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

[Charlie Penson, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague from Souris—Moose Mountain to address the issue. I know he is on to the Liberals in this business of Bill C-48 providing the funding that the NDP wants for bankruptcy protection.

It sounds like a noble goal. I was on the industry committee for a number of years. We heard a lot about small and medium sized businesses not being able to get the kind of credit they wanted from the banking industry. If somehow they are not to be ranked as secured creditors, if wage earners are to be ranked ahead of them, I think it will be more difficult.

Could the member for Souris—Moose Mountain comment on that?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member about his comments on the wage protection process. He has valid concerns and I share them. This, no doubt, will be an extremely complex issue when it comes before the House.

We are dealing with the interplay between federal jurisdiction and provincial jurisdiction and whether the company is under the Bankruptcy Act, or under the CCAA or insolvent. We do not want to develop or create an impediment to companies seeking financing in Canada.

My understanding is this is not in Bill C-48. It would require separate legislation or a major amendment to existing legislation. It would have to come back before the House. I assume it would be debated extensively, dealing with a separate appropriation.

Why would the member hold up this bill, which seems to have broad approval from across Canada, for that issue?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I too will speak with respect to Bill C-48 and highlight some of the issues of concern.

Initially the NDP leader posed a question in the House to the finance minister as to whether or not there was any chance he might modify the first budget, Bill C-43. The Minister of Finance indicated that he might consider some technical changes, in the sense of being technical.

The leader of the NDP went fishing a little further and asked whether he might consider some substantive changes to the initial budget. The finance minister indicated he would not because, he said, one cannot start changing the budget. He had consulted with many people. He had consulted with all the Canadian interests. He had heard from the various interest groups. He had taken all that into consideration and, outside of technical changes, he could not do anything.

In fact, the Minister of Labour and Housing had proposed in advance of the budget that there would be $1.5 billion allocated over the next five years for housing and he was shut out. It was the minister who had proposed that to the finance minister. The finance minister said it would not be prudent given all the circumstances that he knew of. He said did not want anyone to “cherry-pick” the budget, to take any portions out of the budget. It was what it was, he said, he had come to a balanced approach and there was not any room to move.

Suddenly there was a $4.6 billion movement. That is not something that could be called a technical change to the budget. That, to my mind, is be very substantive.

However, when he was asked by the leader of the NDP whether he would be prepared to make any changes, he said he would not buy a pig in a poke. He said he would need to know exactly what was being talked about. When we look at Bill C-48, I am not so sure that the NDP did not sell itself for a pig in a poke.

When we look at the bill itself, it indicates that the minister “may, in respect to the fiscal year 2005-2006, make payments” with respect to the items indicated, provided there is a surplus of $2 billion, and similarly for the period of 2006-07. However, the budget agreement itself said the investments would be booked in the years 2005-06, again, only if there is a surplus and only if the minister decides that the money will be spent. We do not know exactly what it will be, but we know it will not be in excess of $4.5 billion.

When we read the initial budget agreement, which many have said was prepared hastily in a period of 24 hours, without essential consultation with the finance minister, we find that it actually was meant to be $4.6 billion. It is missing $100 million. Part of that $100 million was with respect to the investment that the NDP required for the protection of workers' earnings in the event of their employers' bankruptcy. That is not in the bill.

The Minister of Labour has been in charge of the area of workers' protection for some time; it has been in the House for a period of nine years. I ask, what has pricked the social conscience of the minister? The minister first of all agreed to the fact that it would be in the budget bill agreement of May 3, 2005, and then not in the act but in a separate piece of legislation.

That separate piece of legislation is a proposed amendment to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. Let us see what the minister actually proposes in that bankruptcy act. He is suggesting that workers be given a superpriority, ahead of the banking industry and secured creditors, to the extent of $2,000. He then proposes that there be a wage protection fund totalling $3,000, with the understanding that in the case of the bankruptcy when the worker applies to that fund and gets paid, the worker assigns or subrogates all of the worker's rights to Her Majesty the Queen or the federal government, which then takes the place of the worker and collects back the $2,000 at the expense of the secured party.

If that bill should pass, anyone attempting to start up a business and to provide jobs for workers would find himself or herself being able to obtain a far smaller loan than before the legislation. If he or she had 50 employees at $2,000, the financial institution would deduct about $100,000 from a line of credit. That business may never start. In fact, existing businesses may have a hard time maintaining their lines of credit if the legislation were to pass.

I make that point to make this one. The Minister of Labour has indicated this legislation will cost somewhere between $30 million and $50 million. A good half or more of that would be recoverable by taking the funds from secured creditors by virtue of the preferred position. Therefore, in the net there was not $100 million, as agreed to in the budget bill agreement, but perhaps something like $16 million over the next year and another $16 million over the following year. That is an indication of the Liberals living up to their promises.

At the same time, we find there has been a piling up of dollars in various crown corporations such as CMHC. It is charging first time home buyers an insurance fee that results in profits being made by the organization to the tune of $800 million. In 2005 it is expected to rise again. In 2009 it is expected to rise to $1.175 billion, which should help first time buyers to buy a home. The government has made promises that require the funding of various programs, the use of multi-dollars, but primarily for the purpose of not helping those on the other side of it, but to help the Liberals stay in power, to help them cling to power.

As we heard my learned friend from Edmonton East, we have had a great amount of dollars spent in the housing area, but we have not seen any affordable units built. He indicated 25,000 or less housing were built after many years of Liberal spending. Where has that money gone? The minister has indicated that over $1 billion has been spend on what is called “protective care” or to look after those who are homeless or lack affordable housing. However, he has not provided the amount and type of units that are required.

The minister spoke recently in an interview. He realized that most of the moneys the Liberals had spent so far had been for emergency shelters. He also realized that the area of housing, first and foremost, it was a provincial jurisdiction. Yet when we look at Bill C-48, or the bill that was made on the napkin, it indicates that the money allocated for housing would be utilized without the agreement of the provinces. In other words, the federal government would decide where it will spend it.

In the interview to which I referred, the minister was asked how many permanent housing units the money would buy. The interviewer said, “I still do not have an answer to my question: $1.6 billion, how many units of affordable housing will you be building with that?”

Here is the Minister of Labour's answer, “A lot”. We know a few is seven or eight. What would a lot be? A lot would be more than seven or eight. When $50,000 or $80,000 is spent to subsidize a unit, or as my learned friend from Edmonton East said, to build a few number at great expense, it is not a wise use of money. She asked if he had a number and he never answered.

He said that once the budget passed, and he was in the process of working and meeting with his provincial counterparts, they would not have to put in a dollar. She asked him again if he was not going to delay. He replied that since July $700 million was still in the bank. It had been there for the past three or four years. The provinces had not taken the money already in place. What did he do? He met with them individually and collectively and asked them what it would take to start spending the government's money. He said that the government was starting to spend the money and, in his words, “building units like crazy”.

The point is it is not hard to spend money. Anyone can spend money, but spending it wisely and achieving the maximum return for that dollar is very important.

Behind all of this is the fact that while old money is not used up, new money is put in place to have a corrupt government cling to power and for no other purpose. When we divide the $4.6 billion by the number of members in the NDP, that is a pretty expensive buy.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-48, the NDP budget, and to remind people that in the 2000 Liberal red book the government promised to build up to 120,000 units of affordable housing for $680 million by the year 2005. To date, there are less than 25,000 units of housing that have cost over three times that allotted funding that have been built, some $2.1 billion.

Bill C-48 commits $1.6 billion, with no plan and no number of housing units the government expects to build. It just simply does not know how many it would be able to build.

The current hodgepodge Liberal approach to affordable rental housing and homeless emergency shelters for single people is both financially wasteful and appallingly ineffective. Homeless emergency shelter usage and affordable housing availability for singles are interrelated concerns. A shortage of available low-cost, entry level rental units for singles leaves many no option but to seek very costly emergency social shelter space. Any discussion on housing needs must include a basic understanding of the most needy, the single people who dwell in Canada's emergency shelters.

It might be impossible to individually categorize all the sheltered homeless because some have varied levels of mental capabilities and addictions that generally inhibit independent, unsupervised living, let alone employment. Most of those living in homeless shelters are fully capable of paying their own way in modest, independent living and affordable homes, but none are available.

Canada's sheltered homeless population can be broken down by cause. Some 25% are what we call the de-institutionalized from the '70s. They are singles who are really in need of institutional care. Some 25% more are unemployable. They are hard-to-house singles with addictions. However, 50% are simply low-income singles in need of affordable rental housing.

Statistics Canada in 2001, the last year it took the statistics, said there were 14,150 homeless single persons in Canada's emergency shelter system. In Edmonton, there are 590.

Canada needs affordable rental housing for low-income families, but for those 14,000 singles in emergency shelters across the country who are able to live independently, the need is great for simple, entry level, single-room housing. Research has indicated that 50% of those residing in the shelters are actually low-income individuals with some income but with no independent living rental housing alternatives.

Federal funding flows into replacement emergency shelters, assisted living, transitional social shelters, but not into the building of independent living, private, singles homes.

Nationally, 75% of all private, single-person, entry level rental housing has been torn down or closed down over the last 30 years and has not been replaced. During the same period, singles homeless emergency shelters have been expanded and are now one of Canada's fastest growing industries.

Unavailable, private, $350-per-month, self-paid, and entry level singles homes have now been replaced out of necessity by $1,500-per-month emergency shelter and transitional social shelter, industry-taxpayer paid emergency beds.

One contributing problem is that affordable housing funding agents are very disconnected from the emergency shelter funding agents and, sadly, neither prioritize the true need for private, basic, entry level, singles, independent living rental homes.

New, multiple unit, family rental apartment housing numbers have also drastically declined over the last 30 years while new multiple unit condo ownership apartment housing numbers have grown. Over 30 years ago, 90% of all multiple unit housing being built were rental units. Today, 90% of all multiple unit buildings are condo ownership apartments and the very few rental apartments being built are not entry level, economical apartments but upscale, expensive, luxury units.

While Canada's population has grown greatly, society's most basic housing need has not changed. Virtually all of us first leaving home are low income earners and rent because we cannot afford the down payment to buy a house. The need for affordable, entry level rental housing is great, but assistance by government to help create more should not be made in isolation from private, professional rental owner market forces.

The decline in the new rental construction market and an increasing need for affordable rental units must be explored statistically to determine what went wrong with the marketplace. The private rental market knows that affordable rental housing begins by building economical basic entry level housing, with fees, levies and taxes no higher than those for home ownership, and allowing private developers to access funding meant to encourage construction of new affordable housing.

Private developers of economical, multi-unit rental projects are discouraged by the barriers against building new rental units, such as proportionally higher property taxes, higher construction fees and levies, as compared to ownership condo units. Excessive city planning aesthetic requirements unnecessarily add considerably to costs of economical basic housing.

Research would show that these barriers are more numerous and much higher than they were 30 years ago. In short, fees, levies, grand municipal architecture vision and taxes have together served to halt development of building basic rental apartment units, while artificial rent controls and rent subsidies made certain new development would not start.

The federal Liberal government position on affordable housing and homeless funding is little different from the NDP's 1% solution, other than that the Liberals put more money into it. The federal government has failed to provide provinces and municipalities with statistical guidance that would help them understand the barriers and offer solutions to affordable rental home development. Instead, the Liberals bring out the federal chequebook, which, with poor guidelines and no remedial long term measures, actually exacerbates the problem and loads more taxation burden on the fewer and fewer unsubsidized rental taxpayers.

Proper statistical analysis of the cause and effect of taxation, fee burdens and subsidies would point to long term solutions for governments to recognize the problems and then work toward correcting them.

Once again, in the 2000 election red book, the promise was to create 120,000 homes for 680 million before 2005. Less than 25,000 have been committed to construction to date.

Non-profit landlords have many times received up to 100% of the project funding from multi-sourcing of taxpayer funding grants, pay no property taxes and charge just slightly less than market average rents. Liberal funding mismanagement is quickly destroying what little is left of the private competition in rental housing. The problem is that the federal Liberal government has no more idea of how to effectively control these funds than does the NDP.

Most of these funds were disbursed over the last five years and very little housing has resulted. Properly planned and disbursed, the $2.1 billion, partnered with provinces, could have helped build over 150,000 new homes and could have half emptied Canada's emergency shelter spaces.

Over 50% of Canada's 15,000 emergency shelter units have some money and could pay themselves for moderate entry level single room homes, but none have been built, and sadly, the $2.1 billion has leveraged no more than 25,000 homes, most of them social non-profit housing. Meanwhile, private developers would build, pay taxes and rent apartments at less than market rents for a fraction of the grants now being made, but they are discouraged from applying.

We need to return to the competitive enthusiasm of the private rental building construction market of the 1970s, where literally thousands of very affordable modest apartment buildings were built for entry level renters. The cause of today's affordable rental housing crisis is that we no longer build significant quantities of very necessary affordable housing for entry level renters.

Statistically identifying and then working with the federal-provincial-municipal departments to remove the barriers that inhibit private rental development should be the first priority. Then we must work with the provinces on a plan to proceed with workable guidelines to encourage competitive private enterprise to return to the business of building, owning and renting affordable entry level housing.

Throwing more billions of dollars at the problem without a plan most certainly will not address the housing needs of low income and homeless Canadians. It will only continue a trend of policy incoherence and ineptitude.

The promise made in 2000 was a promise broken. The government did not create a fraction of the homes promised. The money grew to $2.1 billion and produced less than 25,000 units. Of the provincial-federal share, that is approximately $170,000 per unit produced, a colossal mismanagement on a monumental scale. Shamefully, this bill is not about building housing. This bill is all about buying votes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the $4.6 billion that was promised in the original budget and taken out of Bill C-43 was going to be targeted toward corporate tax relief to make our industry more competitive, to create more opportunity for reinvestment and job creation. We like to throw out rhetoric as to what is meaningful, but any dollar that we can put back in the pocket of Canadians is meaningful. I will trust Canadians any day of being able to spend their money more wisely than the government. We need to give them that opportunity and put those dollars back in their hands.

We have been debating the bill for some time now along with Bill C-43 and I have not heard anything from the other side that would convince me that if Bill C-48 were so important, that the Liberals would have put it in the original budget. They have never come out and said that it is a good idea. Bill C-48 represents only one thing and that is to buy NDP votes to ensure that the Liberals stay in power. That is what it is all about.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to speak at report stage of Bill C-48 to address a lot of the concerns that the constituents of Selkirk--Interlake and I have with this bill. The big thing is we are talking about $4.6 billion that is contained in a document that is only six pages long. The last three pages make really good reading as they are all blank. Essentially this bill gives a blank cheque to the Liberal government to do with as it pleases.

We do not want to see any more boondoggles or scandals take place in the government. One of the reasons I entered politics was to make sure that we could put an end to wasteful spending, get the biggest bang for our buck as taxpayers and defend the interests of taxpayers here in the House.

The big concern is there are a lot of great ideas laid out in two pages of spending proposals, but there is no plan to support them. We voted on Bill C-43 just last week. When that bill was tabled, it was tabled with volumes of books as a backstop, as a plan, as a way to have the checks and balances in place for the spending that the government was promising. During the spring the committees sat down and went through the budgets for the respective departments and voted on the budgetary estimates line by line. Those are the types of checks and balances that are needed to ensure that government spending is kept in place so that the taxpayers are getting the benefits and the services they have requested.

I fear that the programs and policies that are being supported in this very thin bill will open the door for more mismanagement and more boondoggles. We only need to look at things like the gun registry, the HRDC boondoggle and many other programs that have been overrun because there has not been adequate planning put in place for the spending. We have to make sure that the plans are there and that the dollars are spent wisely.

I am the associate agriculture critic for our party. One thing that concerns me is that the NDP members often come in here and say that agriculture is very important to them, but unfortunately there is not a single line in the bill that even addresses any agricultural concerns. I have to wonder what the NDP priorities are if that party is not addressing agriculture. It makes up such a crucial part of our economy here in Canada, not just rurally but the entire GDP is largely based upon our agriculture and resource sectors.

All the spending that is planned in the bill is not really very beneficial to rural Canada. I represent a very rural riding. I do not see anything in the bill that is going to help with doctor shortages in our area. I do not see anything in it that is going to help with access to federal services in rural Canada. I do not see anything in it that is going to help our farmers improve their marketplace. For those reasons, I cannot support Bill C-48.

There is a paragraph in the bill that addresses foreign aid. I think it is admirable that we would increase our foreign aid to at least 0.7% of GDP, which is a number that has been bandied about since the 1960s as the ideal mark in funding foreign aid. However, we know that currently, as was already talked about with respect to CIDA, there is a shotgun approach to foreign aid. Money is thrown all over the place, sprinkling a little here and a little there. It is not really getting to the crucial parts, the areas of importance to help those in need.

Whether we are looking at poverty or children's issues around the world, essentially we should target a few countries. We should focus our resources on a few countries to get the biggest bang for our buck to help those people who need it the most with their education and their farming activities and help them provide for themselves. Those are things that we want to address.

We are talking about throwing more money at foreign aid, but we have a real crisis here in Canada right now and that is why we need more farm aid. We have a BSE crisis that needs to be addressed more adequately. Farmers are still not getting the dollars into their pockets and we need to ensure those things are taken care of first before we start throwing more dollars into foreign field.

We have to realize what this bill is all about and what brought it about. If this bill were so important to the Liberal government, it would have been in the original budget back in February. We know that it was all about getting 19 more votes to support the government. The NDP negotiated this deal in a backroom on a napkin and this is what it came up with.

This has been traded off with some really major tax cuts that we need to see take place to create more jobs and more opportunity in this country. The $4.6 billion could have been better used to ensure we create more opportunities and a better and more competitive environment for business. We would see more jobs and, by and large, a better economy because of these tax cuts. Unfortunately, we have traded that off for votes and that is shameful.

There are a lot of things in the original budget that we could support but there is nothing in Bill C-48 that we can really dream of being brought forward and put into play. There is no accountability, no checks and balances, and nothing for agriculture. We are always quite concerned in ensuring that we address the needs of taxpayers as much as possible, so that we can go forward and put in place the services they desire. I do not see that happening here in a legitimate way.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to go back a bit. In terms of Bill C-43, we can live with that because the measures in that bill were actually driven by the Conservative Party of Canada.

The NDP, on the other hand, were against the budget to begin with. It was only when all of us realized the depth of the corruption of the Liberals, that the member for Toronto--Danforth and the NDP decided to prop them up and keep them in power. It is inexplicable.

The member spoke about affordable housing. I have spoken in the House about reducing the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation premiums so that young families could afford to purchase their homes. Some members of the Bloc Québécois have also driven this issue. As a result, we have seen a 15% reduction in CMHC premiums. That is important.

Let us talk about what is missing from Bill C-48. The member for Toronto-Danforth, the leader of the NDP, had the opportunity to name his price that evening because, God knows, the member for LaSalle—Émard would have done anything to stay in power.

An equalization deal for the province of Saskatchewan would have been nice. It was completely forgotten by the member for Toronto--Danforth and the NDP. They completely forgot about a fair equalization deal for the province of Saskatchewan, as did the Minister of Finance from my home town of Regina. When we brought that motion forward he voted with the separatists to vote down a fair equalization deal for Saskatchewan. It is shameful.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wonder what happened to the Conservative Party because when the Minister of Finance was reading his budget in the House of Commons the Leader of the Conservative Party ran out before the minister was finished and said that he supported the budget because it was a good budget.

What happened between then and now? I think he looked at the polls and when he saw that his party was up by 34% he decided that the budget was no longer any good and that he would bring the government down.

Right after that, the Conservatives voted for Bill C-43. What part of Bill C-48 are they against? Are they telling us that they are against bringing down student debt and helping our children? Are they saying that they are against affordable housing when we see many people in our towns and cities living on the streets and in cardboard boxes, as we saw in Toronto in front of city hall? Are they saying that they are against the 1¢ extra on the gas tax that could go to the city of Regina in the riding of Regina--Qu'Appelle?

Is that what they want to vote against, to give money to the city for infrastructure? Is that what the Conservatives are telling us?

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite should listen, because he might learn something tonight.

Fortunately there is a party in this country with a broad national vision for the country, one that believes a government must reflect the priorities of Canadians. That is the Conservative Party of Canada.

That is why I cannot support Bill C-48, the after-budget budget, the deal where a corrupt Liberal government opened its wallets to the NDP, led by the member for Toronto--Danforth and said, “Take it all”. Bill C-48 takes $4.6 billion out of the pockets of hardworking Canadians just to keep the Liberals in power. This Liberal-NDP political deal betrays Canadians, particularly the people of Palliser and Saskatchewan, and makes a mockery of the budget process.

Let us be clear. The Conservative Party and I supported the first budget bill because, while it was far from perfect, it contained important measures on equalization, infrastructure, money for communities, more spending on the military, and some, albeit small, tax relief for families.

However, it has become clear that the Liberals were only giving us half the story when they presented their budget in February. Since then they have engaged in a reckless spending spree, without parallel in Canadian history, that has cost over $25 billion. That is three times what the government of Saskatchewan will spend over the entire year. The Liberals have blown through that in a month.

How can I or any member of the House vote for a bill knowing that this spending was not considered important enough to include in the finance minister's first budget? That is the key point. If this was a good deal for the country it would have been in the first budget, and we have heard nothing to the contrary, nothing to counter that argument.

This bill, this Liberal-NDP deal of desperation, is not good for our country. It goes against the Conservative Party's commitment to carefully manage taxpayer money and threatens the fiscal stability of our country. It is a deal we cannot support. It is a deal that epitomizes the cynical vote buying of a corrupt government that has Canadians demanding better.

Bill C-48 is heavy on the public purse but light on the details: a page and a half for $4.6 billion in spending. This is ludicrous. It commits hundreds of millions of dollars under broad areas without any concrete plans as to how that money would be spent. The government would need to post $8.5 billion in surpluses over the next two fiscal years to fully implement this bill.

The Auditor General has raised some serious concerns about the ability of certain departments to deliver programs effectively, departments to which the Liberals want to give more money in Bill C-48, including Indian and Northern Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency.

In fact, the Conservative Party recognizes that many Canadians are not receiving the level of assistance from the federal government that they deserve because of the Liberal government's approach to problem solving: spending money without an adequate plan.

The bill also fails to deliver the goods for Saskatchewan. For families in Regina, Moose Jaw and southern Saskatchewan who just finished paying their taxes, $4.6 billion is a pretty big price tag. I have low income families in my constituency trying to figure out how they will pay the rent and farm families trying to figure out how they will pay rising utility costs because of the government's failure to get the border open.

Do the Liberals think that these families looked at their income tax returns and thought that the taxes they were paying to Ottawa should be used to cut a deal with the NDP to keep themselves in power? Of course not. Instead, they are wondering why the government continues to waste money on boondoggles like the gun registry, when the federal Liberals and the Saskatchewan NDP are closing RCMP detachments along the border; hundreds of miles without an RCMP detachment. They are wondering why health care waiting lists continue to get longer in Saskatchewan under the Liberals and NDP despite the fact that we are paying more than ever for health care. They are wondering why Liberal cabinet ministers, Liberal bagmen and advertising firms are getting rich while taxes continue to rise. These are the questions of the people in Palliser and they are questions the government should be answering.

It is also difficult for families in my constituency to support a $4.6 billion NDP-Liberal deal when very little of that money is going to support families in Saskatchewan. There is no new money for farm families. It does nothing to deliver funding directly to front line policing services to stop the spread of drugs like crystal meth. One would think that the Liberal government would do at least that much considering that it refused to bring forward changes to the Criminal Code to toughen penalties for trafficking meth.

There is no equalization deal for Saskatchewan, which is what the Conservative Party has been consistently demanding from the government. To put it into perspective, a new equalization deal would have meant an additional $750 million for Saskatchewan, my province, this year alone. The Liberals and federal NDP said no to that. They said no to shortening health care waiting lists. They said no to repairing the province's highways. They said no to fighting crime. Why then should the people of Palliser say yes to the government?

In conclusion, the Prime Minister said that he wanted Parliament to work but he certainly never consulted our party about making a better budget that would speak to the real priorities of Canadians. We would have liked to have seen meaningful tax reductions for Canadian families and businesses and some spending restraint.

Instead of costing taxpayers another $4.6 billion, we would have save them some money. We would have liked to have seen real investment in Saskatchewan families.

The bill does none of those things and because of that I cannot support it.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise tonight in the House of Commons on behalf of the people of Palliser, who have entrusted me to represent them in Ottawa.

Across my constituency, people continue to say that we need honest and accountable government, a government that is ready to govern according to the priorities of Canadians. I am proud to say that as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada I have stood up for Palliser residents time and time again to make sure that their priorities are reflected here in the House.

That is why I opposed and continue to oppose the wasteful Liberal gun registry, which diverts valuable tax dollars away from funding to fight crime, for front line policing, into a bureaucratic boondoggle.

That is why I opposed the Liberal day care plan, which the hon. member for Regina--Qu'Appelle referred to as the babysitting bureaucracy, and instead argued that we need to devote money to parents to make their own child care choices. Money in the hands of parents: I cannot think of a better solution.

That is why I stood up for farmers and producers in calling for the elimination of the producer deposit for the CAIS program.

I take the trust of the people of Palliser seriously. It is the reason I stand here tonight to speak out against Bill C-48, the Liberal-NDP deal that has kept this corrupt Liberal government in power, but which will deliver very little value to the people of Palliser.

I want to take a moment to talk about the Conservative Party's vision for Canada and why the Liberal-NDP deal fails to deliver the economic policies we need to allow families and businesses to prosper.

Canadians are profoundly disappointed with the Liberal government. The Prime Minister promised a lot when he came to power. All of us in the House remember his promises to end the democratic deficit. What has happened since then? That promise has been shattered over and over again with the same heavy-handed parliamentary tactics and patronage as the previous Liberal government under Mr. Chrétien.

The Prime Minister's reputation for fiscal responsibility has also been shattered by the fact that Liberal gang spent over $25 billion to cling to power last month, aided by the leader of the NDP, whose party continues to advocate tax and spend policies that hurt our economy.

Bill C-48 is yet another indication that the corrupt Liberal government treats tax dollars like its own private piggy bank. The Liberal budget is not a long term fiscal vision for the country but instead an opening bid for negotiations with the NDP.

It may shock members on the government side, and certainly those in the NDP, to learn that using tax dollars to buy votes, to buy Canadians with their own money, is not good policy, nor is it in the best interests of our country.

Canadians do not need a government that overtaxes and overspends. They need a government that has an economic plan, a government that leaves as much money as possible in the pockets of families, as my hon. friend alluded to.

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

Madam Speaker, in listening to my colleague, it is just like hearing that the Conservatives are pure and white. I am wondering what happened in Saskatchewan when the Conservatives were in power for almost eight years. I do not know what happened to 14 of those Conservatives, but I think many of them were pretty close to jail. I do not know how those members can just get up and say how pure they were.

Let us look at the position of the Conservative Party. Where was the Conservative Party when it came to the employment insurance motion that we brought in last week? Conservative members voted against it because it was for working people. They could have helped men and women doing seasonal work. Only seven members of the Conservative Party voted for it.

Conservatives are saying that the NDP is voting with a corrupt government. How did they vote last week on Bill C-43, which was the government budget? They voted for the government budget. How can they get up today and say that the NDP has voted for a corrupt government on a bill and on a budget when they did what they did? The Minister of Finance had not even finished presenting the budget to the House when the leader of the Conservative Party left the House of Commons and told the press he could not vote against the government's budget because it was a good budget, because Bay Street liked it, because there were cuts for the big corporations.

Are the Conservatives questioning what the big corporations do with their money when they get it? I can tell them: they run to the bank. They do not create even one job over the year because it depends on the market, on if they have sales. That is how they create jobs.

Then, when it came time to help the students, the Conservative Party got up in the House and said it was against Bill C-48, not Bill C-43, where we give money to the big corporations, but against the one that would help students who are in debt. They are against that one, said the Conservatives. They are against affordable housing when we could help people who are on the street and we could give them a home. They are against that. That is what the Conservative Party is all about.

I am sure that Canadians are listening to what is happening tonight. One member is saying that the NDP has voted with the corrupt Liberal government. Where were the Conservatives for Bill C-43? Where were they for the Liberal budget, the real budget, where the Liberals and the Conservatives look the same, which was Bill C-43?

How about when it comes to the ordinary people? What about when it came to voting last week on the motion for the best 12 weeks? Who got up in the House of Commons and voted against it? The Liberals and the Conservatives, which to me look the same when we look at Bill C-43.

I would like to hear what the hon. member thought about it. He talks about Conservative members voting and tries to tell Canadians they did not vote for a budget of the government. They have voted on Bill C-43. They did not even wait for the minister to finish telling Canadians about the budget. The leader of their party said he could not vote against the budget because it was a good budget. It was a budget that was more for the big corporations than the little people.

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

Madam Speaker, it is a bit of a news flash that the Conservative Party has nothing against homeless people. I am pleased to hear that. I assume that party will therefore support Bill C-48, but I am somewhat skeptical about that.

There has been a lot of misinformation put on the floor of House by the hon. member and others. I want to bring to his attention that in the course of this government, program spending as a percentage of GDP has actually declined from something in the order of 17% to 12%. We in fact are holding the line at around 12% of GDP. Bill C-48 actually represents less than 1% of government spending and it is entirely contingent spending; in other words, if there is not a surplus, it will not be spent.

I want to make the point to the hon. member that this is a fiscally responsible approach to unplanned surpluses. In fact Bay Street has already looked at this and the dollar has gone up, surprise, surprise. Interest rates remain steady, surprise, surprise. Inflation has not jumped, surprise, surprise.

The people who actually look at these things and make decisions on what they are going to do financially with respect to Bill C-48, or Bill C-43 for that matter, have decided that this is appropriate spending.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, when we think of the G-7, and others have talked about Canada leading the G-7 in job creation, Canada is the only G-7 country to have a balanced budget. As a matter of fact this budget is the eighth consecutive balanced budget. This is not reflective of what the member repeated several times, reckless spending.

He talked about Bill C-48. Bill C-48 represents an increase of 1% in total spending. Why does he think that 1% increase in spending is reckless? Does he think assistance to post-secondary students is reckless? Does he think that spending on retrofitting low cost housing for environmental purposes is reckless spending? Does he think that spending on affordable housing so Canadians can have the dignity of a roof over their heads is reckless spending? I do not think so. I know the member. I know that he supports this budget.

Would the member at least recognize that there was a $100 billion tax cut that has been now fully implemented and now that our tax system is fully indexed Canadians are receiving a tax cut each and every year?

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak against Bill C-48.

I have heard a number of members in the House accuse the Conservative Party of not standing up for the homeless and for education. I want to make it absolutely clear that is completely misleading.

The issue before us today is a budget that was written on the back of a napkin in a hotel room somewhere in downtown Toronto with the perfunctory minister of finance, Mr. Buzz Hargove. It is difficult to understand who exactly is running the finances of the country when in fact billions and billions of dollars are spent just like that.

Without a plan we cannot vote for the spending of hard-earned taxpayers' dollars. The Conservative Party believes that the federal government should be the overseer and the protector of the funds that people lean on us to make decisions regarding.

The federal government should be responsible for things like international trade, the military, protecting the country's borders, but the Liberal government seems to want to interfere in every aspect of Canadian life.

The government wants to educate our children the way it feels it can do because it knows that parents cannot possibly raise their own children. The government wants to interfere with the family. It wants to tell us how to define our relationships and which relationships to have. It wants to interfere with the rights of religious freedoms.

The Prime Minister actually wants to be the premier of every province and the mayor of every city. The Conservative Party does not feel that is any way a federal government should operate.

The goal of the Conservative Party is it would like to see Canada in the highest of standards around the world. We believe that all Canadians who want a job should actually be able to get a job. We believe that Canadians should enjoy the economic growth that is the envy of the world. We have everything that we need to do exactly that, except a government with leadership.

We believe that moms and pops should go to bed every night knowing full well and feeling secure that their children will have access to a Canadian dream, any dream, a dream that I have not heard from the government in a decade, certainly not since I have been in the House representing my community of Cambridge.

We believe that children should be allowed a great secondary education, not just announcements, but action, a plan. We believe that they should have some money left to save for their retirement, not be robbed all their lives of their hard-earned dollars. Maybe, just maybe it is a dream, but just maybe they could have a little bit left over for skates or a one week summer vacation for their children. But no. What we see is a government that is so ramped on taxation that two people out of every family work, one of them just to pay the taxes for that family.

We feel very strongly that the social needs of Canadians must be met. We need to be responsible and recognize that there are Canadians who are less fortunate than we are.

However, approving the reckless spending, the unplanned and unchartered spending of $4.6 billion is not the way to do that. There is no adequate plan on a piece of paper that is not more than a page and a half long. Somehow it is about $200 million to $300 million per word.

Frankly, to be quite honest, it is not only irresponsible, it is actually very cruel to continue to make announcements without a plan or probably without any intentions of following through.

I would like to discuss what happens when the government makes spending announcements without any plan. The first thing that comes to mind is the knee-jerk reaction of let us get into spending money on a gun registry.

A plan would be what we saw with our cattle. We can register 40 million cows for $8 million, but apparently it takes almost $2 billion to register seven million long guns. We are talking long guns, because registration of hand guns has been around since 1935 and it has not done anything to resolve the shootings in downtown Toronto.

I do not know that there are duck hunters in downtown Toronto causing all that violence. I suspect that those firearms are hand guns that have been registered forever. Where are they coming from? They are coming across the border at the 200-plus border crossings without any security whatsoever. The government calls that smart borders; I call it completely inane.

What about the knee-jerk reaction at Davis Inlet? At Davis Inlet we saw children sniffing gasoline. The media reported it. It became a public outcry, which it should have been, but without a plan, what did the government do? It approved the spending of what amounted to approximately $400,000 to move those children, and what else? To move the problem. There were no solutions, just taxpayers' money. We need solutions, not announcements.

Nobody would build a house without a plan. What a disaster that would be to start digging the hole first, not even knowing what size the house would be and not even knowing how many bathrooms were needed, just a blank cheque. Canadians cannot afford that kind of lack of planning.

Probably the most known one is the sponsorship scandal. Some of my colleagues suggest that was not without a plan. There was a plan to funnel and launder taxpayers' money into the Liberal friendly coffers. Maybe that is true, but frankly, the plan was a knee-jerk reaction to get money somewhere and it ended up somewhere else.

We talk about infrastructure right now. The last time the Liberals put $6 billion into infrastructure was into something called the Canadian infrastructure works program at the beginning of the Chrétien government. Since we are going back into history, I know the questions I will get asked will be something about past spending in some government. We are not talking about history. We are talking about saving Canadians' dollars by controlling the fiscal recklessness of the government.

I hate to break it to the members opposite, but we cannot change history. Let us move forward. Let us do something different, because what they have been doing for the last decade has not been working. We have record lineups, but we have $41 billion announced for health care. Nothing has changed. Lineups have not changed.

What do we have in the Canadian infrastructure works program? We have $6 billion, and a lot of that money went toward private hockey arenas. It went toward bocce courts. Do not ask me if I have anything against bocce courts. That is just political rhetoric. Of course I do not. What I have a concern about is spending taxpayers' dollars in areas in which they were not designed to go.

The Conservative Party has nothing against the homeless, absolutely nothing. They need to be helped. They need our help. We have a problem with putting $1.6 billion into a program and not ending up with any extra beds. We have a problem with a program that has 97% administrative costs. How long does the government think that we will sit on this side of the House and give it a blank cheque to continue with its irresponsible spending habits? It stops now. Frankly, the buck stops here. We cannot vote for such reckless spending.

In my community of Cambridge, we have social programs like the Bridges and Cara's Hope. These are programs that are not funded in any way by the government, because the Liberals have too much money to blow on reckless spending.

We would like that the government get down to the business of making a plan, just as normal Canadians would have to do, and spending money on that plan. That is how we get a dollar for a dollar.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening in this place to discuss my views on and opposition to the proposed NDP budget Bill C-48. Like many of my colleagues who have already spoken to the bill and the many more who will follow me, I have deep founded, grave concerns about the bill and what it says about how we handle our finances.

Before I begin outlining my concerns, let me assure my colleagues and Canadians that I believe the financial goals of the House should be to give every Canadian the highest standard of living in the world. Our goal should be that every Canadian who wants a job should be able to find a job. Every region of our country should enjoy economic growth and prosperity, providing new and challenging opportunities for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

My goal is that every Canadian family should be able to look forward to a life of economic fulfillment. They should be able to dream big and achieve those dreams: education, a good job, a house, a family, a decent retirement. These are goals that all Canadians should be able to achieve, partly as a result of our stewardship of the country's finances.

However Canadians cannot achieve these goals. They cannot even dream about these goals when their federal government taxes them too much and spends too much.

The government has been on a relentless spending spree with one hand deep in the pockets of hardworking Canadians while the other throws money around with little concern for the consequences.

The Liberals always confuse spending money with finding solutions. They seem to believe that if they throw bags of taxpayer money at something and spin up a couple of good press releases everything will be made right.

In the past five years, program spending has increased by 44.3% from $109.6 billion to $158.1 billion. This growth is not sustainable based on our economic growth rate, which was only 31.6% for the same period. To put this another way, in 1996-97 real federal spending per capita was $3,466. It will have risen to $4,255 in 2005-06. Current Liberal and NDP spending plans will take it to $4,644 by 2009-10. That is a real spending increase of almost $1,200 per person.

Despite this incredible growth in spending, Canadians' issues are not resolved. Health care is not better. It is worse. Many seniors who worked hard all their lives are living in fear that the money will run out and they will be left freezing in the dark.

The most vulnerable in our society are not getting the handout that they need the most. In my riding, farmers are losing their farms. Most Canadian families require two people to work just to make ends meet and often one person is working just to pay the taxes. This is a crazy cycle that must stop.

However none of this will be stopped by Bill C-48. The bill is merely a blank cheque that allows the NDP-Liberal government to spend money as it pleases with no accountability to the people of Canada. If we look at the bill, we see that it is nothing more than a blank cheque bill to allow the government to continue to spend with no accountability and no due diligence.

Everyone in the House and Canadians in general are aware of the large disasters that have occurred as the result of the government's lack of due diligence in allocating large envelopes of cash to programs without strict guidelines and detailed plans in place.

The HRDC billion dollar boondoggle, the gun registry and the sponsorship program are the most highly visible examples of the kind of spending that is called for in Bill C-48.

However there are many other programs that have been designed by the government to help those Canadians most in need, the Canadians that Bill C-48 purports to assist, programs where the government has failed miserably in design and delivery, even with advance planning.

As a small business owner, I know that one cannot resolve an issue or a problem by throwing a large envelope of money at it. One cannot buy one's way to a solution to anything. Money may be the grease but the solution is always in the human elements, the details and the action plan.

The issue first has to be properly identified and defined. The solution has to be examined and the steps and stages to reach that solution must be worked out. As well, there must be a correct follow through process to ensure that the money that was spent, combined with the work, accomplished the tasks that it was supposed to.

Now I want to talk briefly about a program that was carried out in many communities across Canada and in a city right next door to my great riding of Leeds--Grenville. I am speaking about the supporting communities partnership initiative, also known as SCPI. This program was designed by the federal government and overseen by Human Resources Development Canada. It was designed as a program to help deal with the growing issue of homelessness across Canada.

In Kingston, Ontario, in the riding of Kingston and the Islands, over $700,000 was spent altogether on the first phase of this program. From the beginning of the program in that community some folks felt there was something amiss. Concerned citizens spent more than a year pursuing the details of this program after it was complete and being shut out by all concerned. Finally, after months of letter writing and public statements, they forced an audit.

Deloitte Touche was called in and what the firm found was shocking. In the City of Kingston, of the over $700,000 spent on the first phase of this project, only $26,733 actually found its way toward helping the homeless. That was a mere 3.8% of the money that was earmarked to help the homeless in this program.

Auditors had some other interesting things to say about the program. They claimed there were errors in the process, a lack of oversight and poor record keeping. Where have we heard all this before?

What is ironic about this entire process is that it was actually members of the NDP in Kingston and the Islands who screamed the loudest for the audit and who spent the most time explaining to the public how the government had failed to deliver what it had hoped because of poor planning.

Knowing that, I find it difficult to fathom how the NDP in the House of Commons could even support this bill, its very first finance bill. I have read the bill and it has absolutely no details except for the $4.5 billion of taxpayer money that is going to disappear into some hastily organized social programs. This has proven over and over again to be a recipe for disaster with the government.

I oppose Bill C-48. At report stage, members of my caucus attempted to improve the bill to make it almost palatable. They attempted to raise the amount of the surplus that would go toward paying down our national debt. This debt must be reduced to ensure we have the money we need for social programs in the future. They attempted to force the government to table a plan each year that would state how this money would be spent and how it would be allocated in this NDP budget bill. This seems a reasonable request.

Those people who stand to benefit from the spending would surely like to know what to expect. I join with my colleagues in demanding accountability, planning and transparency in government financing, and I join them in opposing Bill C-48.