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

[Gary Carr, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member may know, I was Speaker of the Ontario legislature. I definitely know the rules and I was going through you, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member. I will always say “through Mr. Speaker”.

Mr. Speaker, through you, I ask the member, and I want to be very clear, Mr. Speaker, through you, what part does the member not agree with in Bill C-48?

[Gary Carr, Liberal, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the hon. member that people believe we will do it because of the things that we said in the last election, thinks like health care, with $41 billion, and the child care program with $5 billion, which we said in the election campaign we would do and we have. Tomorrow there will be an announcement in Richmond Hill, close to my area of the country. The Prime Minister will announce the money for the gas tax. That is what we said we would do in the election. Those are three of many things.

What part of Bill C-48 does the member not agree with? Is it the $1.6 billion for affordable housing? Are you against affordable housing? Is it the $1.5 billion going to post-secondary education? Can you tell me how you can go against giving $1.5 billion more to post-secondary education? There is $1 billion for the environment. Is the member opposed to helping the environment? Finally, there is the $500 million for foreign aid. I say very clearly to the member and all members, what part of that do you not agree with?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to continue with my speech on Bill C-48.

The Liberal government has had 12 years to implement a lot of the wish list that the NDP put forward in Bill C-48. I am wondering how the NDP feels assured that any of this is going to happen. The timeframe speaks to the fact that there will be an election before any of this actually comes to pass, so how does that party feel that this is going to carry over?

Daily we see the leader and other members of the party rising and questioning the Prime Minister and ministers on the front bench as to the very issues that the NDP are asking for in Bill C-48. I do not think the New Democrats feel reassured that they ever will come to pass. There was a kind of deathbed conversion by the Prime Minister to stay alive, at least until the summer recess and into the fall by buying the NDP favour over there.

Those members make a big thing that we sat on our hands at second reading of Bill C-43. I feel a lot more content sitting on my hands than using my hands like the NDP members used theirs to prop up the most corrupt government in Canadian history.

The papers are now saying that $5.4 million ended up in the Liberal Party coffers and the Liberals have set up a $750,000 trust fund to pay that back. That has not happened since the loaves and fishes. They are going to have to pony up a lot more money than $750,000, if it ever did show up.

I guess there is going to be a fairytale ending to this. Canadian taxpayers will be relieved to see that none of this is going to come to pass. An election will put an end to all of this and we will get on with a government that will use taxpayers' money in a proper way, that will rise to the challenges that face governments in this country.

Business of the House

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

Mr. Speaker, our principal legislative objectives continue to be Bill C-43, the third reading vote of which will take place after question period, and Bill C-48. The government believes these bills reflect public interest and the enactment of both of these bills is required before the House adjourns for the summer. As the hon. member mentioned, if the House does not pass Bill C-48, we will be here in July and August. Consequently, we will continue to give these bills priority until they are disposed of.

We will then consider report stage of Bill C-38, the civil marriage bill; Bill C-25; Bill C-28; Bill C-52, the Fisheries Act; Bill C-47; Bill C-53; Bill C-55, the bankruptcy bill; and Bill C-37, the do not call legislation.

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

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the second half of the Liberal budget bill, Bill C-48, that the NDP and the Liberals put together in the dark of night in a hotel room to save the government basically. It is not outside the realm that this is basically an IOU. There are only 19 people in the country who believe that IOU will ever be fulfilled and they sit at that end of the chamber. For $260 million a vote, the government bought a little more time. That is really what Bill C-48 does.

The finance minister of the day had made statements in the media. When we questioned the original budget and said we would support it but wanted to see some amendments done in committee, and we talked about some of those amendment, the finance minister went on record at that time with a bit of a rant saying that there was no room for any amendments. This was the most complete budget. He was not going to change a thing. Nothing was going to persuade him to change or tweak anything in the budget. He is on record saying that a number of times.

Not long after that we suddenly get an edict from the Prime Minister, without consultations with his finance minister, saying that the Liberals were going to add another $4.5 million worth of spending in programs that they already agreed with. They did not put them in the original budget but they certainly agreed with them.

There is a problem with that. If that type of thing had happened to the now Prime Minister when he was Chrétien's finance minister, he would have gone berserk. He cut the legs out from underneath his finance minister. The finance minister of the day will tell us straight to our faces that he has not got legs to spare. He is already height impaired. To cut the legs out from underneath him like the Prime Minister did to buy votes is just unconscionable in this country. That is $260 million a vote.

Canadians will assess before the next election and during the next election as to whether that was a good use of taxpayers' money. I would argue that it was not and not anywhere close.

This is a modern day fairytale. I do not know how many years ago the old fairytale of Jack and the Beanstalk came out. The bumbling guy, Jack, on his way to town traded off the family cow, the cash cow, for a few magic beans. We have the same situation here. We have Jack bumbling on his way to Ottawa, trading off the cash cow, taxation, on a few magic beans, some promises that will never ever be fulfilled. It is an IOU, as I said.

If we want to talk about the Prime Minister standing behind his IOUs, then we want to talk to Premier Danny Williams. We want to talk to Premier Hamm of Nova Scotia and find out how that Prime Minister lived up to his IOUs. We can also talk to Premier McGuinty in Ontario as to how the Prime Minister and his finance minister are standing up to their IOUs. We can talk to any province across the country that had their health and social transfers cut by $25 billion. We can ask them how the Prime Minister then finance minister stood up to their IOUs. They will all tell us that their track record stinks.

Now we have more IOUs piled up. We have 19 people here who believe this. They swallowed it hook, line and sinker and it does smell fishy. When we look at all of the things that are outlined in the bill, they are holding the so-called corporate tax cuts for big business in abeyance. They did not kick in for four to five years to begin with. We needed the cash flow from that in order to pay this type of wishful thinking, this budget that is never going to happen.

The NDP members love to rant and rave about how they stopped the tax cuts for big business. Yet we had the leader of the NDP stand in the House last week decrying the fact that General Motors, one of these big businesses, is going to pull out of Canada because of productivity. It cannot make a go of it here because the regulations and taxation are too high. Yet his own budget is the thin edge of the wedge that is pushing big companies like that out of the country.

We cannot have it both ways. When we flip a coin there are two sides. The NDP members say it is going to land on its edge and they can have the best of both. It is never going to happen.

The NDP members say that these promises that are in the bill cover everything on the NDP wish list. They completely missed agriculture. They talk about being there for the little guy. There is absolutely nothing in the Liberal-NDP budget to address agriculture.

We talked about putting amendments through on Bill C-43 to address the shortfall in agriculture. The government programs do not hit the mark and do not get out to the mailboxes on the farm. Therefore the NDP missed on that one.

There is nothing for shipbuilding. Members of the NDP stand here day after day decrying shipbuilding in this country while the Prime Minister gets his done in China at discount rates, yet there is nothing in here about shipbuilding. There is nothing for seniors. There is nothing in here addressing the problems we have with the equalization formula.

It is fine that the NDP made this backdoor deal in the dark of night with Buzz Hargrove and the Prime Minister, but it missed the mark. The NDP could have built on Bill C-43 and instead it is going to tear it down. The good news is that we put through an amendment that $2 billion of the debt has to be addressed in the next two fiscal years before any of this takes place. That is the poison pill, and by putting through our amendment to make it $3.5 billion, this will thankfully never happen.

We need to see some common sense applied in this place and it is not in this particular budget. We sat fast and allowed Bill C-43 to go to committee. That is the right thing to do. Canadians had to see what was in there. We talked about amendments. We brought it back to the House. It is better than it was. It is still not good enough for Canadians because we also see the finance minister agreeing with us that Canadian productivity is lagging.

How do we address that? We do that by taking the boot off the necks of taxpayers, letting them do what they do best, and produce things in this country that we can export. We are an exporting nation. This bill will be regressive. I could never sit on my hands or not vote against this type of a bill.

There is good money going after bad. The government talks about money for housing. Everybody agrees with that, but we spent $2.2 billion in the last little while with no benchmarks that there has ever been any positive effect. We are going to add another $1.6 billion. I can hear the toilet flush now. There has to be a plan.

The finance committee brought four of the ministers who will be involved in this before the committee. None of them could say how this money will be spent. Where is the plan? There is nothing in the original budget other than a big bill for the environment, but no solid plan other than the Kyoto accord which everybody knows is a flawed document.

We are seeing good money flushed after bad in this one. Jack got the magic beans, but they are not going to grow. As I said, it is just a major IOU. We have economist after economist and all the major banks decrying this. We have the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, that represents big, medium and small sized businesses, saying this is ridiculous.

We have become a laughing stock to the rest of the world because of this type of economic action. If any of this was reasonably good to begin with, why was it not in the original budget? Greg Weston in the Ottawa Citizen says:

In practice, here is how the money will flow -- or more likely, won't flow: First, nothing can flow anywhere until the government determines if it has a surplus--

The government is great at spending that surplus, so there is no surplus. There never will be any money to address this and these guys fell for it. They sucked it all up and said, “Look what we did”. They sold themselves out for an ideal that the government will never ever respond to.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP has said that it supports a national system of child care and early learning. I think it is interesting that Buzz Hargrove of the CAW, a major proponent of this, authored Bill C-48, along with the leader of the NDP and that group over here. They left child care out of the agreement.

The CAW's estimate for a national system of child care is $10 billion to $12 billion a year. This is important, because the members were talking about fiscal forecasts, how many surpluses are still ahead of us and how big these surpluses will be. This national system of child care would produce a $10 billion a year funding black hole.

Bill C-48 is going to eat some of these surpluses beyond $2 billion or, if our amendment is successful, $3.5 billion. That means less money available for national child care and early learning.

I have a question for the NDP and my colleague opposite. Are they giving up on national child care to get Bill C-48? Or do they want the high taxes, program cuts or deficit spending that will be necessary to pay for child care? Which principle are they giving up, fiscal prudence or child care?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, St. Croix—Belleisle, NB]

Mr. Speaker, there are lots of good things in Bill C-48, provided the government can afford it. One thing one has to remember in this place is that people very seldom argue with spending money on particular programs. There are always a lot of self-interest groups. I guess we are part of them because a lot of that money will be spent in areas we like.

It comes down to corrupting the process of budget making in the House. Remember, we supported the original budget, Bill C-43, brought in by the finance minister. We believe in a minority government we have to do the best we can, put a little water in our wine and hope we can allow the government, which is about a year old, to proceed and not defeat it.

That goodwill was thrown out the window when the whole process was corrupted. After the finance minister delivered his budget, the Prime Minister flew to Toronto three or four weeks later. He made a side deal with the NDP to the tune of $4.5 billion and the finance minister was left completely out of the loop. In most cases like this a finance minister, with any backbone or integrity, would have simply resigned because the entire process was corrupted. That is the point I am attempting to make.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been hearing speeches about Bill C-48 ever since this morning. Not long ago, we were debating Bill C-43. Even before Bill C-43 was introduced, numerous meetings were held among the various party leaders and the various finance critics.

I understand very well, although the ordinary taxpayer does not, why this government felt obliged, after all the time it had before tabling its budget, to hold these panicked negotiations with another party when it did bring in the budget and began to feel the impending threat of defeat. The NDP negotiated this agreement, partly because it too needed to avoid an election, not being able to afford another campaign, but also to build up its credibility. The bulk of its financial backing comes from the labour movement, and the workers have been totally neglected. There is not one red cent in it for the unemployed.

I have a question for the hon. member from New Brunswick whose riding is close to the Quebec border. He might in fact find it advantageous to look toward Quebec. My question: apart from the measures in favour of the oil and gas industry and the automotive industry, what else is there in Bill C-48 that is worthwhile?

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, St. Croix—Belleisle, NB]

Mr. Speaker, where do I begin on Bill C-48? Perhaps I should just pick up where the member from Nova Scotia left off.

I was jotting down some notes in thinking of how to start off this debate. Government should be about addressing the real needs of Canadians as opposed to the political needs of the party it represents; in this case the Liberal Party of Canada.

The parliamentary secretary is yakking away on his side of the House. I would expect him to at least listen. When it is his opportunity to speak, I will listen and we can debate it back and forth. However, his yakking over there does not really add much to this place.

I would question whether the real needs of Canadians are being met in Bill C-48. The member from Nova Scotia set out some of the areas in Nova Scotia where a little of money could make a big difference in terms of jobs and stability in our agricultural sector, research and so on.

I want to point out some of the same issues in the province of New Brunswick where a little money could make a lot of difference.

Some of these we could argue are not a little money but a lot of money. For example, there is the refurbishment of Pointe Lapreau. The Government of Canada has said that it would assist the refurbishment of Pointe Lapreau. It is a $1.5 billion expenditure. Most of it will be borne by the Province of New Brunswick and the utility, the New Brunswick Electric Power Commission. They are asking the Government of Canada to come in with some assistance. The number that is being thrown about is somewhere between $200 million and $400 million. We are not sure what it is going to be, but we are hoping the Government of Canada will be there.

It could have been there, but when one goes on a wild spending spree with no plan for the future, as Liberals have done, the question becomes, how much money is going be left over for those programs and spending priorities that should have been there in the first place?

In addition to that, we have an aquaculture industry in New Brunswick. I know, Mr. Speaker, you are familiar with that, coming from the west coast which has a significant aquaculture industry as well. To restructure and get through some difficulties the industry has experienced through new fault of its own in the last number of years, it needs somewhere in the order of $60 million is required. That is way short of a billion dollars. Just to remind the House and Canadians a billion is a thousand million.

I was making some notes before I came to the chamber because it is kind of interesting when we actually measure. How much is a billion dollars? A thousand million. How much is a thousand million? It is normally not the kind of change we are familiar with. It is a lot of cash.

I invite members to carry out this research, but they will have to believe me on this one. A million dollars is two metres high if it is being counted in $100 bills. If we had $100 bills stacked on top of each other, it would be just about my height. Therefore, think of this as a billion is a thousand million. Therefore, a billion dollars would be 2,000 metres high, about a mile and a half high in the sky. Talk about pie in the sky.

Therefore, when we are talking about almost $5 billion, we are talking about a 9,000 metre high pile of $100 bills stacked on top of each other. I believe Mount Logan is the highest mountain in Canada. It would dwarf Mount Logan. I am sure it would dwarf the tallest building in your riding, Mr. Speaker, with a lot left over to spend.

That is the point that I am making. It is a lot of money that has been just thrown out there for nothing more than political support. It is a life jacket for the Liberal Party of Canada. Basically, it bought off the NDP with a lot of money, $4.5 billion. On top of that, it could be argued that the member for New Brunswick Southwest is on a political mission. We probably all are on a political mission.

I want to go back to what has been reported in the national press in terms of this $4.5 billion spending spree. I quoted from an article written by Jacqueline Thorpe, in which she quotes what some of Canada's chief economists have said about this. She has saying that this is a deal makes no sense. I will quote an another article that appeared today. She says:

The NDP deal, for example, funnels federal spending specifically to post-secondary education and training, affordable housing and energy conservation, areas that provinces would have funded through federal social transfers--if they so wanted.

The government is out on a patchwork, hodgepodge spending spree simply to get the support of a political party in order to survive a vote on the floor of the House of Commons. It boils down to the fact that the Liberals simply do not want an election. However, it is costing every Canadian and it is costing the credibility of the Government of Canada.

When this same government lost power in 1984 to the Conservatives, it bragged. I believe it was Jean Chrétien who authored these words when the Liberals left office in 1984. He said, “There's nothing to worry about, because we left the cupboard bare”. The Liberals bankrupted the country when they left office, knowing it would be very difficult for the next government to get its financial house in order, given the level of bankruptcy in which they left the Government of Canada.

The Liberals brag about what they have done in terms of managing the economy. However, most Canadians know that the deficit has been eliminated. That is fine. We know how that was done and we will not argue the point today. We will give them credit for that. Obviously they did it because of the growth in the economy, because of free trade and because of the revenues flowing in from the GST.

What the Liberals do not talk about is the accumulated debt in the country, which is still approaching about $500 billion. In terms of interest charges, that is costing Canada today, as we speak. Every time we pay interest on that $500 billion accumulated debt, which we still are, it costs every Canadian.

This is one of the lines that our finance critic came up with and it is quite clever. I know the Liberals hate to hear this, because he is much more clever than they are. He says, “The Conservative Party will clean up government, but the Liberals want to clean out government”.

That goes right back to the same old philosophy of the 1980s: “Spend it because we're in power. Forget about the future of Canada, forget about what we could be doing with that money”. This is absolutely irresponsible spending at the hands of the Liberals. They simply do not deserve to be re-elected when an election takes place. This is simply a lifeline that they are throwing out in order to survive votes in the House of Commons. They basically bought the NDP. They bought 19 members of Parliament to the tune of $4.5 billion on a plan that was written on the back of a napkin, courtesy of Buzz Hargrove, in a hotel room in downtown Toronto. That is just about as sad as it could possibly get.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, North Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member says that this does not refer to Bill C-48, but as a matter of fact in every way it does. There is no community in our country now that needs more help than the agricultural community. What is in Bill C-48 about agriculture? Nothing. It is absolutely incredible that there is nothing in Bill C-48 and the only thing in Bill C-43 is that the government is going to cut back on research. It is going to cut back on its help to the agricultural community. It is not going to help the farming community. This has everything to do with it.

As far as the Comptroller General is concerned, I do not even have to go there because the Liberals' own cabinet expenditure review committee questions the decision to close the Nappan farm. It said, “we don't even think it will achieve the savings”. Their own internal documents say, “we question the savings that are presented by the officials”.

I come back to the memo to the deputy minister which says, “This could demonstrate exemplary behaviour”. Is the member proud that this is exemplary behaviour. Is firing 14 hardworking people and closing the Nappan Experimental Farm when it is most needed what he calls exemplary behaviour?

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's speech and actually found it quite interesting. Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with what we were talking about today which is Bill C-48. I am rather hoping that the hon. member has read Bill C-48. His colleagues apparently have pointed out that it is a rather short bill. I am hoping that some time prior to the delivery of his speech he read Bill C-48.

I want him to comment on the remarks of Charles-Antoine St-Jean, Comptroller General of Canada, who in his notes to his remarks says that Bill C-48 would provide enabling legislative authority to ministers; that Bill C-48 is unique in that this is the first time that spending authority would be provided that is subject to there being a minimum fiscal surplus; that this represents a prudent approach to fiscal management; that in addition, it provides a $4.5 billion cap on spending; that in advance of year end, it also provides more lead time to determine the specific management framework; and that everything is subject to Treasury Board approval prior to March 31.

Having heard those comments, and I hope having read Bill C-48, I wonder if the member would think the Comptroller General of Canada is giving substantial approval to the frame of this bill.

[Bill Casey, Conservative, North Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-48, perhaps not for what is in it, but for what is not in it. I also want to mention Bill C-43 because of what is in it and what is not in it.

Bill C-43 was delivered as a good news budget and everything was great, but a line item in Bill C-43 indicates that the government is going to close the agricultural experimental farms in Canada. Four experimental farms are going to be closed at a time when farmers need more help than they have ever needed before. They need more research, more help and the government is quietly going to close the farms. I was hoping that those farms would come back in Bill C-48 but they did not.

I want to talk about the farm in my riding as it applies to Bill C-48. Nappan Experimental Farm has been in my riding since 1880. It has been a cornerstone of the agricultural community. It has been part of our lifestyle in the maritime provinces. It is located in the exact geographic centre of the Maritimes. The Liberals have announced they are going to close it. What is their reason? They gave us the reason of cost saving.

Before I get into that, I want to acknowledge that the Cumberland County Federation of Agriculture has made an incredible effort to try to stop the decision to close the Nappan Experimental Farm. Those people have put the rest of us to shame. They have dropped their farming needs and all the work they have to do and have gone at this with a vengeance. They have circulated a petition on which they have obtained 2,667 signatures. I will be tabling that petition eventually.

I want to congratulate the president of the Cumberland County Federation of Agriculture, Frank Foster, the secretary, Marilyn Clark, who did a lot of the work, and board members Carl Woodworth, Leon Smith, my friend Kurt Sherman and all the other members. They have done an exemplary job. It is extraordinary what they have done in spearheading this and I take my hat off to them.

I also want to thank my local newspaper which has done a great job in raising this issue. All the media in the area have been very supportive in every way. They have helped us a lot. I also want to thank our agriculture critic, the member for Haldimand--Norfolk, for her tremendous support, and our leader for the efforts to stop the closure of Nappan Experimental Farm.

We were blindsided. We were told at one point that the farm was not going to close. It was not that long ago the government said that there were no plans to close the farm and that everybody could rest easy. Two months later in the budget, the government announced that it was closing the farm. The Liberals did not tell anybody. They did not have a press conference.

I want to compliment the Amherst Daily News on an article it published yesterday. In her article “Whatever happened to Ottawa's commitment to farm?” Sandra Bales describes how just a few years ago a Liberal senator came to the farm and announced that the government was spending $500,000 and made a total commitment to the farm. She describes it as a hot day in the summer. The senator was holding a press conference at Nappan to hand out $500,000 for the Nappan federal beef research station. She describes how communications officers were handing out press releases, and how the personal assistants to the politicians were handing out business cards.

There was a big flurry when this was announced, but in February, after the Liberals had said a couple of weeks earlier that there were no plans to close the farm, they did not come to the riding. They did not come to the farm. They did not tell anybody. They called in the staff at the Nappan Experimental Farm and gave them their walking papers while the minister was reading the budget speech. I think that was so offensive.

Sandra Bales of the Amherst Daily News points out how, the Liberals will come to the region in a big flurry with their assistants, business cards and press releases when they have good news, but when they are firing people, they hide in their ivory towers of Ottawa. That was the way she said it. I thought it was an excellent article and I compliment her. I could not have said it anywhere near as well.

First I want to talk about the decision to close the farms. Our critics and our members of the agriculture committee recently were questioning the minister who acknowledged, and it is written up in the The Western Producer , that the effort to centralize decision making on budget and research for agriculture is wrong and he has agreed to review it. He said, “I have asked for, and it is being done, a review of how we approach science in the department”. He is already acknowledging that the system that makes decisions is flawed. Overall the whole system that makes the decisions is flawed.

Now I will talk about the decision regarding Nappan. I was told that they had to cut it because they needed to cut costs to maintain research. I believe them for what they say, but I made an access to information request and did I ever get a surprise when I got the information. Not only am I surprised, I am angry. The decision was made for wrong reasons. Obviously the department is in disarray, in chaos. The reasons are inconsistent. I want to read a few things from this access to information.

In an internal memo, 11 Department of Agriculture officials go through all the reasons they are going to save money and the justifications and then it says that all of this casts some doubt on the savings but scientists are saying that this will be guaranteed.

They are saying it is going to save $250,000. It is $250,000 and they will not do it. I noticed in the paper the other day the Liberals are spending over $402,000 on the legal fees for Alfonso Gagliano, but they will not spend $250,000 on research for the agricultural community in Atlantic Canada. Even internally they question the numbers and the savings. It goes on and then on another page of this document from two years ago exactly, they announced:

[The Department of Agriculture] has made a long-term commitment to the future of the experimental farm and has no intention of closing it. Last year, we invested $800,000 to enhance [the facility].

Last year the government spent $800,000 and now the government says it is going to save some money, but even the department doubts that.

The most offensive thing in the access to information is a memo to the deputy minister. It says:

Purpose. To inform you of an opportunity for [the Department of Agriculture] to demonstrate leadership on Expenditure Review. The department wants to discontinue the research at its experimental farm in Nappan.

And get this:

This exercise could demonstrate exemplary behaviour with respect to Expenditure Management Review (EMR) and position [the department] as a leader.

The government is closing the Nappan Experimental Farm to make the department and the officials look good. I cannot believe it. Exemplary behaviour in the Liberals' point of view is firing 14 people and closing down a farm that has been serving the agricultural community for over 100 years. To position the department as a leader is not what this is about. This is about agriculture. It is about research. It is about science and it is about the future. They are trying to impress the expenditure review committee, but on another page the expenditure review committee is reluctant to accept that position.

Some of them say they are going to save money. The department says they question that. The expenditure review says that they do not believe it, that they do not accept it, but the department wants to do it so the department looks good. That argument about saving money does not hold water.

There are other things that are totally inconsistent in this document which really make me angry. I was told that research was going to go from one place in Nova Scotia, Nappan, to Kentville in Nova Scotia. Throughout this document it says that research on forage and diets and meat quality currently at Nappan could move to Lacombe, Alberta. In another place it says:

Nappan is one of the four original experimental farms created by legislation in the 1880s. Research here could be shifted to Lacombe, Alberta.

Then in another part it says:

The beef research from Nappan would move to the University of Guelph at New Liskeard.

My point is that the department does not know what it is doing. It does not know whether it is saving money. It does not know if it is not saving money. It does not know if it is going to move the research to somewhere else in Nova Scotia, or to Ontario, or to Alberta.

The minister has already agreed that the process is flawed. I contend that the decision on Nappan farm is flawed as well.

I met with the minister today. I asked him to stop this decision, to put a moratorium on the decision. I asked him to allow the people to have input, which they were denied totally. We were told on December 8 that the farm was not going to close. There was a great big headline in the newspaper, “Nappan station to stay open”. Then two months later in the budget the Nappan research station is to close.

We should have an opportunity to present a case for the Nappan Experimental Farm. It has been a key component of the agricultural community in all the maritime provinces. It is absolutely necessary more now than ever, as is the beef research more necessary now than ever. I am asking the minister to put a moratorium on this closure until he knows what is going on. I do not think he knows.

The information that I gave him this morning was the first time he had seen it. I take total, absolute exception to the department saying that this is exemplary behaviour and if it closes Nappan it will show the department as a leader.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to remind the member that selective media commentary does not tell the whole story in most cases.

If the $2 billion surplus can still be provided, and the $4.5 billion in the areas outlined in Bill C-48 can be delivered upon, the spending of the Government of Canada would still remain in the range of about 12% of GDP, which is the same level. We would remain at the same level of spending compared to what the last Conservative government was spending, which was 17% of GDP. It is clear that fiscal prudence and proper fiscal management are in place with this government.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what my Liberal colleague had to say, and he completely forgot a few details. When he said that what the Liberal Party wanted with Bill C-48 was to govern in cooperation with the NDP, it is simply not true.

The Liberals have formed an alliance with the NDP in order to stay in power. They are not interested in governing, they are only interested in staying in power. We have seen all kinds of legislative sleight of hand in the House to put off legislation, to disregard certain situations such as unemployment and the fiscal imbalance. Votes have been bought. That is the Liberals' trademark. They do not want to manage and administer ideas that are not even their own—these are NDP ideas. They have engaged in flagrant opportunism in order to cling to power.

I would not be afraid to go to my riding or Quebec and say how this government is much more attached to being in power than to really governing.

I therefore ask the member, if there was so much openness, why did the government forget the unemployed and ignore the fiscal imbalance, which is the cause of all the socio-economic problems in Quebec? Why did his government not take advantage of Bill C-48 to include these things, which are essential to the Quebec economy? Why?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate briefly in the report stage debate on Bill C-48. I wish to remind members of the issues.

The member who previously asked a question said there are no plans on how to spend the $4.5 billion. It would be somewhat inappropriate to come up with micro plans on every dollar and penny when in fact the spending of the $4.5 billion is contingent upon making sure that the provisions for fiscal responsibility are respected. That means we are not going back into deficit and, indeed, keeping the $2 billion contingency.

Having said that, the bill specifically identifies the plans. The first is in clause 2 for the environment, which the member opposite said there was nothing stipulated for, including public transit, the energy efficient retrofit program and low income housing in an amount not to exceed $900 million. The second would support training programs and enhance access to post-secondary education and benefit aboriginal Canadians in an amount not exceeding $1.5 billion.

The third addresses affordable housing, including housing for aboriginal Canadians, in an amount not exceeding $1.6 billion and the fourth provides foreign aid in an amount not exceeding $500 million. All of this, as the Bloc member tried to be critical of, is subject to the dollars being available in excess of the $2 billion surplus.

Having said that, in terms of considering their position on Bill C-48, members have to ask themselves whether or not the priority areas for Canadians regarding the environment, affordable housing, post-secondary education and foreign aid are important to Canada in terms of additional initiatives in those areas. There is no one issue I can think of where one could do everything one would ever want in one budget. These are all incremental. They are steps and they are important.

It is going to be extremely important for those who do not support Bill C-48 to identify with which portions they disagree. Would they go out in an election campaign, for instance, saying they are not going to support the environment, affordable housing, foreign aid and post-secondary education? I do not think anybody in this place is going to tell the people of Canada that these are things they do not support, to what extent and are they fiscally prudent.

I want to address the point the member just mentioned about it not being in the budget. The member is absolutely right. Bill C-48 is an expansion of the budgetary initiative that we are prepared to support. They would have been done eventually by us, although maybe not in this budget. One has to look at a series of budgets to see the priorities.

Bill C-48 exists because we have a minority government. I would suggest to the member opposite that if we did not have Bill C-48, June 26 would have been election day and he probably would have lost his seat.

The reality is that in a minority government, which there has not been since 1979, there is a responsibility to collaborate, cooperate and negotiate as necessary to ensure that Parliament works. Bill C-48 is the linchpin to ensuring this Parliament works. We in the Liberal Party want government to work. The NDP wants the government to work, but it is the unholy alliance of the Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois that do not want Parliament to work.

It was through the collaborative efforts of those who want this minority Parliament to work on behalf of Canadians not to spend or misspend $250 million to $280 million on an unnecessary and unwanted election.

It is the responsible thing to do to show Canadians that a minority Parliament works. I am proud of the decisions that were taken by our party and I very much support Bill C-48.