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.

The Environment

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if the government's shift to green thinking is serious, it should immediately do away with the gifts it gives to the oil companies, such as the tax benefits—Bill C-48 comes to mind—and the tax reductions that will allow oil companies to reduce their income tax payments by $3 billion between 2005 and 2008.

Will the Prime Minister finally do away with the tax benefits granted to oil companies or will he continue to help them, those poor folks?

Opposition Motion—Kyoto Protocol

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have today the great pleasure to speak to a motion introduced by the leader of the Bloc Québécois which has to do with the Kyoto protocol. The motion proposes:

That, having recognized the principle of complying with the Kyoto targets, it is the opinion of this House that the government should provide the Government of Quebec with the sum of $328 million to enable it to implement its plan to meet the Kyoto Protocol targets.

We also took note of the amendment introduced by the NDP, the purpose of which was to indicate clearly that the $328 million is of course a minimum and that the government should also give the appropriate amounts to the other provinces that wish to embark on the fight against climate change.

I would say that the original Bloc motion plus the NDP amendment prove one thing. The first part of the motion refers to the fact that the principle of complying with the Kyoto protocol has been recognized in this House. What does that mean? First, it means that through the House of Commons and parliamentarians, we have taken strong action to send to the government the clear message that we want a credible plan for fighting climate change that incorporates the Kyoto targets.

I will remind you that last May, the Bloc Québécois tabled a motion calling on the government to table this credible plan incorporating the Kyoto protocol targets. The majority of members in this House—from the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberal Party—voted in favour. The principles of compliance with the Kyoto protocol that are included in the Bloc’s motion today are thus repeated, and we would like the majority of the House to repeat this support many times expressed by parliamentarians, in the Bloc Québécois motion in May, in Bill C-288 tabled by the hon. member for Honoré-Mercier, and again this week in an opposition motion calling for compliance with the Kyoto protocol.

However, the reality is quite different. Greenhouse gas emissions have risen 27% since 1990. So billions of dollars have been invested in Canada to fight climate change, but the results have not come. This means that, to comply with its Kyoto targets, as things now stand the government will have to reduce its emissions not just by 27%, but also by another 6% on top of that.

In my opinion, the results presented by the Conservative government in Nairobi—results that can be attributed to the Liberal efforts of recent years—must drive home to us the importance of changing our approach to combating climate change in Canada.

What is that approach? First of all, it is a voluntary approach which—if absolutely necessary, of course—would establish regulations, as proposed by the Liberal finance minister of the time, in a budget for example. But it was also an approach that would provide for regulations based on emission intensity.

What does that mean? It means that in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions imposed on industry, we would take production into consideration and not set a reduction target based on the total quantity of greenhouse gases produced by these different industrial sectors.

This approach which has been adopted by the federal government, both Liberal and Conservative, is nothing but a gain, a savings and an advantage for the oil companies and the big polluters.

We are calling on the government to base its greenhouse gas reductions and its emission targets for large industrial emitters on the total quantity discharged by the different industrial sectors. But the Conservative government, which has adopted the same policy as the previous government, an approach that is ineffective, inefficient and unfair, is perpetuating an approach that has not yielded the desired results in the battle against greenhouse gas emissions.

We are today proposing to change this approach, to adopt a territorial approach whereby the provinces would be asked to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in binding fashion, obliging them to cut emissions within their territory by 6%, while leaving them free to establish the plans, policies and programs they want.

The reason for doing this is quite simply because the energy policy of Quebec, which generates 95% of its power from hydroelectricity, is not the energy policy of Western Canada, which depends on hydrocarbons, oil sands and fossil fuels. The energy policy of Quebec is not that of Alberta. Neither is it the energy policy of Ontario, which has favoured coal in recent years, and more recently, nuclear power.

Therefore, since there is no common energy policy across Canada and since energy and natural resources are managed by the provinces, we must ensure that the provinces are involved.

Remember what the environment commissioner told us in her report on climate change programs. The provinces must be part of the solution because that is where electricity is produced, distributed and used.

The government must recognize today that we should stay away from a sectorial approach and adopt a territorial approach that will allow us to put in place an effective, efficient and fairer national policy with regard to climate change. Canada's problem in fighting climate change has nothing to do with the programs themselves, as they already exist, but it has to do with the fact that they are not adapted to the provinces' energy reality.

Tuesday, at the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, we heard from a prominent climate expert who is a professor at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. He told us, and I quote:

One of the reasons for Canada's failure is its desire to have the same approach for all the players, supposedly because it is more equitable, even though the situation is not the same for all the players.

Mr. Villeneuve also said:

It is clear that regional approaches are much more interesting since decisions regarding energy policies are made at the provincial level and natural resources are managed by the provinces.

Canada did commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6%. But can we adopt a so-called common approach that would be tailored to each province, something similar to what Europe did?

In 1997, Europe committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 8%. That same year, Europe went to Kyoto with specific objectives and a territorial approach to meet that 8% target. Under that approach, its sovereign countries—there were 15 at the time—would have different targets where some could increase their emissions and others could reduce them, taking into account various parameters such as the climate, which has a considerable impact on energy consumption. The economic structure has to be taken into account.

Each country's energy policy and wind energy potential must be taken into account in the targets negotiated with these countries.

This is a flexible approach that would let Canada continue to demonstrate to the international community that it is determined to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet its international commitments. Canada could also reach agreements with its provincial partners in order to develop a more effective climate change policy.

The third demand is the carbon exchange. Companies and industrial sectors are just waiting for greenhouse gas emissions regulations.

The government told us that it was going to base its regulation of the industry on emission intensity. In other words, in setting a target for each industrial sector, it was going to take into account production and greenhouse gas emissions. This approach cannot work.

On the one hand, this approach is unfair to industry sectors that have made efforts in the past, such as the industrial sectors in Quebec. Meanwhile, industrial sectors in the rest of Canada have increased their emissions by over 20%, nearly 30% since 1990. The industrial sectors in Quebec have succeeded in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 7%.

Sector-based intensity targets would clearly penalize companies and industrial sectors that have made efforts in the past and can show progress in fighting climate change. Not only is this intensity-based approach to climate change unfair, but it clearly jeopardizes the implementation of a carbon exchange in Canada.

The government has to understand that if it wants to set up a carbon exchange, which we support and would like to see in Montreal—I know that there is some discussion as to whether the exchange will be in Montreal or Toronto—then we must set strict reduction targets. Intensity targets will complicate Canada's implementation of a carbon exchange, a special tool allowed under the Kyoto protocol so that countries can reach their greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.

This morning, the minister appeared in committee. I asked him whether he favoured a territorial approach or a carbon exchange. His response was clear. Quebec was asking for too much. That is what the Minister of the Environment said. He made it even more clear how little he understands the establishment of a carbon exchange. This morning he told us that Quebec could not call for a territorial approach as well as a carbon exchange. It is totally illogical.

How can the minister say such things when Europe has indicated it will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 8%? In Europe, the Kyoto protocol targets were divided territorially and the world’s most innovative carbon exchange established. It is so innovative that the Montreal climate exchange signed an agreement with the European carbon exchange, a side agreement to the conference on climate exchange in Montreal.

At the economic forum in Davos on January 25, the Premier of Quebec, it will be remembered, called for such an exchange to be established as quickly as possible.

What is the government waiting for then? The Montreal exchange is waiting for the federal government. All of Quebec is waiting for the Montreal exchange to be established to help improve Canada’s situation generally in the fight against climate change.

The government must commit as soon as possible to formulating regulations and targets for the industrial sector. It must let Quebec achieve the Kyoto protocol targets within the province and establish a carbon exchange.

There is a fourth element: the $328 million we are demanding from the government.

The minister told us in committee this morning that he was consulting, discussing and negotiating with the Government of Quebec for the $328 million. I have been the environment critic for years. I have seen a succession of ministers. I have seen them say no to Quebec over this significant transfer of $328 million. The former Liberal Minister of the Environment, the former Conservative minister and the current minister have all turned a deaf ear to Quebec’s demands, although it has a strategy for climate change.

With Quebeckers ready to commit public funds to meeting 72% of the Kyoto targets in Quebec’s plan of action we are asking Ottawa for some 30% only of the financial effort required to meet Kyoto targets, and time is a-wasting.

It is odd that when we discuss, here in this House, bills such as Bill C-48, which gives tax breaks to the oil industry, things move along more quickly, bills get passed and there is agreement.

I am talking about $250 million granted annually to the oil industry, according to the figures from the finance department. Let me quote some of them. The oil companies will have saved $55 million in 2003-04, $100 million in 2004-05 and $260 million in 2007-08.

Does anyone realize that the $328 million is the total for just two full fiscal years that the oil industry will have benefited from through Bill C-48? For 2007-08 alone, oil companies will save $260 million, while Quebec has been negotiating for years to get $328 million to meet Kyoto protocol targets.

We, on this side of the House, are saying that the policies of the Conservative government and of the Liberal government promote nothing less than a polluter-paid policy rather than a polluter-pay policy. This is an example. While the $328 million would be used to fund a plan to combat climate change in Quebec, the government is saying no, but saying yes to the oil companies. This does not make sense.

The government needs to acknowledge that the Kyoto protocol targets are, for the opposition in this House—including the Bloc Québécois, of course—a non negotiable objective. The government need not expect that we will negotiate on achieving the targets in the Kyoto protocol or its inclusion in Bill C-30. We want the Kyoto protocol targets to be part of Bill C-30. Let that be clear. We feel that a refusal by the government to include them would be nothing short of a slap in the face in the fight against climate change.

Finally, giving $328 million to Quebec has nothing to do with the tax incentives given to the oil industry. It has to do with fighting climate change and having a sustainable transportation policy in Quebec that is in line with Kyoto targets.

In closing, I hope members will consider this amended motion and vote in favour of it.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

moved:

That, having recognized the principle of complying with the Kyoto targets, it is the opinion of this House that the government should provide the Government of Quebec with the sum of $328 million to enable it to implement its plan to meet the Kyoto protocol targets.

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois' position on implementing the Kyoto protocol has been known for a long time and is as follows.

First, Canada must meet its international commitments; second, a carbon exchange must be set up in Montreal, which requires strict reduction targets and a polluter-pay policy; third, the government must stop providing assistance for the oil industry; fourth, Canada must adopt a territorial approach; fifth, $328 million must be transferred to the Government of Quebec.

For a number of years, Quebec has asked the federal government for $328 million, to enable Quebec to implement the Kyoto protocol within its borders. This should have happened a long time ago. For too long, the Government of Quebec has been stalled by the federal government on this urgent, fundamental issue.

The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Official Opposition have both undermined Quebec's efforts to fight climate change. In so doing, they have raised considerable doubt as to how determined they actually are to comply with Kyoto. By imposing its policies on Quebec, the Conservative government is doing what the former Liberal government did: hampering economic development in Quebec.

What this House needs to understand is that when it comes to energy, Quebec and Canada are two nations faced with completely different challenges. Although oil is making Canada richer, it is making Quebec poorer.

Last Sunday, a former federal environment minister, Mr. Anderson, stated that the Bloc Québécois was the only party that had always consistently supported the Kyoto protocol. In fact, this fundamental issue has long been a high priority for us. We do not have to make the shift to green thinking.

During the 2000 election campaign, we were already making the fight against climate change a key issue. In the years that followed, Quebec made a huge effort to convince Canada to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

The Bloc spoke out about this issue and was successful. During the 2004 election, we made the environment, and particularly the implementation of the Kyoto protocol, a central focus of our election platform. Greenpeace even awarded us a symbolic windmill for our campaign.

Furthermore, during the course of the 2004 election, something occurred that is very rare in the annals of politics. We received the support of another party leader, the Green Party. At the time, he called on Quebeckers to vote for the Bloc.

During the last campaign, our platform focused once again on the climate change issue.

Lastly, following the election of the current Conservative government, with a Prime Minister who promised to tear up the Kyoto protocol, we lead the charge in Quebec. We launched a petition, calling for compliance with Kyoto, and gathered more than 120,000 signatures.

We obtained the support of the majority of this House in favour of a motion calling on Canada to honour its commitments. It must be understood that this issue was crucial in Quebec.

I must point out here the complicit silence of the Conservatives elected in Quebec regarding this matter. They dishonourably refused to represent the opinion of a large majority of Quebeckers.

Furthermore, I am not at all convinced of the Prime Minister's good will, since not that long ago, he was the one who called Kyoto nothing more than a socialist scheme.

If there was a scheme, it was more likely an oil and gas scheme, reaching from Houston to Calgary, via Washington. I, however, do not believe in conspiracy theories. In fact, Quebec must simply deal with the Conservatives' ideological stubbornness and the Liberals' hypocrisy.

We cannot emphasize enough how appalling the Prime Minister's actions were in this matter.

Not only did he describe the international protocol as a “socialist plot”, but when he was leader of the official opposition he also promised to revoke it at the first possible opportunity.

The Prime Minister is fond of presenting himself as a decisive leader. Tuesday he spoke of leadership and yes, there is leadership, but the problem is that he is leading in the wrong direction. He has reneged on Canada's international commitments. He put a gag on Quebec in Kenya. His Quebec political lieutenant has slammed the door in Quebec's face as far as the $328 million is concerned, and the present Minister of the Environment has said, in response to a question from the Bloc, that he still wishes to proceed on a project by project basis, on a piecemeal basis, just like his predecessor and just like the former Liberal minister.

I am, of course, referring to the present leader of the official opposition. When he was the environment minister, he too hindered Quebec in its efforts. When Quebec was trying to negotiate an agreement with him, the then Quebec Minister of the Environment, Minister Mulcair, a fervent federalist, had this to say: “the term contempt is not strong enough to describe how I was treated.” Nothing has changed since then.

It is all very well for the current Quebec Minister of the Environment, Mr. Béchard, to be pleased with his first meeting with his new federal counterpart, but all he is doing is repeating what he said after his first meeting with the old one. We all know what happened after that: this Conservative government humiliated Mr. Béchard in Nairobi.

Mr. Mulcair, who had never caved in to Ottawa, stated, and rightly so, that the federal government's focus was totally on the west and on Ontario. That is why the Bloc Québécois is demanding a Kyoto implementation plan based on a territorial approach. This is the approach which has enabled 25 sovereign states of Europe to reach agreement and make some progress within the European Union.

That approach will enable Canada to meet its commitments by allocating objectives to Quebec and to each province. Quebec will then be free to determine for itself the best way to meet its objectives. If the government wants to demonstrate its goodwill and to take that path, the first step it needs to take is to transfer $328 million to the Government of Quebec, with no strings attached and not a little at a time.

Quebeckers are committed to combating climate change. They have been making that clear for many years. Petroleum is the source of 71% of total greenhouse gas emissions in Quebec. This means that Quebec will have to radically reduce its petroleum consumption in order to help combat climate change. That is the first reason for Quebec to reduce its reliance on petroleum. It seems to me that saving the planet is an excellent reason.

The second reason is that petroleum makes Quebec poorer. This is not true for Canada. In today's petroleum economy, Canada is a major player. The Canadian economy is heavily reliant on the petroleum industry. This is so true that the fluctuations in the value of the Canadian dollar depend in large part on petroleum prices. This is largely why Canada has yet to implement the Kyoto protocol. Put simply, petroleum is making Canada richer. The opposite is true for Quebec: petroleum is making it poorer.

That is why Quebec needs to enter into an agreement based on the territorial approach. With such an agreement, Quebec will be able to take charge of implementing the Kyoto protocol within its jurisdiction, including where funding is concerned. This will require a minimum of $328 million to be transferred to the Quebec government.

When I say that petroleum makes Quebec poorer, that is not a figure of speech. For one thing, Quebec does not produce significant amounts of petroleum, natural gas or coal. In 2006, Quebec bought $13 billion worth of petroleum. This represents a $7 billion increase over three years. Over the same three years, Quebec went from a surplus to a trade deficit of $7 billion.

This means that rising oil prices sent Quebec into a trade deficit position. As you know, trade deficits slow economic growth. Every drop in the balance of trade leads to a drop in wealth in Quebec.

As well, the instability of prices and the dollar hits the manufacturing industry. The Quebec finance department estimates that a 20% increase in the price of oil results in a 0.8% drop in real GDP in the first year and 1.4% in the second. That is a huge amount.

The price of oil is supposed to remain high and very probably to go even higher in the short term. That is why I say that oil is making Quebec poor. And that is why it will make Quebec poorer in future, if the federal government persists in countering its efforts.

This is the second justification for adopting a strategy that focuses on reducing our dependence on oil, a strategy that is appropriate for Quebec.

We therefore have strong evidence: Quebec must reduce its dependence on oil, both to combat climate change and to halt the impoverishment that results from our dependence.

There is also a third reason. Quebec, like all societies, will eventually have to do without oil. Oil is a non-renewable resource that will someday be exhausted. If we embark on this path quickly, the reduction in dependence on oil will become a major economic advantage.

The time will necessarily come when oil production is no longer sufficient to meet demand. That will cause shortages and lead to skyrocketing prices. Will this happen in 20 years, or in 50 years? While we do not know the answer, everyone acknowledges that it will happen.

The industrialized world will enter the post-oil era in a few decades. This new direction will call for very far-reaching changes. In fact, it will call for a revolution—an energy revolution. Societies that saw the change coming and embarked on the new path earlier will come out of it as winners. Societies that did not prepare for it will experience a major crisis.

It is therefore entirely to Quebec's advantage to embark on the new path of the 21st century now. But Quebec will never be able to do this if Canada continues to impose its oil economy policies on it.

From 1970 to 1999, the federal government gave $66 billion in direct subsidies to the oil and gas industry, all concentrated outside Quebec. Quebeckers paid for one quarter of those subsidies. Not a single cent was given to the Quebec hydro-electric industry. And it goes on: by our calculations, the accelerated write-off allowed for the oil sands alone will have let the oil companies exempt $15 billion of their taxable profits between 2005 and 2008—$15 billion to the oil companies, when we all know that they are all living on the edge of poverty.

On Tuesday, the Prime Minister announced his intention to transform the savings made on debt servicing into income tax reductions. Should he not be taking that same approach and cutting the assistance given to the oil companies, and spending that money to combat climate change?

As for the leader of the official opposition, he is not missing a trick; he also voted in favour of Bill C-48, legislation that meant that Canada's tax laws became the most favourable for oil companies in North America. The oil companies now pay less tax in the Prime Minister's Canada than in George W. Bush's Texas. We have to do it. Enough.

The Bloc has a strategy that will enable Quebec to reduce its oil dependency. By applying this strategy, Quebec could expect to reduce its oil consumption by 32% over 10 years. In reducing the flight of capital caused by oil imports, these measures could lead to an increase in GDP of 1.5% per year in Quebec.

In addition, reduced oil dependency will improve the competitive strength of the Quebec economy. We are talking here about tremendous impacts that will make the difference between an economy with modest growth and a dynamic and flourishing economy.

Quebec's regions will also benefit from this strategy. For example, the use of forest and farm wastes to produce clean fuels, the implementation of the Quebec marine policy and coastal shipping, modernization of plants in the forestry sector, and reduction of oil-related expenditures are all measures that will benefit the economies of Quebec's regions. Finally, the positioning of Quebec as a player in sectors likely to grow quickly should also ensure continued and sustainable growth for the province.

Over the next 10 years, in meeting these objectives, Quebec will have been able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 21.5%, which will be 10% less than 1990 levels; and that will only be the start, because Quebeckers believe in Kyoto.

For this government and the previous one, Canada’s economic future has always meant more oil. For us, it is exactly the opposite. The future of Quebec always demands less oil. Thus, the future of Quebec and the future of our planet are going in the same direction. Quebec will need all its resources to finance this strategy, but much of Quebec’s financial resources are sent here, to Ottawa.

It is also in Ottawa that crucial decisions are made with regard to research, and to marine and railway transportation. Decisions are made in Ottawa with respect to certain industrial standards, the regulation of polluting emissions and vehicle compliance, decisions on implementation of the Kyoto protocol, creation of a carbon market, for example, and decisions about business support programs, taxation and many infrastructure programs. All those decisions are made in Ottawa.

It is obvious that Quebec will not be able to achieve all these objectives without the good will of the federal government. However, within the federal framework, past experience teaches us that Quebec must be very patient before Ottawa agrees to respond to its needs and interests.

Therefore, I invite Quebeckers to take note that there would be nothing to prevent a sovereign Quebec from implementing an energy revolution that will serve our interests and those of the planet.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows full well that we are in complete agreement with the principle of the accelerated capital cost allowance. However, I will say this: the Liberals amended tax rules with Bill C-48, with the result that mines have had their deductions for research and development and exploration expenses cut in exchange for reduced royalties. It is the same for the oil industry. The problem is that the provinces are getting practically no royalties from the mining sector. An undue advantage has been given to the oil industry, which has saved $250 million in tax while the mines have had their benefits cut. We have to continue to work on promoting the development of the sector—

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Correct. If you want to go back before that, you can go to Bill C-48, which had $1.5 billion directly for access. That is now gone and has been replaced by the $1 billion you brought in for infrastructure. Is that correct?

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening in support of Bill C-285, an act to amend the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act. We believe this bill will help alleviate the housing burden placed on people, not only in my riding but right across Canada.

The bill would have CMHC profits that exceed 0.5% distributed to the provinces for social and affordable housing, to encourage the supply of quality housing at affordable prices, to increase housing choices for people, and for the creation and development of housing co-operatives.

In the city of Toronto, where I come from, there are about 65,000 households on a waiting list for assisted housing. It can take up to 12 years for a family on the list to get a three bedroom apartment. Housing is clearly in crisis.

In my own riding of Parkdale—High Park, a mere 12 affordable homes have been completed since 2001, according to a June 2006 report from the City of Toronto's Shelter, Support and Housing Administration, and another 21 are under development. But this is a riding where there are more than 24,000 people living below the poverty line and more than 10,000 very low income households, that is, households with annual incomes below $20,000.

These very low income households can afford a rent of about $500 a month based on the standard calculation that they should spend no more than 30% of their annual income on shelter. The average market rent in my riding of Parkdale—High Park for a typical two bedroom apartment is $1,085. This is double what the poorest households can actually afford.

The real culprits behind this crisis are the federal and provincial governments, which have cut funding and then downloaded housing responsibilities. The federal government cut new affordable housing funding in 1993 and Ontario followed in 1995. The federal government downloaded most federal housing programs to the provinces and territories in 1996, and Ontario followed in 1998 by downloading to the municipalities.

As homelessness and housing insecurity have grown following the housing cuts, governments have tried to respond with a patchwork of funding and programs, but the federal homelessness programs are due to sunset at the end of fiscal year 2006. Literally thousands of services that provide critical relief to tens of thousands of homeless people are at risk.

The federal government recently allocated $1.4 billion of the $1.6 billion in housing funding from Bill C-48, which was a result of the NDP's amendment to the last Liberal budget, passed in 2005, but that is nothing more than a down payment set against years of cuts, downloading and neglect.

There are some people in this country who are now recognizing that we have a housing crisis even in the province of Alberta. Retiring Alberta Premier Ralph Klein announced Tuesday that he would allocate $16 million for new affordable housing in Calgary.

He stated this week that the struggle of the homeless and working poor in places like Calgary and Fort McMurray is unfortunately more of a challenge today than ever. He said it is a great concern to see that half of Calgarians who are homeless right now have a job and are simply not making enough money to afford appropriate accommodation.

I should say that I have introduced a federal bill to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour, which would also help people who fall under federal jurisdiction.

Mr. Klein at least is doing a little. It is very late, but it is great to see that at least one Conservative is finally starting to get it.

We need now to deal with homelessness and housing insecurity. We need to make sure that the levels of government that have the funds to deal with housing are putting money into housing.

In May 2006 a United Nations committee of experts in Geneva released its latest review of Canada's compliance with international economic, social and cultural rights and called homelessness and affordable housing a crisis in Canada that is a national emergency. I certainly agree with that assessment.

I want to emphasize the importance of this bill, especially in light of the Conservative government's cuts to housing funding and affordable housing in general.

It is my grave concern that the money that could come as a result of this private member's bill may not amount to much because the recent changes to mortgage insurance, which opens up mortgage insurance to the market, will negatively affect the profits of CMHC.

CMHC insurance is important to people who cannot afford a full down payment on a home, but still want to have the opportunity to purchase a home.

Mortgage insurance is a good business for the government to be in. It generates money. In 2005 the net income from mortgage insurance for CMHC was nearly $1 billion. As a crown corporation, CMHC must be concerned about profits, but since the shareholder is the Government of Canada, it has the ability to address the welfare of Canadians instead of just the bottom line.

Assuming the goal is not to have CMHC removed from mortgage insurance altogether, it is very likely that new competitors will take the more profitable and stable contracts, leaving CMHC with only the higher risk and less profitable ones. This would put housing insurance at risk for lower income families as CMHC would have fewer funds to access. Any hopes that profits from CMHC mortgage insurance could be used to create affordable housing in Canada would then be greatly reduced or eliminated.

The real solution here is that we need a national housing strategy that needs all levels of government to make significant investments in affordable, supportive and co-op housing. This bill does not solve all of those problems. We do have a national crisis, a national emergency, in affordable housing in this country, but we believe that this bill is one positive step and that is why we support it.

Human Resources and Skills Development—Main Estimates 2006-07

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Chair, I would like to read Bill C-48 as it pertains to post-secondary education. It states, “for supporting training programs and enhancing access to post-secondary education...an amount not exceeding $1.5 billion”, not $1 billion.

Why is it not $1.5 billion and why is it not enhancing access?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Chair, Bill C-48 was under the administration of the finance department. Tonight we are discussing Human Resources and Social Development.

If he is asking about our portion of Bill C-48, which is the $1 billion trust for post-secondary education, those trusts have been honoured. I actually checked with the minister today and he advised me that those trusts have been established for the provinces.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Chair, I would like to speak about post-secondary education. I wonder if I could ask the minister what happened to Bill C-48, how much was it supposed to be, what was it intended for and where did it go.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

No, we will not have the taxpayers pay for it, they can pay for it out of the Liberal Party.

In regard to this budget, the NDP voted against the Conservative budget. We think it was a very poor budget. It was a missed opportunity particularly now that we know there was a $13 billion surplus that could have provided a major reinvestment into some critical programs in Canada that would help Canadians in their daily lives.

I represent Vancouver East. I represent a very low income community. A few days ago squatters moved into a low income housing building in the downtown east side. Hundreds of people have been evicted from what we call single room occupancies in that community. Why is that happening? It is because we have not had a federal housing strategy.

Even though the NDP fought so hard and actually did get money into the last federal budget, Bill C-48, that money has actually not been transferred through to the people who really need it. The same is true for post-secondary education.

When we look at this Conservative budget, we have to ask a very important question, who gains and who loses? Who wins with this budget? We know that the Conservative government has a multi-year plan for corporate tax cuts. Clearly, there are some winners there, but there is no multi-year commitment for child care, education, training, the environment or housing.

I see people in my community who are really hurting and have a tough time getting by day by day. They are literally destitute on the streets. They get whammed by Gordon Campbell on the one hand because it is now almost impossible to qualify for basic income assistance. They get hit over the head with that or if they are able to get on income assistance, a single person lives on $500 a month, and I defy anybody to try and make it on that.

They get hit on that side, but then they get hit on the federal side as well because we have seen an abandonment of a federal responsibility for the provision of housing. I have to say to be clear on the record, it began with the Liberals back in 1993 when the member for LaSalle—Émard was finance minister. He trashed Canada's wonderful social housing programs, trashed the co-op housing programs, and there was no more federal funding. Then we began this horrible downward spiral of more and more people being caught in the travesty of losing their homes, not being able to rent affordable homes or apartments because none were available and the housing squeeze was on.

That has now taken place for more than a decade and we are seeing the consequences of that deliberate public policy brought on by 13 years of Liberal government and now continued on by a Conservative government. We see the impact on our streets. I see that every day in my community and it breaks my heart when I see people who are valiantly struggling to keep going. Yet, here in Ottawa, these mammoth decisions are being made that basically cut millions of people out of the picture and say they do not count, they are not important.

This summer we had a serious situation. We were very concerned that the SCPI program, the funds that it earmarked for emergency housing were about to be lost. Our very wonderful housing critic went to work. She drew this to the attention of the public and we actually had the federal minister for HRSD, who is responsible for housing, to make comments in the media that those funds were secure.

We found last week on the Treasury Board website that there are incredibly significant cuts to the SCPI program, something like 98% of the funds look as though they are gone in the next fiscal year despite what the President of Treasury Board said in the House, that SCPI would continue.

I get phone calls and emails continually from people who rely on those funds in the absence of a national housing program. They rely on those emergency funds to provide very basic frontline services, emergency provisions and shelter services. Winter is coming upon us. The out of the cold program will yet again be in jeopardy because of the lack of certainty and security about that program. We are very worried about that. This is real stuff that hits people.

I know that other members of the House have raised other questions. Part of the cuts that we just saw recently was to the very popular summer student career program. In my community, not only is it a very good vehicle for ensuring that students can have good jobs during the summer to gain experience, to help them make a little bit of money for tuition, but it is also a very valuable program for local organizations.

In my riding groups like Safe Kids, the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, and the Strathcona Community Centre rely on the summer student career program to provide very important children's programs during the summer. These are often children who are at risk. Their parents are at work. They are young children. Child care is not accessible or after school care is very expensive, again because the government has not bothered to put in a national child care program.

Programs like Safe Kids, that are supported through the summer student career program, are now again in jeopardy because we understand from the Treasury Board cuts that they are being re-engineered. In fact, the minister said in the House that the money was going to corporations that will hire people anyway and so the government will retarget it.

In a place like east Vancouver where we depend upon these jobs to help young people and kids who are at risk, we need to know that the money is going to be there. Even the money we had was totally inadequate and I was always going to the government to ask if there were additional funds and saying that we wanted to see them in our community. It is money that is being very well spent. It goes directly to support students and it helps the local community.

It really causes me a lot of dismay to see these kinds of cuts take place. It is the same with the Status of Women. We see that the mandate of the Status of Women department has changed. It no longer uses the word equality. Lobbying and being an advocate is no longer allowed. Come on, what will be left? There will be nothing left to women's equality

It seems to me that if the government, as it claims, was interested in efficiencies, as it says, that is fine. It should find those efficiencies, but then re-invest the funds into the programs that need them. That would be sound fiscal management and sound public policy. What it chose to do instead was announce the cuts under the cover of efficiency and basically hurt the most vulnerable people in our society.

For those reasons and for many more, we are not supporting the budget. We believe in fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets. We believe in paying down the debt but also re-investing in basic essentials that produce a quality of life for Canadians that I think people value, expect and see as very important in the country.

Unfortunately, the government has taken us down a different path, one that benefits wealthy individuals and corporations, and leaves behind the most vulnerable in our society. We do not support the budget for that reason.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague from Winnipeg said earlier, we in the NDP, and I am sure it is no surprise to my Conservative counterparts, will not support Bill C-28.

It is very simple to understand where the Conservative ideology comes from and that of the New Democratic Party.

The government earlier reported a $13.2 billion surplus, which was applied to a particular item called the debt. We can argue if that is a good thing or a bad thing. The fact is that was done. We now hear from media reports that the government has an additional $6 billion in the first five months of the year. Those are estimates. We have not see it. We are talking about almost $19 billion of extra money.

I have flipped through Bill C-28. I did not go word by word, but I gave it a pretty good glance. I do not see anything in it document that helps veterans and their families in any way, shape or form.

I will give an example. My colleague brought up a letter that was written on October 4, 2005, by the then leader of the official opposition, the now Prime Minister. I will read it word for word and then I will table the document later. I have raised this in the House before as has my hon. colleague from Cape Breton—Canso, but I am going to raise it again. The letter is to Joyce Carter of St. Peter's, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton. She is in her eighties. The letter states:

Dear Mrs. Carter:

On behalf of [the hon. member] thank you for your letter received on September 19. I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond.

You will be pleased to know that a Conservative government would immediately extend Veterans Independence Program services to the widows of all Second World War and Korean veterans regardless of when the Veteran died or how long they had been receiving the benefit before they passed away.

We thank you again for writing and want to assure you that we are committed to improving the quality of life for Canadian seniors and veterans.

Here is the letter from Ms. Carter back to me and other MPs. She says:

Dear [member for Sackville—Eastern Shore]:

Enclosed are copies of the letters, one written to me on behalf of the hon. [Prime Minister]...

As you will see in the Williams Lake Tribune [the hon. Minister of veterans affairs]--

This is when he was up in July of this year. She goes on to say:

--noted that the VIP program actually saves the department money.... Otherwise they would have to go into a home or institutional care.

That is what happens to these widows. If they cannot be in their home, they have to go into institutionalized care which costs everyone a lot of money. She goes on to ask me to do everything in my power to work with other members of Parliament to ensure the Prime Minister kept his word.

We now have Bill C-28 on October 27 of this year. There is nothing in the document to maintain the promise that was made to a woman in her eighties to look after a veteran before he passed away.

I remind my hon. colleagues in the Conservative Party that the Liberals did not do anything on this issue. The Conservatives now have an opportunity. We all wear the poppy with pride and distinction and so we should. It is in honour of our veterans and those who served to give us peace, freedom and democracy.

As I said in a statement the other day, what happens after November 12 when the poppy comes off? These veterans and their families need assistance from the government in their old age. If the government is not going to provide the assistance when it is swimming in money, when is it going to do it? When will the Conservative Party actually put this program in the budget? There are many programs that should be instituted for veterans and their families, but this one program was promised.

The government cannot stand up and tell us to support our troops and our veterans and not institute the policies that assist them when they need help the most.

I remind the Conservative government, and many of my Conservative colleagues, who I consider my good friends, know this to be a fact, that our veterans are Canada's greatest volunteers. They sacrificed their youth so we can stand in this place and argue points of principle in a democratic fashion. It is great to live in a country where politicians can retire and they are not executed. The fact is we can only do that because of the sacrifice of Canadian veterans and their families.

Just a few days prior to Remembrance Day, these veterans and their widows are asking for these programs, which the government admits itself would save it money, yet it refuses to put them in the document.

What are we supposed to tell Joyce Carter and the thousands of women across the country? Do we tell them that the Conservatives are heartless, that they just write letters that are meaningless, that they are taking advantage of the elderly? Of course not. I do not believe the Conservatives are those types of individuals. However, a letter was written on behalf of their leader, now the Prime Minister, promising to do it immediately. Nine months later there is not a single word in the documents.

We in the NDP cannot stand up and allow this to continue. I am hoping either the veterans affairs minister, or the parliamentary secretary or even the Prime Minister will stand up in the House very soon, in fact it should be done today, and announce that the VIP program, as was promised, will be extended immediately, without reservation, for those, mostly women in their late seventies and eighties, who cared for our veterans and who are very proud individuals. It is unconscionable that the government would not do that.

I am offering the Conservatives the olive branch. If they do that, we will support their efforts in the VIP program.

We can go on and on regarding the budget. However, there is another item I want to bring forward. I cannot let it go by because I know my colleagues who sit next to me would question me as to my studiousness on it, and this is there is nothing in the budget on shipbuilding.

In 2001 the then minister, Mr. Tobin, called a meeting of the industry, labour and communities. They put together a policy called “Breaking Through: Canadian Shipbuilding Industry”. It has been sitting on the desk of the Minister of Industry since 2001.

We heard from the previous Liberal member who spoke that the Minister of International Trade, who was then a Liberal, said, “We're doing consultations”. Those consultations happened in 2001. The policy is a very thin read. It is only about 10 pages. They asked the previous Liberal government and the Liberals did absolutely nothing.

Now the Conservatives are here. I want to remind my Conservative colleagues that there is a potential of $22 billion worth of economic activity that would keep the five major shipyards in our country alive for a long time. Just maybe a lot of those Atlantic Canadians, who are working out west, can come back home and work.

The reason why we have so many Atlantic Canadians working in Ontario and out west is, as we jokingly say, we got all the work done back home and we are just helping the rest of the country out. If the government instituted a shipbuilding policy, the yards in Marystown, Halifax, Levis, Quebec, Port Welland and Vancouver would be humming along for many years. The government knows this.

The Coast Guard, the military, the ferries and the laker fleet need replacements. There are $22 billion of opportunity. What is the government hinting at? Free trade deals with EFTA and Korea, which would put the death knell on our industry. I encourage the government to very quickly announce the shipbuilding policy on replacements for our fleets so our families and our workers across the country can go back to work.

Again, budgetary times are times of opportunities. As I said on the VIP and the veterans program, the government missed out on that opportunity. It has missed out on the shipbuilding policy. These are lost opportunities.

I do not know why for the life of me the government would want to proceed with a budgetary process that allows oil and gas companies, some of the most profitable companies on the planet, swimming in excess profits, further tax breaks while seniors, students, new immigrants, people with disabilities, the environment, all take a back seat. I do not understand it.

I simply do not understand the thinking of the Conservative government. I speak to the individual members of the Conservative Party. I do know that most of them really do care about what they do. The fact is that their government is heading in the wrong direction. I ask them to steer that ship back, to get it on the right track.

We are here representing constituents, not the special interests in the large corporate world. Those are some of the reasons we in the NDP simply cannot at this time support the budgetary process.

I must say how disappointed I am in the Bloc Québécois. Many members of the Bloc are very decent hard-working people but within five minutes of the tabling of the budget documents, their leader went out and said, “No problem, we will support it”. He completely gave away the opportunity to negotiate and horse trade with the government. We did that with the Liberals which resulted in previous Bill C-48. I was very disappointed with the Bloc and I would hope that the Bloc would reconsider that position so that we can actually negotiate this thing, change it before it goes anywhere and maybe include some of the concerns that I and my hon. colleague from Winnipeg mentioned.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak today in the debate on Bill C-28, the budget implementation act, which deals with some of the tax measures that are necessary to implement the government's budget.

I want to begin by saying that when it comes to budgeting I want to outline the NDP's strong commitment to balanced budgeting. That is a very important commitment in this corner of the House. It is a commitment that we are very proud of on that issue. It is very important in these days to have that kind of responsible approach to the finances of the nation and the provinces and territories. I want to emphasize that the NDP has a very strong record in that area.

Often we get comments from other corners of the House on this issue, but the reality is found in a federal government study, a Department of Finance study. It is not an NDP study and is not done by some organization that might be sympathetic to the NDP. It is a federal government Department of Finance study from September 2006 that looks at the records of various provincial, territorial and federal governments between 1984 and 2006. It shows that 49% of the time the NDP had balanced budgets, 39% of the time Conservative governments had balanced budgets, and only 23% of the time did Liberal governments have balanced budgets.

I want to emphasize that record of the NDP and that NDP commitment to financial responsibility from this corner of the House. I also want to say that we believe in paying down the debt. We know that is a terrible burden on the country right now. The interest payments are huge and it is a burden for future generations in Canada. Therefore, we also have a commitment to responsible management of our finances and to paying down Canada's debt, a debt that was run up by previous Conservative and Liberal governments, I might add, not by NDP federal governments, at least not federal governments yet. We are going to have that chance someday and we are going to do it responsibly, but we do believe in paying down the debt as well.

I wanted to establish that context about our basic commitments on financial and budgetary matters because I think it is very important and informs the criticisms that we make of both this government and the previous Liberal government as well.

I want to talk about the huge budget surpluses that we have seen in recent years, absolutely huge budget surpluses, and surprise budget surpluses, or at least governments pretend they are surprises.

The Liberals did it and now the Conservatives have done it with massive billion dollar budget surpluses that were not planned for. They crop up and suddenly there is a big announcement and everyone in those corners of the House seems to celebrate the fact that they were way off budget by billions and billions of dollars and that there is a huge surplus of money that the government took in over what it spent. It is a little mind boggling that the government can be that far off in its budgeting, that far off in the process of trying to responsibly manage the government, and a little mind boggling that the government sees it as a reason for celebration.

Just weeks ago, we saw the current Conservative government announce a $13.2 billion budget surplus, another surprise. Here we have $13.2 billion that we did not expect to have and what did the government do? It put it all toward the debt. It ignored all of the other programming issues. The government ignored the social deficit that occurs in Canada every single day and put it all into reducing the debt. Frankly, on the same day, it announced budget cuts of a billion dollars to other federal government programs.

It is amazing that we can have this sort of surprise occasion of a massive surplus of $13.2 billion. How can that be part of a responsible budgeting process on the part of any government to be out by that much and to not allow that amount of money to figure in the planning process of the government when it is looking at the programs that are necessary for Canada and the operations of government? To be out by that much I think is a very serious problem.

It did not stop with that $13.2 billion announcement. Just yesterday we heard that in this fiscal year the government is already way beyond its budget projections in terms of what the surplus would be. The forecast was for a $3.6 billion surplus and already in the first five or six months of this fiscal year it is up to $6.7 billion. It looks like we are on our way to another surprise $13 billion budget surplus again this year.

It boggles the mind that governments could constantly be so off in their planning and that this amount of money can fall outside of any appropriate planning process around the spending of the government. It is irresponsible, frankly, and it is not like other organizations do not get it right. Other organizations in Canada estimated the budget surplus far more accurately than the Liberal and Conservatives governments did.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the alternative budget people, have been on target with the expected budget surpluses. If those folks can do it, I have a feeling the government can do it too. When the Conservatives were in opposition, the always accused the Liberals of lowballing the surplus projections so they could have these surprise announcements and celebrate how well they were doing in managing the financing. It seems like the shoe is on the other foot now. We still have the same problem of this being such an inaccurate process in government.

It has real implications. A couple of weeks ago, when the Conservatives announced the $13.2 billion surplus, the very same day, which the juxtaposition of the two I find troubling, they announced cutbacks of $1 billion in many programs. They cut student employment programs, literacy programs, the Status of Women and women's equality programs, the court challenges program, which allowed ordinary Canadians to take the government to court on particular human rights and charter issues. They cut the Law Commission of Canada. They cut out money to prepare a new Citizenship Act. At the same time they are talking about a review of certain citizenship issues. They cut money to museums. They cut the aboriginal non-smoking program. They cut money to volunteer programs, all incomprehensible in their own way.

These programs are very important because people in my riding of Burnaby—Douglas benefit greatly and depend on them in many ways. At the same time we have this huge surplus, these kinds of cuts are being made, which only serve to increase the social deficit in Canada and the programming needs of Canadians.

For instance, Conservatives cut student employment in my riding. It is a very serious issue. The summer career placement program has been a key component of summer employment prospects for university and high school students in my riding. These folks depend on the summer career placement program for excellent jobs in areas related to their chosen career path, and many agencies in Burnaby have provided that.

When the Minister of Human Resources was asked about that cut, she said that too many big corporations were benefiting from the wage subsidy that this program offered. In Burnaby—Douglas that could not be further from the truth as 86% of the projects approved last year were projects in the non-profit sector and the educational sector. Almost every one of the others were in small or medium sized business. It was not big corporations that were benefiting from subsidies, at least in Burnaby—Douglas. I know that is true of many other ridings across the country. This money was going to community agencies to do community programming. The number of day camps for children that will be affected by this cut is significant. It is going to mean that there are significantly fewer programs for children in Burnaby this coming summer if this cut is maintained. We are working hard to see it reversed.

The whole community economic development sector is dramatically affected. An organization like the Heights Merchants Association, which does important economic development work in Burnaby—Douglas, has always benefited in recent years from the summer career placement program. Its work is going to be dramatically affected by the loss and the cuts to this program.

Just one example on that long list of issues in the $1 billion cuts announced by the government is crucial to so many ridings, and to my riding in particular, to young people and to community programing. The cuts to museums and the court challenges program also affect Burnaby—Douglas.

How many people in Canada have depended on the court challenges program to allow them to assert their human rights and charter rights in Canada? We have seen it in language rights and in minority rights. It is important to the gay and lesbian community.

In fact, almost the very day of the announcement of these cuts, an important case was brought by the son of a former Canadian serviceman in World War II and a British war bride. A man in Victoria, named Joe Taylor, had won his case to assert his Canadian citizenship, which had been denied for various bureaucratic and other reasons over the years. He is a Canadian citizen, I firmly believe that. He won his case in federal court. Sadly, the government has chosen to appeal that. I encourage the government not to that because it is a very important decision and has great meaning for Canadian citizens like Mr. Taylor who want nothing more than to fully participate in Canada as a full citizen.

However, Mr. Taylor now will likely be unable to pursue his case, one that he has put significant resources of his own into, I think $40,000 now and counting, of having his Canadian citizenship recognized because he does not have the financial resources to go up against the government one more time. The court challenges program offered him real hope that this would be possible.

To have that option snatched away from him, right when he had this important victory, to have to face the appeal and then to have the potential funding source for pursuing the case is hugely disappointing to him and I think to all of us who care about people. In our belief, they are fully Canadian citizens, yet they still have to fight the government for that. The court challenges program offered them that opportunity. Seeing the demise of that program is significant. It is a real dark day for human rights in Canada to see that go down the drain.

It also mentioned earlier the money that was allocated to develop a new citizenship act, something we have recognized in this place for many years now as necessary. The current Citizenship Act dates from 1977 and there are some serious problems with it.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration held hearings in 14 cities across the country last year. It heard about many of those problems. The former government tried to amend or introduce a new citizenship act three times over the past number of years, each time unsuccessfully. It never managed to get it through, often I think because the government did not give it priority on its parliamentary agenda. It is just an indication that it was very important to address these issues around citizenship.

Then this summer we had a situation where many people questioned the loyalty of dual citizens when we had the crisis in Lebanon. The war broke out in Lebanon and a lot of Canadian citizens needed our help to flee the violence and the death of that war. In fact Canadians did die in that situation. There was an appropriate response from the government to evacuate those Canadians, but it raised questions about the loyalty of dual citizens, and I think inappropriately. The government announced it would be doing a study of dual citizenship. Now I wonder how serious it is about making any change in the area of citizenship when it has cut the money that would have allowed the development of new legislation around citizenship.

It goes on. The juxtaposition of the $1 billion in cuts on the same day that a $13 billion surplus was announced, $13 billion that went in its entirety to debt reduction, is a very serious thing.

Generally there are all kinds of social issues that need to be addressed in Canada and addressed appropriately with the assistance of the federal government. Homelessness and affordable housing are incredibly serious issues in many communities, practically every community across the country. There is still nothing. There is no federal government programming around affordable housing.

We have heard that there are possible serious cuts coming down the pipe to the SCPI program, which helped many initiatives around homelessness. From over $130 million in the projections in the government's own estimates are down to $2 million in the coming two planning years. That is just a huge cut when there is such an incredible need on that score in so many communities.

We have seen the need to do other anti-poverty measures across the country. We see the crisis in post-secondary education where so many students cannot afford to get an education. Those who do get into university run up huge debts now in order to graduate. There is a crisis in post-secondary education. It is upsetting all of the progress that was made in making post-secondary education more acceptable. It is all going down the drain with the rising cost of post-secondary education, and that is a place that could certainly use some attention to drive down the cost of tuition.

We have seen the infrastructure deficit in Canada. So much of our infrastructure in communities is crumbling, and that is a serious problem. Surely, if we know we will be in a surplus position, if we only forecasted that accurately and with some integrity, we might be able to develop programs that would address some of these program issues and social deficits that exist across Canada. We might be able to ensure progress on child poverty. We might be able to ensure seniors had the kind of long term care and pharmacare that they so desperately need. We might be able to ensure our veterans had the kinds of programs that would support them appropriately. When we ignore, underestimate or lowball the surplus figures, we do not do the kind of planning and program development that we should and we do not take our responsibilities to Canadians seriously in that sense.

It is kind of like winning a lottery. These announcements about the budget surplus are almost like a lottery announcement. All of a sudden the winner is flush with cash. Sometimes when we win the big lottery prize, we do not spend it on things that it might be best spent on. We might buy the flashy car or the big house, but in the long run they might not have been the most appropriate places to spend our money.

It is kind of like that when we announce these big budget surpluses, the surprise surplus. The Liberals would often announce a program, but from where did that come? Through which process did it arrive when it was a last minute response to a so-called surprise budgetary surplus? There could be a much better planning process around all of that. We would hope the Conservative government would undertake a commitment to ensuring we do not have these continued so-called surprises.

I want to address a couple of specific issues in the legislation. I know the bill includes a tax credit for public transit passes. On the face of it, that is an important thing to do. We want to encourage people to use public transit. I am encouraged that some of the money the NDP managed to get in the last Parliament, under Bill C-48 for public transit, will go to support the building of new public transit infrastructure in Canada. That money has been maintained and will be spent on that important project.

On the issue of a tax credit for public transit passes, many of us have heard from people in our ridings who, as part of their collective bargaining process, managed to have public transit passes provided as a benefit of their employment. In my riding workers who are employed by the public transit companies, Coast Mountain transit and B.C. transit, negotiated that as part of their collective agreement, for both themselves and their families. Recently, after an audit, it was announced that the families of these people would have to see that as a taxable benefit. It seems to fly in the face of wanting to encourage the use of public transit to have these people claim this as a taxable benefit on their income tax. We heard from many people in my constituency about that.

I received a letter today from the minister, after having written to her, that it is under review at the moment and that there may be no action taken in this taxation year, with a decision still to come.

It seems to fly in the face of wanting to actually do something positive about encouraging people to get on to public transit and out of their own personal vehicles. I think that when groups of workers manage to succeed in getting this as part of their collective agreement, we would want to encourage that and ensure that it is of real benefit to them.

There is much more to be said on this bill, but I see that my time is up, so I look forward to questions and comments from members.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague wants to know why. It is because the Liberal Party got caught in a sponsorship program in Quebec and then Canadians decided to kick we know what. That was what happened.

By the way, my colleague from P.E.I. referred to 13 years. He should talk to the member for Halifax West. He said that the Liberals were only in government for 12.2 years. I thought the member was here when he said that. However, I can see I am not the only one who does not know how to count. My colleague from P.E.I. in the Liberal Party does not know how to count either.

Why were we in a mess over the 13 years, or the 12.2, years that the Liberals were in power? It was because they paid the debt on the backs of the poor. They paid the debt on the backs of the people who were sick. They paid the debt on the backs of our seniors and veterans. That was not right. When it came time to cut the taxes to big corporations, they were ready to give them a break of $10 million.

The Liberals say the NDP never voted for one of their budgets. We did it last year, accompanied with Bill C-48, the NDP budget, which was a good budget.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to join the debate right after my Liberal colleague who has just spoken, especially since it is a question of cuts and the Liberals claim that they had left the country in good financial condition by reducing the debt.

The question that needs to be asked is the following: at whose expense was the reduction of the debt carried out?

The question of the member for Winnipeg Centre dealt with the fact that big businesses in Canada and their Bay Street friends are not obliged to pay income tax. Meanwhile, who has been cut? To whom has the debt been transferred?

For my part, I would like to remind the former finance minister—now the member for LaSalle—Émard, who was prime minister during a short period of time—that at the time of the cuts, he told Canadians to tighten their belts in order to pay down our debt because that debt must not be transferred to future generations. Yet, what the Liberal government of the day did, during its mandate, was to transfer the debt to future generations.

Today, the present government has not done any better since taking office. I will return to this subject later. For the moment, I want to consider Canada’s national debt. The Liberals like to tell us how hard and successfully they worked to reduce the debt, to reach a zero deficit and balance the budget.

For example, they transferred the debt to students. Today, most Canadian university students finish their studies with a debt of $40,000. I have already spoken about this matter in the House, and I even spoke about it during the election. I took part in a forum in the schools, where the students agreed on that amount. They even corrected me, calling me by name and telling me that I did not put the total high enough. In fact, a university student finishes his or her studies with a minimum personal debt of $40,000.

If a student meets his or her spouse at the university or college, and if that spouse has an equivalent debt, the debt of these two students who finish university and who have a diploma amounts to $80,000. I am talking about a debt of $40,000 for four years of study. A bachelor’s degree requires five years of study, which raises the debt to $50,000 per person and to $100,000 for two people.

Now, if the two students want to work and if they do not live in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary where there are public transit services that enable them get around and to go to work, and if they live in a rural community, they will have to buy a car. And if they do not both work at the same place, two cars will be necessary. Let us suppose they buy used cars valued at $10,000 each. Then, the two students will have a debt of $120,000.

Even if they do not live in Toronto, where houses cost between $250,000 and $300,000, but rather in a rural area where the cost of living is not so high, they will still have to pay $80,000 more to buy a house. The couple will therefore have accumulated a debt of $200, 000 before even having their first baby. That is what we have done to the future generation. We have transferred Canada’s debt to our next generation, and that is a disgrace. That is what we have done.

At a time when Canadians are being told to tighten their belts in order to pay down the debt, who else has been affected by such a measure? It is working people, the unemployed and people who lost their jobs who have been affected.

When the Liberals were in power, the surplus in the employment insurance fund was about $7 billion a year. The debt was therefore paid down on the backs of men and women who had lost their jobs and who had families to support. Children attending school needed money, but the grants to help them were cut.

Even that was not enough for the Liberal government. In 2001, it said in regard to employment insurance that even if a citizen only made a technical error in filling out a statement, it would be considered fraud. For the Liberal government, it was really vague but all infractions were considered fraud. If a citizen forgets to declare a week’s work on his employment insurance statement, that is fraud. The citizen has to return the amount due to employment insurance, as well as penalties and interest. Not only is this the citizen’s own money, but he has to pay interest on it.

So who is paying down the debt?

When the Conservatives arrived, they did not do any better. If we look at the Conservative government’s last budget, there is absolutely nothing for employment insurance. The Conservatives said that they had already studied a possible program for older workers. What kind of program are they considering? They say that they are going to provide training. I can understand that this would be on a voluntary basis. But with all due respect for the Conservatives, are they really going to take someone who is 60 years old with a grade eight education and give that person a chance to go to school, reach grade 12 and then do four years of university in order to be able to work? It is nonsense. What kind of a program is this?

They missed the boat. Where I come from in Baie-des-Chaleurs, we see boats going past and sometimes say that someone missed the boat. That is what the government did.

However, the NDP, in the Liberal government's last budget, used Bill C-48 to get $1.5 billion to help students pay down their debts. We had to resort to force to get this allocation. The Liberal government did not want to fall and it accepted our offer. I think this is one of the first opposition party budgets that has been voted on in the House of Commons. I think I am not mistaken. How did they come up with this money? The Liberal government at the time wanted to give major corporations $10 billion in tax cuts. Of that money, we used $1.5 billion to reduce student debt, $1.6 billion to help people who needed housing, $900 million to help municipalities with their infrastructure, $500 million for foreign countries and $100 million to help workers when a company goes bankrupt and its employees lose their pension fund. The NDP was thinking about ordinary Canadians, who do their civic duty and go out and vote.

Nevertheless, who is responsible for this country's debt? It is certainly not the workers who get up in the morning, pack a lunch and spend the day working hard for a living. They did not create the debt. But when it came time to pay down the debt and balance the budget, this was done on the backs of the workers, the citizens, and older persons.

We had to put up another fight against the government to help our veterans with the veterans independence program for veterans of the Second World War, 1939-1945. We cannot even take care of these people. We have to use a piecemeal approach.

Nonetheless, when we look at today's federal government budget, after we promoted the idea of having strong child care services in the country and help working people have a national child care system, the Conservative government refused and decided instead to give $1,200 for every child under the age of six.

What have we done? Have we helped the system? I say no. I am not the only one; our party also says no. We are not the only ones who think this. I believe that nearly all parties say the same thing. The Bloc will say that this is a matter under provincial jurisdiction, and I respect this, but it believes in child care centres. Even our party, how many times have we talked about Quebec, and not because of the Bloc? We often use Quebec as an example, because its programs are genuinely progressive. That is why we want to implement its child care program throughout Canada. The Conservatives’ system, on the other hand, is modeled on the American system. It hands out money and tells people to look after their own problems. At the end of the day, has this helped children? Has it helped working women? I say that it has not helped them at all.

Once again, I say that we are missing the boat. This Conservative government presented a budget in the spring, and on September 25 it announced that it was making cuts, cuts that will do harm. When we see the cuts made to the court challenges program, we have to wonder.

Will the cuts to the court challenges program prevent people in the community from making their cases in court?

On that point, we have to talk about official languages. Minorities in Canada have used the court challenges program on more than one occasion. I will offer an example. The food inspectors in Shippagan who were transferred to Dieppe, New Brunswick, won their case because of the Court Challenges Program. One person acting alone would never have got the case to court.

In the riding of Acadie—Bathurst, where I come from, people in French-speaking areas were moved to Miramichi, where 70% of the population speaks English. Even the people of Miramichi said that it was crazy to move a community somewhere else. The communities were able to get their case to court because of the court challenges program. They won their case. That was the first time in the country that a legal challenge had been brought before a judge and accepted. This is now legal precedent in Canada.

We have to think about our minority communities, whether they are English-speaking or French-speaking. I do not believe that an individual could have fought that fight alone. It is unimaginable.

Let us look at the RCMP in New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province in Canada. Once again, communities defended themselves in court and won their case. Indeed, from now on, the federal government must make bilingual officers available to the people of New Brunswick. They won their case. Imagine what happened next. It was not the Conservatives who challenged it; it was the so-called good Liberals, who are supposed to be perfect, who challenged it in the Court of Appeal. If the court challenges program had not existed, they could not have appeared in court and the debate would not have continued.

Now, the Conservatives are in power and, in my opinion, they are the same bunch, because they are here to defend capitalism and not the social aspect of anything. Nothing has changed. The Conservatives did not withdraw the appeal. The Conservative minister responsible for the file rose in this House to say that we cannot give money to Canadians so that they can fight in court those who legislate, that this did not make sense, that the government enacts good laws, and that they must be respected.

Yet, why were some of these court cases successful against the government?

In order to strike a balance, we should stipulate that, if a citizen wins his or her court case in the lower court, the government cannot launch an appeal with taxpayers' money. The government does use public money to appeal these cases. It should not be allowed to do so, since this upsets the balance between the two parties. There is absolutely no balance.

I was very sad to see what the Conservative government did to the court challenges program. It cut the program, which allowed citizens to challenge the government on its decisions and laws. By doing that, it has removed the tools of democracy. If the government is making the law, then the court will be paying for judges and lawyers, yet citizens cannot get the same money. They cannot be equal. The government uses taxpayer money to contest court judgments. It is a sad thing if we cannot have a balance and provide the tools to allow citizens to go to court and challenge the decisions or interpretations of laws of the government.

Look what was done to the Montfort Hospital in Ottawa. The hospital used money that was in the court challenges program. If it had not, the hospital would have closed. I challenge anybody today to say what happened with the Montfort Hospital was not right.

Who are the Conservatives to say that their laws are perfect? Who are the Conservatives to say that they follow the law? The Conservatives have said that nobody should be sitting in the Senate if the individual is not elected by the citizens of Canada, yet they appointed Michael Fortier to the Senate. They said that was okay because he was a good person so he did not have to be elected. They say that they do not believe in an unelected Senate, but Michael Fortier was appointed to the Senate, not elected. Twice the Conservatives broke their promise. They broke their promise on who should be in the Senate. Who are they to say that he is a good person when in a democracy, one has to be elected by the citizens of Canada.

We are not asking much. If someone is a minister, we believe that person should be elected by the people and answer to the people. We cannot even question the minister about the budget. He refuses to go to committee meetings.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak to Bill C-28 and express many of the concerns raised in the Hamilton community around the budget.

This spring's budget saw the Conservative government essentially continue the Liberal income tax cut. The government added cuts to the GST and business taxes. It simply left what I would argue would be the most important social responsibilities to the province.

On the spending side, the government has all but turned its back on the Kelowna accord with aboriginal people, with only modest funding for housing. The government's decision to go beyond the GST cut and to proceed with further personal and corporate tax cuts is troubling. This will cause a significant shrinkage in government's fiscal capacity to invest in the aspirations of ordinary Canadians. It betrays their hopes in many ways.

The Prime Minister has talked at length about being inclusive. He has all but ignored the call by the provinces for substantially increased federal funding for post-secondary education. Post-secondary education in Canada has been subjected to public cuts in funding for over 20 years. This has led to higher tuition fees and higher student debt.

The government has substituted tax incentives and individual credit measures and has taken away funding for direct programs. This is unconscionable when the government is sitting on a budget surplus of $13 billion. Much of that $13 billion was hijacked from the EI fund as far as I am concerned. It has chosen instead to throw away a chance to give real relief to our post-secondary students and to their parents.

On May 2 of this year, George Soule, national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, responded to the spring's budget announcement and said:

Tinkering around the edges of the tax system is not going to increase access to college and university. This government should be restoring the billions of dollars that were cut from post-secondary education transfers during the past decade so that tuition fees can be reduced.

In my opinion the budget bills of 2006 very much follow the failed Liberal legacy of building on ineffectual patchworks of short term band-aid solutions, with no long term plan to enhance access to quality, lifelong training and learning opportunities. A lifelong learning strategy would finally reinvest in our colleges and universities and it would increase accessibility. I said earlier that there is a student debt crisis in our country which is unconscionable.

Tax credits are no substitute for restoring core funding to post-secondary education. Tuition has almost tripled since 1992. It is becoming increasingly out of reach for even middle class Canadian families, much less ordinary hard-working Canadians. The student debt crisis averages over $21,000 per student. In some cases it reaches $50,000. Imagine trying to enter the workforce carrying that burden. Instead of reinvesting in core funding and tackling the student debt crisis, as the NDP did in Bill C-48 in 2005, the Conservatives simply tinker with taxes.

Tax credits in budget 2006 will cost $185 million a year to help those students who already have $3,000 a year in scholarships. That money could have been used to pay the full tuition for 38,000 students, those students in greatest need. Budget 2006 will increase the amount of debt by allowing more students to borrow more money. That only helps the banks. It is absolutely terrible.

Another area of concern in the budget is housing and homelessness. Day in and day out in the House we hear question after question on SCPI and they are deflected by the minister. What is in the budget? The Conservative money in the budget was money that was already committed to be spent in the NDP budget, Bill C-48 from last spring. The Conservative money actually falls $200 million short of Bill C-48.

Accountability? There is no mention in the budget of who will oversee the funding and ensure the money is spent by the provinces on much needed affordable housing.

Previous Liberal governments allocated a substantial amount of money to the provinces and territories, around $474 million, but this money was not spent. It was not spent because of the failure of the Liberal government to gain a consensus with the provinces on how to do that. That is one of the major failures of the last 15 years in regard to social housing in this country. There is no mention in the budget of a national housing plan that would ensure that affordable housing is available in the long term.

Speaking more to my riding, in particular the city of Hamilton, there was a study done called “On Any Given Night”. On any given night, 399 men, women and children stay in emergency shelters in Hamilton. There are over 4,200 active applications for social housing in our community. Over 2,400 women and children stayed in a violence against women shelter during 2004 and 2005. Twenty-one point nine per cent of renter households spend more than 50% of their income on housing. It is only thanks to SCPI, which we fear is in jeopardy, that the infusion of funding for shelter beds in Hamilton was meeting the needs of single men for the very first time.

I would like to refer to a report from the social services committee of the city of Hamilton. Again, speaking to the committee's concerns around SCPI, it said:

Whereas, having a safe, secure home is a basic human right; and

Whereas, children and families are the fastest growing segment of Canada's homeless population eroding efforts by municipalities and others to nurture healthy, stable communities; and

Whereas the City of Saint John's, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and other organizations across the nation have recognized that homelessness and the lack of affordable housing is a national concern requiring long term solutions; and

Whereas, the National Homelessness Initiative was established by the federal government in 1999, investing $1.2 billion over the past six years in local solutions that address homelessness; and

Whereas, the National Homelessness Initiative is strongly supported by local organizations and the Government of Ontario and is recognized as an international best practice by the United Nations; and

Whereas, the National Homelessness Initiative will expire on March 31, 2007 unless the new federal government acts soon to renew the program;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of Hamilton urges the Government of Canada to renew and expand the National Homelessness Initiative, and calls upon municipalities and provincial and territorial governments across Canada to add their voices in support of this important program.

The concern for SCPI, the concern for our homeless, our families in jeopardy is at the forefront of the concerns of municipalities and municipal governments across this country. It is the concern of representatives in this House, but it does not seem to me to be the concern of the federal government. I cannot understand for the life of my how it can turn its back on homeless Canadians.

In closing, these are concerns that have been expressed to me by the constituents of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek and I am pleased to put them before the House this day.