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

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this two to three page document, although three pages may be stretching it a little, which would authorize the spending of 4.5 billion taxpayer dollars. I understand that it took up the back of a napkin under the leadership of the leader of the New Democratic Party and his finance minister, Buzz Hargrove, along with the Prime Minister who managed to put this little document together with no plan.

I have been listening to the speeches and I do not want to repeat a lot of things. I just want to say how pleased and proud I am of the member for Medicine Hat, the member from Peace River and our finance crew who worked on the finance committee and who talked about changing and raising the standard of living.

I have visited with several families in my riding. Some families have four kids and the mom and dad are struggling like one would not believe just to make ends meet. These families are trying to keep up a standard of living that is steadily going down and down. It is a real problem. Surely at this time of the year, following the income tax payments, members must realize how many constituents they have in their riding who are in serious trouble with Revenue Canada because they cannot come up with the extra money required to pay the taxes.

Taxes are killing us in this country. It is killing small business. It is hurting like crazy. It is slowing down that standard of living. I am proud of our boys who work in the finance committee. I am also very proud of our member from Red Deer who works on the environment committee and who has solid plans to present as to how to deal with these situations.

The government wants to spend up to $10 billion but I do not think it has a solid plan in place on where it is going to spend that. That is amazing. The Liberals talk about Kyoto and other things but it has no definite plan laid out as to how the money will be spent. They talk about throwing money toward the military. I am extremely proud of our critic on the military who just spoke.

I have been here 12 years and I look at the justice issues. For 12 years we have talked about a shortage of RCMP officers. I have 16 RCMP detachments in my rural riding and all of them are short of people. The penitentiaries in my area and in other places outside of my area are always short of personnel to take care of the penitentiaries. It is getting completely out of hand. Drugs and prisoners are in control of penitentiaries. Guards and personnel are slowly losing the battle. We do not seem to be interested in improving the situation with more personnel, better equipment and so on.

We have had very testy situations at border crossings since 9/11. How do we deal with this? The border closures made absolutely no sense at the ports. We know containers are coming in without being inspected. When I was at the Port Erie border crossing I watched trucks coming through and no one could tell me at the crossing what was on the trucks. They were coming into Ontario and being unloaded. A tracer was put on the truck but when the truck was found it was empty. They would issue a fine of $400 and send the truck back to the states.

We really have a shortage of people at our border and yet we are talking about protecting Canadians and the safety and security of our nation. One of the most elementary duties of our job in this place is to ensure we provide the country with laws that protect those very things.

I have been here for 12 years and we continue to talk about our children. Every year it comes up at budget time on how we are going to improve the situation. Child porn has been talked about since I came here in 1994. It has been a topic of conversation for nearly 12 years. It is improving somewhat but it is not because of what happens in this place. It is improving because of our dedicated police officers who are fighting it tooth and nail and doing an excellent job of it. I am very pleased with those people who are working in that category but we are not helping. We do not even have a national strategy with another international program to deal with child pornography. It is not getting better.

Age of consent is something that has been brought up in the House a number of times over the last 12 years. We want to raise the age of consent. They know that these are the things Canadians are looking for to happen. Why does it not happen? We are still debating this whole issue year after year.

Without a doubt, I do not think there is any member who would not believe it for a moment that drug abuse across the country is completely out of touch with reality. We have a number of people who are engaged in crystal meth. Very dangerous drugs are spreading like mad. Yet we still have no national drug strategy of any kind to battle this thing.

Our answer is to set up stations where persons can get their drugs, clean needles and everything so we can help them with their habit. Instead of helping them get out of the habit, we help them through bleach programs in penitentiaries.

I find it amazing when we look at the policies of Correctional Service Canada. It is zero tolerance for drugs. Yet every penitentiary in this country has more drugs in it than any street in any city in our country. We have talked about it for 12 years, but we do not accomplish anything.

We have come up with Bill C-48, the budget bill from the wonderful NDP which also has no plan. It is going to do something about education, housing, and correcting the situation on the reserves. These are good ideas and good things to do. I certainly support them and they are the top priority on our list. However, the members in my party, who work on these committees, have a concrete plan that they are trying to push forward. I see no plan coming out Bill C-48. I see $4.6 billion be spent.

Every year in the budget, we hear about money going toward education, housing, correcting the situation on the reserves, and the environment, but it is not any better today. It is still just as bad as ever. Where does all that money go? Where is the planning? Where are the procedures? Lay it out for me. Do I want people to live with a roof over their heads? Absolutely. Who would not want that?

I look at the waste. My goodness, there was a committee going around the world, and I think that has been stopped, spending lots of taxpayers' dollars trying to figure out what to do about prostitution.

Look at the gun registry. It has nearly a $2 billion expenditure and we do not have an accounting of exactly where that money went. Wait until that audit comes out. Do we think ad scam was bad? Wait until we get the audit of the gun registry. All of this has been going on for 12 years. Budget after budget have said the same things over and over, but it is no different. Out we come with another budget saying the same things and the NDP is trying to enhance it by saying the same things that have been said for 12 years.

Where is the concrete plan? When are we going to buckle down and use the money to get the job done instead of spending it on more bureaucracy? When are we going to get to the mean and potatoes, and start getting the job done? We cannot do it the way we are operating.

I just came back from my riding. I was even evacuated from my own house because of the floods. The flooding in Alberta is horrendous. Farms and ranches are under water. They are facing a real tragedy. What did I hear on the news this morning? The government is considering help. Considering, my eye. It should be an automatic thing. These are Canadians who are hurting. There is nothing to consider. It is time to sit down and determine what we are going to do for these people, but the government does not do that.

I went through four years of drought with the farmers in my riding. Not one penny ever reached them. They have gone through all kinds of BSE problems. The government comes up with program after program, but too many are not benefiting from anything.

Promises are going out and the bureaucracy is working to instigate these promises, but there is nothing happening. The agriculture industry is really in trouble, now that it is all under water, not just in Alberta but in Manitoba. The member from the NDP who spoke ought to be talking about the flooding and the tragedies that are happening.

I am so proud that the leader of my party has a vision for this country. That vision is loud and clear. That message will get out. One of these days every Canadian will see that planned vision. When they vote for Stephen Harper, it will be the best vote they ever cast in Canadian history.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the four initiatives identified in the NDP add-on are good initiatives. However when the Liberal government formed its budget, which we now know as Bill C-43, it chose not to include these initiatives. After consulting Canadians, businesses, labour, think tanks, et cetera on what the appropriate balance should be in the budget, the government chose not to put these $4.5 billion of add-ons into its budget.

The member asked me if we appreciate the investments in these areas. My answer is yes we do. However it is like asking me if I love my mother or if I love apple pie. Of course I do. However I also love my father and I love blueberry pie. It is a matter of choice. The government's choices are in Bill C-43. Bill C-48 is merely an add on to maintain power. The government needed to get the 19 votes of the NDP so it could stay in power. It was never the government's intention to spend moneys in those areas.

In addition, the $4.5 billion is essentially a pot of money. There are no programs. The government's record has shown that even when it had programs in place, the money was still wasted. Authorizing the government to spend another $4.5 billion at the whim of the governor in council gives it too much money.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I now have a chance to make my point on the amendment by the member for Medicine Hat. It ties in directly with the member's statements.

As members know, Bill C-48 prescribes spending of up to $4.5 billion but it is subject to achieving a $2 billion surplus. The amendment by the member for Medicine Hat increases that to $3.5 billion. Ultimately, what it means is that the intent and the areas of interest of Bill C-48, being foreign aid, the environment, post-secondary education and housing, continue to be issues which the Conservative Party chooses not to support.

Could the member explain to the House why he is opposed to, for example, increased investment in affordable housing so that more Canadians can have the dignity of a roof over their heads?

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as Conservatives we believe in a balance among fiscal responsibility, progressive social policy and individual rights and responsibilities. We also believe in the rule of law and the Constitution, especially the division of powers between the federal level of government and the provincial level of government.

In particular, we believe that the federal government should attend to federal responsibilities like trade, defence, immigration, the economic levers of the economy, et cetera. The provincial government should look after the delivery of health care, education, welfare, the issues of cities, et cetera. This conditions our approach to budgeting.

For too long, the Liberals, supported by the NDP, have interfered in the responsibilities of the provinces. They seem more interested in provincial matters than in federal responsibilities. That is why the management of immigration is such a mess, the armed forces have been allowed to decay, trade issues never get resolved, the fish have disappeared, air pollution never gets better, taxes remain high and our place in the world continues to diminish.

If the federal government attended to its own responsibilities rather than those of the provinces, perhaps it would deliver the efficient government the people of Canada need and want. If it continues on the current track of provincial and municipal interference, we will soon see the Liberal government delivering pizza to our doors.

The Liberals want to endlessly interfere in our lives and tell us what to say and what to do. Every problem is solved by a big, central, government-managed program. Their most recent idea is a national day care system that will cost between $10 billion and $13 billion annually.

I do not know how we will be able to pay for this, especially with the massive unsolved challenges of medicare. Why does the government not ensure that medicare is on a stable footing before committing us to another mismanaged government program? Why does the government not strive to improve the standard of living, which has not fundamentally changed for 10 years?

The Conservative Party of Canada believes in focusing on the federal challenges. Our vision of Canada is a country with the highest standard of living in the world, where every Canadian who wants a job should be able to get a job and where every region of the country enjoys economic growth and there are new opportunities for the people of those regions.

Our goal is to make Canada the economic envy of the world. The Conservative Party has consistently opposed the Liberal approach to spending without an adequate plan, which is reflected in Bill C-48. The Liberal approach is cruel not only to taxpayers, but more important, to those who depend upon the promised services. The Liberals are willing to spend billions of taxpayers' dollars to fund their addiction to power. This is a direct result of the loss of their moral authority to govern.

If we look at Bill C-48, a document of a mere two pages, we will see that it essentially seeks authority for the government to spend $4.5 billion without identifying any particular program that will justify the spending. This is reminiscent of the $9 billion in trust funds set up by the Prime Minister when he was finance minister. Members may recall that these funds are beyond the review of the Auditor General. We have no independent knowledge of how these funds are being spent.

Given the problems that arose because of the sponsorship program, we can only imagine what potential disasters await Canadians when some day in the future we are provided with all the details. That is why we as Conservatives are worried about authorizing the government to spend $4.5 billion without any identified program. Who knows where the money will be actually spent and how much of it will be wasted?

As well as worrying about waste, we also wonder why the government dramatically amended its budget, Bill C-43, which had been developed over many months. In fact, when it was briefed in Parliament we were told that it could not be changed. It was described as something like the rock of Gibraltar. The government considered any suggestion of change unacceptable and a matter of parliamentary confidence. However, when the NDP offered a lifeline to the government, the budget was dramatically changed, without the blink of an eye. It is obvious that for the Liberals power trumps principle any day.

As part of the hotel room deal, the government promised the NDP its $4.5 billion wish list and agreed to remove corporate tax cuts from the previously unchangeable Bill C-43 budget. Both of these actions are unfortunate because it reflects that the government did not have any real commitment to its own budget and, therefore, the credibility of the finance minister has certainly been diminished.

As well, the deletion of corporate tax cuts, while maintaining a pitiful $16 personal tax cut, shows a government that is not interested in improving productivity. It is only interested in maintaining power regardless of the consequences to the economy.

However the government's commitment to the NDP wish list is less than complete. Members will notice that rather than amending Bill C-43 further, the government chose to create a new budget called Bill C-48. I assume this was done because the government did not have complete confidence that the NDP wish list would ever be implemented and that the government did not want to impair its budget, Bill C-43, with these add-ons.

Bill C-48 looks like it was written on the back of a cigarette package. The lack of details regarding specific programs, combined with the Liberals' poor record on delivering value for money, provides little guarantee that the objectives of the bill would be met, that taxpayer money would be spent properly or that Canadians would be better off.

It would be irresponsible and cruel to Canadians in need to throw more money at programs that are not meeting their objectives. The responsible approach would be for the government to first ensure that the money is spent effectively to improve existing programs and services to ensure that nobody is left behind.

The government has reverted to its type, tax and spend. For years it has taken in far more revenue than it needed. Year after year it overtaxed Canadians claiming that having large surpluses was somehow something wonderful. It is not wonderful. It means that every Canadian is paying more in taxes than is required to provide government services.

Since the Prime Minister assumed power he has been looking for ways to spend surpluses rather than transferring tax points to the provinces or reducing corporate and personal taxes. It is as if he and the finance minister believe that overtaxing citizens is one of our national values.

The change in approach of the Prime Minister toward the budget is quite dramatic. He and his government keep touting their efforts during the Chrétien years. Since he has moved from finance minister to Prime Minister, I believe we are seeing his real attitude toward governing. He believes in big government and big bureaucracies. He believes that government should spend the maximum amount of Canadians' hard-earned money. Canadians are overtaxed and that overtaxation is sucking jobs and initiative out of our economy.

The federal government is growing at about 6% to 7% per year while the economy is only growing at about 3%. The five year budget projection of the Liberal government, including the NDP add-on, continues this excessive expansion into the future. Anyone with a basic knowledge of economics knows that it will either drive the federal government into deficit or will require ever increasing income and corporate taxes from Canadians.

While the government is spending at obscene rates, the provinces and the cities are starving for revenues. If the government needs to find additional ways to spend its excessive revenues, like the current NDP $4.5 billion add-on, perhaps it could transfer tax points to the provinces so they can do the job more effectively.

If this country is to have a bright future, the government has to stop wasting money. It has to tighten the tax burden on all Canadians, especially those at the bottom of the economic ladder. It has to let Canadians spend their own money on things they need rather than the government spending it to buy power.

I believe that Bill C-48 is unfocused and potentially wasteful spending. For that reason, I will vote against it when it is presented for approval.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not want to have to shout to be heard over the caterwauling and the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments by my colleagues with the Conservative Party, but I will point out that the Conservatives have the worst track record in history: the deficit went from $100 billion to $500 billion. It is a good thing that Mulroney was booted out when he was or this country would have been irreversibly bankrupt.

It is a huge contradiction and it is a tragic irony for us to have these guys suggesting fiscal management policy to those of us who actually know what balanced budgets are all about. It is part of our policy, for heaven's sake.

All the spending in Bill C-48 is within the context of a balanced budget that includes $2 billion to debt repayment as well and tax breaks to small and medium sized businesses. There is very little to criticize here, which is why the Conservatives find themselves with very little to say. They are sitting on the sidelines. They are irrelevant, more irrelevant than they have ever been in Canadian history, because in actual fact the issues that they stand for are out of vogue. Neo-conservatism has had its heyday and now it is yesterday's news.

In actual fact, the very things that the NDP was created to fight for are the top of mind issues of most Canadians: security, pensions and poverty reduction. All of them are issues about which Canadians now are asking. What about our quality of life and what about our environment, they are saying. Frankly, those are the things that we stand for and that our party was created to fight for.

The Conservatives are irrelevant because the things they were created to do in their most recent incarnations are no longer in vogue and they have abandoned their grassroots policy. They now have embraced 35 senators and Bay Street to the point where they are really just corporate shills. I cannot tell the difference between a Conservative corporate shill and a Liberal corporate shill. There is no difference: Liberal, Tory, same old story, right? It rhymes.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Evidently, Mr. Speaker, when this individual travels his riding he is not paying a lot of attention to what is happening to normal families and the taxes they pay, or to the overcharges happening to businesses when two people have to run their own business because they cannot even afford to hire people anymore. The taxes are outrageous in this land. Corporate tax cuts spread throughout the economy would help a great deal, but I do not want to go there because arguing about taxes and spending with a New Democrat is like beating my head against the wall.

According to the NDP, Bill C-48 proposes wonderful solutions for education and for housing, particularly the problems on the Indian reserves with housing, et cetera. Over 12 years I have seen the same thing in the budgets: money for housing, for education and for corrections to problems on the reserves. Things are going to be better, say the Liberals every year.

In my opinion, the Liberals have failed every year to meet the commitments they always make to improve things. These things still exist and they are not any better. In fact, on the reserves it is probably worse now than it was in 1993 in many cases. In regard to poverty, children's poverty was at the level of one million in 1993. Now it is at 1.5 million. Taxing and spending does not seem to cut it at all.

What makes the member so confident that the Liberal government will end up supporting the proposals put forward by the NDP when in the past we have not been able to trust it to keep any promise?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to pick up where I left off the last time Bill C-48 was before this House. I will try and limit my remarks to wrap up the comments I put on the record last week.

Let me simply restate how very proud I am to be a New Democrat member of Parliament today in that in Bill C-48 we are doing something constructive for the people of Canada. We are, as a good opposition party should, taking advantage of a minority Parliament situation, all according to the rules, all within the parameters of a balanced budget. We are moving our legislative agenda forward.

That is a virtual civics lesson for the members opposite. I find that all we see with the official opposition is those members standing on the sidelines shaking their fists, gnashing their teeth, rending their garments and trying to tear down what we are trying to build up today.

I had to watch the late night debate on Thursday that went until midnight where speaker after speaker not only were loaded with misinformation about the reality of this balanced better budget, as we are calling it with the NDP's influence, but they were trying to state that they have an alternative.

All that is being offered by the 98 members of the Conservative Party, and it used to have 99 members but it now has 98 members, is negativity and a negative influence. Canadians are sick of that. Maybe that is why the Conservatives are plummeting in the polls because all that people hear from the official opposition is “Tear it down”. “Burn baby burn” seems to be their motto these days.

On this side of the House, I am proud to say the New Democrats are putting forward realistic, reasonable arguments that the social spending should be increased, so that the surplus in taxpayers' dollars actually gets directed toward taxpayers. There is a very grassroots sensibility to this. I am surprised that the people who used to call themselves the grassroots party do not see the contradiction. They are objecting because we interrupted yet another tax break for corporate Bay Street.

We left in the tax cuts for small and medium size business. That is another piece of misinformation the Conservatives are guilty of. In actual fact, the balanced budget that is before the House today has tax relief for small and medium size business. It has debt repayment. It has spending on affordable housing, post-secondary education, the environment. This is good news for ordinary Canadians.

The Conservatives have missed the boat. They are misreading the mood of the public out there. After eight surplus budgets in a row, we want some spending to go to taxpayers again. There is no rule that every bit of surplus has to be shovelled dutifully to Bay Street. That is where those guys as corporate shills do not get it.

On behalf of ordinary working Canadians, I am proud that we managed to use our political leverage and political influence to make some gains for ordinary Canadians. Let us spend our money on our needs at this point in time in Canadian history.

I am very proud to be here to speak in favour of Bill C-48. I hope it achieves speedy passage. Then we can all go back to our ridings and tell people that we used this opportunity to do something for them for a change.

Committees of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, I would seek further clarification. I distinctly heard the hon. parliamentary secretary ask the Chair whether he was rising to continue on the debate on Bill C-48. It was obvious to all that is what he intended to debate, not the concurrence motion by my colleague from Newfoundland.

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

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate on Bill C-48. I realize we are getting close to question period, so I will try to make my remarks brief and make the most of this opportunity.

I honestly believe that people watching today, whether they are present physically or watching on CPAC, are in for a bit of a treat. Not only has the debate been of a very civil tone today--and it has not always been civil in recent days; last night was something that no one should be proud of--but they are also having an opportunity to watch a minority Parliament work as it should.

This is an interesting lesson in history. It is an interesting observation. What we see in Bill C-48 is the manifestation of the cooperation that has typified this minority Parliament. The NDP has used its political leverage, as a good opposition party will, to advance our agenda with the ruling governing party. It is almost a civics lesson in how it is supposed to happen. I have never been more proud to be a New Democrat. In the eight years that I have been here, the last six months have been the most gratifying and satisfying in my short political career.

I am here today with my colleague from Ottawa Centre who has lived through the experience of minority Parliaments before, with great success I might add. It gives me an enormous sense of pleasure and pride to stand today with my colleague from Ottawa Centre present in the House to relive that experience. I honestly believe, without any partisan politics involved, that minority Parliaments are good for Canadians. History and the empirical evidence bear that out. We are experiencing that again today with Bill C-48.

My colleague from Edmonton--Sherwood Park made a very good speech. He started it with an interesting observation, as he often does, about the role of an opposition party in a parliamentary democracy. I think he would agree there is another role for an opposition party in a minority Parliament, and that is to advance the agenda of that opposition party to the best of its advantage within the rules. It is a good thing for Canadians that there is more diversity in the intellectual dealings of this House, in that the ruling party, by the nature of a minority Parliament, has to do more consultation and more cooperation. Consultation in the strictest sense of the word means accommodation of what the government members have heard as well. There cannot be consultation without accommodation of the points being heard.

We are proud to stand here today and say that the ruling party, the Liberal Party, has accommodated the legitimate concerns of the New Democratic Party. That has manifested itself in Bill C-48, and I am delighted to be able to say that. I say it with great pride and modesty as well. Canadians have made their views known. The whole neo-conservative agenda, well, I will not even go into that. I do not want to be partisan today.

In the few moments that I have, I rise simply to celebrate the fact that we have managed to turn the political agenda back to the interests of ordinary Canadians, all within the context of a balanced budget. I want to emphasize that again and again, because last night, laying in my bed watching CPAC and watching some of the speeches by the Conservatives, I felt like putting on my suit and tie, coming down here and challenging some of the misinformation. They would have people believe that our agenda of adding some social spending to this year's budget in some way is going to break the bank. Everything is within the context of a balanced budget and that is in fact the historical record of most NDP governments.

I do not have to remind Canadians that the most wasteful, spendthrift government in Canadian history was the most recent Conservative government. That is when the national debt ballooned to $500 billion.

[Gérard Asselin, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this morning, we must speak the truth. Bill C-48 is before us today because the NDP introduced an amendment to the budget, Bill C-43. The Bloc Québécois voted against Bill C-43 and will be voting against Bill C-48, too, because the Liberal Party and the NDP failed, during their negotiations, to address the fiscal imbalance or make improvements to the EI fund.

The fiscal imbalance is affecting all the other provinces in Canada, and not just Quebec. In order to achieve zero deficit, the former finance minister—the current Prime Minister—slashed federal transfers to the provinces. This led to problems in health care, education and municipal infrastructure programs. These are areas under provincial jurisdiction.

At no time did the NDP consider in Bill C-48 the demands of Quebec. Yet their candidates in every riding in Quebec, even Pierre Ducasse in the riding of Manicouagan, are wondering why the Bloc Québécois voted against it.

I agree with the member when he says that the Liberal Party and the NDP were complicit. First, we have to face facts; the Liberals agreed to the NDP's amendment for fear of having to face an election. But we have to remember that the vote on the budget is also a confidence vote. We were unable to have confidence in this government after the whole sponsorship scandal and the revelations at the Gomery commission. Furthermore, in my opinion, EI should have been a priority in the budget. The unions have condemned this failure.

I want to ask my Conservative colleague the following question. If the Liberals had had a majority, does he believe they would have considered the NDP's amendment and injected an additional $4.5 billion into the budget, that they would have suddenly taken an interest in social housing and allocated additional funds for the environment? If this had been a majority government, does he think that they would have listened to the NDP and allocated additional funds in the budget?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak in our Parliament. One of the primary functions of Parliament is, and has been since Parliament was invented, to carefully administer and to be a watchdog for the expenditures of the king.

Of course we have the king over on the other side there, wandering around handing out billions of taxpayers' dollars, and with this bill, Bill C-48, once again he would have an unfettered ability to spread that money around. I think that we as Canadians ought to be terribly concerned about this kind of legislation that permits the finance minister and the Prime Minister to do all of these things without accountability.

We have been made so aware in this country in the last four years or thereabouts, with this ad scam thing, that to spend money out of a grand scheme and a big fund, without a detailed plan and without accountability, is just a recipe for disaster.

I would remind all the members here and all those who happen to be listening around the country that ad scam happened because there was actually a hidden fund called the unity fund. It was not even specifically stated; the government did it sort of on the sly. Money was allocated from this so-called unity fund. The Auditor General subsequently reported that there were huge amounts of money, over $100 million, for which she could see no evidence, no paper trail, no justification for spending the money, or even a record of where it had gone.

Now we are in a place where this government is currently under investigation by Judge Gomery as to all these illegal and I would say criminal activities, because taking money that belongs to others is called theft; and that is exactly what this government has done.

Bill C-48, in this little collusion affair between the Liberals and the NDP just in order to buy their votes, sets up exactly the same kind of scenario. I would be very concerned if I were a member of the Liberal Party or the NDP supporting this and saying, “Here is where we want to go”. It is going to hang on their shoulders. Hopefully, when the Canadian people wake up and see what is actually happening here, it will pull them right down to zero.

I did a little calculation and I made an interesting connection, that is, the 19 votes that were bought with this $4.5 billion works out to pretty well as much per vote as the cost of an election, at around a quarter of a billion per vote. The money the Liberals have spent per vote, for those 19 votes, would buy an election. In other words, the money that this deal cost is equal to the cost of 19 federal elections. That is amazing.

Of course we know that the money that is allocated is for what the NDP and the Liberals think are good causes. I would venture to say that I, as a member of Parliament, a Canadian citizen and a representative of the people in my riding as well as one who is looking to the well-being of all Canadians, would favour the programs that they are talking about, but the way this is being done is absolutely untenable.

If these were good, important programs, and they are, then why did the finance minister not put them into his budget speech?

Do members remember way back in the old days that when information from a budget was leaked it would precipitate the resignation of the Minister of Finance? That was not so terribly many years ago.

Now not only do we have the total speech being leaked in advance, but we also have this bizarre scene in which the speech the finance minister gives on budget day has become meaningless. I think this is a tragedy, because as for what he said on that particular day with respect to the government's anticipated plans for taxation, the receipt of money, and the expenditure of that money, all the money that is to be put into the various government programs, that plan turns out to have been nothing but a giant hoax.

There he was saying it, but when we tried to propose amendments, we were told that it could not be done. For the record, we actually tried to influence the budget in advance and frankly were quite singularly rebuffed. When we tried after the fact to propose amendments, we were told very clearly that it could not be done, that the speech the finance minister gave on budget day is what is going to be.

In fact, that is how it has always been.

What did we find two weeks later? The government was facing extinction. It was on the endangered species list. There was all this garbage that we were getting from Gomery. There was all the evidence that showed there was so much criminal activity not only on the front benches of the government but also in the Liberal Party itself, which is the root of the government. As a result, Canadians were saying that they were going to turf those guys. Bring on an election, they were saying, we are going to replace them because they are not worthy to run our country.

What did the Liberals do? First of all, they ignored some votes in the House. We had I believe five votes, two of which were explicit non-confidence votes. I remember, Mr. Speaker--and I am going to do it now because when the Deputy Prime Minister did this it was not shown on camera and Canadians did not know this--that when we had that vote of non-confidence and the Liberals lost that vote of non-confidence, the Deputy Prime Minister made a gesture like this one: “So?” That is exactly what she did: “So?” In other words, a vote in this place does not matter, she was saying, we will just ignore it.

So doctor democratic deficit killer over there, the Prime Minister, does not believe in democracy. The Liberals lost five votes and then, finally, in order to make sure they won one, they had to entice one, and tried to entice more, of our members to cross over. We know they cut a deal with the Minister of Human Resources, because she landed up over there and she is in cabinet. The evidence is there. There was a deal cut. It happened.

Now they have tried to cut a deal with the NDP and the NDP has bought into it. I cannot believe that the NDP would be willing to prop up this corrupt government at such a huge price.

I am simply saying that Bill C-48, the bill we are debating today, is the government's attempt at trying to look, at least formally, as having fulfilled a deal that was made between those two guys, in the hotel in Toronto, with the candles burning and the soft music playing. It was absolutely incredible.

I need to say a little more about this. Right now we are debating this at what is called report stage, and I imagine this is not significant to many people, that is, Bill C-48 was passed here by a slim majority at second reading with the NDP's help and the other shenanigans that the Liberals pulled in order to entice votes. It was passed at second reading. It went to committee and the committee dealt with it.

The committees are supposed to scrutinize legislation. The finance committee did this. It proposed a number of amendments. What do we have today when we are dealing with report stage? All we have to do is look at today's order paper where these amendments are spelled out. I am going to read a very small part of them. Motion No. 1, which we are now debating, is basically this:

That Bill C-48, in Clause 1, be amended by restoring Clause 1--

That is because the committee in its wisdom deleted clause 1 of the bill and reported it back to the House. Where is the democracy? Where is the process of the committee? Why is it not being paid attention to?

Instead, the committee reported the bill back to the House and that arrogant Liberal government simply brought back an amendment saying that anything the committee has done, it will undo. Once again, the Liberals have the purchased votes over there and will probably get it to pass.

It is the same for Motion No. 2:

That Bill C-48, in Clause 2, be amended by restoring Clause 2--

In other words, the committee took it out. The government says it is going to put it back in. It says, “We have these bought votes over here and we will just put it back in”. Democracy just goes poof, out the window.

The Prime Minister ought to hang his head in shame. He ran for the leadership of his party. He ran as a potential prime minister of the country in the last federal election as the person who was going to address the democratic deficit. At every stage he is doing the opposite. Meanwhile, Canadians are suffering because of the lack of a fiscal plan that would put Canada on a solid footing, which is where it ought to be.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to address the House on this bill.

Unlike the opposition, I congratulate the New Democrats who listened to voters and got down to business in this Parliament by putting the priorities of Canadians first. In a minority government, government initiatives do not necessarily always get support from Parliament; negotiations are needed.

These negotiations must certainly be done in a reasonable manner that successfully puts the priorities of Canadians first. I think that is what the New Democrats managed to do. If the other opposition parties did not manage to do this, then too bad for them.

The New Democrats recognized that the government should focus on certain priorities it had announced in the previous budget and in the Speech from the Throne. Not enough progress had been made in these priorities to get the NDP's support for Bill C-43. They invited the government to address these matters and that is how we ended up with Bill C-48.

If we look at what we get in Bill C-48, we get some phenomenal advancements of Liberal priorities. We get them a little faster than we had proposed to bring them forward, but I am very glad that we are doing it. I am very glad and I congratulate the New Democrats for bringing them forward and making a minority Parliament work.

If we look at simple questions such as education and the importance of education for our society and culture, we will see what we have done. The opposition always points to what has happened over the last 12 years, all the failures and all the problems that are still out there.

I invite the opposition to look at the successes. We have to look at what we have done over these last dozen years and how we have advanced the priorities of Canadians. I remember when the big question was the brain drain. This was happening when we had young Canadians, professors, engineers, and all sorts of technicians and professionals going overseas to find work. Now they are in Canada; they are coming back. Our graduates are finding work in this country. Jobs are being developed in this country. These professionals are developing our society. They are evolving our society and they are participating in it.

Further, we are getting professional people from all over the world. They are coming to Canada for an opportunity. A big concern now is that we are having to invest in the recognition of foreign credentials. We should do that because it is a very good thing. The government is putting $75 million toward that objective. We have a lot of capacity out there. We have people from other cultures and other countries who want to participate in the miracle of Canada and in developing our society.

This is a big change from the brain drain that we experienced. We have put huge investments into research, such as the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the millennium scholarship, the research chairs, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to name only a few. There is an incredible amount of money being invested in our country. What these investments have meant to our university sector has been phenomenal.

However, there is something lacking, and I have spoken about this in the House on many occasions. It is the ability of Canadians to fund their own education and participate in the affairs of our society. We have done a lot of work. We have raised the bar. We have instituted some programs to help those with problems through education bonds for the less wealthy in this country. We have looked at student loans and how to assist people who are having difficulty paying back their student loans. We have multiple levels of assistance.

There are families in my community that might earn just enough that it makes it difficult for them to access loans and bursaries. There are people who think that the debt burden will be too high and that they should not consider university or certain levels of training. It is appropriate that we make an investment in this area. We must start helping students and institutions. If we advance Bill C-48, it will be a great thing that we are doing for future generations and the current generation.

I will be visiting high schools, as I did this spring. I will be going to two graduations next week if the House rises early enough, and I certainly hope it does. What pains me the most when I talk to these people with huge potential, is that they tell me that they are choosing a particular course of study because of the cost or because of the chance that they will get a job right away and not have a big debt burden.

I do not think there is any bad course of study, whether vocational, technical, university or going directly into the workforce. I have no problem with it, as long as it is the true hope and desire of the students and not impacted by their financial limitations. If Canadians want this country to advance, then we must ensure that we free up all the potential of our current and future generations. It cannot be based on their parental financial status. It must be based on their dreams and aspirations. To invest in students is an incredibly good thing. I am very pleased that we are advancing that Liberal priority and bringing it forward.

Some members opposite will say that tax breaks are the answer to everything. We have given an incredible amount of tax breaks. We have reduced the tax burden on Canadians by $100 million. We have also reduced EI premiums. There are plans for future reductions. That does not do it for everybody. It is important that we bring people up and that we raise the bar for individuals as we bring them forward.

We must look at the question of homelessness in this country and the causes. I do not think tax breaks will do it. Homelessness needs a social investment. It needs a partnership between our urban communities, rural communities, the provinces, the federal government, and the non-governmental organizations. We must look at the capacity that is out there to invest in our economy and for all our citizens to be inclusive, so that the problem of homelessness does not keep growing.

I live in a rural community. We do not see homeless people in my community. They are not visible. People do not make a lot of money as squeegee boys on concession roads, so the ones who have problems for one reason or another, who cannot quite cut it in our economy, end up moving to the urban centres like Montreal, Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver.

If we want to stop that pyramid effect, it is important to look at what programs we have for people who are at risk of being homeless in all communities across this country. We have made very good investments and to make further investments is a very good idea.

Another very good area to be investing in is affordable housing. I have many seniors in my riding who live in old stock houses. These large homes are very difficult to maintain. The services in rural areas are not necessarily the ones we would have in urban centres. Services such as home care, access to doctors, hospitals and even access to a grocery store can be a problem.

If we were to use our imagination and look at the question of affordable housing and homelessness in a global perspective to see how we can assist, I would see great potential. In rural Nova Scotia, one of the things that I always suggest is having enriched housing programs for seniors where they can have independent living, but if services of professionals should be required, they should be available as they are in homes for special care.

If we were to make those types of investments, if the provinces were to use their imagination and we partnered with them, we would free up a lot of old stock housing in our communities for young families to come in and provide very good, secure opportunities for our seniors. If we were to do that, we would have raised the bar quite considerably.

Regarding foreign aid, sometimes people from my community ask, why are we investing billions of dollars in sub-Saharan Africa or in South America or Central America, or China, or anywhere while we have problems at home? I suggest to them that foreign aid is not completely a benevolent act. There is an element of advancing the Canadian cause and within that there is a huge advancement. If we were to assist these countries in reaching their potential, they could become trading partners. If we were to assist these individuals and their families to have a better and positive future, we could reduce the political strife, violence, terrorism, and perhaps all those other problems.

If we were to assist in matters such as health care in those countries, for example, reducing AIDS, and assisting communities torn apart, families torn apart, whole civilizations destroyed or cultures destroyed by a scourge of illnesses similar to that, I think we would being doing some good for the whole world. As Canadians we are lucky to live in the best country in the world, but we are not here alone and we must help to build the whole globe in order to advance it further.

The environment is a very important issue to me. The opposition will say that we have not done enough for the environment. When I came here in 2000, we were told there was no problem related to global warming. Now, we are being told that we may not be doing enough on this issue.

In any event, environmental issues are important. We have implemented infrastructure programs and worked with the cities and the provinces. We have seriously raised the bar in our country and we must continue to do so.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-48 does not have a plan, which is why the Conservative Party is objecting to it. It was a plan that was created over a weekend. This is it. It is one page, oops, on a napkin. Where did that come from? Canadians demand better than one page on a napkin.

All we are saying is that $4.5 billion, without a plan, makes it very clear that Canadians are being overtaxed. Canadians do not trust the government because of its 12 years of mismanagement, and it has to change.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr.Speaker, I am sure anyone listening to that recognizes it as political rhetoric that does not relate in any way, shape or form to the facts of the matter at hand.

Bill C-48 represents three significant priorities for Canadians and it demonstrates the fact that we have a minority government and as a minority government, we negotiate.

The member knows full well that in the original budget our government negotiated with his party and other parties to incorporate some of their priorities into the budget. The original budget reflected that. Subsequent to that, other negotiations took place and, indeed, an amendment was made in the form of Bill C-48. What does it represent? It represents housing for the poor. It represents money for post-secondary education. It represents international aid and development.

Does the member oppose money for those who need low cost housing? Does he oppose money for post-secondary education and to relieve the tuition burden on students? We recognize that tuition fees are a problem and we are working with the provinces to solve the problem. Does the member oppose money for international aid and development to help those who are the most underprivileged in the world? If the member is opposed to all those things then he should come out and say that.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak right after the prayer for our country. I regularly get phone calls, letters and cards saying that Canadians are praying for this Parliament to have the wisdom to do the right thing.

I am one of the members of the rookie class, elected almost a year ago, but I came here not being a rookie to serving our community. I served as a city councillor for 14 years, almost 15 years now. Over those 14 years in municipal government, we would wring our hands and work hard on the budget, and I will speak on the plans in Bill C-48.

Months were spent in deliberations, trying to be accountable for every dollar in local government but it became increasingly difficult. Over the last 12 years, the dollars became more and more scarce. The finance minister of those days, our now Prime Minister, squeezed and pulled more and more money out of provincial and local governments with the plan to save more money for the federal government.

At the time I was first elected, 50% of the money to fund health care came from the federal government. Now it is only 20%. That is just one small example. It continues to be difficult.

Now that finance minister is the Prime Minister, the difficulties in local government for our citizens, our taxpayers, continues. I supported Bill C-43. That was our budget and consultation had gone into it. It was not a budget with which everybody was particularly happy but we could live with it. We did not want to call an election over it so we supported the bill.

However, along came Bill C-48. Why are we having the debate on Bill C-48? We had a crisis in Parliament because of the corruption and sponsorship scandals. A cloud was hanging over the government. A flurry of offers and deals were being made in an effort to bolster the government. Without the help of the NDP, the government would have fallen. Over the weekend, on a napkin deal, we had Bill C-48.

Bill C-48 does not involve planning. It does not involve consultation. It involves a backroom deal, a napkin deal, that does not represent the wishes of Canadians. Our responsibility is to serve Canadians and to be extremely accountable for every Canadian tax dollar that is sent to Ottawa. Bill C-48 does not represent that. It is a plan that was concocted with no thought or consultation. It is a plan where $4.5 billion will be given to the finance minister to spend at his discretion. How can anybody support that? Canadians do not support that. They want accountability and we do not see that in the government. We do not see that in Bill C-48. When I say government, it is basically a coalition government of the Liberals and NDP.

When I thought about the two parties, I wondered what we would call the Liberal and NDP if we were to mix the two. We would probably end up with the nibble party, a party that nibbles away at Canadians. It is not a party that we and Canadians would be proud of.

Without accountability, Canadians do not know what is going to be done with that money. Do Canadians trust the track record of the last 12 years of the government? They do not.

Part of the $4.5 billion funding in the bill is to go toward the environment. Are we supposed to trust the government to spend it on the environment? Again, it is a promise that over the next many years there will be funding for the environment. For 12 years the government was supposed to do the right thing for the environment but over the last 12 years pollution levels have continued to increase, not decrease.

What about the Kyoto plan? This party said that Kyoto had some merits but that it was not good enough. Canadians are demanding better. Yes, we need to deal with carbon dioxide and the effect on global warming. We acknowledge that but we need better. Kyoto only deals with the carbon dioxide effects. We need to deal with the particulates, the pollution. Every year, hundreds of Canadians are dying prematurely because of the high pollution levels.

Over 12 years, has anything happened there? No. Just a few months ago, even after the 12th hour and pressure from this party to come up with a plan, we finally received a plan. However the plan shows that it will be very difficult to achieve the targets and it is Canadians who will have to help solve that problem. A plan that says the targets will be very difficult to achieve is not a plan. The plan will involve going back to Canadians for more money. With Bill C-48, $4.5 billion of overtaxation will be taken from the Canadian taxpayers.

How do we meet those Kyoto targets dealing with the pollution? We will have to increase energy costs. Canadians are furious over having to pay approximately $1 a litre for gasoline and gas prices that fluctuate daily. However as the government starts implementing the Kyoto plan, the money to buy those carbon credits, the billions of dollars, will be coming from the Canadian taxpayer for energy costs. We are looking at $2 to $3 for a litre of gas with this no-plan.

We still are not dealing with the pollution. Even after 12 years, the government is still allowing raw sewage to be dumped into our oceans. It is unacceptable and Canadians want that stopped. The Liberals have had chances to stop it and they have not. The fact is that the NDP had a chance to clean up the raw sewage being dumped into Victoria Harbour but it did absolutely nothing. Maybe this unholy alliance really is not that uncommon because their values are very similar. They both accept dumping raw sewage into our oceans as an acceptable environmental standard. Canadians demand better.

Canadians demand better for health care. A number of seniors in my riding of Langley have come up to me demanding respect and demanding health care. A number of these people have been waiting for a hip replacement for over four years. That is not acceptable.

What this party is demanding is accountability and Bill C-48 does not provide accountability. Canadians do not support this plan and they do not support the rush to have Bill C-48 go through.

We need to have more consultation. At the committee stage of the bill the Conservative Party offered a number of amendments that would have improved the bill but they were not accepted? Why were they not accepted? Because the Liberals wanted to rush Bill C-48 through with no accountability, just trust. They are asking Canadians to trust them. Canadians do not trust the Liberals and they are telling us not to support Bill C-48.