canada soon with the trickle-down from the 25,000 layoffs that GM has announced in the United States. The NDP wants to get rid of tax relief for Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler right at a time when they are losing the ability to keep auto workers employed here in Ontario. Those are Canadian families at risk of losing their jobs right at a time when that party, which says it likes to fight for auto workers, is getting rid of that tax relief.

Every auto job supports six other jobs. Five hundred thousand regular Canadians lose their jobs when auto jobs head to cheaper foreign labour markets like China or to lower tax jurisdictions such as Georgia, Alabama or South Carolina.

No, tax relief benefits real Canadians on main streets, not just in urban centres but in rural towns, villages and hamlets. The NDP just does not get it. It is no wonder that the first auto worker in Parliament elected by regular Canadians is a Conservative from Essex and is not from the NDP, the CCF, the Liberals or anybody else.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in debate on Bill C-48 to talk about the Conservative Party of Canada and about me as a Conservative member of Parliament and a new member of Parliament, and how we are here to build a better Canada. I have a tangible investment in future generations. I have four kids. My oldest turned eight only three days ago.

We are interested in building a better Canada with an improved quality of life within a better fiscal arrangement, not with boondoggle mismanagement the way things have been done for 12 years on that side of the House, and not with sponsorship scandals where hard-earned tax dollars are skimmed to fund Liberal Party election campaigns in Quebec. Neither do we want deals on the back of a napkin, those sorts of poor fiscal arrangements.

What we are looking for in the Conservative Party of Canada is lowering taxes to increase freedom for families so they can pursue priorities in their lives, so they can put their kids into soccer classes, so they can do the things they want to enjoy life. We stand for paying off the debt--

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, let us recall that Bill C-48 comes at the expense of tax relief for corporations such as Ford, Chrysler and General Motors.

In my community of Windsor, Ontario, in the first quarter of 2005 we are down 6,000 jobs and unemployment is up to 9.4%. Many of these jobs were in the auto parts sector that supply our major OEMs, such as Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler. The tax relief for these corporations is very important to preserve jobs here in Canada, high paying jobs that support a quality of life through charitable giving and tax dollars.

Would my hon. colleague comment on why the NDP is abandoning auto workers at this particular time by getting rid of corporate tax cuts that would have helped Ford, Chrysler and General Motors stay in Canada?

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, my colleague has worked very hard on this particular issue and, as usual, his diligence has paid off in that much of his digging has uncovered the government's secret plan to close many of these experimental research farms which do, as he said, provide vital research and vital information to farmers who are combating many challenging times in terms of plague and viruses affecting animals. We have seen the effects that can result from terrible afflictions, such as BSE, and the impact they have on the entire agriculture sector. However it goes beyond that. All resource sectors were ignored in this particular add on budget on the part of the NDP and the Liberals.

Agriculture, a vital sector of our economy that provides food and that provides so much in terms of employment, lifestyle and a basic way of life for Canadians, has been completely ignored in the priorities set out in Bill C-48.

In regard to the member's question, the government and the minister from the area have been completely disingenuous in suggesting that closing the experimental farm in Kentville was just an off the cuff suggestion from the department. This was a concrete plan to withdraw funding and to eventually close the research station in Kentville, just as my colleague has seen in his own riding with the Nappan Experimental Farm. Commitments were made, then commitments were withdrawn and that facility is slated to close. That is very disingenuous to Canadians and the agriculture sector that relies heavily on that facility for the important research that it needs.

It is like withdrawing money from education or health care. Agriculture is a stable part of the economy of Nova Scotia as it is throughout the country. However the government seems to be blind in its misspent priorities and its complete adherence to the one priority, which is to cling to power at all costs. The Liberals will make whatever deal they have to make with the NDP or others to cling to power at all costs in order to preserve a hold over the partisanship that allows them to make appointments and control the industries and the ministries.

The government is out of step with Canadians, out of step in its priorities and is certainly letting Canadians down, particularly in our area when it withdraws funding from important research centres like the one my colleague has mentioned.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, North Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask the very distinguished member for Central Nova a couple of questions about agriculture and what impact Bill C-48 would have on it.

There is not a word about agriculture in Bill C-48. It has not been mentioned at a time when farmers are hurting the most. In the province of Nova Scotia, in which the member and I share ridings, farmers are the part of our society who are hurting the most and facing the most challenges. Some of them are faced with losing their farms, losing their incomes, losing their profession and losing their homes, and yet there is not a word in Bill C-48 about agriculture.

To make it worse, it has been announced that the Nappan Experimental Farm in my area, which farmers depend on for science and research on our unique soils and terrain, et cetera, will be closed. We have also learned that the government is planning to close the experimental farm in Kentville.

I wonder if the member could speak a bit to that and tell us what he thinks should be in Bill C-48 to help farmers and to help agriculture.

[Peter MacKay, Conservative, Central Nova, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to take part in the debate that really boils down to what could only be described as a prop up NDP add-on budget to the Minister of Finance's original plans which included none of the back of the napkin spending spree that is outlined in this particular document.

The legislation was not dreamed up in the staid boardrooms of the finance department. It was cooked up in a hotel room between the Prime Minister and the leader of the NDP, high on his own new found power as a king maker.

In contrast, my colleague, the member of Parliament for Medicine Hat, has presented Canadians with an eloquently outlined and hopeful vision of how the Conservative Party would move Canada's finances forward. It would include a competitive and productive effort to bring Canada forward, striving for national potential with an invigorated, motivated youth who would have a place to work and participate in the economy, and having programs that were compassionate, forward looking and focussed on prosperity. As my colleague from Medicine Hat has said many times, a prosperous nation is a country that can generate wealth that can then be a generous nation.

We want to provide citizens with a better quality of life and Canadians should look to their government to be able to help them in that regard, to find a job anywhere in the country, and find a job in their home town should they stay and be with their families. What is more fundamental than being with your loved ones?

We want every young Canadian to have the ability to go to university without graduating with a huge debt that is the equivalent of a mortgage. We should be the most educated and most forward looking intellectual country in the world. We have the capacity to achieve that goal.

We want Canadians to be able to start a business if they want, to prosper in their communities, and to participate fully in the economy. Canadians want to succeed and Conservatives want to help them do just that because success should be celebrated. Holding Canadians back is what is happening under the current regime. It is holding Canadians back because of repressive and regressive tax structures. There are punishing payroll taxes. Having the basic personal exemption raised would remove many Canadians from the tax rolls altogether.

We want people to have quality health care. We want Canadians to have the assurances that they will be comfortable and taken care of in their retirement. Nobody is more responsible for the abysmal failure of our health care system than the current Prime Minister. In his capacity as finance minister, he presided over the country's finances for over 10 years, was responsible for brutal cuts that drastically led to the deterioration of health care in Canada.

Canadians want to have the ability to work within this current process. They want to work under the Canada Health Act but they clearly need to move in a direction of innovation. There clearly has to be greater input from the health care providers, the provinces and from those on the front lines of health care delivery.

We want to ensure that the tax structure is fair. Tax relief is very much about improving competition, improving the job market, and improving the ability of companies to employ thousands of Canadians. That was a priority because it appeared in the first budget, but this add-on budget very much neglects that element of the economy. We have too many hardworking, overtaxed Canadians who again are being held back.

Bill C-48 is but one page. It contains three clauses. It would spend $4.6 billion without any plan or detail. It would be an abysmal and irresponsible free-for-all spending orgy, like the sponsorship program, the long gun registry, and like the irresponsible and unaccountable spending in the HRDC department.

Bill C-48 is not a firm commitment. It will not even take effect for a year and a half if, I am quick to add, there is a surplus. It is a pie in the sky throne speech promissory note that will not take effect for at least a year and a half. The NDP clearly tried to exact as much as it possibly could from the government in its negotiations to prop it up. The NDP budget is something that will promote irresponsible spending without a plan.

Conservatives are behind the goals presented in the bill. We are behind better education, cleaning up our environment and ensuring adequate housing. We support helping poor nations as part of our commitment to the betterment of the global village. In terms of foreign aid as a percentage of our GDP, that is part of our platform for the coming election.

Let us not forget that it was a Conservative prime minister who was recently voted the greenest prime minister ever in the history of Canada by the Sierra Club and Elizabeth May.

As I said before, what we are opposed to is spending without a plan. This is what led to the problems we have seen in many of the programs that have gone out of control. We oppose raising expectations of individuals who assume naturally that a government would not make these commitments without having a concrete plan behind it.

Bill C-48 is a case in point. It is costly, insubstantial and it is a throwaway commitment that likely will never be met. The promises contained in the bill will only happen if there is a surplus.

Like the mythical story of Jack and the Magic Beans , I think the NDP is left with nothing more than a handful of beans, anything but a concrete commitment in terms of budgetary items.

Is there any possibility that the surplus will not be there and not be adequate to cover these expenditures? Well, time will tell. We are living in volatile times and the economy can take downturns, as we have seen, God forbid. We know the Liberals cannot resist this type of spending though. It burns holes in their pockets.

Since 1999-2000, program spending has gone from $109.6 billion to $158.1 billion, an increase of 44.3%. In contrast, the growth in our economy has been 31.6%, a compound annual growth rate of 5.6%. The economy is not keeping pace with the government's spending practices.

I spoke earlier about the tax implications. Trade is also a big implication. The dollar and the debt to GDP ratio and the interest on our debt that remains so high. The Liberals are dealing away their problems. They are throwing money at problems hoping they will go away. That is the case with health care, with law and order and with our military. This type of approach is not in the best interests of Canadians. It is not in keeping with fiscal management. It is not in keeping with accountability in this place.

The Conservative Party has a responsibility to rigorously examine these spending practices, and that is what we are doing. Despite the massive funding that is committed in Bill C-48, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness told my colleague from Yorkton—Melville that in 2004 the Canada Firearms Centre lost track of at least 46,000 licensed gun owners. This could have drastic consequences for police officers responding to a call where they believe no gun is present.

This is the type of inefficiency and waste in these types of programs that have ballooned in its spending and they do not work in the best interests of Canadians and take money away from other priority areas where it would have a more profound impact. It is about priorities.

With respect to national unity, let us take the sponsorship program where someone paid commissions to Liberal friendly ad agencies to promote unity. It was done through such means as putting up flags and banners but the money was then funnelled back to the Liberal Party through the sponsorship program. Well, as the former prime minister said, what is a few million when it comes to saving the country? How delusional and disingenuous.

This network of kickbacks, of money laundering and now the cover-up leaves Canadians with a very sordid image of government spending. However it is the Liberal Party. It is not Quebec and it is not all bureaucrats. It is the systemic corruption that runs through the Liberal Party that spawned the sponsorship scandal. It was a taxpayer funded program that was going for partisan purposes, mainly in the province of Quebec.

Let us just imagine the taxpayer funded lawyers working for the Department of Justice arguing that the current and former prime ministers should be completely exonerated of all responsibility for this disastrous program that is under criminal investigation. What happened to the mantra of “let Mr. Justice Gomery do his work?” That of course is a thing of the past when it comes to the partisan interests forwarded by our current Prime Minister. How disingenuous.

Clause 2 of Bill C-48 also deals with money for public transit and an energy retrofit program for low income housing. It talks about enhancing access to post-secondary education to benefit, among others, aboriginal Canadians. It talks about affordable housing and increased foreign aid. Those are all laudable goals, but again, no plan and many of them fall within provincial jurisdiction.

Where is the accountability? How will we ensure that the expenditures of this money are actually committed to? The lack of a plan, the expected results and the lack of details of delivery characterize the minority government. It is similar to the institutional day care plan that was promised by the government without any details. It does not fit the diversity of the country.

Bill C-48 would authorize the establishment of an absolutely out of control type of spending that the Conservative Party cannot support, which is why moved amendments that would have improved the process. Canadians deserve better than blank cheques. In its desperate attempts to cling to power, the government appears willing to do just about anything. Canadians need a blueprint for the future, and that is what the Conservative Party would provide.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to do that. What is being done through Bill C-48 and the associated transit funding, which is supposed to be to help the environment, is it is being directed on the basis of where there is public transit already, not where there is growth, not where we need to create transit systems and not where the investment is required. It is being done on the basis of where the transit is already.

It is unbelievably paradoxical. If the purpose of government is to bring about constructive change, to help society to adapt, if we want to encourage more people to take transit, one would think that is where the investment would be put.

The concern is that sprawl is a bad thing. We want to encourage compact, urban form and development. We want to get people out of their cars and onto public transit. Where do we send the money? Not to the places where we are trying to change behaviour, but to the places where people already are riding the transit.

It is unthinkable and it is staggering. As a policy, it is utterly and completely bankrupt. It will not bring about any change whatsoever. In fact it will reinforce exactly the existing disparities in transit between the city of Toronto and all the surrounding 905 areas.

The critics and those in the Liberal government will continue to look glibly toward those who are not riding the transit which does not exist because their governments cannot afford it. Why? Because the taxpayers in that 905 area, where the member for Mississauga South is from, are forced to pay enormous taxes to the federal government. Their average family income has been falling from 2003. In that time the taxes have gone up 16% and average family income has dropped. They are being asked to pay those tax dollars yet they are not getting any money back for investment in their transit system. We are trying to make changes and they are trying to build transit.

From a perspective of anybody who is serious about changing the urban form of our communities and cities, the government is doing the investment backwards. It is particularly ironic when we consider that at the provincial level, policies have been brought in place through greenbelt legislation and otherwise which are designed to do exactly the reverse of that in order to try to put a halt to sprawl and development and to try to encourage greater transit usage. Yet the dollars that are flowing from the federal government will not do that.

To me and to anybody who is an observer of what is needed to make our cities and communities more liveable and to help the economic growth and development of that economic engine of the greater Toronto area, we see a government policy that is perverse, distorted and that will not help to achieve its results.

On the gas tax, fortunately the right thing is happening. The money is being distributed in a fair and equitable way. It is something we have called for on this side of the House for a long time. It has been three and a half years since the Prime Minister first announced he would make it happen. Finally it is beginning to happen. Is there anybody in the House who thinks that if we were not in a minority government, money would be flowing right now? I will bet there is nobody because things like child care were promised 12 years ago--

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the previous speaker for his kind words about me as a former president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. It is a good starting point for what I want to talk about, which is the stark choice that the bill gives to the people of Canada. It clearly illuminates for them, as responsible Canadians, the difference between the Liberal-NDP alliance and the Conservative Party.

In the Liberal-NDP alliance we see out of control spending. We see the elimination through this bill of any hope of any tax relief. We also see a track record of corruption and phony promises from a Prime Minister who is essentially one who likes to make phony promises.

From the Conservative Party, we see a party that is on the side of hard-working families, where fiscal responsibility counts, where we want to pay down the debt and where we want to see real results, not phony promises. We are trying to create hope for those families who are trying to achieve their dreams.

Responsible Canadians want a party that will stand up for their interests, not the interests of big governments, big bureaucrats and big programs, but for the interests of hard-working, law-abiding, tax paying, ordinary families.

The Liberal-NDP alliance has produced a budget that is not on the side of ordinary hard-working Canadians but is on the side of big government. This $4.6 billion budget is part of a larger package of spending released in three weeks after April 21 of $26 billion in promises designed to keep the government in office for another few months.

What does that mean for the typical family of four in my constituency? It means $3,030. That is what they are being asked to pay to prop up the government through this budget. Even before this proposal came along, government spending was out of control. It was going up at a rate of 10% a year on the program side. Can anyone name any constituent who will tell us he or she is getting 10% more back from the government every year for his or her tax dollars? No one in my constituency is telling me that when I am in my constituency on the weekend. They are telling me that they cannot survive because the government is taking every penny and they cannot afford any more.

This is a bill where we talk about trying to work on issues such as housing and education. Let us think about what $3,030 could do in the pockets of a family to help them pay down their mortgage or pay the rent for a few months. If we really want to help people with housing we give them the money to pay their mortgage or pay their rent. We should not be taking it from them for a big brother government program.

Let us think what it could do for post-secondary education, another alleged priority in the bill. Can any member name one family that would not benefit from being able to set aside $3,030 for their children's education. If we want to see people achieve their dreams and build a brighter future, that is how they will be able to do it. It is not by having a big brother program that takes that $3,030 away from them.

Responsible Canadians know who is on their side in this struggle for the future of this country, for their finances and for their tax dollars that they want to keep.

Let us look at the other things in the bill. Funding for transit is a very good example to look at because the transit funding in the bill is flawed. My constituency of York—Simcoe is a very good example. It is in the greater Toronto area. Many Liberal members here are from the greater Toronto area. I do not hear them speaking up for their constituents for how this bill shortchanges transit in the greater Toronto area. The municipalities of the greater Toronto area, according to the last census, has experienced growth of between 10% and 23% but the city of Toronto has experienced only a 4% growth.

The population in the four regional municipalities around Toronto is greater but they are receiving a small fraction of the transit funding that Toronto already gets. Guess what? The subway transit system is well established in Toronto. Where we are trying to create a new transit system, where we are trying to encourage public transit use and where we are trying to change people's habits, the government is putting forward virtually no money. The money is sent to the wrong places if we really want to change behaviour.

Where is it sent? I guess to the places where people vote reliably Liberal, rather than to where the real interests are for society for the future if we really are serious about improving the environment and if we really are serious about encouraging transit use.

I see the member for Halton here. He represents one of those constituencies in the greater Toronto area that is being shortchanged on transit. I am waiting to hear him stand to speak on behalf of his constituents. I do not imagine it would happen.

Then we see foreign aid, another one of these areas. What do we see? We see dollars that go to China and we see lip service on human rights. It is a perfect illustration of how the government operates: phoney words, phoney promises, no real deeds, no real results.

Hundreds of millions continue to suffer under the tyranny of a government in China that we are propping up with our foreign aid dollars, a major competitor to us economically. We have been told that we are under siege by 1,000 spies. I have heard stories myself from people in business who have been on the receiving end of that industrial economic espionage. However, we are helping to fund it while people who are looking for our support for their human rights and freedom go by undefended with little more than mere lip service.

Responsible Canadians are tired of that phoney, two-faced approach to government. They want to see an approach from a party that is willing to give them real results. Responsible Canadians want real results. Responsible Canadians want a government that will stand up for freedom and human rights around the world, in a principled way, where words are matched by deeds. Is that not what it is all about, matching words with deeds? We do not see that here. What we see are more phoney promises.

We see that even in the original budget. Of all those promises that were made, the great things that were said would happen, only 5% of them were in this budget year. It has not stopped the government from taking credit for all those other things that will not come until subsequent budget years. That is another example of the disingenuousness, the phoney promises, that I think hurt the credibility of politics and government in the country and certainly of the Liberal Party.

We can take a look at some of the things that observers have said about this specific bill. I look at one from the Montreal Gazette . It states:

[The] deal to add $4.6 billion to social spending... have made it clear that those who really pay income tax are now politically powerless...The taxpayers getting soaked this way have no champions or lobbyists.

That is essentially what is going on right now when we talk about those ordinary families, the ones who are being asked to pony up $3,030 each to keep the government in power. They do not have anybody speaking for them in the government, apparently. They do not have organized special interest lobby groups. They are counting on their democratically elected representatives to speak up for them, to help them try and eke out the living, to build a better future, by being able to hang onto those dollars for their education, to pay a mortgage and to buy a house for the first time.

That is what we in the Conservative Party are seeking to do through our position on Bill C-48. That is why we have to put a stop and call to account the government for this irresponsible spending.

Here is another one from a journalist named Bruce Garvey. He is speaking of the Prime Minister. He said, “The man's shamelessness is evident as he ladles out billions in fiscal bribery; as he guts his budget”. That is what this is. It is a gutting of a budget that we were told previously could not be changed one letter, one chip or one jot or it would lead to fiscal destruction.

We had witnesses at the committee, the human resources committee, say that they could not return the $46 billion EI surplus the government stole from workers and employers over the 10 years. They could not return it over 10 years because $4.6 billion taken out of the budget for that purpose, to return it to people who paid it in the first place, would do unspeakable damage to the fiscal situation of the government.

That kind of thing was done on the back of an envelope, in a hotel room, between the leader of the NDP and the Prime Minister in order to put this bill into place. That is what the government's own representatives from the Department of Finance and Human Resources told us was fiscally reckless. We will not stand by and allow that to happen, not if we want to look out for the interest of taxpayers.

Then we can hear from the people who create jobs, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that said

Never in our worst nightmares could we have envisioned the steady stream of ad hoc multi-billion dollar spending announcements of these past days. Such reckless, and irresponsible pre-election spending is an abrupt departure from the commitment to prudent spending, debt reduction and fiscal control...

That is exactly our concern

We have a government now that is leading us on a path to fiscal destruction. Responsible Canadians want better. Responsible Canadians want to see a government that stands up for them. Responsible Canadians want someone to help them survive, build their dreams and have a few dollars in their pockets. They do not want to pay $3,030 to prop up the government for another half dozen months.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will speak about Bill C-48 and how it represents an abandonment of traditions and the traditional roles of government and is a step in the wrong direction.

Before I do that, I want to take just a moment to respond to the remarks of the parliamentary secretary with regard to his complaint about how, after all, Bill C-48 deals with four areas and why it was not dealing with many other areas that the federal government could have dealt with. He has a point. Bill C-48 could have dealt with a great number of other areas and there is certainly a large number of areas which are sadly lacking from the agenda of the government.

There is obviously one that comes to mind because of the fact that I represent a rural and largely agricultural riding, one in which in particular there is a lot of farming. In fact, there are more beef cattle than there are voters in my constituency. What comes to mind is the complete absence of any provision in Bill C-48 that deals with agriculture, that deals with the crisis in Canadian agriculture and particularly that deals with the crisis in the Canadian beef production industry.

That absence is really striking. It is all that much more striking because of the absence of an adequate mechanism in this country to provide Canadian product, of which there is so much, to Canadian consumers, of which there are so many. There are so many willing consumers for Canadian beef, which as we all know is the best quality beef in the world, but we cannot get that beef from the hoof and from the farm gate to the consumer if we do not have the slaughter and processing facilities, given the fact that we cannot take that beef across the border into the United States even for the purpose of having it slaughtered and returned it to this country.

The CFIA, the Canada Food Inspection Agency, has been unwilling to license new federally inspected slaughter and processing facilities. Indeed, it is taking very inadequate measures. In fact, over a period of time, the past decade, it has reduced the number of facilities that are available in this country. It seems to me that this is an area that could have been and indeed should have been dealt with in this budget.

The government had two tries at this: Bill C-43 and Bill C-48. The Liberals could definitely have found some time in their busy labours to have accommodated these needs. Bill C-48 is essentially a package of amendments to Bill C-43. Given the Liberals' enthusiasm for amendments, they could have amended it to take into account this pressing need of beef producers and, indeed, of Canadian consumers. They could have done a great deal of good for a sector of the economy that is, after all, one of our key export sectors and one of our most productive sectors. That is a general comment with regard to the observations of the parliamentary secretary.

Let me now turn to the theme I wanted to dwell on this evening. Bill C-48 represents the abandonment of a very important part of our Constitution and our tradition regarding the control by the House of Commons over the spending of the ministry, the Crown, the executive.

We see the government in many areas abandoning or rolling back the traditional protections we have enjoyed. Canada's constitutional structure is in part modelled on the written constitution that was pioneered in the United States and that has been copied in other countries, such as Australia, for example, with the idea of a written constitution with firmly laid out jurisdictions and boundaries.

It is also partly a structure that is based on the British constitution. Of course, our Constitution Act of 1867 makes specific reference to being similar in spirit to the constitution of the United Kingdom, that is to say, to the unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom. The protections that are in the British constitution are based primarily upon conventions, traditions and a respect for a way of doing things that has been proven through time and usage. We see the Liberal government moving steadily away from this. In all fairness, we also see the Liberal government being increasingly disrespectful of the written Constitution as well and of the jurisdictional boundaries in the written Constitution.

I do not know of one area of provincial jurisdiction in which the federal government does not feel it can intrude, and ideally, from its point of view, by offering enough dollars to cause the provincial government to shift its spending priorities in order to capture federal matching funds. After having roped the provinces into making expenditures, which they would not otherwise have made, which means moving expenditures away from areas where they might more productively have been made, it then over time rolls back those expenditures.

Even when the initial expenditure is in a very worthwhile area, such as health care, the federal government, nonetheless, has a tendency to reduce its expenditures very substantially as a proportion of those in that area of provincial jurisdiction.

The government is into all kinds of areas of provincial jurisdiction and no doubt when government members get up to ask me questions, as they have been doing, they will ask me whether I approve of this kind of spending, that kind of spending or some other kind of spending. However all this spending will be in areas of provincial jurisdiction, areas which are underfunded because of the actions of the government.

It is a phenomenal fiscal disequilibrium that exists between the amount of money that the federal government raises and the amount of money that falls into the areas of its jurisdiction, and the amount of money available to the provinces after the federal vacuum cleaner has come out and sucked the money out of Canadian pockets and the very considerable responsibilities that fall under provincial jurisdiction under our Constitution: education, health and so on. It seems to me that this is a mark of disrespect for our written Constitution.

With regard to the unwritten Constitution, the conventional part of our Constitution, the most important of our conventions in this country and under the Westminster system of government is the convention that the government is responsible to the House of Commons. This is a convention that was established following the glorious revolution of 1688 in which it was established that the King could not expend funds without the approval of the House of Commons.

What we see the government doing is rolling back this convention and refusing to recognize that the House of Commons determines which party should be the government.

We saw this most spectacularly and most egregiously last month when the government, having failed to demonstrate that it had the confidence of the House, proceeded to hold off any confidence votes through a variety of technical means, and we are familiar with what those are, until such time as it could secure a majority or a tie vote based upon offering inducements, successfully to one member and unsuccessfully to a number of others, to either cross the floor or at least sit on their hands.

Leaving aside the merits of what went on with the current Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal, for which I am the critic, nonetheless I think it is clear that it held off on a confidence vote for a long period of time. The argument that was made by the House leader for the government was that they would allow the House to vote when the conditions were appropriate and the questions were appropriate.

That suggests that the government has the authority to decide whether or not the House of Commons is allowed to vote on whether it has confidence in the government. That was an egregious breach of convention and one that I think will be looked at with great dismay by constitutional scholars for many decades to come.

The other convention that is being shattered here, and this is in Bill C-48, is the convention of the House controlling funds. Let us take a look at this very small bill. It is a parody of a government budget bill and is two pages long. It contains a number of vague spending proposals. An example of one would be the proposal for affordable housing, including housing for aboriginal Canadians, in an amount not exceeding $1.6 billion. It is great but it is very vague. We see that for foreign aid the amount is not to exceed $500 million which is again an awfully vague promise.

We then get down to the actual operative part of the bill and it is all about the power of the government to spend this money as it sees fit, notwithstanding the vague promises made earlier. Clause 2 states:

(2) The Governor in Council may specify the particular purposes for which payments referred to in subsection (1) may be made and the amounts of those payments for the relevant fiscal year.

Clause 3 states:

For the purposes of this Act, the Governor in Council--

--that means the government--

--may, on any terms and conditions that the Governor in Council considers appropriate, authorize a minister to

(a) develop and implement programs and projects;

(b) enter into an agreement with the government of a province, a municipality or any other organization or any person;

(c) make a grant or contribution or any other payment;

(d) subject to the approval of Treasury Board, supplement any appropriation by Parliament;

(e) incorporate a corporation--

This is all about simply creating a pool of money and then spending it in the manner the government sees fit on its own timetable. This is not a budget bill. This is about freeing the government from parliamentary and legislative control. Frankly, it is something which I think all parliamentarians who care about House of Commons control should oppose.

[John McKay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I want to correct a couple of things from the hon. member's speech.

First of all, with respect to enabling legislation, he gave a commentary on the issue that the legislation enables the finance minister to spend in these particular areas. I am sure that if the member reviews the language in Bill C-48, he will find parallel language in Bill C-43. He will find parallel language in Bill C-33. He will find parallel language in Bill C-24. All finance bills are phrased such that the minister “may” spend in these particular areas. I just wanted to correct this impression that he may have inadvertently left for people who are still listening, although I cannot imagine why, at 11:30 at night, people are still listening to this debate.

The other thing that troubled me about the hon. member's speech had to do with the other areas which the bill did not deal with. It is true that the bill deals with only four areas. That therefore means there are a whole bunch of other areas that it does not deal with, but that seems to me like complaining to Moses himself. The 10 commandments are only the 10 commandments; they are not the 20 commandments or 30 commandments or 40 commandments. There are only the 10 commandments.

I do not understand why the hon. member is complaining about Bill C-48 covering only four areas of anticipated spending as opposed to 40 areas of anticipated spending, let us say.

[Inky Mark, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Again, Mr. Speaker, it is not so much about the money but about the trust that something will actually get done.

I have a riding with 13 aboriginal reserves. Aboriginal housing is crucial. There is a shortage of housing. The fact remains that for 12 years we have been talking about this. Is it going to happen simply because it is in Bill C-48? I do not think so. Education and training are also very important. No one disputes the content of the bill. I think what is in dispute is why it is in this bill and not in Bill C-43. Why does the government need this bill to make it work?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's conclusion that “it ain't the right bill” is an opinion that he has, and I respect his right to have an opinion. I am a little bit concerned about the conclusion he has reached and how the vote has gone on Bill C-43 and is intended to go on Bill C-48.

The spending with regard to Bill C-48 involves an increase in overall spending of 1%.

If the Conservative Party members voted in favour of Bill C-43 for the spending plan for the ensuing fiscal period and they were not outraged, how is it that they are now outraged at spending on post-secondary education, foreign aid, affordable housing and environmental improvements? How is it that this additional 1% tips the balance on four issues which I am sure this member himself in fact would be supportive of? How is it?

[Inky Mark, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

This is what it says in the bill, Mr. Speaker.

This debate is about trust. It is about trust, or the lack of trust, in this government by the populace of this country and how the government deals with day to day issues like agriculture. In my riding, agriculture is very important. It is the backbone of Dauphin--Swan River--Marquette.

This is about trust in regard to the government not being able to get the border open to cattle, which also has impacts all animal producers: elk producers, bison producers, alpaca producers, dairy producers, sheep producers and goat producers. The government decimated the Manitoba beef industry to the tune of over 90%. With annual cashflows of about $500 million then, I do not think the receipts are even at $100 million now.

In fact, the government does not even have the decency to go to the WTO to challenge the border staying closed. It did not even apply to the judge in Montana for intervener status. The government is pretty pathetic, but again, this involves issues out west somewhere, not in central or eastern Canada where all the votes are.

How about the softwood lumber dispute? How many years do we have to wait before that dispute gets resolved?

Even the CAIS program has problems. It is a shambles. Last week the government told farmers they could apply and get their deposit back. What does that say? We just go from program to program. This one is sort of like the grandchild of AIDA.

I have been here for seven years and for seven years I have watched the farmers suffer. They are losing their equity. They are going out of business. We know that farm wives are working so their husbands can stay on the farm.

We do not have car plants in western Canada. It is nice to see them here and I have no problem with that, but the fact remains that all parts of this country have to receive assistance.

As I have said, this is about trust. I will complete my remarks by saying that we all come here with great intentions and we do get very partisan at times, but unfortunately we do not do the right thing at the right time. Bill C-48 is another good example of that. It is not the right bill. Maybe it is being done at the right time to keep the government in power, but it ain't the right bill.