Bill C-28 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006

Part 1 implements the following income tax measures proposed or referenced in Budget 2006:
–       the new Canada Employment Credit;
–       the new Textbook Tax Credit;
–       the new tax credit for public transit passes;
–       the new deduction for tradespeople’s tool expenses;
–       a complete exemption for scholarship income received in connection with enrolment at an institution which qualifies the student for the education tax credit;
–       the new Children’s Fitness Tax Credit;
–       a doubling, to $2,000 from $1,000, of the amount on which the pension income credit is calculated;
–       an extension of the $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption, and various intergenerational rollovers, to fishers;
–       the new Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit;
–       a reduction of the current 12 per cent small business tax rate to 11.5 per cent for 2008 and to 11 per cent thereafter;
–       an increase, to $400,000 from $300,000, of the amount that a small business can earn at the small business tax rate, effective January 1, 2007; and
–       a reduction of the minimum tax on financial institutions.
Part 2 implements the proposal in Budget 2006 to lower the income tax rate on large corporation dividends received by Canadians.
Part 3 implements the proposal in Budget 2006 to reduce excise duties for Canadian vintners and brewers.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

moved that Bill C-28, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak to Bill C-28, which is the fall budget implementation bill. The measures in the bill are positive. They continue with the legislation with respect to implementing budget 2006 which I had the honour to present in the House on May 2.

Broad based tax relief is provided by this budget bill. It is wide-ranging tax relief for Canadians. There are a number of budget items in the bill, including the exemption for small brewers and vintners; the Canada employment credit; the deduction for tradespeople's tool expenses; and the capital gain extension for fishers to $500,000 lifetime which is very important for fishers, particularly in Atlantic Canada and on the west coast. The bill also includes the textbook tax credit which will help students; the exemption for scholarship and bursary income; the children's fitness tax credit; and the tax credit for public transit, which has important environmental benefits. The bill also includes the changes with respect to corporate dividends; doubling the pension income credit from $1,000 to $2,000; the small business increase from $300,000 to $400,000 effective January 1, 2007, assuming the bill passes; and the apprenticeship job creation tax credit. The bill also includes a number of other initiatives that are steps forward in terms of equitable treatment for Canadians in many walks of life.

The original budget implementation bill, which has been passed, served as a launching pad for the development in the coming months of a strong results-focused agenda for a more competitive, productive Canada. Budget 2006 represents the first part of our government's commitment to put government spending back on a sustainable track over time, to restore fiscal balance and to improve Canada's competitiveness.

Budget 2006 lays the groundwork for future budgets, while providing real benefits for all Canadians today.

When the new government was elected in January of this year, it was expected that we would be more accountable as we said we would be and that we would treat Canadians' hard-earned tax dollars with respect.

Canada's new government has kept its word. We said we would introduce legislation to improve accountability and we did. We said we would crack down on crime and we did.

We also said we would cut the GST and we did by a full percentage point effective July 1 this year. We said we would reduce personal income taxes and we did that too. We also cut corporate income taxes for small, medium and large businesses, something other governments, including our predecessor government had promised to do but failed to deliver.

We are leaving more tax dollars in the pockets of Canadians to be used to make the decisions that are right for them and their families. We have ensured that Canada will be a country of opportunity by investing in families and communities, education, security and infrastructure.

We have done this in a way that is fiscally responsible by paying down the debt, including the third largest debt payment in the history of Canada a few weeks ago of $13.2 billion. This will free up about $660 million of money that otherwise would have been paid in interest. Taxpayers' money that would have been used for interest payments now will be available for other spending priorities or for tax reductions from year to year to year and year after year.

We have been containing government expenditures. The President of the Treasury Board led the initiative and made the announcement of $1 billion in expense reductions for this year and for next year. This is part of what will be an ongoing program of expense management control dearly needed by the Government of Canada on an ongoing basis.

We have our goal of delivering the greatest value for taxpayers' dollars, including program review of course. We want to make sure that programs that are ongoing continue to fulfill the mandate for which they were created, and if not, then not to continue those programs.

This bill contains measures that will improve the quality of life for Canadians. It introduces the Canada employment credit. This is an issue with respect to which members hear often, that people who are self-employed have certain advantages in terms of deductions. The Canada employment credit will extend that to take into account the reality that many people who work and who are not self-employed have expenses that might relate to uniforms, safety gear or home computers, the kinds of things that are necessary for their particular work. For some Canadians, particularly lower income Canadians, these additional costs sometimes impose a barrier to joining the workforce.

The Canada employment credit is a new employment expense tax credit for employees' work expenses. This credit has been administered as of July 1. On a full year basis it provides tax relief on employment income of up to $500 in 2006. Since it came into effect mid-year, working Canadians could receive a credit of up to $250 for 2006, that is for the half year. The annual amount of employment income eligible for the credit will double to $1,000 effective January 1, 2007.

Budget 2006 significantly increased the amount of income that employed Canadians can earn without paying federal income tax, together with increases to the basic personal amount. By 2007 that amount will be almost $10,000.

The Canada employment credit will make work more attractive, particularly for lower income workers. It also will put employees on a more equal footing, as I said, with the self-employed in terms of the tax recognition they receive for the expenses they incur to earn income. This measure is expected to reduce the taxes paid by working Canadians by $890 million in 2006-07 and by more than $1.8 billion in 2007-08, a significant part of the $20 billion in tax reductions contained in budget 2006.

With respect to businesses in Canada, including the job creation engine of small business in our nation, Canada's new government recognizes that working Canadians are part of the foundation of Canada's economic growth. Another crucial component of that is the business community. We have taken steps to help ensure that Canadian companies can compete with the world's best.

The budget implementation bill passed before the House rose last summer proposed a plan that would reduce the general corporate income tax rate from 21% to 19% by January 1, 2010. That bill also eliminated the corporate surtax for all corporations in 2008 and totally eliminated the federal capital tax as of January 1, 2006, which is two years ahead of schedule.

Bill C-28 builds on those measures by proposing a reduction of the current 12% small business tax rate to 11.5% for 2008 and to 11% for 2009. It is important to note that this bill also proposes an increase to $400,000 from $300,000 of the amount of income that a small business can have taxed at the small business tax rate effective January 1, 2007.

Bill C-28 improves equity in the tax system by providing capital gains tax relief to fishers, which I briefly mentioned previously, including an extension of the $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption and an intergenerational rollover for fishing businesses. I certainly heard a great deal about this subject from hon. members in the preparation of the budget, including, of course, my colleague the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. This initiative will provide this important industry with the same tax treatment of capital gains as is extended to farmers in Canada.

In addition to accelerating the elimination of the federal capital tax in last summer's budget bill, Bill C-28 proposes to modify the minimum tax on financial institutions to reflect the growth of that sector since the tax was introduced. Bill C-28 proposes that effective July 1, 2006 a single tax rate of 1.25% apply on taxable capital employed in Canada over $1 billion rather than the two tier system that is currently in place for financial institutions with taxable capital in excess of $300 million.

Bill C-28 also proposes to eliminate the double taxation of dividends from large corporations at the federal level.

There is an important provision in the bill with respect to pension income. Canada's new government is fully aware of and grateful for the contributions made by our seniors in Canada. A deduction for the first $1,000 in eligible pension income was introduced in 1975. The deduction was converted to a non-refundable credit in the 1987 tax reform.

However, the maximum amount of pension income that could be claimed under this measure has been left unchanged since 1975, at that level of $1,000, which of course is worth much less in 2006 dollars. In the May budget, our government proposed to provide greater tax assistance to those who have saved for their retirement.

Budget 2006 proposes to double to $2,000 the maximum amount of eligible pension income that can be claimed under the pension income credit. This is effective for 2006 and subsequent taxation years. This measure will benefit nearly three million taxpayers receiving eligible pension income and will remove approximately 85,000 pensioners from the federal tax rolls completely.

I would like to say a few words about the textbook tax credit, which is important to our students in Canada.

We of course want to encourage education and training efforts by students. This bill, Bill C-28, proposes a new non-refundable tax credit to provide better tax recognition for the costs of textbooks for students. This will be put in place effective for 2006 and subsequent taxation years.

The textbook tax credit amount will be $65 for each month of full time post-secondary study and $20 for each month of part time post-secondary study. For example, a full time student enrolled for eight months would qualify for a textbook tax credit on an amount of $520 in that year, which would be a tax reduction of about $80. This benefit, we estimate, will extend to almost two million post-secondary students in Canada.

There is also the exemption with respect to post-secondary education scholarships and bursaries. In our platform in the last election, as I recall, we had a provision that we would exempt bursaries and scholarships up to $10,000.

In fact, in the budget, we announced that the exemption would be complete and that we would not have a monetary limit of $10,000, on the basis that we want to encourage students to work hard and do well. When they work hard and do well and get scholarships and bursaries, it seems counterproductive for the government to then tax them for reaching for the top and for working hard and doing well in their studies.

Budget 2006 proposes to fully exempt these sources of income from tax, effective for this year, 2006, and subsequent taxation years. This has a significant consequence, particularly when we start looking at the need we have in Canada for more graduate students in the sciences, in engineering and in the life sciences, and at our desire to encourage graduate study.

Let us take the example of a full time student, perhaps at the University of Saskatchewan, completing a Ph.D., who received a $15,000 scholarship and also earned an additional $10,000 in 2007 by working as a teaching assistant, which would not be unusual for a graduate student. As a result of the full exemption on scholarship and bursary income and the introduction of the new textbook tax credit, that student would save $675 in federal income tax.

This measure will help foster academic excellence by providing tax relief to more than 100,000 post-secondary students in Canada.

There is also a tax credit with respect to apprenticeships to encourage apprenticeship job creation. The lack of skilled trades in Canada, as we well know, is becoming an impediment to economic growth. This is particularly true in some regions of our country. Meanwhile, many young Canadians find themselves stuck in low-paying jobs and either are not encouraged to consider the trades or are unable to do so because of financial barriers.

To encourage employers to hire new apprentices to learn a trade, the budget proposed a new apprenticeship job creation tax credit. As a result of this initiative, which is contained in Bill C-28, and which is effective as of May 2, 2006, the budget date, eligible employers will receive a tax credit equal to 10% of the wages paid to qualifying apprentices in the first two years of the contract, to a maximum credit of $2,000 per apprentice per year.

To encourage people to enter the skilled trades, there is also a deduction for tool expenses for tradespeople. Many members have heard from constituents over the years about how expensive it is for people starting off in the trades to pay for tools, particularly in some of the situations that involve very expensive tools, such as auto mechanics. Bill C-28 proposes a new deduction of up to $500 to tradespeople for the cost of tools in excess of $1,000, tools that they must acquire in order to proceed with their apprenticeship.

The tools deduction and the Canada employment credit together will provide tax relief to about 700,000 employed tradespeople in Canada.

Here is how it would work. For example, a tradesperson earning $60,000, with $1,500 in tool expenses in 2007, will be able to claim the new Canada employment credit on $1,000 and deduct $500 under the new tools deduction. The two measures will reduce federal income taxes by $265.

Also, apprentice vehicle mechanics will continue to be eligible to deduct their extraordinary tool expenses.

Another important credit in the bill relates to the use of public transit by commuters and the environmental benefits of more commuters using public transit and leaving their cars at home or at commuter stations. It is important to encourage Canadians to use public transit. Increasing public transit use not only will ease traffic congestion in our urban areas, it will also improve the environment.

Bill C-28 proposes the tax credit on the purchase cost of monthly public transit passes or passes for a duration of longer than a month. This measure, effective July 1, 2006, will provide benefits to approximately two million Canadians who make a sustained commitment to use this environmentally friendly mode of transportation.

For example, an individual who purchases passes costing $80 per month throughout the year will receive a benefit of up to about $150 in federal tax relief for the year. All transit users, including commuters, students and seniors, will qualify for this tax credit. What it amounts to is about two months of free public transit per year for commuters who have monthly passes or passes that are for longer than one month.

Another important tax credit is particularly relevant in Canada today given our concerns with obesity in children, about which much has been said and written in recent years and months. Studies show that regular physical activity has many positive effects on children, including healthier growth and development and improved physical fitness.

There is no doubt that all of us have seen some escalation in the costs of organized activities, making it difficult for many Canadian families to afford these activities for their children.

To promote physical fitness among children, Bill C-28 proposes to introduce the children's fitness tax credit, effective January 1, 2007 and designed to provide a tax credit based on up to $500 of eligible fees for programs of physical activity for each child under the age of 16.

As one would expect, the words “physical activity” can be interpreted more or less broadly and in different ways. Indeed, they are being interpreted in different ways. As I set out in the budget, I asked a panel of experts to consider the views of Canadians on this subject and on the design of the tax credit.

The three experts on the panel have done their work. I thank them for that. I expect to receive their report tomorrow. They have done this work as good Canadians. Despite their expertise and the remuneration to which they would be entitled in their normal occupations, they have done it for $1 each. The grand cost to the people of Canada will be $3 for this expert report that will provide advice on a working definition of the criteria for the tax credit.

I look forward to having an opportunity to share that report with hon. members and to have what I am sure will be a fulsome discussion about the design of that tax credit for young people.

In conclusion, the government's first budget is about focusing on priorities. This bill completes that budget implementation process.

This is about taking action to make a real difference in the lives of Canadians. It is about creating real results for Canadians. And it is about doing all of this in a way that is fiscally responsible, by making sure that we have balanced budgets, by making sure that we have expenditure control on an ongoing basis, and by making sure that we watch the hard-earned Canadian tax dollars the Government of Canada receives.

I encourage all hon. members to give the bill the swift passage that I would submit it deserves.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. minister's report, but of course we have to remember that in terms of the surplus he worked with, it was a result of 13 good years of Liberal management. In fact, I have been told, and I will have to check the record, that the last time a Conservative minister of finance--and the Conservatives have been the leaders of the government in this country for a period of time--came to this chamber and reported that there was not a deficit was in the year 1912.

So we are looking at the year 2006 and another milestone in the history of the record of the Conservative Party. It takes a long time. I hope the minister has good luck with future budgets, because we hope that next year again that there will be another surplus or at least a balanced budget. We also have to remember that this quarterly report indicates that we are working very well as a government. In fact, the surplus looks to be coming along again.

I have one brief comment to make to the minister. In terms of November 11, it is certainly a time when we honour our veterans, and with it there is a program that has helped out veterans and their widows in this country. Many of those widows today are more than 80 years of age.

Prime Minister Harper, when he was Leader of the Opposition, promised--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. The member has been here a long time and he knows not to refer to the Prime Minister by name.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

My apologies, Mr. Speaker.

When he was the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister indicated to the widows of this country, to Mrs. Joyce Carter, that he would bring forward a program to enable the widows to receive the VIP after they became eligible as a result of their economic situation.

I would ask the minister if his cabinet, his government, is going to honour that commitment so that the widows of those veterans who contributed so greatly to our country will now receive the VIP, to which they are certainly entitled.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member and I thank him for his comments, particularly about Liberals balancing budgets. They sure did. I had the unusual privilege of being a Minister of Finance in the second largest government in this country, in Ontario, and we had to try to operate a health care system with the federal government balancing its books by cutting back health transfers to the provinces.

We lived through that and the deterioration of the health care system, which was done by the previous government and which it created simply by saying, “We are going to balance our books. Here is how we are going to do it. We are going to cut our health transfers willy-nilly, across the board, to every province in this country”.

It was a cynical act, but that is how the Liberals thought they should balance the books in Canada. It is not how we see balancing the books.

In fact, we are engaged now in what I hope will be quite fruitful and constructive discussions with our colleagues in the provinces and territories. We are not talking about cutting health care. In fact, we will maintain health care funding. We are committed to that, with a 6% escalator built into the base.

We are also talking about substantial transfer payments with respect to infrastructure and post-secondary education. It is just the kind of progressive legislation and progressive approach that ought to have been taken on by the previous government, but no, what the Liberals did instead was just cut health care transfers willy-nilly and tell the provinces and the people of the provinces that they had to figure it out.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's zeal and I would like to know if that zeal is matched by any sort of analysis that went into the budget.

In particular, he mentioned the transit passes. Just recently, I was on the Toronto transit system and when I looked up, lo and behold there was an ad from the Canadian government with a lot of words. I leaned over to the transit rider beside me who had a monthly pass and tried to find out if she understood it. She had absolutely no understanding of this issue at all.

The government claims to use prudence and sound advice, but on the transit pass issue, we have managers of the major transit systems in this country saying that if we want to invest in transit, we should get more riders into the system. We do not do it the way the government has shown. Managers in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa have all said that if we really want to affect the number of people using the transit system, we should go after infrastructure.

The government also claims that this is a measure to fight the climate change issue. Whereas, we know that this is one of the most expensive forms of reducing carbon available to the government. It is one of the most expensive ways to reduce the pollution that is emitted.

I am seeking some sort of clarity on the analysis that the minister and his department used in applying these measures: first, to increase ridership when the people in charge of the system say it is not the way to do it; and second, to help the environment out when it is the most expensive ways to reduce CO_2. that we know of.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if people were to leave their cars at the commuter stations, subway stations, bus stations, and did not drive their cars, they would actually produce fewer emissions. We know that. Studies show that if we incent that kind of behaviour, then more people will leave their cars at the stations or at their homes and take public transit. That is good for the environment.

I take the GO Train often when I am in the greater Toronto area, so do many people in my riding of Whitby—Oshawa and all throughout the greater Toronto area. We know about the traffic congestion there. I say to the member, come to the greater Toronto area and see the benefit of a transit pass. The affordability factor gives people two months free public transit per year for those who commute, that is, for those who take the monthly passes or passes that are longer.

I know there is some discussion now about cards that will be used between the various transit systems and some of our regional transit networks, not only in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and other places. That is something we will have to work on to ensure that we integrate this benefit, so that people who are commuting on a regular basis get the tax credit.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the minister's speech. I had a chance a few years ago to play an exhibition hockey game between the House of Commons and Queen's Park. He was a very good hockey player and probably still is. He is a very good skater.

I will ask the minister a question which is so straightforward that I do not think he would be able to skate around it. With respect to the 1% GST cut, it is really not delivering the goods to average Canadians as declared by the government.

If a well-to-do family on one side is able to buy a $100,000 luxury boat and on the other side a modest income family can afford a couple of hundred dollars for an inflatable boat, which of the two families will save more on the GST?

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member omits the basic point of our tax system in Canada. We have a progress tax system, so that a wealthier family will pay a great deal more income tax and that is the fundamental basis of our tax system in Canada.

I thank the hon. member for his comments about hockey. I think the score was, I am trying to remember, was it eight to one? I know we won in those days, but the quality of the hockey team here now will have improved because of the members who come from Ontario. I am kidding. That was in the old Maple Leaf Gardens, as I recall, near the end of the life of the old Maple Leaf Gardens, and some of us felt that way near the end of that game.

Talking about the progressive tax system, some economists will say that the reduction of consumption taxes is not the best way to go. I certainly would not do it in isolation, nor did we do it in isolation in the budget. We reduced taxes of all kinds that the Government of Canada takes from Canadians, including excise taxes, small business taxes, consumption taxes, large business taxes and capital taxes. It is a fulsome program of tax reduction.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to ask a direct question of the Minister of Finance pertaining to a file of great importance for my region.

Under the former government there was a wind power incentive program. Now that the Department of Finance is reviewing just about every government expenditure that can be reviewed, there is a $105 million project.

There is some concern about this project, which aims to build 54 wind turbines that will supply three megawatts of power. This was supposed to occur in Murdochville, right in the heart of Gaspésie. It is one of the projects related to generating green energy, wind energy.

I imagine that the minister is aware of renewable energy and this whole concept. I therefore beg him to give us an answer concerning the fact that, within the current context of program review, there is a great deal of uncertainty about various projects. This is one that seems to be have been put on hold and that would be a shame. I think it is important and worthwhile for the minister to lift the veil on this matter.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is not a specific program that I have at my fingertips. I do know that under the clean air act which my colleague, the Minister of the Environment, introduced recently we are looking at sources of renewable energy including wind power. That will have to be a part of the design as we go forward which I am sure would include the type of initiatives that my colleague refers to in the Gaspé.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to participate in the debate on Bill C-28, especially for me today as this is my anniversary and the anniversary of quite a few other members of the official opposition who were elected to this place back on October 25, 1993. I would like to commend members on both sides of the House who were elected 13 years ago. Lucky 13 I would say.

This anniversary brings me back to the fact that I was a member of the finance committee in my first Parliament from 1993 to 1997. It was the time period when the then prime minister mandated us as a finance committee to assist the government and the House of Commons to find ways to deal with the terrible deficit that we inherited from the previous Conservative administration. It was not just the efforts of members of Parliament, particularly government members, but members on all sides who helped us turn the government books around in a short two year period. This was also done with the assistance of Canadians from coast to coast.

I would like to point out that the finance minister mentioned, in a response to a question by the member for Miramichi, that during the time as the finance minister in Ontario, he had complained about the fact that the federal government was not achieving its goals. His predecessor, minister Eves in the Mike Harris government, actually lauded the then prime minister and finance minister for their efforts in bringing the books of this country under control. The IMF had basically given a stern warning to Canada about the deficit we had inherited from the previous Conservative administration.

That is why we want to be careful as we go forward. This country does not want to get back into a deficit position. Canadians do not want that. In fact, one of the biggest mandates from Canadians in 1993 was for us to deal with the mess that the books were in. The debt was climbing precipitously.

At that time we had to deal with the financial picture of the country. At the same time, while we were making an effort to get to a surplus position, we could not forget the vulnerable. We had to ensure that we continued to make investments in the social safety net of this country, in economic development, and in incentives for small business. We had to be ever-mindful of the most vulnerable among us and start paying down the debt.

Significantly, the ratio of debt to GDP in this country over the last 13 years up until late January dropped from around 70% to around 40%. We made fantastic progress.

This brings me to the present financial paradigm in which we find ourselves as a nation. My colleague from Miramichi also mentioned that the last time a Conservative government reported a surplus was in 1912. I would like to add to his comment by saying that the finance minister at that time inherited a surplus from the previous Laurier government. We have yet to see any Conservative government actually produce a surplus on its own feet. I like to be a positive person along with my colleague from Miramichi, so let us hope that the government can keep us on track as a nation and keep us in a surplus position.

At the same time, it is with grave concern that I remind members of this House, my constituents of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing in northern Ontario, and all Canadians, that the $13 billion surplus that the Conservative government inherited, which was reported as part of the budget package last spring, should not have in its entirety been used to pay down the debt.

Over the previous 10 or 11 years, we have put a significant portion of each year's surplus toward the debt. Imagine parents saying to their kids, “We are not going to feed you because we are going to put every spare nickel we have on the mortgage”. No, parents continue to pay down their house mortgage while continuing to feed and clothe their families. There is a balance between the ongoing requirements of a family as there is for a government. There is a requirement that governments be mindful of maintaining programs that in particular the most vulnerable need from their federal government.

I think that was a serious error in judgment on the part of the government. No doubt the finance minister, with whom I have no grief personally, had tremendous pressure from the reform elements in his party. It is the reform element that has this belief of every person for themselves. It is an ideological approach to government that really forgets that we are responsible for others. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, and that is the place and the role of government. While managing the state for everybody, ensure that we do not leave people behind. Even the best governments and best countries always have those who cannot keep up, and it is our responsibility to do the best we can to help them keep up.

If I could rewind the tape back to last spring and to some weeks ago when we heard about the cuts, I would hope that a replay of that would see the government maybe use half, even a bit more if it felt it were affordable but no less than half, as we were doing, toward debt reduction and the rest toward investments in the social safety net and economic development. Why instead did we see cuts of $1 billion, and I think $2 billion over two years?

It did not strike me as much as it did on a recent visit to the communities of Chapleau and Wawa in my riding a few days ago. I knew that the cuts were going to have an impact on Canadians, but imagine in two communities, three different groups and individuals came forward to tell me about the impact of the cuts on their groups or on them individually. In 13 years, I do not recall ever having that experience. In the space of six hours, between Chapleau, office hours, travelling to Wawa and office hours there, three different groups and individuals came forward to say that this really hurts, not them personally, and I will explain in a moment, but the groups that they work with which serve others.

One was a group in Chapleau that is involved with the francophone women's association, headquartered in Ottawa. It is an Ontario-wide organization that helps francophone women's groups with their advocacy efforts on behalf of francophone women. I have, in my large northern Ontario riding of 110,000 square kilometres, a large and vibrant francophone community.

I was really touched by the delegation's impassioned plea that some way be found to reverse the impact of cuts to women's programs that ultimately impacted their ability to help each other in Chapleau. I know this is also the case in Kapuskasing, and I could go around the riding and find other women's groups, francophone or not, equally impacted.

Imagine in the same tour, to continue, in Wawa, a delegation of small lodge owners came to see me. They were really concerned about the cut to the GST rebate for visitors. To the uninformed, to the uninitiated, it might seem that this is simply a matter of giving money to tourists who go back after their holidays to the U.S. or to Europe, let us say mostly the U.S. in the case of tourist operators in the northern Ontario, and lodge owners for fishing, hunting, camping and outdoor recreation.

The reality is that tourism is an export industry. I know my colleague, the member for Miramichi, has a large tourist industry in his part of New Brunswick. Tourism is an export industry. When tourists buy something at a store, keep their receipt, at least up until now, cross the border to go back to the U.S. if they are American, they are exporting that item and, as for all exports, the GST is removed. Why are we in fact picking on those who export to the U.S. or elsewhere as tourists?

There was a particular concern to these operators. Since the inception of the GST, which is known as a value added tax in Europe, visitors to Canada could claim the GST on their rooms while they are in Canada.

The lodge business in northern Ontario or the Toronto convention bureau or the Montreal convention bureau or the Vancouver convention bureau know that convention organizers depend on those percentage points of advantage they have to compete against other large cities for international convention business. So, now we have lost a few percentage points in competition with European convention destinations.

This happened to be a delegation made up of all women lodge operators. I was very impressed by the arguments they made and the concern they had for how would they make up, I think it was an average of 3% difference, in the net income to their businesses that they would have to cover because their customers could not get that 3% back at the border. They have lost the ability to promote that aspect in their tour of the trade tourism shows throughout mostly the northern U.S. I would ask the government to reconsider the GST rebate for visitors, as it should reconsider the support of women's programs.

Let me continue to the third example of an entrepreneur in my riding in Wawa. I will keep the confidentiality of his name. He has tremendous expertise in the tree nursery sector, not just knowledge but technology capacity as well. He has worked diligently to make business agreements in several Central American countries. When we talk about the importance of tree planting, reforestation is part of a larger strategy to deal with climate change. He has the potential in an important niche when it comes to greenhouse gas or climate change abatement technologies.

Up until recently, Canada's government believed in the Kyoto protocol and believed that climate change was a reality. Imperfections aside, and I will not say that our government was perfect in its pursuit of finding better ways to deal with climate change, at least we were looking forward, we acknowledged, and we knew better efforts had to be made to deal with climate change. We did not turn our backs on the importance of climate change and the Kyoto protocol. This entrepreneur has now lost some advantage in his ability to export his expertise and technology in terms of reforestation to parts of the world that indeed need this kind of help.

In a period of six hours there were three groups or individuals impacted by these cuts. I know that cuts are separate from the budget, but the foundation of the cuts is in the budget of last spring.

There is a notion that there is a plethora, a whole bunch of tax credits contained in the minister's budget which on the face of it look interesting, but when people find out that a $500 tax credit for the physical fitness tax credit is worth about $70 or $80 to the average family, then it really is not what it appears to be. It would have been clearer for Canadians had the government acknowledged that these tax credits which are $500 in this box on tax returns really meant about $75 or $80 at the end.

I think sports programs are very important. I look forward to the minister tabling his report from his expert panel. Not every family has a child that is capable, either physically or by inclination, to be involved on a hockey team, a basketball team or whatever. Some children are musically inclined and some are artistic. Some children in wheelchairs cannot play hockey. They have other pursuits that they would no doubt be interested in.

I really hope that the minister, who is a bit of an athlete himself, will be persuaded that the view of that tax credit, as modest as it is, should include a large array of artistic, cultural and physical pursuits for children and families. I want to make that very important point.

In my question earlier on to the Minister of Finance I asked about the difference between a wealthy family buying a $100,000 luxury motorboat or sailboat versus a modest family buying a $200 inflatable raft and which of the two families would receive the bigger GST benefit? The minister did not answer the question. He actually did not even skate around it. He did not even carry the puck across the red line in response to my question.

I will answer the question for the minister. If a person were buying a $100,000 boat, the saving would be about $1,000; I think a 1% cut would be $1,000. With that $1,000 cut the family could buy five inflatable boats that the modest income family could only get for $200. The $200 inflatable boat will realize a savings of $20 or is it $2? No, I think it is $20.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Insignificant.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Actually, it is $2. It is insignificant. Thanks for the arithmetic help from my colleagues.

The point is that the GST saving for the well-to-do family is $1,000. In my example the saving for the low income family is $2. Tell me what the fairness is there? It is not there.

I am not sure there was one reputable economist that argued in favour of a GST cut. The better thing going forward and the better thing last spring would have been to continue the personal income tax cut that we brought in during the previous year. Then, if the government felt it had resources, it go further with personal income tax cuts.

There is a great debate over whether cuts in consumption taxes are better than cuts in personal income tax. I would argue the latter, that cuts to personal income taxes are a lot more effective, a lot more fair, and on a sliding scale they impact everyone the same proportionally.

We go from a big picture in 1993 where the imperative at the time was to get the books of the country in order. The previous government did that. It took two years and with the help of Canadians it was done. The country had a series of surpluses that have never been matched before in Canadian history.

We now have a government that is very ideological. Canada is a democracy and there is nothing wrong with being ideological. However, if the government is going to be ideological, it had better put a little bit of water in its wine once in a while and consider that there are things that happen between the ideologies that really can help or hurt people.

I would ask the government to reconsider its overall program. Next spring, if it does come up with a surplus, I hope it will deal with the wait times because we are regressing on wait times and there is little, if any, mention by the government of the wait times initiative that it mentioned in the election.

I hope next spring the government will be a little wiser with any surplus that it might accrue.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's comments and I would like to address his comment on the GST visitors' rebate. I would remind the member that our new government has promised to be fiscally prudent with Canadian taxpayer money and Canadians elected this government to be good fiscal managers, which is exactly what we are doing.

The fact is that on the GST visitors' rebate, more than 97% of the 35 million foreign visitors to Canada do not collect the rebate. That is almost 34 million out of 35 million tourists who come to Canada every year do not use this rebate.

This was said by the Premier of Nova Scotia, Rodney MacDonald:

I don’t think that visitors make their decision based on that rebate. They come to Nova Scotia for the scenery, the people, the experience of what Nova Scotia’s all about.

This was said by the Nova Scotia tourism minister:

Somebody coming from New York, are they coming to Halifax or are they going to stop their plan because they are not going to be getting a rebate on their GST? I don’t think so.

Don Drummond, chief economist at the TD Bank Financial Group, said:

--evidence mounts that certain programs aren't very effective....A good example is the rebate program for tourists who pay the GST. Despite considerable expenditures to make tourists aware they can claim the rebate, fewer than 3 per cent do so. The government's decision to scrap the program will save $78-million.

This last comment was said by a small businessman:

I don't think anyone won't come here because of it. It's just a pleasant surprise and they usually spend the money here.

We have a premier, a tourism minister, a chief economist at the TD Bank Financial Group and a business owner all saying that scrapping the GST visitors' rebate will not harm tourism and it is a fiscally responsible move. How do you comment on that?

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. How does he comment on that.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

How does he comment?

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Now he can comment.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is like one of these softball homerun questions because he has received a letter from the Canadian Hotel Association which, no doubt, has members in Nova Scotia. It therefore does not surprise me that the Conservative premier of a province would do his best to support his cousins in Ottawa through thick and thin. This is a case where he is defending the indefensible.

The fact remains that for those who take advantage of the GST visitor rebate, and that program, unless the member knows something I do not know is a program that is also available to visitors to Europe who have the value added tax, that the people in my riding, the tourist lodge owners, the people who run conventions in Toronto, Halifax, Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg or elsewhere, it is to their advantage to promote their convention city or their lodge to visitors, either American, European or from elsewhere.

I think the government was fooled into thinking that because the uptake might not have been as much as was expected because if someone buys something for $5 to take out of the country, they do not bother on a $5--

[An hon. member]

There was $78 million.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

That is right, $78 million was refunded so some activity certainly took place but how much of that $78 million was the rooms for conventions, lodge owners, hotels, et cetera?

The member really is inviting the question about the government's ability to analyze data for its value because the real truth is that these conventions, hotels and lodge owners need that ability for their visitors to have a rebate.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, I heard a contradiction when the member spoke about the GST. He said that people could not apply for it and take it out of the country. After that he talked about how measly the amount is and how poorer people will not benefit from the GST decrease. I find that remark contradictory.

He talked about families not being advantaged by this decrease in GST. I take issue with that because I know a lot of poorer people who were quite pleased that we lowered the GST. I am thinking more of children. My nieces and nephews, who are 7, 8, 9 and 10 years old, know it is nice when there is not much tax on items they buy.

The reason a lot of people go to Alberta to shop is that they like no tax, but some people will shop even if there is a decrease in a tax.

I find it contradictory that he first says that the decrease is hardly anything unless a person is really rich and now he says that it is so important to give the rebate. I think he cited 3%. We are giving 2¢ off of each dollar in the upcoming GST policy. I want to know what he thinks about that.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with great respect, I think the member has mixed things up.

First, let me deal with the GST visitors' rebate. I think the government plans to save $78 million but for those sectors, such as convention centres, tourist lodges and hotels, the $78 million, which helps them attract customers, were extremely important. It is like taking $10 away from a poor person or $10 away from a rich person. The $10 is important to the poor person.

Those sectors I talked about need visitors. Tourism is not at a high peak right now and they have other challenges. We have fuel prices, exchange rates and the security issues in the United States which are preventing people from visiting Canada. We also have the issue of future passports. When I say that program is not large compared to the $1 billion, that is fairly self-evident, but to those people in that sector it is very important.

Let me talk about young people and the 1% GST. I do not even know if there would be a reduction on a 25¢ piece of candy. Would stores charge 24.2¢ for a piece of candy? I do not think so. Statistics Canada said in its report that the GST cut was essentially absorbed. I do not recall many people, if any, who told me that the GST refund was a really great thing. I think it was invisible.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Prince George is a fine city. I live in Skeena and visit Prince George as often as I can.

The question I have for the member is twofold and the first part concerns the United States. Within the U.S. congressional district there is a separate accounting office which was established to prevent what we have seen the Canadian government do, which is to collect more revenues than it was expecting in order to play with the numbers. I am sure his government, when it was in office, perfected the ability to stretch and extrapolate. At the end of every budget cycle, lo and behold, his government would run out to the truck, throw a bunch of cash in it and drive around the country dumping it as quickly as it could.

Would he support having an arm's length accounting office in this country and, at long last, removing the politics over the numbers and just allow the debate to exist over where the priorities need to be?

I also could not help but hear the finance minister talk about the $80 a year benefit to university students. Would the member comment on how his party was able to, year in and year out for 11 years in a row, have students leaving university with an average increase of $1,000 a year in debt. Students in Canada under his government's regime were having an extra $1,000 of debt tacked on every year. The government is purporting to change that trend but it is in fact just supporting it.

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it was our government that reinstated the position of comptroller general. However, I am not certain if the current government has actually funded such an office or whether it has proceeded. It was the previous Mulroney government, prior to 1993, that had cancelled the position of comptroller general and we reinstated it. I think that addresses the member's concern about having an independent oversight, outside of the Auditor General, on how surpluses and spending can be managed. I think that was a very good move on the part of the previous government.

As to the textbook credit, if the NDP--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I am sorry but the time has expired.

Resumption of debate. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to this part of the Conservatives’ last budget. As you know, my party, the Bloc Québécois, supported the budget. It did so, not because the members of the Bloc liked the Conservatives—after 10 months, we like them less than we liked them at the time—but because at that time there were some sensible things in the budget. At least that is what we thought.

The fiscal imbalance file in particular is a fundamental file for Quebec, a file for which the Bloc Québécois has worked with all the vigour and rigour for which it has been known for years. We were even the first ones to talk about the concept of fiscal imbalance in the House of Commons several years ago. It was even before the Séguin Commission began its work in Quebec with a mandate from then Premier Bernard Landry to find some solutions to the fiscal imbalance, which leads to the underfunding of basic service programs for citizens by Quebec and the Canadian provinces.

Appended to the budget was a document, a very well prepared one, I might add. It said that the government was making a commitment to fix the fiscal imbalance, that this fall—the fall is advancing and the winter is fast approaching now—the Prime Minister would call a conference with the premiers of Quebec and the provinces to deal with the fiscal imbalance. Dealing with the fiscal imbalance does not mean fixing part of it. It means that Canada would transfer $12 billion in tax resources to the governments of Quebec and the provinces. It means, for Quebec alone, a transfer of $3.9 billion, including equalization.

We were stunned when, a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister began to minimize the amounts that were supposed to be transferred to the Government of Quebec and the provinces. He also dropped the idea of holding a first ministers conference, saying that it would take a consensus of the provinces for him to act. Since when, when a government wants to correct something within its jurisdiction, that is, federal tax resources, does it wait for a consensus of the provinces before acting? That is one way to pass the buck.

The fiscal imbalance was the most important issue when the budget was passed. Now, though, we do not know what has happened to the government’s promise. We do not know whether the Prime Minister will keep his word. If he does not, he was misleading us. At the time of the last election in Quebec, the Conservative Party accidentally won a few seats because it had made a solemn promise to fix the fiscal imbalance. We are dealing now with some bills to implement parts of the budget. Still there is no mention of the fiscal imbalance. The government seems to be wriggling away and it looks as if it will not keep its promise in the next budget.

That was the grand gesture that prompted the Bloc Québécois to support the government, give it a chance, and speak about a budget of transition until the next one. We believed it at the time in light of the promise the government had made to deal with the fiscal imbalance. We will see what happens. We will still give the government a chance, but we remind it that it is on its final laps and does not have much time to race to the finish and keep its promise. There will not be any second chances, like the one we gave it in the last budget.

The fiscal imbalance is only one of the issues. There are many others about which we have expressed our dissatisfaction day after day for 10 months, including the environment, Quebec’s representation at UNESCO, and so forth. The government should not fool around with us too much in this way because when the time comes to make decisions, we will be very rigorous and determined, as we have always been for 13 years. If the government has to be defeated over the next budget, we will do so.

I would like, though, to say a few words about some particular provisions in the budget that were somewhat overshadowed by the fiscal imbalance. There were some things we were very proud about. Let me tell the House why. It was 13 years ago today that we elected the first contingent of Bloc members. At the time, there were 54 of us. We formed the official opposition of Her Loyal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. From that time until today, the Bloc Québécois has always defended the interests of Quebec and the interests of the people, our fellow citizens.

My Bloc colleagues get up every morning wondering how they can contribute to the advancement of their fellow citizens, work and fight for the common good, and improve the lives of the most disadvantaged in society, and how they can block a government.

This government and the previous one seem to be clones of each other. We keep asking ourselves how to do battle with a government with no compassion, which does not offer any hope in terms of improving the lives of the most disadvantaged in society or ensuring that middle income families can benefit from a favourable tax environment that adds to their well-being.

That is what we in the Bloc Québécois have always done. That is what all my colleagues have been doing in every riding, one election after another.

I am proud to have been associated for the past 13 years with a team as outstanding as that of the Bloc Québécois, one that has been standing up for more than just the interests of Quebec. Whenever the interests of the rest of Canada coincided with those of Quebec, we gladly defended them. Since 1993, we have made friends all over Canada, and particularly among the workers. Why? Because our only motivation is the common good. And when the common good of Quebec meets that of Canada, we do not hesitate to work relentlessly and even to travel across Canada to meet with workers who have lost their jobs or seniors who are being mistreated.

The Liberals mistreated older persons by ignoring their needs, by abolishing, in 1997, the POWA program and by refusing to replace it with another program. The Conservatives are doing the same after promising to implement a program to help workers 55 and older who are victims of mass layoffs. They should receive support until their retirement because a number of them cannot be retrained to work in another sector of the economy either because there is no other company around when the only company in the region has closed and there is nowhere for them to relocate to or because after 30 or 35 years, these workers who thought they had a secure job until their retirement get the short end of the stick and have to liquidate any wealth they have accumulated over the years before they can get their pension. This obviously means loss of dignity, necessary liquidating of assets and possibly going on welfare.

Let us come back to specific measures in the budget. I said I am proud to have been associated with the Bloc Québécois team for the past 13 years. The Bloc team did not just oppose government measures; it proposed alternatives for the common good. I was going over the budget and I thought these issues were discussed a few years ago, issues such as the tax credit for public transportation. My colleague from Jonquière presented this in the Standing Committee on Finance. The Liberals and the Conservatives were skeptical. Only the NDP joined us in defending the tax credit for public transportation. My colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher introduced a new bill and defended it with a view to having a tax credit for public transportation. We debated these issues and we came up with these measures. When our adversaries ask what the purpose of the Bloc Québécois is, it is because they have nothing to say. They recognize our value, our rigour and our originality. We present things to improve the lot of our fellow citizens. Now they know the purpose of the Bloc Québécois. We are described as originals who have the strength and conviction to defend the measures we strongly believe in.

For years we have been saying that a tax credit for public transportation could contribute in a small way to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This could encourage people to take public transportation instead of driving their cars with just one or two occupants. Public transportation causes much less pollution. We have been fighting for this for years.

I was looking at the tax deduction for toolkits. My colleague from Beauport, who is also the Bloc Québécois whip, introduced that measure nine years ago. He recognized the need, especially among young tradespeople, for tax deductions for toolkits, which can cost thousands of dollars.

We were allowing lawyers and other professionals to write off their professional expenses, but we were not letting young plumbers, mechanics, and so on, do so. This measure has now been adopted, but how long did the Bloc Québécois have to fight for it? The idea made its way through the system, and we never gave up. We pushed until the government included such measures in its budget. Perhaps it did so for electoral reasons, but that does not matter because the point is that it is going through.

Since 1996, the Bloc Québécois has fought tooth and nail for microbreweries in Quebec and the rest of Canada—at least, for those that are still around. Government inertia delayed the adoption of such a measure—a measure revisited by the Conservatives—and hundreds of microbreweries across Canada and around Quebec went bankrupt, including in isolated regions where they had developed niche markets. There are still some microbreweries around in Canada and Quebec. Thank goodness such a measure exists because their competitors are being offered even more generous fiscal treatment than what the government has put forward in its budget.

This kind of tax measure would enable the microbreweries in Quebec and the rest of Canada to meet the American and European competition. I do not know if you know, Mr. Speaker, but foreign microbreweries are competing with ours. Their licences are bought by the major Canadian breweries. In this way, thanks to a licence from an American or European microbrewery, the major Canadian brewers can become Canadian and Quebec microbreweries.

This tax measure is an additional way of ensuring that the uniqueness of a product is preserved. In Quebec, the Unibroue microbrewery was one of the victims of the lack of tax measures to facilitate competition with foreign microbrewers. Unibroue made some incredible beer before Sleeman bought it, withdrew and, as an example, reduced the wide array of high quality “strong beer one lees” varieties similar to some imported European beers whose traditional production goes back several centuries.

Unibroue had been successful, without any government assistance, by fighting. I remember the president of Unibroue coming here several times. At the time, he was the president of the microbrewers of Quebec and Canada. We fought alongside him, made a common front, not to gain an unrealistic advantage but so that microbrewers in Quebec and the rest of Canada could have the same advantages as American and European microbrewers.

I can recall—there are always memories—that the major Canadian brewers did something totally disgusting. They went through the back door to push the finance and national revenue departments, saying that this kind of measure should not be brought forward. Meanwhile, they were telling the microbrewers that they agreed with them on the need for such a measure and for a reduction of the tax rate on microbreweries producing less than 75 million litres. At the same time, the major brewers were meeting with public servants and telling them that this measure should not pass and things were fine. It was unbelievable, until the microbrewers decided to take things into their own hands and not rely on the major brewers who were body checking them as hard as they could.

So that, too, was some of the long-term work of the Bloc Québécois. When I hear the hon. member for Beauce, who is responsible for economic development, say, “You will never be in power”, I think it is the height of stupidity.

What then is the purpose of a Parliament? Is it just to have a government and not an opposition? That would be a dictatorship. If those are the democratic feelings of the member for Beauce, he is not in the right place. A good government requires a good parliament, that is a government and an opposition to put it in its place, to enhance legislation, to present ideas from the representatives of the majority of the population. We should not forget that, although they are arrogant, the Conservatives are in the minority. Those of us in the opposition represent the majority of the population of Quebec and of Canada, and that has been the case in the last two Parliaments. We speak on behalf of the citizens. The member for Beauce speaks for himself. In his mind, the power is his and federal money is his money. That is not the case.

Federal money is the money of the people; it belongs to our citizens. We are here to ensure that it is spent as wisely as possible. That money does not belong to the Prime Minister, nor to the member for Beauce, nor to the Minister of Finance— it belongs to the citizens. We stand up for citizens when they ask us to represent them and to obtain action on public transit and microbreweries, because they create a great deal of employment in the regions. We also stand up for plumbers and mechanics asking for a tax credit. We are their voice.

All the opposition parties represent the majority. The arrogance of the Conservatives will only last a while.

I find that we have been very patient these last 10 months, and we will be patient for a few more. However, we have heard enough about the Bloc Québécois being good for nothing. The Bloc is here to do its job, and its job is to represent the citizens that have voted for us, by a majority, since 1993, election after election, giving us a strong majority in Quebec. If this meant nothing, if we were good for nothing, Quebeckers would not have elected us.

My colleague should be more careful about what he says, because this is very serious. He is saying that a large majority of Quebeckers—his own fellow citizens—have been wrong every time since 1993, that they are not smart enough to make decisions, decisions involving power. But what power? Does he mean the power of his citizens?

He was not even able to defend the businesses in his riding. He talked about how proud he is to be in government and to have decision-making powers. But to decide for whom? Decide for what? He could not even be bothered to defend the softwood producers or manufacturers of bicycles, clothing and textiles in his riding. And God knows, in Beauce, those are important industries, particularly the carpet industry.

We are saying we support these measures. Of course, we support them. It would be difficult to do the opposite of what we have been doing for years. We are pleased that the other parties have taken up our ideas. We hope they take them up even more. We hope they take up our idea of loan guarantees for the forest industry.

That is what Parliament is for. It is for the fermentation of ideas. It is not intended to have a few people who pretend to be something they're not—I will refrain from using a popular Quebec expression, because it would be unparliamentary—and who speak only for themselves whenever they speak. The purpose of Parliament is to ensure that the best ideas emerge, so that we have the best possible government. A minority government is usually a better government because it has greater opposition, which represents the majority of citizens. That opposition pushes the government, and pushes it as hard as it can, to ensure that the government makes the best possible decisions based on the ideas, convictions and values of the majority represented in this Parliament by the opposition parties.

I would like to talk about business taxation for the next few minutes.

Since 1994, we have consistently been ardent advocates of reducing the tax burden for businesses and individuals. It is not a question of foolishly cutting taxes to pay businesses, rather to ensure that these businesses reinvest, especially in the high-tech sector, particularly in state-of-the-art production equipment, in order to tackle globalization and emerging competitors such as China, Brazil, India and Pakistan.

For roughly nine years now, companies have received tax cuts year after year. Nevertheless, I have always lamented to the presidents of the Chamber of Commerce of Canada—from Quebec City, Toronto, Montreal and everywhere in between—that, despite these nine consecutive tax cuts, companies have not made any structural investments to cope with the competitiveness of the emerging countries.

For years we have coasted on the value of the Canadian dollar to export, and export more, and never looked past the end of our noses.

I hope that, after everything we have seen in the past few years, we will ensure that further tax cuts in the budget will be used by business leaders for taking charge and making investments because the competitiveness—the productivity—of a company is not just about the employees. Make no mistake. It is a matter, above all, of equipment, of constant investment in high technology to compete with the best in the world. And that has not been done.

Businesses have not shouldered their responsibilities.

In my opinion, there needs to be a threefold strategy: require entrepreneurs to invest in new technology and modern equipment; support victims of rationalization—I am talking about older workers and POWA, among other things; and fight unfair competition.

Often the competition from our trading partners is unfair. However, Canada does nothing to fight this unfair competition the way other, European countries are fighting it so feverishly.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, recently the Auditor General completed her work on the financial report of the Government of Canada for the year ended March 31, 2006 and a surplus of $13.2 billion was reported. The learned member has spent a lot of time on the finance committee and he would know that because that fiscal period has ended, the moneys automatically must be applied against the debt. Notwithstanding the paydown of that amount of debt, it does result in an ongoing savings on an annual basis of some $600 million. That represents the true savings to Canadians by paying down debt.

I raise that because the latest report is that there appears to be a surplus of some $4 billion for the partial current fiscal year reported on now.

The member will know that the existence of a surplus does not necessarily mean the surplus will exist by the end of the fiscal year, and that again, the only amount that could be available for ongoing expenditures by additional programs would be the savings on interest.

I am wondering if the member is asking that the amount of the reported surplus in excess of the surplus reported for the prior year in the same period should be invested in further program spending. Would that not represent responsible government?

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Liberal colleague for his question.

For several months we have known that the surplus would be close to $13 billion. Furthermore the Bloc Québécois, since 1997 or 1998, or since the first federal government surplus, came very close, even a year ahead, to the surplus forecasts year after year. We succeeded in making surplus forecasts with a margin of error of 2% or 3%. It was predictable.

I would like to take up a point that my colleague made earlier. He said that, at the end of the year, the unexpected surplus must be applied against the debt.

The Liberal Minister of Finance predicted the surplus. He knew that there would be a surplus. We were able to do it with the help of a calculator. So with his array of public servants he was able to do the same thing as us.

It is inaccurate to say that at the year-end any unexpected surplus has to be applied automatically against the debt. Within a few months of the fiscal year-end, it is possible to know that there will be a large surplus. It is possible to know, before year-end that this surplus will be of a certain order of magnitude.

There is something I blame the Liberals, the former Minister of Finance and also the former prime minister, for not doing. A few months before the fiscal year-end, we could have created a trust, as has already been done in Quebec—I think it was Ms. Marois who was Minister of Finance at the time—and made a legislative commitment that any unexpected surpluses would be deposited to this trust for allocation to some fundamental missions such as transfers for health, post-secondary education and so on.

Already, before the year-end, we could have planned a use for these funds and put them in a trust. We could have done so. We could have been more balanced than the imbalance presented since 1997-98. The current Minister of Finance presented the whole thing with great pride, the big cheque in the background, saying that $13 billion was being paid towards the debt when everything was falling apart all over the place. We need only think of softwood lumber, the textile and clothing sector, and older workers. There would have been a way to be a little more balanced than what has been managed so far.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot on his fiery speech, on a subject he has been championing in the House of Commons since the Bloc Québécois first arrived here.

I have a question for the member. For a number of years now, we have been fighting the fiscal imbalance, which, in Quebec, affects health care, education and services to the most vulnerable members of our society. We have a problem with employment insurance. Workers in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada pay into the employment insurance fund, then the federal government turns around and uses $50 billion of that fund's surplus while denying employment insurance to people who need it. For several years now, we have been asking for a program to help our older workers. So far, the government has only come up with very timid measures. Quebec adopted progressive measures to comply with the Kyoto protocol, but the federal government decided to cut its contribution by $238 million.

My question for the member is this: Can he explain why sovereignty is the only way to help Quebec—and perhaps even the rest of Canada—reach its full potential?

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Before I answer, I would just like to say that there are budget measures we can be proud of, because we in the Bloc Québécois have worked for years to get a government to include them in its budget.

I hope that this time we will be successful The Bloc Québécois, and only the Bloc Québécois, has made 10 attempts. Year after year, we introduced the bill, and year after year, we were beaten by the Liberals, even those from Quebec. The Conservatives did not want anything to do with this measure, but we had the support of the NDP. But I think we are going to win the vote on our anti-scab bill. I hope so, and I pray every night that we will. We have been fighting for this for years. I think that when an initiative comes from the heart, if we do not give up, in the end, we will be rewarded.

My colleague is quite right. Quebec sovereignty would enable us to repatriate all our taxes and all the taxes we pay to this Parliament. The other political parties do not give any consideration to Quebec's real values and real interests or to the Quebec government's game plan for lessening the impact of international competition and resource depletion. All the resources put toward a single nation, the nation of Quebec—it is obvious.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague about the great alliance we have seen between the Conservatives and the Bloc. I would just like to know whether the alliance between the two parties is finally over? Will the marriage continue?

For I do not know how many years, we have seen the Bloc Québécois accomplish absolutely nothing in this country for Quebeckers as far as the fiscal imbalance is concerned. There were good negotiations with the current government to correct that. But now is the marriage over or it will continue?

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I remind the hon. member NDP member that they too supported the budget. This is somewhat strange, speaking of marriages.

Speaking of failed marriages and odd couples, I remind the hon. member that a little less than a year and a half ago, the NDP joined the corrupt Liberals. In the midst of the sponsorship scandal, they supported the Liberals and they supported their budgets, which included measures that were never fully implemented after the Conservatives won the last election.

The bill that they supported—I believe it was Bill C-48—was incredibly vague. The Liberal government did not even have to fulfill its promise. The NDP supported the corrupt government of the former Prime Minister on measures that did not include any commitment. They made a big deal about it during the last election campaign. And now, how many of them are here? Talk about credibility.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would just pick up on the last point the hon. member made. I would bring to his attention that every time the government stands up and brags about money it is putting into anything that is socially progressive, that is money that came from Bill C-48, the NDP budget.

What I want to know is why the Bloc did not take the opportunity to see if we could make further amendments that would advance the very issues the member says are the key priorities for the Bloc, rather than just playing this game that as long as they are okay, they will not worry about everything else.

If we work together, we have more votes than they do. Why did the Bloc not take the opportunity to do what the NDP did, and that is amend a bad budget and bring in good things that benefit the people of Quebec and Canada?

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is asking me why. I will tell him that it is because we do not sell our services to the highest bidder. That is why.

When that budget was adopted, we were in the midst of the biggest scandal ever seen in federalism, the sponsorship scandal. We had just learned more about the fact that all federalist parties in this House, namely the Liberals, the Conservatives and the New Democrats, had participated in the plot to steal the 1995 referendum. They closed their eyes on cost overruns and they denied democracy by trampling on all the rules that Quebec had set, so that in the end the Yes and No sides were neck and neck.

Everyone got on the buses—New Democrats, Liberals and Conservatives—to come to Montreal and participate in the love-in. They all participated in that denial of democracy. That is why we would not have made a pact with the devil. If the New Democrats want to do it, fine, but we have stronger convictions, more heart and we know better.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, may I ask for unanimous consent to split my time with the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, please?

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Does the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina have the unanimous consent of the House to split her time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the success of a nation is judged by how we treat our children. The success of a budget is really dependent on whether we invest in children.

The hon. members opposite talked about scandals. Let me tell them that it is scandalous when we have a country as rich as Canada and we have 1.2 million children living in poverty at a time when we have a surplus of almost $20 billion. We have children living in Canada who are going to bed hungry. That is a true scandal.

It is scandalous that we have parties here that are willing to support the budget. I understand why the Conservative government would support its own budget, but I do not understand why any other party in the House would support this kind of scandalous behaviour in a budget that treats our children in such a way.

It is a deliberate choice when we have a surplus but we do not invest in child care. It is a deliberate choice when we do not invest in affordable housing. It is a deliberate choice when we do not put more money into the child tax benefit so families will get more money and parents will not have to worry about having to pay the rent or feed their kids.

Today is child care appreciation day. The people who take care of our children earn very low incomes. They spend all day making sure that our kids are raised in a way that is healthy and productive. While we appreciate them, these workers are underpaid because we do not invest in child care.

This is a time when the government actually subsidizes the oil and gas industry to the tune of $1.5 billion. How could the government make such a choice? It is scandalous. Those dollars, whether it is $1.5 billion or the $20 billion surplus, really should be used to train young people so they can learn a skill, so that they will have employment, so that they could retrofit homes. By retrofitting homes and making them green, Canadians would save on their energy bills. By making them green, Canadians would have renovated houses and we would actually get less greenhouse gas pollution.

Because we have money, we can also increase the guaranteed income supplement so that the poorest seniors can live in dignity. The guaranteed income supplement, which supplements pensions and old age security, had not been increased for at least 12 years until last year, when there was a very small increase.

Unfortunately, a lot of seniors are isolated in their homes. They do not have the money to buy a transit pass to visit their friends or go to the library. I know that some of them do not even have enough money to pay the electricity bill because it is so expensive. These seniors live in our midst when Canada is awash with money, yet we subsidize and have more corporate tax cuts.

A few minutes ago I stood outside Parliament Hill, joining many refugees who are suffering in this country. Many poor and cold young children and their families were outside. These refugees have escaped persecution and seek refuge here. Many of these women have faced persecution and, in many cases, domestic violence.

They are all refugees. They have a heavy burden. They are poor. They have no resources. They are seeking the opportunity for a better life in Canada, yet they face the ultimate indignity. They are punished and penalized with refugee fees. That is a terrible burden. I believe the Liberals introduced these fees with the excuse that they were trying to balance the budget. It was a lame excuse for a terrible burden which amounts to a modern-day head tax.

Now the Conservatives are blindly continuing that with these fees. These fees are causing great suffering. They are causing despair because some families just cannot afford to pay them. The fees are driving some of the families underground. They are driving them to hunger. They are keeping people from making a contribution and building better lives. Really, these fees are a head tax, a tax on the most vulnerable and on those who cannot afford to pay them.

The government has a pattern of giving the most to those who need the least. It also has a habit of giving the least to those who need the most. We have seen it as--

The House resumed from October 25 consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When this item was last before the House, the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina had the floor. There are 14 minutes remaining in the time allotted for her remarks.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this morning we notice that there is yet another international report that speaks of the need for Canada to invest in children. It is very much connected with the budget that we are debating today.

The annual UNESCO report on education in developing nations finds that the majority of countries, especially Canada, need to focus their efforts on policies that address the needs of an age group that it says is often overlooked. The report urges Canada to ensure that early childhood education is a high priority.

We know that in this budget, that is proposed for April 2007, the money for early childhood education will be eliminated. This follows a report that comes from the OECD which says that Canada is in fact at the bottom of the heap. It says that Canada has a failing grade. The report said that it is Canada's dirty little secret that we have actually tumbled down all the way to the bottom in the ranking. The report said that Canada should be investing at least $10 billion, which is the OECD goal, and 1% of the GDP as the minimum government investment.

We are at this time a dismal .03%, which is a fraction of the OECD target. It is no wonder that Canadian productivity is slipping and that Canadian businesses and industries are worried about our competitiveness and the competitiveness of our workforce. The OECD has clearly made a link between the national investment in quality early childhood education and productivity and competitiveness and growth.

I want to speak a bit about some of the kids in this country. A few years I asked children in my riding of Trinity—Spadina what they would do to make the world a better place. A five-year old wrote back and drew a very cute picture. She said that she wished from God that there would be money to buy groceries.

If we think about it, Canada is a really rich county. We have children in Canada that are praying to God for enough money to buy groceries. This means that obviously in her house and in the houses of some of her neighbours and friends there is no money to buy groceries. This means that oftentimes this little girl would go to bed and wake up hungry and would not be able to concentrate at school.

We see this especially in aboriginal communities. There are boil water advisories. We know of kids that have to sleep in shifts because there is not enough room in the bed in their house for them to be able to sleep at the same time. There is often only one room and there are several children.

In this kind of situation it is inexcusable that the government in this budget would not invest in aboriginal housing and early childhood education. Any money that the government has put aside in trust is last year's budget surplus. That money came from Bill C-48. This was the NDP budget money. These are the only dollars that the government is in fact investing in aboriginal housing, foreign aid and many other critically important areas.

I particularly remember a young person from the Dene nation. She had tears in her eyes when she talked about the sense of hopelessness that she had in her area. Yet, there are so many young people with many talents and skills to offer if they were to receive the kind of support and training that they so desperately need. These are young people who want to lead their communities and set a good example. We have not given them the tools in the budget to contribute.

On the youth employment front, I have received many letters from people in Toronto who talk about the importance of investing in young people, especially in the summer time. We know that recently there was a budget cut of at least $55 million. At this time we should be investing more on youth employment rather than cutting it.

I have a letter from Jacob Blomme, a concerned student, who talks about the job he has during the summer and how essential it is for him to have the opportunity to work in his field of study, so that he can make connections and be job ready when he finishes school. He knows that he is going to graduate with a $25,000 debt, which scares him because he is going to have to pay it back himself. Without jobs and training in his field of work, it is going to be even harder for him to find a job in the future. These are the young people of our future.

I have other letters. I have one from Canadian Crossroads International, for example, that talks about hiring dozens of young interns in recent years during the busy summer months to train young people overseas as volunteers by creating and supporting networks, working with HIV Without Borders, helping to manage the international AIDS conference in 2006, and supporting fundraising and ongoing research for organizations.

There are other organizations that say they desperately need money to invest in young people. They talk about the youth employment program standing out as a bright light of hope and empowerment in their own communities.

There are youth organizations that, because of training in the arts, were able to create many jobs, like the Fringe Festival in Toronto. There is a ticketed attendance of 47,000 people and $340,000 was given back to artists in the neighbourhood. When we invest in young people and in the arts, as a country we actually get the money back in our budget.

There is really no excuse. We know there is a surplus of $13 billion and none of it is invested in people or the future of our youth. It is the same with the new surplus of $6.7 billion. There is nothing invested to help people break the cycle of poverty or to eradicate child poverty. With the surplus, somehow the government feels it can tell Canadians they are overtaxed. It slashes programs and calls for tax cuts and yet our children go to bed hungry. I do not know whether members of Parliament know what it is like to go to bed hungry, but there are certainly a lot of those kids in this country.

If we look outside this country, we know that foreign aid is desperately in need of getting a boost in terms of investment. We know that more than 800 million people go to bed hungry around the world and 50,000 people die everyday from poverty related causes. That is why we absolutely have to increase Canadian aid by 18% annually and commit to a plan to meet the internationally agreed target for aid spending of .7% of our GDP by 2015.

We must also raise the annual Canada child tax benefit to $4,900 per child and ensure that all low income kids receive the full benefit of this program because that is in fact the demand of Make Poverty History. Think of what we could do with $20 billion. There are so many lives we could touch, but I fear the government does not get it. Perhaps it is not surprising that the government has so few women in their caucus.

The government thinks that the war on poverty is really a war on the poor. It thinks poverty is a nasty little habit that should be punished, stopped and penalized. It punishes the poor and gives tax breaks to those who do not need it. It gives the biggest baby bonus allowance to the spouses of the wealthiest people and the least to single mothers. We have a war against the poor rather than a war against poverty.

When we asked the government why it continued this track, why we were here day after day, it said it was because the Liberals were just as bad in the last 13 years. Imagine that. We had 13 years of Liberal neglect of important programs and the government used that as an excuse to reward the wealthy and punish the poor. This government seems determined to behave just as badly as the Liberals and to be even meaner in the neglect of social programs.

What kind of dumb ambition is that? That is the kind of ambition that we do not need in this House of Commons. We want to compete to be the best, not compete to be the worst, which is what is happening right now. Imagine being worse than the Liberals. I cannot even imagine that, but it is happening in front of me.

This House should rise together and demand better for refugees, children, senior citizens, women, aboriginals, immigrants, and for all of us. This budget is a sham. The poverty is real and more children are going hungry during this Parliament.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I predominantly agree with the thrust of the member's statements wholeheartedly, particularly with regard to the importance of having an early childhood education program that we had set up and signed with all the provinces, as she knows.

While I understand she was not here at the time, it was her party that helped trigger the election, with the other opposition parties, that led to its demise, it appears. We are still fighting with every breath to ensure that does not happen to this unprecedented early childhood program, which I agree would transform the lives, in terms of poverty, particularly of children in very difficult situations in our cities.

How does she rationalize the move that led to a serious backward step in the progress that we could have made in early childhood education? Why, and I believe it was Monday or Tuesday evening, did she vote with her party to not support our Liberal motion that was condemning these cuts that are particularly going to impact the underprivileged in our country?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish that this House, in the last Parliament, enshrined early childhood education in legislation. If we had done that, if this Parliament had done so under the former government, then this new minority government would not be able to just tear up those agreements with the provinces with the stroke of a pen. It would have to come back to this House to seek a vote to cancel the legislation for early childhood education. I know that this new minority government would not be able to get that kind of legislation through this House of Commons.

I urge members of Parliament, on November 22, to support a national Canadian early learning and child care act. All future governments would not be able to tear up this kind of legislation. We would have early childhood education and any funding that we set aside, whether it is the $650 million this year or, hopefully, the $1.2 billion next year on early childhood education, would not be cancelled by a stroke of a pen or without having a debate here in the House.

I think it is critically important to have legislation to back up these agreements because without legislation the agreements would not be able to be implemented easily. That is number one.

Number two, in the past--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. We cannot get to number two because we have other members who want to ask questions.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Leduc.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to raise what we are actually debating here today. We are debating the budget implementation act. I want to actually explicitly state what we are doing in this bill and why the member is opposing this bill.

For workers, we are creating a new Canada employment credit for every worker across this country and a new deduction for tool expenses for tradespeople, which is very needed certainly in western Canada.

For students, we are creating a new textbook tax credit and a complete exemption for scholarship income. The member talked about students. This is what we are doing for students.

For public transit users, we are creating a new tax credit for public transit passes.

For seniors, for the first time, we are doubling to $2,000 from $1,000 the amount on which the pension income credit is calculated.

For small businesses, something the NDP should be in favour of, we are reducing the current 12% small business tax to 11.5%, and then to 11%, and we are also increasing to $400,000 from $300,000 the exemption for small businesses.

This is for workers, students, seniors and small businesses. This is what is actually in the budget implementation act. This is what is in the budget. This is what is in the bill. This is why the NDP should stand and support this piece of legislation.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have Bill C-28 here. As I look through it over and over again, I really do not see how this bill actually deals with, for example, lowering tuition for students.

It does not increase pensions, whether it is the CPP, the GIS or the OAS for seniors.

I also do not see any real investment in public transit. We know that there is serious gridlock in a lot of cities. It has slowed down a lot of the small businesses. Their employees take a long time to go to work. They get stuck in traffic jams. People are crying out for investment in public transit so that we will be able to have better productivity and people will not be wasting their time sitting in traffic jams.

Those are the kinds of things that small businesses, seniors, students and a lot of working families are asking for.

Working families are saying that giving them a tax credit or a small deduction does not help, because, as we know, it takes a lot more than $100 a month to get affordable child care. There is not a chance that they even can get enough money for babysitting by April 2007. Also, this money for the so-called universal child care allowance is taxed back. When I tell working families that they had better put aside some money because the money they are receiving every month will be taxed by April, they say, “Oh, my goodness”.

This budget has nothing for working families that they can count on, especially as it relates to children.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that the hypocrisy that I have listened to is unbelievable. I know it very well and I know the member very well. I know what work she did on the issue of getting child care spaces when we were both councillors in the city of Toronto. The fact is, though, that the member's party brought down and defeated the best social policy we were going to have when it came to child care spaces and early earning for our children. That party brought down the post-secondary investment and all of the increases in the GIS that we were putting forward.

We were delivering all of those things. All of them were issues that I know my colleague cares very much about. The fact is that it was her party which brought down the government so that we are not able to deliver on those policies. How can the member stand there and still promote these policies? I question how the member can talk about those policies and how much she cares when those things were all being delivered by the previous Liberal government. It was her party that brought the government down.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know what part of corruption that member of Parliament does not understand, and also the fundamental concept of democracy. I do not know whether that member of Parliament understands what democracy means. It was Canadians who voted the last Liberal government out of office. It was Canadians who voted. It was Canadians who were upset with the corruption, with the money that just disappeared into some Liberal coffers, the Liberal Party's coffers. That is why the Liberal Party has been thrown out.

Having said that, I will say that we have to come together rather than blaming each other and looking at the past. Why can we not say that? In order for us to move forward, why can we not join together and look at investing in children and making sure that a decent Canadian early learning and child care act is passed?

I want to remind folks that in 2003 there was a red book promise. There was a 2004 promise. I believe there was also a promise in 2000. There were so many promises on early childhood education that we cannot keep track of them.

Fundamentally it was Canadians who voted the last government out of office, not the New Democratic Party of Canada.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to split my time with my colleague from Edmonton Centre.

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to rise and speak on behalf of Bill C-28, the budget implementation act, which, as the title indicates, is designed to implement certain measures outlined in our budget 2006.

On January 23, Canadians voted for change: a change in government, a change in fiscal accountability, and a change in fiscal management. These are changes to the benefit of all Canadians.

With that change came the direct support for our new government's five priorities. These priorities were outlined in the Speech from the Throne as well as in budget 2006, delivered by the finance minister on May 2.

On June 22, Bill C-13, the first budget implementation act, was given royal assent and many of our fiscal promises were fulfilled. These measures included reducing the GST from 7% to 6% and introducing a $1,200 per year universal child care benefit for parents of children under the age of six.

We introduced other tax cuts as well, tax cuts that Canadians have not seen before. Our first budget cut taxes by an incredible $20 billion over two years. Yes, $20 billion over two years. Our budget offered more in tax cuts than the four previous Liberal budgets combined.

Canadians are very happy with our budget, and I am happy to say that not one of the opposition parties opposed our budget when it came to a final vote, not one. They grumbled at first, but then they studied our budget and saw the great benefit of our government's budget to Canadians. In the end, they did not oppose it, so our budget has the support of Canadians and of the opposition.

I am pleased to be here today supporting the second budget implementation act, Bill C-28. We want to keep rolling out the tax cuts for Canadians and, in doing so, show Canadians that when we make a promise, we keep it.

The action taken with Bill C-28 will cut taxes for pensioners, families, students, users of public transit, and each and every worker in Canada. These measures will make a real difference to Canadians by focusing on their priorities, priorities like lowering taxes for working families, assisting small and medium sized businesses achieve real growth, and helping tradespeople, students, families and seniors.

In short, Bill C-28 delivers on our budget and delivers real tax relief for Canadians. This government recognizes that Canadians pay too much tax. As a colleague of mine previously reported, according to the Fraser Institute, while the average family's income has gone up 1,100% since 1961, its taxes have shot up a whopping 1,600%, outstripping the growth in income.

As I mentioned, this is a new government with a new respect for our fellow Canadians. We need only look at the measures in Bill C-28 to see exactly how we are putting more money back into the pockets of hard-working taxpayers.

Working Canadians are the foundation of Canada's economic growth. However, choosing to work also means additional costs, costs for everything from uniforms and safety gear to computers and various supplies. For some, particularly low income Canadians, these additional costs can impose a barrier to joining the workforce. For others, work related employment expenses are another factor that limits the rewards of their hard work.

In recognition of this, budget 2006 introduced the Canada employment credit, a new employment expense tax credit for employees' work expenses. A credit on employment income of up to $500 will be provided effective July 1, 2006. The amount of employment income eligible for credit will rise to $1,000 effective January 1, 2007.

Budget 2006 also recognizes that creating an environment for more and better jobs and for strong economic growth depends on having a competitive tax system. The engines of our economy, our wealth creators, are businesses, both small and large, and they should not have to face the heavy burden of overtaxation. The businesses that feel this burden most are small and medium sized businesses. They create jobs and are the backbone of our country's economy.

In my riding of Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, small and medium sized businesses are essential. They are the economic backbone of my riding: farms, farm equipment retailers, manufacturing, industry, pharmacies, grocers, et cetera. Without their success, ridings like mine would struggle. Many of us are employed by them. Small to medium sized business is responsible for the majority of all new jobs created in Canada. Whether we live in an urban riding or a rural riding, all of us turn to small businesses for services, and our future economic growth will depend a great deal on their success.

An important way that Canada's federal income tax system supports the growth of small businesses is through a lower tax rate on the first $300,000 of qualifying income earned by a Canadian-controlled corporation. This helps these small businesses retain more of their earnings for reinvestment and expansion, thereby helping to create jobs and promote economic growth in Canada.

With the passing of Bill C-28, and effective January 1, 2007, the threshold for small businesses will be increased from $300,000 to $400,000. In concert, the 12% rate for eligible small business income will be reduced to 11.5% in 2008 and then down to 11% in 2009. It is estimated that these changes will reduce government taxation on these businesses by $10 million in 2006-07 and $80 million in 2007-08.

There is more.

Hon. members from all ridings know that Canada is facing a serious shortage of tradespeople: carpenters, plumbers, electricians, cooks and others. Our government is taking action to encourage apprenticeships and to support apprentices in their training.

Specifically, we will help companies hire apprentices with a new apprenticeship job creation tax of up to $2,000 per apprentice. We will create a new apprenticeship incentive grant of $1,000 per year for the first two years of a red seal apprenticeship program and other programs.

Through these actions, our Conservative government will be investing more than $500 million over the next two years, which will help approximately 100,000 apprentices.

We will also help apprentices and tradespeople with the heavy burden of buying the tools they need to do their jobs. Our government will invest $155 million over the next two years for a cost of tools deduction, which will help approximately 700,000 tradespeople in Canada.

In regard to our seniors, members will no doubt agree that some seniors struggle to live on a small fixed income. As I travel throughout my riding, I often hear seniors ask, “Why does the government not do something to help seniors, those of us on a fixed income?” I am always pleased to state that this is exactly what we are doing. We are providing real tax relief to seniors.

The most important measure involves a doubling to $2,000 from $1,000 of the amount on which the pension income credit is calculated. A deduction for the first $1,000 was introduced in 1975, but since its introduction the amount has remained unchanged. That is unbelievable.

It took our new Conservative government to do something for our seniors to rectify this problem. We recognize and understand the difficulty faced by seniors on fixed pension incomes. To provide greater tax assistance to those who have saved for their retirement, budget 2006 increased to $2,000 the maximum amount of eligible pension income that can be claimed under the pension income credit, effective for 2006 and subsequent taxation years.

The measure will benefit nearly 2.7 million taxpayers receiving eligible pension income, providing up to $155 per pensioner, but not only that, it will remove approximately 85,000 pensioners from the tax rolls. This is real action to the benefit of our seniors.

In regard to Canadian families, they are the very foundation of our society and they play a vital role in the development of our communities. This is why it is important that we reduce their tax burden as much as possible.

One of the ways we are doing this is with the children's fitness tax credit. The health and fitness of our children is very important. As the government, we want to promote physical fitness among children and we want to do it by supporting families directly.

We take families seriously and we take physical fitness seriously. Budget 2006 provides a children's fitness tax credit effective January 1, 2007. The credit will be provided on up to $500 of eligible fees for programs of physical activity for each child under the age of 16.

I am the father of five children. They are involved in fitness activities such as soccer, basketball and highland and Celtic dance. I am pleased to state that finally we have a government that listens to families, that works together with families and that helps families with their real expenses. This is a great tax credit for families. It encourages and supports physical fitness and it is my sincere hope that the opposition parties will support it.

Lastly, I would like to highlight what we are doing for students. We believe that our post-secondary students need to be supported in their hard work in pursuit of academic excellence. Currently, the first $3,000 in scholarship, fellowship and bursary income received by a post-secondary student is not taxed, but any amounts above $3,000 are taxed. Students do not need this. They do not need to be paying tax on scholarships, fellowships and bursaries. They need to use that money toward their education.

I am very pleased to highlight that our new government understands the financial challenges that post-secondary students face and that we are on their side. We want them to succeed in their studies by alleviating financial pressures, which is why Bill C-28 proposes a complete exemption for scholarship income received by students.

Budget 2006--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. When the Speaker is standing the members are sitting.

The member's time has expired. I tried to give him a signal but he never looked at the chair and I cannot give people signals if they never look at the chair.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Yukon.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to set the record straight on one item before I ask my question.

The member suggested that all opposition parties were in support of the budget. I want to make it categorically clear, on behalf of all Liberals, that this opposition party totally opposes the budget. We have always opposed it and we will continue to oppose it.

There was a technical slip-up in Parliament and one vote slipped through. If the government wants to make a big issue out of the fact that it only received support due to a technical mistake, then that is a pretty weak case to make. Maybe it was the same type of mistake that people made in electing the Conservatives once they see the budgets and the recent budget cuts.

The member talked about the importance of seniors and the fact that they had not suggested an increase in the pension deduction since 1975, which is true, and it is too bad that they did not do that, but for those seniors who do not get the pension deduction, why did the government harm seniors by increasing their income taxes from 12% to 12.5%?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the first comment the hon. member made, the records show that there was no opposition regarding our budget. I thank the hon. member for his party's support regarding it. This government pays attention--

[An hon. member]

It is history.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Exactly so. It is history. It is on the record. I thank the member again for his support.

As I mentioned, many of our seniors are on pension incomes. Our pension income action will actually benefit 2.7 million pensioners and it will remove 850,000 people from the tax rolls. It is a very strong measure in favour of our seniors.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, many seniors do not file income tax returns and many of them, through no fault of their own, do not receive the guaranteed income supplement even though they are entitled to it.

Would it not be a much better use of taxpayer money to help the poorest of our seniors by adding more funding to the guaranteed income supplement? Seniors would then have real money in their hands.

The member said that if seniors have filed their income tax returns then they should automatically receive the guaranteed income supplement. However, if seniors do not apply for it or if they do not know how to apply for it, they do not receive it. Even if they receive it, they end up getting a small amount of money.

Would increasing the guaranteed income supplement not be a better way to spend the budget surplus? This would give our seniors some income security and real money in their pocket. It would also help to have a national pharmacare program so seniors would not have to pay so much to buy the drugs they need.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there are many different ways to assist seniors and we have taken a very dramatic step in assisting our seniors by doubling the amount of pension income that is non-taxable, that is doubling it from $1,000 to $2,000. We have also taken other measures, for example, lowering the GST, so when they spend money they are actually saving on the GST.

We are helping seniors on other matters. such as health care. One of our priorities is ensuring that health care is more readily accessible to our seniors.

I would like to talk about the surplus. We put $13.2 billion down on the debt, thereby saving Canadians interest charges of $650 million per year. The $650 million per year will be reinvested for the benefit of Canadians. We have other strategies that we will be presenting in the future to further assist our seniors.

I would like to underline that Bill C-28 takes direct action to benefit seniors, especially those on fixed pension incomes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to speak to Bill C-28. This budget is full of good news for the people of Canada and the people of Edmonton Centre. I intend to highlight the benefits that it will have in my community.

I am very proud to represent the constituency of Edmonton Centre. This is a time of great economic growth in the province of Alberta, but that growth also comes with great challenges that must be met if we are to enjoy the benefits of growth. The vibrant and diverse people of Edmonton are up to this challenge, and I am pleased to see in this budget that the government is giving them the tools that they need for this task.

First, I would like to talk a little about the constituency of Edmonton Centre. The riding includes the downtown core as well as some of the oldest residential neighbourhoods in the city. It includes part of the scenic river valley, one of the oldest municipal golf courses in Canada, and the oldest municipal airport in Canada, Blatchford Field.

A tour of the riding will show us the Alberta legislative buildings, as well as the Royal Alberta Museum, the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Citadel Theatre, the Francis Winspear Centre for Music and the historic Hotel Macdonald. There are corporate headquarters, along with a thriving small business community and the World Trade Edmonton Centre.

We have two of the busiest hospitals in the city, as well as two of the largest post-secondary institutions in the province. There are new condo developments in historic old houses. There are many shops devoted to antiques, as well as many private galleries showing off the best that western Canadian artists and artisans have to offer.

Edmonton's menu of fine restaurants rivals any city in Canada. There are industrial areas and beautiful parkland. The area is as rich and diverse as Canada itself. There are many seniors' residences alongside condos where young families are moving to bring up the next generation.

There has always been a large immigrant community in Edmonton Centre. Where once Ukrainians came to build better lives for themselves and their children, we see the same thing happening with new Canadians from China, Vietnam, Somalia, Sudan and many other places around the world.

I would like to touch upon the importance of students and the measures that the government has taken for their benefit. At schools, like Grant MacEwan Community College, I am extremely pleased to note that post-secondary students will now have their entire scholarship, fellowship and bursary incomes exempt from income tax. For many of these students, that money represents their entire income and this will free them from having to juggle a part time job while studying for exams. More than 100,000 students will be affected by this measure.

Another institution that is important to Edmonton is the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. This school is the largest supplier of skilled trades and apprentices in the province and supplies fully 17% of apprentices for the entire country.

Several measures in the budget will apply specifically to students at NAIT. I have been to many forums at NAIT and I have been fortunate to be part of a major funding announcement for new programs and services. I have talked to the students at these events and have listened to their concerns. People accept that tuition fees are part of getting a good quality education, but one of the single biggest costs associated with getting an education and which affects the students' standard of living is the cost of textbooks. It is for that reason that budget 2006 has instituted a new textbook tax credit. This will help students where they need it most, and this credit applies to both full time as well as part time students.

Apprentices are critical to the future of the Alberta economy and, in fact, Canada's economy. There is a surge in demand now and this government is moving to ensure that that demand is sustainable. That is why we have introduced the $2,000 job creation tax credit. Eligible employers will now receive a tax credit equal to 10% of the wages paid to qualifying apprentices in the first two years of their contracts, to a maximum of $2,000 per apprentice per year. This helps maintain a supply of apprentices by ensuring that people look at this training as a stable opportunity for future jobs. It will also encourage employers to grow their businesses with a steady supply of skilled labour.

Once the students leave NAIT, they will also receive a benefit from this budget in the form of a $500 deduction for tradespeople's tool expenses, as has already been mentioned. This measure recognizes the cost of tools beyond the $1,000 that is covered by the new Canada employment credit and provides yet another helping hand exactly when and where it is needed.

Successful students are vital to our future and are represented in the budget by several measures, but I also want to highlight another segment of our population that needs a helping hand.

Our senior citizens have lived and worked through some of the darkest times as well as the brightest. They have raised families. They have fought Canada's wars in the cause of freedom. They have started and run businesses and they have paid a lot of taxes. For too many of them, however, life is a struggle, being caught between the rock and a hard place of a fixed income and a rising cost of living.

It is for this reason that the initiative to raise the maximum amount of pension income, which can be claimed as pension income credit, is so important. Since its inception 30 years ago, the credit has been $1,000. Recently we measurably increased it to $2,000, affecting 2.7 million taxpayers and taking 85,000 taxpayers off of the tax rolls altogether. Those people have worked so hard so we can enjoy our prosperity. It is critical to know that 85,000 pensioners will no longer face the burden of income tax due to this budget, and I am extremely pleased to be able to say that.

Another new credit in the budget will help seniors, but it will also help students and all of us. I am referring to the $500 public transit pass credit. One does not have to spend a lot of time in Edmonton Centre to see how important the public transit system is to that community. Whether it is students making their way to college or school, seniors shopping for groceries or businessmen heading for downtown, the Edmonton transit system covers all parts of the constituency and is relied on by a very large number of people.

This new credit will increase ridership and, thus, also increase the frequency of services. It will also reduce the amount of air pollution that is caused by the large number of cars on the road. This is a tangible measure to conserve our environment and protect the health of Canadians and its value will be felt by those who need it most.

The budget has measures to help out the thriving small business sector in Edmonton. Small and medium enterprises are the real engine of our economy and they need a clean and sustainable supply of fuel on which to run. That fuel is capital and our new government wants to keep their tanks full.

Specifically, the government is reducing the current tax rate of 12% on qualifying small business income to 11.5% in 2008 and to 11% in 2009. In addition, we are increasing the amount of income a small business can earn before it has to pay federal tax from $300,000 to $400,000 as of January 1, 2007.

I take great pride in going back to the riding to tell business owners that we are listening to them, that we understand their concerns and that we are taking steps to help them solve their business problems and develop even more jobs and prosperity. Some of these small businesses are companies that provide tax advice to people who are fighting the high cost of living and the high cost of taxes at the same time. They are the ones who have known for a long time that there is an inherent advantage to being a small business owner when the tax man comes knocking.

There are many more deductions that people can claim and a variety of options for lowering the overall tax burden. Those who receive regular employment income rather than owning a small business have always suffered in comparison, but budget 2006 recognizes that unfairness and treats the problem properly with the Canada employment credit. The new credit covers things like personal computers, stationery, uniforms, clothing and a long list of items that people sometimes are required to purchase for their work. If they were small business owners, this would all be deductible as the cost of doing business.

Now the people who earn employment income will be recognized as well. Every Canadian who receives employment income will get up to $500 for the 2006 calendar year and $1,000 for 2007. This benefit will be felt by all working Canadians, especially the low income earners who face barriers in the form of work related expenses.

This budget makes a difference. It is targeted and focused on helping those who need help while providing much needed tax relief for all Canadians.

The seniors and students in my riding will see a significant difference in their cost of living when these tax measures take effect. Working Canadians will take home more of their money at the end of the day. Small businesses will be able to grow without extra penalties and be able to increase employment. In short, this budget is good news for Canada, good news for the province of Alberta and good news for the riding of Edmonton Centre.

I am privileged and proud to be part of the government that has delivered this budget to the people of Canada and I encourage all opposition parties to help us in making the bill become law as soon as possible.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, maybe my colleague from the Tories can help me to understand part of the thought process that went into the making of the budget. A lot of us were shocked at the $1 billion worth of cutbacks that were announced recently. Yet when the Conservative Party introduced the budget, there was no mention of the lost revenue associated with offshore tax havens.

How can the Conservatives justify the cutting, hacking and slashing of $1 billion out of relatively small increments from many important little programs and turn a blind eye or have wilful blindness to the fact that tax fugitives are denying the federal government up to $7 billion per year of lost tax revenue in offshore tax havens, such as Barbados?

I know the previous government tore up 11 tax treaties for different countries in which people could hide their money. They call it tax motivated expatriation. We call it sleazy, tax cheating loopholes. It left only one, the very tax haven where the former prime minister has his dummy companies and enjoys this tax haven status.

Why would the Conservative Party not close the door on this outrageous and egregious violation of principles and ethics called offshore tax havens?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, part of my response is we inherited a 13 year old elephant. It cannot be eaten in one sitting.

Perhaps the member for LaSalle—Émard's company still derives benefit from work that perhaps has been left undone. I cannot say what will come in the future and all the measure the government will take. I do know there will be a succession of Conservative governments over the next many years. Those governments will continue to address issues as they come up. The government will continue to address the needs of Canadians.

With respect to the billion dollars in savings that was recently announced, a lot of that money, as I am sure this member surely knows, was money that was never committed to anything in the first place. It was money that was idly sitting by and doing nothing. That money has been redirected to programs that will help all Canadians, average Canadians, everyday Canadians.

The $650 million that the government will save next year and every year after in paying down the national debt will also go to helping Canadians. This is what the Conservative government is all about and it will be all about this for many years to come.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I remind the member that he is talking about a $13 billion surplus left over from the great work of the previous Liberal government. He is also talking about a good economy and a strong country.

In 1993, when the Liberals replaced the previous Conservative government, they inherited a $42 billion deficit. It took an immense amount of time and work on behalf of Canadians and our government to regain the proper resources it needed to reap the benefit.

How does the member justify the recent cuts? The government has taken $17 million out of the adult literacy program. This program has tried to help people who clearly want a hand up, not a handout. These people want to improve their life and contribute to the productivity of Canada.

The government cut the Status of Women program and the court challenges program. These programs helped people to move voices and various agendas forward.

How does the member justify those kinds of cuts when the government has a $13.2 billion surplus?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if the member wants to talk about history, we can go back and talk about what the Conservative government started with the legacy left by Pierre Trudeau. It is not a pretty legacy.

If the member wants to talk about cuts, these cuts were made to programs that were not delivering a return on the investment.

The government is committed to adult literacy. This is evident by the $81 million it is spending next year to address literacy. No actual literacy programs have been cut. An example of the cuts is an organization in Manitoba. It was receiving $353,000 a year in Canadian taxpayer dollars. It was delivering $10,000 a year in what could be loosely called a deliverable in terms of bursaries. That is not a very good return on investment.

The $2.5 million that was saved from administration in the Status of Women programs will be reinjected into actual programs that will actually help Canadian women. The Conservative government is about actually helping Canadians, not supporting administrative programs that create jobs for people who, frankly, should go out and get a real job.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always so interesting to participate in these debates and hear how everybody has their own terms and their own thoughts about what are successful programs and what are not. Our whole intent, as elected officials, is to help Canadians and ensure our country continues to be productive. We all have choices to make on what we consider are priorities.

I am pleased to have a chance to speak to Bill C-28 today and to tell members why I cannot and will not ever support the bill before us. Frankly, it is nothing short of being a disgraceful, selective document that panders to the very narrow electoral base of the Conservatives. As such, I believe it is bad for our country.

Yesterday marked the 13th anniversary of the 1993 election, when the Liberal Party won government from the Mulroney Conservatives. Our Liberal government eliminated that deficit of $42 billion and balanced our budget, finally, in 1997, with the help of Canadians and with the leadership shown by the government. We went on to record eight consecutive balanced budgets and restored the nation's AAA credit rating.

I would remind members that we were at a point of almost bankruptcy and were being referred to as a third world country. I also remind members of the amount of work that Canadians had to do to get us out of that debt and to put our country on a balanced footing.

We slashed the federal debt, both as a percentage of the economy and in absolute dollar terms. Canada's debt to GDP ratio dropped by 50% over our government's tenure. We achieved the best fiscal record of all the G-7 group of world-leading economies and the best of any Canadian government since Confederation in 1867. We are very proud of that.

Prior to this past spring, the federal Conservatives last balanced a budget in 1912. We wonder what the future will hold as we go forward.

However, I will go back to the present situation.

The minority Conservative government inherited the best fiscal situation in Canadian history and it is failing Canadians now by neglecting the future challenges in putting forward this visionless budget. It is a simple case of some sort term gain and long term pain for our great country, which we have all worked so very hard to build over the last 13 years.

Budget 2006 has done nothing to bolster Canada's productivity and make it more competitive on the world stage. David Crane and other senior newspaper columnists talk about how important it is to have that productivity agenda moving forward. There is nothing in the budget that relates to that or is going to be investing in those areas.

The budget neglects to make any significant improvement and investments in education and innovation. Our Liberal government had a concrete vision that would have put us at the forefront of competitiveness and innovation. This lacklustre and visionless budget contains virtually nothing in this regard.

Another example is our last fiscal budget update provided $2.5 billion for university research, which is an extremely important area for our country. The Conservative budget provides $200 million, which is less than one-tenth of our commitment. Under the Liberal government, the best and brightest were flocking to Canada, due to our sound investment in research and development.

How will Canada compete on the world stage, in the future, with a visionless budget? How can Canada continue to nation-build when it has a government and its budget that cares more about politics and how to score points than sound fiscal management?

The minority Conservative government is continuing its legacy of failing Canadians through our post-secondary education system, forcing the provinces to go it alone and abandoning our students across the country. I remind hon. members that our students are our future.

Prior to the Conservatives and the NDP forcing the last election, the Liberals had made significant commitments in the November 2005 fiscal update, including $4.1 billion toward post-secondary education.

The Conservatives offer a measly Canada textbook credit, a $500 annual credit for textbooks. One wonders what that really means in dollars. This is worth exactly $77.50 per year for students who spend $500 or more on textbooks.

The Liberal Party had proposed a fifty-fifty plan to pay half of the tuition in the first and last years of post-secondary programs, which would have been worth thousands of dollars per year to students and would have been of enormous benefit to Canada and to Canada's future. Seventy-seven dollars and fifty cents will do nothing to increase access or decrease student debt.

Simply stated, the Conservative government has failed to make post-secondary education a priority.

The Liberals know that we must invest in our students and ensure that they have the tools they need to succeed in life. I am very pleased to remind hon. members that Liberals actually care about Canada's students, and I think our past practice has shown that.

In fact, in our 2006 election platform, we had proposed to expand Canada access grants to cover all four years of study and to develop a fifty-fifty plan, which would have paid for half of the tuition of all Canadian students for both the first and the last year of study. We proposed to conduct a comprehensive review of student assistance, to provide additional funding for Canadian students who study abroad, and to make a 50% increase in funding for graduate scholarships. These were all important initiatives, as I am sure all of my colleagues would agree.

These Liberal initiatives were very popular in my riding of York West, especially York University, which, I am very proud to say, is in my riding. This exceptional school prides itself on the pursuit, preservation and dissemination of knowledge. It provides excellence in research and teaching in pure, applied and professional fields, testing the boundaries and structures of knowledge. This community of faculty, students and staff is committed to academic freedom, social justice, accessible education and collegial self-governance. I am very proud to represent it.

Another failure of the Conservatives is their transit credit, which is another selective tax measure designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which we all want to see done, by increasing public transit ridership in the cities. However, a small price decrease in public transit does nothing for ridership. Those who use transit will continue to use it because it is convenient for them. Those who do not use transit will not suddenly run out and buy a transit pass for a $12 a month tax break. I wrote the book on cities and urban transit issues, so I know that this $12 will do nothing to increase ridership.

The Canada employment tax credit is essentially a $1,000 increase in the basic personal exemption, but it applies only to employed taxpayers. I favour an increase in the basic personal exemption for all Canadians, so that seniors and stay at home moms could benefit as well.

But budget 2006, while proposing this selective tax break, decreased the basic personal exemption, effectively hiking income taxes for all Canadians. The minority Conservative government's budget actually raises income tax rates in the lowest tax bracket, which it clearly denied while this was acknowledged by others.

Despite the government's claim to be helping Canadian families, it has raised the tax rate from 15% to 15.5% for the lowest income Canadians. Clearly, the lowest income Canadians are not the priority of the new minority Conservative government. I think it is nothing short of disgraceful. Low income families need our support, yet the government is quietly raising their taxes and giving tax breaks to companies.

The budget fails to provide real tax relief for low income and middle income Canadians. Eliminating Liberal income tax cuts in favour of a 1% GST cut has been panned by every serious economist in the country as a plan that will benefit higher income Canadians at the expense of those who need it most. The Conservatives are actually increasing income taxes, which means that many people who got a refund for 2005 will end up paying in 2006.

The children's fitness credit sounds wonderful but, like the textbook tax credit, it is not actually worth $500 per year. Tax credits are multiplied by the lowest bracket rate, giving this measure a final value of $77 per year. Parents across the country know that it costs a lot more than that to enroll children in much needed sports programs.

The Liberal government's great achievements as a nation builder are also at risk with this flawed budget. Canada remains an exciting and prosperous country, but we must look forward for an agenda with a renewed national purpose. Thanks to the efforts of my previous government, this country can afford a national housing program. It can afford a universal child care program. It can afford investment in research and development to ensure our future priorities.

This budget is unfair and inequitable and increases taxes on the lowest income Canadians while the richest few would benefit. The Conservative government's first budget fails to address the real needs of Canadian families, abandons fiscal responsibility and fails to provide an economic vision for the future. If the government continues down this road, it will undo all of the good work that we did to put Canada at the head of the G-7 and, in the end, only the wealthy will benefit while those most in need will be left behind.

Many of the provisions in Bill C-28 underscore the selective and narrow governing style of the minority Conservative government. It has become frighteningly clear that the government is completely willing to sacrifice our long term economic health for potential political gain. This is clearly unacceptable to Canadians.

I cannot support this budget at this time. It would be wonderful if the government would stand back and try to make some of the changes that clearly need to be done to be more reflective of the Canada we want to see.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's remarks. I would comment first that it was probably the policies of Brian Mulroney, which he had the courage to bring in, and the unlimited powers of taxation that had more to do with balancing budgets than anything else. I can balance a budget if I have unlimited powers of taxation any time.

The Liberals talk about us buying something. I would suggest that the track record would show that it is not our party that buys votes. What we have been trying to do with this budget, I think successfully, and certainly Canadians seem to agree, is that we are actually buying the future with things like reducing the debt and so on.

I would ask my hon. colleague a question on a much more human level. We hear all the rhetoric back and forth all the time about people who do not care and so on. Does the hon. member honestly think that there is a single member in this House on either side, in any party, who does not care about Canadians, or that I do not care about my children, or my grandchildren, hopefully yet to come, or my parents and grandparents or my neighbours? Does the member honestly believe that people on this side do not care about the welfare of Canadians?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think we all get into politics because we care about people. The question becomes what our priorities are, what we think are investments.

Evidently what we think is an investment is quite different from what you think an investment is. I think we have to make sure that we are investing in our companies, in our economy and in our productivity and innovation, but we also have to remember that there are a lot of Canadians who have not had the opportunities that many of us may have had and that we need to be investing and giving a hand up to many Canadians so they can go on to be very productive. That comes back to what we invest our money in.

When you talk about the balanced budget, you had an opportunity in the Conservatives for nine years--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. Two or three times the hon. member has referred to the hon. member for Edmonton Centre as “you”. I let it go hoping it would come to an end. It does not appear to be coming to an end, so please refer to the hon. member as “he” and address your remarks through the Chair.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to make sure I do not violate that in the future. I thank you and also for the apology on both sides. It is nice to know that there are people in the House who apologize easily when we do things that may upset others.

I think the whole question is that when the Conservatives were in power they had nine years and never produced a balanced budget, and we ended up getting in with a $42 billion deficit to deal with. The question is priorities. I would suggest that the Conservatives have theirs, the Liberals have theirs and so do the NDP, but I believe that we are going forward in a positive way with a balanced approach to help all Canadians.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in 1989 in the House of Commons there was a unanimous vote to end child poverty in 2000. Perhaps the hon. member remembers that pledge, yet after years of surpluses we still have 1.5 million kids living in poverty. In her city of Toronto, approximately one out of three kids is living below the poverty line. The majority of people using food banks like the Daily Bread Food Bank and FoodShare are in fact children.

I heard a long speech about how we need to care about the people who are most vulnerable. I have a question. Why is it, given surplus after surplus during all these years, that there has been no significant investment to lower the rate of child poverty? In her mind, I wonder if this budget seems, like it does for me, to have continued the same tradition of taking all the surplus to pay down debt rather than invest in children.

How would the Liberals have done anything differently? It seems to me that it is the same pattern of taking all the surplus and dealing only with debt rather than investing in children.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that there were a lot of things that the previous Liberal government did while in office. There was $130 billion from decreasing taxes. Our goal has always been to achieve. Our goal would be to eliminate poverty, and the intention has always been to work toward that.

It is very multi-faceted, but when the NDP clearly shares a lot of our vision, one has to question how much better Canada would have been today if the Liberals had stayed in power with our child care programs, early learning programs and all of the investments we were making. We would have been far better off had we stayed with the Liberal government in power rather than having the NDP defeat our government.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to focus on one thing my colleague raised. That is the low income seniors' pensions. My mathematics show that the pension cheques for low income seniors for this six month period are lower. They actually got a cut in pay due to the basic personal exemption being lowered.

The government actually lowered the basic personal exemption for seniors, from $9,200 to $8,600, I think, which means that those seniors are paying taxes on more of their earnings. Therefore, I have people walking into my office with their pension cheques from August to September and those cheques are $10 a month lower.

Has the member noticed similar trends in that the first thing the Conservative government did with its first budget was to give low income seniors a cut in pay?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have heard about that and I would suggest that we will be hearing a lot more from many of the most vulnerable in society, who look to government to assist them.

I was very pleased that we were increasing the GIS to many of the seniors in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and even with those kinds of increases, our seniors will continue to struggle. Many of them are having to live on $11,000 a year and are having intense difficulty doing that. They find themselves asking for family assistance. We need to be investing more.

Again, I have to say to the hon. member, had the Liberals stayed in power, clearly we would not have to be dealing with that issue.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to clarify a comment that came from the member for Edmonton Centre. He attributed some of the financial success this country has had over the last 13 years to Brian Mulroney.

I remind the House that when Mr. Mulroney left office in 1993, we had a deficit of $43 billion, interest rates were close to 12%, unemployment was at 11.1% or 11.2%, and the debt to GDP ratio was 73%. Had he been in power another 35 minutes, I think the country would have been bankrupt.

However, that is not my question. My question for my colleague deals with some of the cuts that we have seen. The $5 million cut to the Status of Women was very unfortunate, although from a global perspective it was not that significant, but perhaps what is more troubling is the directive that the government would no longer finance any group that advocated for the equality of women in Canada.

Does my colleague have any reason as to why this directive was issued? What effect will it have on those groups across Canada that do successfully advocate for the equality of women in this country?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Status of Women did a lot of advocacy work on behalf of women and on behalf of many people across Canada. The fact that it will have its budget significantly cut will eliminate a lot of the organizations out there that were working on not only women's issues but on family issues. That is just one sample of what we will see in the future of what are the priorities of the government.

Removing the word “equality” from the mandate changes things very significantly as to what groups will receive funding and what groups will not. Many of these groups do not receive a lot of money, but again, it is almost sometimes a token to say thanks to some of these groups that are doing advocacy work on a bare bones budget. If they get a few thousand dollars from the Status of Women to focus on issues dealing with the needs of women, it is something we should be proud of.

Last year an independent organization recommended to the previous government that the Status of Women budget should be increased by approximately 25% so it can meet the needs of the many groups and organizations that needed that assistance.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on Bill C-28, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006.

As hon. members know, the Bloc Québécois supported this Conservative budget, essentially because the Prime Ministerand his government promised to correct the fiscal imbalance in the next budget, which is expected in February or March 2007 to cover 2007-08. Those were the circumstances in which the Bloc Québécois gave its support.

The budget also contained provisions that addressed issues raised historically by the Bloc Québécois, such as the tax credit for public transit. I remember that a member from the Chicoutimi area—from Jonquière, to be exact—had introduced a private member's bill along those lines. We are glad to see that Bill C-28 includes a tax credit for public transit. There is also a textbook tax credit, something the Bloc Québécois has consistently called for, to give students the easiest possible access to textbooks. In fact, we would like to go ever further. I will come back to this.

Lastly, there is the tax deduction for microbreweries. I would like to pay tribute to the extraordinary work done by my colleague and friend from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—I cannot say his name, but he knows who he is—who led the charge on this issue, which I also helped to promote and which was finally addressed in the last budget. I congratulate him on this work and on this success, which is due primarily to the efforts by the Bloc Québécois to convince the other parties, especially the Conservative Party when it was in opposition, that this request was worthwhile. I will come back to this as well.

Because of these provisions, we are going to support Bill C-28. I will describe the bill very briefly, because the people following this debate at home must sometimes be wondering what it is about. It is extremely technical—always a bad thing—but that is the way budget bills are. Nevertheless, it will affect the daily lives of a huge number of Quebeckers and Canadians.

The bill has five main provisions. The first implements a series of tax measures for individuals. For example, it implements credits for apprentices and tradespersons. I want to point out that this is something the Bloc Québécois has been seeking for a long time. Our member from the North Shore introduced—a number of times—a private bill along those lines. It also increases the non-refundable credit for persons receiving a pension, implements a public transportation credit, which I talked about earlier, and increases the refundable credit for medical fees. This is the first main provision, which affects individuals.

The second main provision is on extending benefits to businesses. For instance, it extends to fishing businesses a number of benefits that already existed for agribusinesses. There are various measures in this second section on businesses, capital gains, the transfer of a business to other members of the family and anything to do with agribusiness tax benefits. That is the second main provision, which affects businesses.

The third main provision in Bill C-28 implements various tax measures for businesses, but on other levels. Among the measures in this bill, we find the abolition of the surtax on the revenue of Canadian corporations and an increase of the amount a small business can earn if it wants to benefit from a tax credit. This last item is particularly interesting. Tax equity has not yet been achieved in the federal tax system. This is true for individuals and businesses alike, as we have realized. The purpose of this last measure in particular is to correct, but not entirely, this unfairness in the tax system for small and medium sized business, which, I would like to remind hon. members, are the lifeblood of the Quebec and Canadian economy.

The fourth main provision or series of legislative changes is on lowering the tax rate on capital property for Canadian banks. I will come back to that another time.

Finally, the fifth main provision is on a series of measures to lower excise tax on the first 75,000 hectolitres of beer brewed in Canada in order to stimulate the growth and emergence of microbreweries.

Members know that this is a very buoyant industry in the regions. This is true of Quebec, but it is also true of the rest of Canada. However, our industry is facing ferocious competition from foreign microbreweries, especially American ones, which are not so much on the micro side. They may not qualify as macrobreweries, but almost. These are breweries producing millions of hectolitres of beer each year, while ours produce less than one million. We called for a reduction in excise tax for these businesses, like the one most of our competition is benefiting from in Europe and the U.S. As I indicated, microbreweries are not the same size over there than they are in Quebec and Canada. It would therefore be important that ours have a comparative advantage.

I will not expand any further on that. I will not be able to address all the measures contained in this bill, which, as hon. members can see, is pretty thick. Nevertheless, I will focus on those measures I saw as the most worthwhile or interesting, which I mentioned at the beginning of my speech.

The first tax measure for individual taxpayers described in this bill is a deduction for tool expenses for apprentices and tradespeople. As I said, the government is allowing expenses to be deducted up to a maximum of $1,000 or the lowest of $1,000 or 5% of the apprentice's income over the year. If 5% of the income comes out to less than $1,000, the deduction will be 5%; if it comes out to more than $1,000, then the maximum deductible amount for tools will be $1,000.

Permitting the deduction of those tools is an important step because, as a rule, these people are self-employed workers who live on incomes that are extremely variable. Some apprentices and tradespeople who work for companies are required to buy their tools at their own expense. For example, in most of the garages where our cars are repaired, the tool kits belong to the tradespeople and mechanics. They have to pay for those and, even if they sometimes are on salary, that represents an extremely significant expense.

The maximum will be $1,000 for apprentices and $500 for established tradespeople. This is a measure that we have been demanding for a long time, as I mentioned. Once again, it is late in coming but at least it is there. Tradespeople will be able to benefit from it in coming years.

This tax measure also increases by $1,000 the maximum non-refundable credit to which pension recipients are entitled. The maximum non-refundable credit will now be $2,000. This is obviously a positive measure but it does nothing to correct the poverty in which many of our older people find themselves. In particular, this does not respond at all to the demand that the Bloc Québécois has made many times. Again, I pay tribute to our former member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain, Marcel—

[An hon. member]

Gagnon.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Marcel Gagnon. I can mention his name because he is no longer a member here. He really sounded the alarm about the fact that thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of older people were not receiving the guaranteed income supplement and that the federal government was dragging its feet in promoting awareness of this program. Several thousands of them were able to correct the situation, but there are still tens of thousands of people who have not been informed of their rights.

For our part, we would have preferred that this measure be accompanied by a real campaign to make this program known to older people who are entitled to the benefit. At the same time, we would have liked to have seen a retroactivity rule so that those people who had not received the supplement because they did not know about it could obtain the payments of which they had been deprived. Once again, these people have had to face the bureaucratic indifference of the federal government.

Still dealing with individuals, they have created a non-refundable $1,000 tax credit for employment income. For 2006, the amount will be $250; it will be increased to $1,000 for 2007. A non-refundable public transit tax credit has also been established. I spoke about that previously, and I will refer to it again later because this is an extremely important measure in the campaign against greenhouse gases.

The Bloc Québécois would have preferred a refundable tax credit, because we know that people who use public transit—not all of them, but many—do not have their own cars, have low incomes and therefore do not pay taxes. This is a first step, but we should improve this measure in a future budget by making the tax credit refundable.

A tax credit has also been introduced for textbooks, as I mentioned. This credit will be up to $65 a month for full-time students and $20 a month for part-time students. Considering the cost of textbooks, I think everyone will agree that this is an extremely beneficial measure for students. It will also help to reduce student debt—though obviously not as much as might be liked.

All in all, this is a positive measure and in the future, other measures should be added, in order to improve the situation of students, who, particularly in the Canadian provinces, may incur a lot of debt. As we know, Quebec has a system of loans and bursaries needing improvement, because the government in place, led by Mr. Charest, skewed it by transferring to loans a whole series of items formerly covered by bursaries. Some corrections will be made in this respect, I am sure, once the Parti québécois resumes power in the coming months.

And that goes for student debt, too. Very clearly a substantial transfer for social programs and post-secondary education will be required in the next budget. The Bloc Québécois imposed this condition, prior to lending its support for the upcoming budget.

With the Standing Committee on Finance, I have been able to travel all across Canada. Yesterday we were in Quebec City. Everyone acknowledges that a transfer of $4.9 billion is needed, including $1.2 billion for Quebec and some $550 million for universities and CEGEPs in this province. This measure is aimed at individuals, but it does not deal with the whole problem of student debt.

Another measure consists of raising from $767 to $1,000 the refundable supplement tied to medical expenses; this was simply indexed. This measure, aimed at people who need special care is positive, all in all. Let us hope, though, that it is not a way of fostering development of the private sector, which already plays a large part in our health system.

As I said earlier, these are the provisions that affect individuals. We feel that the most important of these elements are the tax credits for public transit, textbooks and tools. The Bloc Québécois made all of these suggestions in the past in private members' bills that we introduced but that were never passed. I would emphasize that these are only first attempts that ought to be improved upon in coming budgets.

I mentioned the tax credit for public transit. We must also ensure that tradespeople can benefit from a $1,000 deduction for expenses related to tools. In some trades, tools must be upgraded regularly because of changing technology. Lastly, with respect to the tax credit for textbooks, we think it would be logical for the federal government to abolish the GST on books, which are a cultural product that must be as accessible as possible.

Because of the positive elements in this first area, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-28.

With respect to businesses, specifically fishing businesses, as I said before, the Bloc Québécois has always supported Quebec fishers. We are keenly aware that the number of new people going to work in the fisheries sector is dwindling, just as it is in agriculture. This problem will get worse over the coming years. The fishing industry is vital to the survival of several of our regions, especially in coastal areas. The government's proposed measure encourages the intergenerational transfer of fishing businesses. We will support it. However, we will continue to demand greater tax benefits for the transfer of agricultural and fishing businesses to individuals outside the family.

Of course the emphasis should be on transfers within the family, but, as we all know, children of farmers and fishers may very well opt not to follow in their parents' footsteps.

There should also be tax credits for businesses that are transferred outside the family circle in order to keep them going. This is important for the economic vitality of our regions and the occupancy of the land, which is a consideration that deserves greater attention.

It would not make any sense to allow regions to empty out even though they have good potential for economic development if just given a little help to do what needs to be done. It would not make any sense to empty out these regions only to discover that social costs in the large urban centres are going through the roof because of the ensuing rural exodus. We should attend, therefore, to the occupancy of the land, and this is a measure that does so. As I was saying, though, it should be expanded.

Finally, food security is very important to Quebec. Quebec is virtually autonomous in regard to food. Some crops, of course, do not grow very well in Quebec, for example oranges. However, enormous progress has been made with products that can be adapted to the Quebec climate.

For example, in my riding of Joliette, we used to have a flourishing tobacco industry. The reduction in tobacco use—obviously a good thing—and the decisions made by multinational corporations to purchase more from emerging countries like Brazil and China have resulted in nothing less than the closure of this industry over the space of only a few years. Of the 56 farms that existed in 2000, only three still produce tobacco. The others had to be converted to other crops.

The federal government created a $12 million conversion assistance program for Quebec. This is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough. When farmers change to a new kind of crop—for example melons, Chinese cabbage, asparagus or cauliflower—they are not always successful because their land is not necessarily suitable or because certain crops are very difficult.

There may be a period of trial and error therefore. I want to take advantage of this opportunity to say that our tobacco producers in Quebec—although it is true of Ontario as well—need more assistance in converting their land because we do not want to lose these agricultural areas.

As for corporate taxation, I will focus mainly on small and medium sized businesses, because, as I mentioned earlier, they have become, in a sense, the victims of the fiscal imbalance and inequity. We would therefore fully support an increase in the sales figure that would allow small and medium sized businesses to have access to a lower tax rate.

Our 2000 election platform included the following demand:

Corporate taxation should be reformed to ease the tax burden of small and medium-sized companies to help them become more competitive on international markets.

That is exactly what we stated in our party platform in 2000.

Small and medium sized businesses, by their very nature, are often the starting point for new ideas. They are also better adapted to the reality of the regions. Consider the following example.

We know that businesses in the softwood lumber industry are growing larger and larger in terms of production volumes. This is true in western Canada and the United States, and in emerging countries and the Scandinavian countries. Quebec has focused on development in which the regions have their place within the chain, but the only way to guarantee their competitiveness is by ensuring that smaller sawmills have a certain specialty and orders that cannot be filled by the larger businesses. This will therefore require a great deal of work in research and development.

Furthermore, we would have liked to see the government add a surtax on oil industry profits in Bill C-28. Yesterday, we began to see some results. Sky-high profits were taken straight from consumers' pockets because of the absence of competition in this sector.

As a final point, we also called for a reduction in the excise tax on volumes of beer brewed under 75,000 hectolitres. This would allow these businesses to remain competitive within the domestic market and to think about developing external markets.

Accordingly, for all these reasons, and despite the shortcomings I mentioned, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-28.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, earlier this morning I had the pleasure of addressing Bill C-28 in the House. I have reviewed the bleues and I noted that as I was speaking to Bill C-28 I mentioned that our tax initiatives regarding seniors would remove 85,000 pensioners from the tax rolls.

I was then asked a question by the hon. member for Yukon and inadvertently responded that it would remove 850,000 pensioners from the tax rolls. I would like to correct the record as it pertains to my response in that our tax measures for seniors and pensioners will remove 85,000 pensioners from the tax roll.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I thank the hon. member for his point of order. I thought he was rising on questions and comments but we will take it as the point of order that was intended.

We will now proceed to questions and comments. The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the point I would like to make is that minority Parliaments usually offer good opportunities for opposition parties in that we actually have the balance of power. In fact, we could have effected meaningful change to the 2006 budget if the Bloc Québécois had not walked outside. The leader of the Bloc Québécois walked out of the chamber five minutes after the budget was tabled and said, “I like it, we will take it, it sounds good”. At that very moment all negotiations ceased. There was no longer any opportunity for the three opposition parties to collaborate and make this budget better because the ruling party had its partner. All it needed was one dance partner and it had it within five minutes.

My colleague is a trade unionist. He comes from a trade union background, as do I. Both of us have probably negotiated dozens of collective agreements in the trade union sector. Will he not accept that it is a bad negotiating strategy to give up in the first five minutes of a negotiation and say, “Whatever you offer, I will take it”, even though it is completely deficient in this area, that area and the other area, all for a pig in a poke, all for a promise that fiscal equalization will in fact be addressed? My mind reels at the lost opportunities.

I will ask the member about one specific example. He knows full well, as he and I have harped on this in the past, that the government loses $7 billion a year to tax havens, tax motivated expatriation, sleazy, tax cheating loopholes. Tax fugitives from Canada hide their assets offshore so they can avoid paying taxes in Canada. It is an atrocious thing.

In this budget the finance minister could have terminated or torn up the remaining tax treaty in this country and put $7 billion of revenue back in the coffers of Canada that he could have perhaps used to deal with the fiscal imbalance, but, no. We lost the opportunity to even raise that as an amendment. We could have amended this budget to make it a damn good budget written by the opposition parties and the Bloc decided to sell us out by walking out the door and accepting it at the very first opportunity.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comment. It gives me the opportunity to remind the House that everyone voted in favour of the budget bill. As I recall, when the Chair asked if anyone wanted to put the question, no one, even on the side of the Liberals and New Democrats, rose to do so. We have all voted in favour of this bill, unless the hon. member can tell me otherwise, saying that they had a moment of inattention and forgot to rise to put the question, but I do not think so.

The people from the NDP, like those from the Liberal Party, are intelligent people. I believe it was a deliberate move to prevent an election from being called. An election call would be no problem for us. In Quebec, the polls are looking very good right now for the Bloc Québécois, with over 44% support. The Bloc would be winning back seats it has lost in the Quebec City area.

We negotiated with the Conservatives. Perhaps our priorities are not the same as those of the NDP or the Liberals. Two Conservative government promises were important to us in the budget. First, the fiscal imbalance has to be addressed by the next budget. We want to know what steps will be taken to solve this problem--which has been acknowledged by the Conservative government—the timetable for arriving at a solution, and the extent to which the fiscal imbalance will be corrected. I can assure my colleague that, if this is not in the next budget, the Bloc Québécois will vote against the budget. We are not afraid of an election. It would not have bothered us if one had been called this past fall because of the Kyoto protocol. I hope my colleague is of the same opinion.

We have negotiated resolution of the fiscal imbalance and an assistance program for older workers. The assistance program for older workers introduced by the Conservative government does not meet our expectations. However, we obtained a commitment at least insofar as the budget is concerned. I remember that this was negotiated in advance. Since the leader of the Bloc Québécois had obtained what he had asked for from the government and the Prime Minister, five minutes later he was able to say that the budget was satisfactory.

The member knows quite well that it is impossible to amend a budget. The proof is that the NDP, to support the Liberal's budget, negotiated another budget, Bill C-48. They did not change or amend the first bill regarding the budget tabled by the Liberals, but they voted in favour of it when the budget was presented, even when the Liberal Party had lost all credibility in the eyes of the public in Quebec and Canada as a result of the sponsorship scandal.

I feel that the Bloc Québécois made responsible decisions; it will do so in the future. I can assure the member that the Bloc Québécois will conduct tough negotiations with the Conservative government. If the results of these negotiations are not what we believe to be in the interest of Quebeckers, we will vote against the next budget.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I often think that we should be debating not only what was in the budget but also what was not in the budget. I think the member will agree that in the throne speech the number five priority of the minority Conservative government was to bring in wait time guarantees. Just to remind all hon. members, that undertaking was basically that should the wait time benchmarks not be met, the health care system would transport patients to other provinces or even to the United States to get those services to meet those wait times.

The budget does not include any new moneys for the wait times guarantee, zero. The latest reports in the media today are that the wait times in the other non-priority areas actually have increased while the resources from the health care system without additional money have gone to the five priority areas that were agreed upon with the provinces.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether or not the minority Conservative government has not only not delivered on that promise but in fact has provided absolutely no undertaking to assure Canadians that this really is a priority of the government.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. This all goes back to the fiscal imbalance. If you have read the same reports I have, you will have seen that the provinces whose wait times have increased are the ones experiencing the greatest financial difficulty. Alberta and Ontario are doing relatively well. Quebec and the maritime provinces are having more difficulty.

The answer to his question is putting the necessary cash into correcting the fiscal imbalance. This would enable Quebec and the Atlantic provinces to fix their problem areas. When we do not have any money, we cannot just print it, as Réal Caouette and the Social Credit Party suggested years ago. This problem is very real.

The federal government must correct the fiscal imbalance in its next budget to the tune of the figures I have already mentioned: $3.9 billion for Quebec, a large part of which would go to health care, as well as to post-secondary education, fighting poverty, and the Government of Quebec's other responsibilities, such as infrastructure and culture.

To correct this problem, we do not want the federal government to interfere in provincial areas of jurisdiction and in Quebec's affairs. We want it to acknowledge its financial responsibility by transferring the money and correcting the fiscal imbalance. Then we will see whether the provinces can meet the needs of their people. They will always be accountable to their people, not to the federal government.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, why are the hon. member and the Bloc walking away from Quebec children by agreeing with this budget which clearly is taking about $800 million from the early childhood education agreement with Quebec? That was what was due. I have heard the leader of the Bloc say in this House that $800 million was needed. That was the agreement. By supporting this budget in fact the Bloc is walking away from the $800 million that was originally agreed to.

We know that a lot of Canadians care about making poverty history. Just this week over 5,000 Canadians made submissions to the Minister of Finance saying that we must deal with child poverty in Canada and child poverty elsewhere. There are 23 million people around the world who took action by standing up against poverty. In Canada alone, 50,000 Canadians want real action on poverty.

In this budget, there is really very little on foreign aid. There is very little on the child development fund. That $800 million is now no longer there because of this budget. How could the Bloc party agree to this kind of budget?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, we had set out a number of conditions which the Conservatives have met in tabling the budget. It is somewhat similar to the situation where the New Democratic Party voted in favour of the Liberals' main estimates before the election. There was nothing in that budget to improve the plight of children or to correct the fiscal imbalance. It is true that the NDP also got Bill C-48, which provided for social housing and transfers for education. But at the time when the NDP voted in favour of the main estimates, the budget it voted for contained no social elements.

We had set the following condition: for us to vote in favour of the last budget, the subsequent one would have to correct the problem of fiscal imbalance once and for all. That would help children in Quebec and across Canada. Out of the $3.9 billion requested, $285 million would be earmarked to remedy the Conservative government's decision to renege on the $800 million deal for child care. So, that is included. Another condition was correcting equalization as a means to combat poverty in general and child poverty in particular.

I will conclude by saying that reforming the EI program so that it really provides an adequate social safety net is something else that can be done to remedy child poverty. The Bloc Québécois cannot be said to have been dragging its feet on that issue.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to participate in the debate on Bill C-28. I will confine my remarks during the early minutes in my limited time on the $1 billion in cuts that were made mainly to social programming here in Canada that were all part and parcel of the budget.

Most Canadians share my view that these cuts were directed at the most vulnerable people, groups and organizations in Canada, and the most vulnerable regions in this country. The cuts were based very much on ideology. Today's editorial in the Vancouver Sun accurately describes the nature of these cuts and the direction of the minority Conservative government. In actual fact, Barbara Yaffe introduced a new term into the lexicon of this assembly. I agree with her proposition that the government is suffering from a rare disorder called “ideology restrictus”. That is the problem here and I am not sure there is a known cure for ideology restrictus.

I agree with the thesis of the article that normally, when a minority government is elected, it is elected on a certain base. Once it gets into power, it attempts to broaden that base and reach out to other groups, individuals, organizations, so that the government can be the government of all Canadians in all regions of the country. With this particular minority Conservative government, that in fact did not happen. In fact, it is becoming narrower and narrower.

The Conservatives are narrow casting to their own group. Canadians have seen that very clearly from the $1 billion in cuts to social programs that were recently announced by the minority government. I want to speak about these cuts and how they affect these groups, individuals and organizations in this country and how devastating and cruel these cuts will be and the very unpleasant effects that will result. Before I do that, I want to put the cuts into context.

I agree that sometimes a government has to reorganize its priorities. There are certain times when tough decisions have to be made. Simply because a program was funded 10 years ago does not necessarily mean that the program has to be funded in perpetuity. I agree with that. A government should on a daily basis be looking at and prioritizing its agenda, programs and initiatives. However, I want to put this into context because it is very important.

In 1993 when the Conservative government under prime minister Mulroney lost after nine years in office, this country was in devastating financial circumstances. Interest rates were close to 12%. Unemployment was in excess of 11%. The annual deficit of Canada was $43.1 billion, and I said billion, not million. The debt to GDP ratio was at 73%, its highest level ever. Unemployment was increasing. The World Bank had basically given up on this country. I believe that Canada was headed for bankruptcy.

In that case there were some tough decisions. There were cutbacks that were necessary. Through good government and with the necessary control of the fiscal monetary levers available to the government, Canada's success has been startling. We all know the results.

Canada has had eight consecutive surpluses. Interest rates are at an all time low. Three million jobs have been created over the last five or six years. Whatever context we want to use, whatever we want to compare it to, whether it is debt to GDP ratio, jobs created, interest rates, et cetera, the country, when compared to the G-8 or any other countries in the OECD, has been ranked one, two or three and it has certainly been very successful.

That was the context back in 1993. In 2006 when this Conservative minority government came it power, it inherited a surplus of $13.2 billion. That was just a little contextual background leading up to these devastating cuts that were made to certain vulnerable Canadians and announced last month.

The first one I want to talk about, in the whole scheme of our $210 billion budget, perhaps does not amount to a significant amount of money, I found very cruel and devastating. It is the $5 million cut to the budget of the Status of Women. Coupled with that was the pronouncement of the government that it would no longer consider any applications for funding to any women's groups that advocated equality. In my riding, and I believe the riding of every member from across Canada, it will have a devastating effect because that is what a lot of these groups do, and they do it successfully. Their job is not done.

I want to quote from a release from Kirstin Lund who is the chairperson of the Prince Edward Island Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She says:

If Canadian women are equal, how is that they made just 62% of men's incomes in 2003, even though they made up 47% of the workforce? If Canadian women are equal, why is it that 43% of all children living in poverty live with a single mother? If Canadian women are equal why are there over six times as many female victims of sexual assault as male victims? Why are female victims of spousal violence more than three times as likely than male victims to fear for their lives? And why do women make up 84% of all victims of spousal homicide?

This question has been asked of the Minister of Canadian Heritage in the House a number of times and people are very upset. This group is upset. Groups right across Canada in all 308 ridings are very upset. The answer I have heard over and over again from the minister was that the government considers women to be equal and it was not necessary. Again, I find that totally unsatisfactory. I do hope that as we go forward this particular cut, more important, this particular restriction, will be lifted and we can go back to the way it was funded in the past.

The second area I want to talk about goes back to my original premise that these cuts are focused. It is like a rifle. They are targeted at certain groups. They are targeted at the illiterate, women, aboriginals, youth, poor people and environmentalists, as well as certain groups within society that this particular minority government, for one reason or another, just does not like and does not feel that it represents.

The second cut that was announced by the finance minister was the $17.7 million from the budget under the literacy skills program. As everyone in the House and most Canadians are aware, this is a very serious issue. Most studies indicate that over 30% of all adults have certain literacy and numeracy deficiencies and until some form of remedial action is taken, they cannot participate in the knowledge economy. In the province I come from, Prince Edward Island, under this program the provincial government received approximately $325,000 of annual funding for a literacy program. There was another voluntary alliance, the Prince Edward Island Literacy Alliance, which received approximately $100,000.

It was not a great amount of money, but it was to be used to coordinate a lot of volunteer organizations that were working in the communities each and every day dealing with this literacy issue. They were doing very good work. That is gone now. This money was leveraged to the volunteer sector and the government's response was that the sector was not doing its job and was not successful. The government needs to tell that to the groups and volunteers who were involved and to the people who benefited from those programs.

I want to quote from the executive director of the Prince Edward Island Literacy Alliance, Catherine O'Bryan, who said:

Why isn’t our government concerned with the betterment of all Canadians? This cut comes at a great expense to the very people who struggle to participate fully in the community--the message from this federal government is clear: People with low literacy skills don’t matter.

I would like to quote a statement in the Globe and Mail of October 5 made by the President of the Treasury Board in response to those people who have friends and relatives who have some degree of literacy problem and are concerned about these groups, individuals and organizations. He said:

I think if we're spending $20 million and we have one out of seven folks in the country that are functionally illiterate, we've got to fix the ground-floor problem and not be trying to do repair work after the fact.

That was a quote from the government. That was the response to those groups, individuals and organizations that are so concerned about this important problem.

Another cut was made which I do not believe has sunk in yet. It is going to affect the tourism industry which has been struggling over the last couple of years. A whole host of factors have been working against it: the price of gas has gone up, the Canadian dollar has risen significantly over the past six or seven years, security issues restrict a certain number of visitors crossing the border into Canada, and the lack of international marketing.

A whole ménage of factors have driven down the number of tourists, especially international tourists. I am talking about the $78 million cut from the visitor GST rebate program. This program allowed international visitors to get a rebate on the GST they paid on goods purchased here in Canada. This is going to make us much less competitive on an international basis.

Two particularly important segments of this industry that are going to be affected are the bus tour business and the international convention business because this rebate is built right into their budgets. If a bus tour is coming up from New York City and it is going to spend seven days touring Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and Ontario, the GST rebate is built into its budget. When it loses that rebate, that basically makes our product 6% less competitive than it was before this cutback was announced.

It is my position that this cut was not well thought out. The Canadian Tourism Commission, all the provincial industries, and all the tourism groups, are dead against this cut. I do not think this was actually thought out and it is going to make us less competitive. This is just one more nail in the industry's coffin.

I understand the finance committee has voted to review this particular cut because it is very concerned about it too. I hope that after the finance committee has done a thorough review on the issue and hears from members of our tourist industry from all provinces, the government will reconsider this particular cut.

Another cut that was made and I do not know why this was made, it was a small amount of money, but there was a cut made to the museums assistance program. It was not big bucks but this small amount of money was leveraged through the volunteer sector and a lot was accomplished with a very few dollars.

In my province seven museums received between $20,000 and $24,000. From a Government of Canada context, that is not a lot of money. However, they were able to take this money and most museums were also able to access one student under the youth employment strategy which I am going to speak about in a few minutes because that was another cut we have seen.

They were able to leverage those two programs and keep open their very small community museum. It is not a lot of money, but the effects of the cut will be devastating on these seven communities that had community museums. Hopefully, they will continue to open, but it is going to be a real struggle. We, representing all Canadians, have to ask the question and that is, why? Silence. Why would the government do it?

The court challenges program was ideologically based. This was a program that allowed certain groups and organizations to challenge a particular law, especially with the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We did not have any judicial interpretations, how it would be interpreted by our courts. There were certain groups and organizations that took advantage of it. It changed certain laws. It changed the way it responded.

An example from the east coast of Canada was the whole Marshall initiative dealing with native rights in the fishery. A lot of the Acadian groups made certain challenges to determine what was their right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to access schooling for their children, what cluster had to reached and what criteria had to be formed. This was tremendous for these groups and organizations, but again, that is gone, out the window totally.

The youth employment strategy was also cut. Again this was a small program that communities, groups, and non-governmental organizations were allowed to access and that they could lever. Every member of Parliament is fully aware of this program. Probably 70 or 80 students from each riding on average were able to access the youth employment strategy. It was a very low budget program.

If it were a non-governmental organization like a community museum, like the Canadian Cancer Society, or the heart foundation, they would be able to access students, not for the full summer but I believe the maximum was 8 weeks or 12 weeks. They were only paid a limited amount of money, around $7.50 an hour and an NGO would get 100% financing and private enterprise would get 50% financing. There has been a 60% cut in that program.

Again, I just have to shake my head. I ask why, what are we doing here? We had a $13.2 billion surplus. In most instances this was a young student's first entry into the workforce. It was so important for these young people and again, for no reason, just thrown out the door and everyone here is shaking their head.

There were other programs like the Canadian volunteer initiative. When we look at all these cuts, they were made to the most vulnerable people living in Canada. What scares me the most is that the finance minister announced there are another billion dollars of cuts coming next year. There have been accusations over the past that the Prime Minister has a hidden agenda. I disagree with that proposition. The agenda is clear, the agenda is obvious, and the agenda is very disturbing.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I represent the riding of Winnipeg Centre, which was formerly represented by Stanley Knowles, a man who many concede to be the architect and the father of our old age security system and guaranteed income system.

I can only say that, given what my colleague has told us today and what my own research shows, Stanley Knowles must be doing flip-flops in his grave to take note that after nine years of budgetary surpluses and now, after a huge budgetary surplus by the present government, old age pensioners, especially low income old age pensioners, will actually get a cut in pay.

Has my colleague come across the same research that I have found? I will read from Revenue Canada's basic personal exemption page. It says that the basic personal amount deduction will be reduced on July 1, 2006, from $9,039 to $8,639. That is not a reduction in taxes or a tax cut. That is reducing the basic personal exemption, which means that those seniors will be paying taxes on more of their meagre incomes at a rate of 15.25%, which is also a tax increase. It used to be 15% flat and now it is 15.25%. That tells me that seniors will be paying $61 a year more in taxes than they were before.

Does my colleague concur with this? Could he also explain how, in all good conscience, low income pensioners should actually get a cut in pay in an era of record surpluses?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I suggest that many people would be spinning in their graves if they could see what has gone on in this assembly over the last year and a half.

As the member across is aware, when the previous government was in power it presented, I thought, a good budget to the House with the very strong input of and consultation with the New Democratic Party. We had the Kelowna accord, which was being financed, and that was the work of all 10 provinces, every aboriginal group and the federal government. We had the Kyoto accord and we had tax cuts, especially for low income people.

Canadians would have had the advantage of all those programs but something happened along the way. The New Democratic Party supported a motion to defeat the government which sent us into an election. We all know what happened to the Kyoto accord after the election? It was gone. What happened to the Kelowna accord? The tax cuts were reversed. That was the day the New Democratic Party lost its soul.

A lot of people would be spinning in their graves if they knew what the learned member and his colleagues did that day. It was an unfortunate day for lower income Canadians and for all Canadians.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will not take the bait. I will not even bother correcting my colleague. It was the people of Canada who threw out the Liberal government, not the New Democratic Party. I will simply go to a question of some substance.

Would the member agree that it is morally and ethically reprehensible to allow Canadian companies to set up offshore tax havens to avoid, through wholesale tax avoidance, paying their fair share of taxes in this country?

In the context of this budget, why did his party and his government put up with this year after year, where tax fugitives can set up dummy companies in Barbados to avoid paying their fair share of taxes in Canada? By what pretzel logic did his party think that was good for ordinary Canadians or low income Canadians who may have been able to redistribute that $7 billion into meaningful programs? Could it be that it was his own prime minister that was one of the main beneficiaries of this outrageous, sleazy tax loophole of offshore tax havens? Why did his government tolerate that? Why did it not fix it when it had the chance?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised this issue on numerous occasions in the House and I actually do not believe he understands the Canadian tax system.

However, the member is quite right. If a Canadian company or an individual is avoiding taxes on income earned in this country by any means, it is reprehensible. However, the way the tax system works is that people pay their taxes in the jurisdiction where the income is earned. If Bombardier has a plant in Northern Ireland, it pays on the income earned at that particular plant in Northern Ireland. Most countries have tax treaties so companies can deduct that, but that is how the system works.

However, people do not avoid taxes. If income is earned in Canada then the company or the individual is obliged under our law to pay the tax in this country. If they have an operation in Singapore, Northern Ireland, Great Britain, Scotland or the United States, they must, under the laws of those countries, pay the tax in that particular jurisdiction, all subject, of course, to the tax treaties between the respective jurisdictions.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member from Charlottetown hails from a very historic and important part of this world. Charlottetown has the great distinction of being only about four hours drive away from western Nova Scotia. It is, like all of Atlantic Canada, very proud of its history. We have thousands of volunteers working to ensure we preserve our culture and history.

Atlantic Canada has many small museums, places around which people are able to exercise that function and they volunteer countless hours, but they need assistance and that assistance often comes in multiple ways. One is that students get great experience by working in those facilities when they are in university, right after high school. They are able to work in the summer to assist the communities, assist the volunteers and get the work experience needed to ensure they have a successful future and a good career in the work life after university.

These museums need assistance from senior levels of government in their operating and capital funding. They were pleased when they received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition then and Prime Minister now that there would be additional federal investments. Instead, they see themselves being hit twice and hit very hard. First is that the federal government, rather than increase the funding levels to museums, it reduced it. That was in the first round of cuts. Where will the second go? We do not know.

Second, we saw this past summer that there were a lot fewer student employment jobs and we have seen the budgets cut further. They know they can look forward to a lot less assistance in the future, both from the students and the volunteer organizations.

Would the member from Charlottetown like to comment on those points?

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I will comment on those points because they are important. I did explain it briefly before but I will elaborate.

The member is quite correct. Many small communities right across Canada with populations of 1,000 or 1,200 do have small museums. They are often small museums that perhaps talk about the history and the artifacts of the given communities. These communities do not need big budgets to operate the museums. They are operated on a shoe string budget, basically by a volunteer board and volunteer members, but they were able, fortunately, to leverage some federal financing.

I am aware of seven museums in Prince Edward Island that received around $20,000 in total, which is not big dollars. Many of them accessed the youth employment strategy where they could hire a student for the summer months. In some cases the museum was only open during the summer months. The student was paid $7.50 an hour and everything worked. It was not a lucrative job but it was a good job. The students met visitors and the community had pride in the museum.

The limited funding was accessed but, as the member pointed out, the assistance program has been slashed and the youth employment strategy has been slashed by 60%. It will be very difficult for the small museums to operate in the future, which is very unfortunate.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

With the fiscal capacity that the government has, the budget was an opportunity to invest. It was also a time to invest because, of course, for 13 years we experienced the rather penurious actions of the previous Liberal government toward the people of Canada. While it reduced the fiscal deficit, it increased the human deficit in Canada.

Toward the end of their time, the Liberals softened, but not completely. I know that in 2005 the New Democratic Party had to fight very hard in that budget to ensure the Liberals did not get away with another tax cut for corporations and that they invested that money in people. That was very good and that is working.

Even within this budget and within Parliament today, the two parties of the right, because that is what they really are, are living off the good avails of the New Democratic Party and the work that it did in 2005. They are dining out on it. We do not want to forsake them of a good meal but they should remember who the cooks were.

In this budget, instead of investing more in the needs of Canadians, the Conservative government decided to squander another $7 billion in corporate tax cuts and to keep the subsidies to oil and gas companies. Even with that, it is currently running a bigger budget surplus than the Liberals did.

Just into this fiscal year, it is $2 billion ahead of its estimates. What did it turn around and do? It announced a billion dollars in cuts to programs that were in place all over the country, this little bit of money that was handed out under the Liberals in a variety of very serious areas, such as literacy, women, museums and health. The Conservatives must have sat in their caucuses and decided on how many programs they could cut a few dollars from and make them work even less than the Liberals did.

I want to talk about the tobacco control program that was cut for aboriginal people. In the Northwest Territories, prior to 2000 we had a smoking rate of 45% in our population. Over the last four years we have managed to bring that down to less 35%. That is a direct and positive result of our Government of the Northwest Territories putting money into it. The federal government also put money into the program because, of course, half our population is aboriginal.

We had the very successful butthead program in the schools which discouraged every child from taking up cigarette smoking. That is gone now. There was no consultation and no recognition of the importance of these programs. I am sure the territorial government will try to do something to replace it, but that is a loss.

The sale of tobacco in Canada contributes $8.8 billion in taxes to federal, provincial and territorial governments. It is very important that we reinvest in the opportunities to reduce tobacco use. Just because we are on the dole with tobacco taxes does not mean that we should ignore our responsibility.

I now want to talk about the corporate tax cuts that the Conservatives have proposed.

Across the country, corporate taxes in provincial hands have been spiralling downward. Provinces have to compete with each other for corporations to establish offices in their jurisdictions and pay their corporate taxes in those jurisdictions. The provinces are in a race to provide the lowest corporate tax rate to attract the companies to do this. Private individuals, of course, cannot afford to relocate just simply to get a lower personal income tax rate, but corporations can manage this quite well.

The responsibility for an across the board corporate tax rate lies with the federal government. In reality the federal government is the best agency to collect corporate taxes and should be the agency to collect those taxes, but over the time of the Liberals and the Conservatives, we have seen this denigrated to such a great degree.

We see the Conservative budget as crafted to meet the needs of the oil patch, not working Canadians. There are a few crumbs for working Canadians and everyone appreciates those. However, it is only a sleight of hand to take attention away from the billions in tax giveaways to big corporations, particularly oil companies, making obscene profits on the backs of hard-working Canadians and on the backs of our grandchildren as well, who will not have the share of the non-renewable resources that we are giving up now.

In the natural resources committee meeting earlier this week, we had presentations from CERI, the Canadian Energy Research Institute, which indicated that by 2020, if the expansion of the oil sands has taken place as outlined and if the cost of oil is $40 U.S. a barrel, which is $62 today, oil companies will make approximately $1 trillion by 2020 from the oil sands, on an investment of $100 billion.

The government's share of this will be less than 15%. We will see the escape of enormous amounts of resources and dollars out of our country and out of the hands of Canadians who need them so much. We need a government and a budget that speaks to the future of our natural resources, and that is quite clearly the case.

Another study was done recently in my territory by an independent group on the Mackenzie gas project, a project that Imperial Oil has indicated is marginally economic. Its study shows, and this was verified by economists and was done by an economist at Pacific Analytics out of Victoria, B.C., that the after-tax rate of return on this project will exceed 25%, and the oil companies are calling this a marginal project in Canada.

The project will deal in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with rates of return of this magnitude, yet they will be subjected to the lowest royalties and corporate taxes. All of this comes down very favourably for them. What does it do for Canadians, for our children and our grandchildren as we move along and require dollars for infrastructure and other things? It does nothing; it is squandered. This is why it is so important that we understand how our tax system works and that we stand up for Canadians.

We did not see this in the budget here and that is a shame. It is a crying shame that we do not see a move to ensure that the resources of our country serve the people of our country.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, would the member comment on the question of the ideological bend toward the tax and budget cuts, especially when we look at the $1 billion supposed savings that the federal government put forward?

Let us look at where and how the government made these cuts. Let us look at something like the court challenges fund, which permitted communities, collectives, individuals, church groups to go to court with funding assistance from the federal government, if they had a valid case, to ensure that their rights were respected. Does he see it as I do, as a back door approach to stymie the Charter of Rights?

Does he agree that ideologically the Conservative government does not agree with the charter, does not believe that the charter should limit the powers of government, that it should be able to do anything it wants, even as a minority government, and that Canadians should not have access to assistance to defend or promote their rights in test cases before the courts?

I have a similar question with regard to the Status of Women. Its budget was reduced and with what remains it is limited in its activities. It cannot grant money to organizations that do research or advocacy. It cannot do advocacy work for women. I do not see that it leaves much more than the exchanging of brownie recipes.

Could the member comment on those points?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, as someone from the Western Arctic, I am very pleased to comment on those.

The fundamentals of the $1 billion in cuts to these programs were not so much ideological as emotional. We have an emotional reaction to things that really make no sense to any Canadians. I cannot say how the inner workings of the Conservative caucus managed to come up with these cuts. I do not understand it. To me it was emotional, “I don't like this, I don't like that, let's grab some here, we don't like those people so we are going to do this”.

As to ideology, there is a mirror to what the Liberal Party did through the 1990s with the budgets, such as reducing corporate taxes, passing the burden on to Canadians in different ways, selling out on resources. I do not see much difference, ideologically, between the Conservatives and the Liberals on this.

This is a question that is open to all Canadians. Is there a difference on the broad brush ideology between the Liberals and the Conservatives? I do not see it. Although, on the other hand, emotionally, the Conservatives were frustrated in many ways with some of the minor things the Liberals did and took out various programs. The court challenges program was an emotional reaction, much like we see on some of the crime bills coming up. People will use this as retail politics. They play on the emotions of people rather than speaking to the needs of Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. There is one minute for both the question and the answer.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, could my colleague speak a little more about something I learned from his speech? That is the government seems hell-bent and determined to get oil and gas resources out of the ground as fast as humanly possible and give it away to foreign ownership for which we will only reap a minor benefit while we are giving away a legacy, our children's natural resources. Their birthright is flying out of our country at record speed and we are barely getting any royalties or revenues from it. Is that good business?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has left his colleague with 20 seconds.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, 20 seconds is not nearly enough time to touch on the damage being done by over-exploiting resources, whether it is to the service industries in Alberta that cannot hire anyone any more, whether it is to the--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the member from the New Democratic Party and I believe he is genuine in what he is suggesting.

I would have to excuse people who would suggest that the NDP is less than genuine on these questions, because they would remember in a past parliament when the NDP had some negotiating position. When the Liberals were in power in a minority situation that party negotiated the advancement of Liberal priorities on education, on housing, on homelessness. A $4 billion package was put together, but prior to its implementation, the NDP voted to remove the government. The New Democrats voted in favour of a motion of non-confidence. The motion was not on any budget measure. The NDP voted favourably on the budget measures. They did not vote the government out on the budget, but they supported a specific motion of non-confidence. When they had the power in that they had negotiated a deal to assist students, to assist on the homelessness issue, when there was a historic child care agreement with all the provinces, which the NDP members have always said they favour, they chose to go to an election.

Throughout the election the member's leader said, “Lend us your vote”. Perhaps the member is fearful that those who lent the NDP their vote will now recognize the cost of that vote: losing Kyoto, losing child care, losing assistance to students, losing assistance to homelessness and housing. Is the member fearful that come the next election, people may want to exercise their votes properly to advance what all Canadians believe in?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting that day in and day out in this House we hear that somehow the NDP cost the Liberal government its place. I would suggest that the judgment of the Canadian people during the election campaign was that they were tired of the arrogance from that party, and we are hearing more of it here today. That group of people while in government had five surplus budgets and crassly promised day care in each election to get votes, and never delivered on that promise. I repeat what I said to other members when this was raised before. It is time for that member to speak to the rest of his caucus about the fact that it was not the NDP who booted the Liberals out of office; it was the Canadian people. Canadians spoke very clearly.

Do I agree with how the new government is functioning? Absolutely not. We stand here day in and day out as the loyal opposition and raise the issues of Canadians with respect to the new government. But I will say one thing. I believe that the Conservative government is not as arrogant or as fundamentally corrupt as the last government.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton for pointing out these things. In his introduction the member said that people who study these things will recognize the fact that the previous Liberal government was the most right-wing government in Canadian history. The most notable thing about the Liberals was their cutting, hacking and slashing, even during periods of record budgetary surpluses, to the point where it was not just irresponsible, it was cruel. The Liberals caused a sum total of misery around this country the likes of which should go down in the history books and never be forgotten. We must remind ourselves to be vigilant because people like that will come along from time to time and do such damage to our social safety nets that it will take years to even get back to where we started.

My colleague from West Nova is too good an MP to really believe the speaking notes he was handed when he walked in here today which told him to attack the NDP because an election is coming.

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

Mr. Speaker, in response to the member for Winnipeg Centre, I recall that in 1995 the Canada health and social transfer was cut. That took billions of dollars out of education and health care across this country. I also remember being a labour activist in the community of Hamilton that was devastated by the free trade agreement that happened as a result of the previous Conservative government. We lost some 500,000 jobs in Ontario because of that free trade agreement.

I recall that in 1995, 85% of the people who applied for employment insurance were funded. It dropped to 27%. That is disgusting.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be discussing this bill. It is very important, because it shows the government's budget measures and the impact they can have on the daily lives of all Canadians, from sea to sea to sea.

We can support a number of these budget measures, because some are good. I especially like the measures designed to help fishers transition from one generation to the next, take retirement and sell their fishing gear and licence.

These are good measures, even though we would have liked the government to go further. During the election campaign, we had talked about measures that would have provided slightly more money and assistance for fishers. Still, the Conservatives have put forward good measures.

On the question of the fisheries, we would have gone further. Rather than half a million dollars of capital gains exemption, we suggested that there be $750,000 and unlimited intergenerationally, but I have to admit it is a great improvement what is proposed in this budget at half a million dollars intergenerational and half a million dollars outside of the family. It must come in concert with other measures in the fisheries, in resource sectors, in all areas of the economy. When we look at this budget measure, it is not just what we see in it that we have problems with; it is what we do not see. We look at the opportunity that has been missed.

When the Conservatives came into power they inherited the best financial position of any government in the history of this country. In 1993 when the Liberals came into power, there was a $42 billion operating deficit. There was a mounting national debt that was sucking the lifeblood out of this country. Interest was being paid internationally to foreign countries and foreign investors from the taxes of Canadians in increasing amounts every year, meaning that we could provide less and less service to Canadians. Tackling the deficit was not easy. It meant some very difficult measures.

Reasonable people can argue on whether those measures that were taken were the correct ones and whether the priorities were right. We can come up with various answers. What we cannot argue, what we have to agree on if we are honest, are the results. The deficit was brought under control. Surpluses were established. The national debt was reduced. Investments were made for ordinary Canadians and communities in working with the provinces. We improved and increased the competitiveness of Canadian industry. We continue to benefit from that.

The NDP would scream because tax measures assisted industry and corporations. I am pleased with those measures because the Canadians I know work for businesses, they own businesses, or they want to develop some. In order to compete internationally, which is what Canadian businesses do, they have to be competitive.

The previous government did more than that. It reduced taxation by $100 billion. The vast majority of that $100 billion was to the benefit of lower and middle income Canadians, average Canadians, all our friends on main street saw their earning power go up.

We removed what is called bracket creep, where if a person's salary went up a little bit, he or she might be in an adverse financial position. We reached historic agreements to advance society within this country. Look at the Kelowna agreement where provincial governments, the federal government and the native communities would work hand in hand knowing they had the financial resources and knowing they could apply the solutions to the problems community by community and not with just one cookie-cutter approach. That was quite historic.

The child care agreement was very historic. We had to negotiate over a long period of time with 10 provinces and three territories to find a way to improve early childhood education and child care in the communities, while respecting provincial jurisdictions, respecting the desires of Canadians, respecting the needs of parents and respecting the potential of the children. It was only the start and there is a lot more to do. And to think that the Conservative government with the current financial situation would start by cutting that. Why did the Conservatives do it? Complete ideology. We heard over and over in this House the baseless rhetoric, the complete ideological nature behind this cut. That was very unfortunate.

I come back to the fishery. Small craft harbours was an area where funding was reduced when we made those deficit tackling measures. That was very difficult for the communities and we continue to live with some of those difficulties. But when the financial situation of the country improved, the Liberal government added $20 million a year for five years, $100 million toward small craft harbours.

The member for Halifax West as fisheries minister and I as fisheries minister were able to assist the communities in upgrading their stock, but the job is not done. There is still a lot of work to do.

What do we see now with the new government, which has the best ever financial position of this country, having inherited that from the Liberal government? It eliminates that funding. It make cuts to fisheries and oceans at the time when it is the most senseless, at the time when there should be great investments within that portfolio, within that program of that department.

Also, let us look at it in terms of ideology. Why do the Conservatives do this? I do not know. Maybe their base of support does not think that fishermen should get assistance. I would like them to explain it. I have not yet heard from the minister.

Then I look at the other ideologies they have, and I look at my part of the world, where in agriculture the most stable part of agriculture in my community is the supply managed part. The producers are very nervous, because everywhere around them they see hog producers having trouble and they see vegetable producers having trouble. Then they look out west and see a sudden concerted attack on the Wheat Board, not improvements to the Wheat Board.

The fix is in on the Wheat Board. For ideological reasons, the government has decided that the Wheat Board is to disappear, and it does not ask farmers in a plebiscite, as it should under the Canadian Wheat Board Act, section 47.1, to see where farmers stand on this.

The Conservatives attacked it very strategically: create a task force and stack the task force such that only people who are opposed to the Wheat Board need apply. Only people who are opposed to the Wheat Board can make submissions to the task force.

For the first time ever, of the five federal appointees on the Wheat Board itself, the Conservatives appointed a farmer-producer who is opposed to the Wheat Board. Rather than having him challenge for one of the 10 spots that are there for producers, they put him in one of the spots reserved for expertise on the Wheat Board.

Then, because there are elections for the Wheat Board, they eliminate and disenfranchise 16,000 producers. Sixteen thousand grain producers who have historically sold grain to the Wheat Board are not allowed to vote. I believe it is something like 30%. I do not know the exact figures. It is true that some of them did not sell wheat to the Wheat Board last year or the year before because of drought, because of conditions, and in some cases because of floods. Maybe some of them are out of the market, but 16,000 certainly are not. The fix is in on the Wheat Board.

I want to come back to how that affects my community. I have supply managed farmers in my community. I have dairy. I have poultry. They are doing quite well. They are able to have a good family income. Their families can look forward to taking over their operations. But they wonder, will the Prime Minister, the person who in 1998 said that supply management was a “government sponsored price fixing cartel”, come back to his true beliefs, as he is doing with the Wheat Board, and accept the views next year or the year after of the people who are opposed to supply management? Will that be addressed? Sure, they are worried about that. They look at all the cuts being done and see the ideological bent within.

As for wind energy and removing the initiative for wind energy, in my community of West Pubnico local business people, with other investors, have put up 17 wind turbines. They are producing energy that is relatively equivalent to what is consumed in the businesses and residences in that community. It is expensive, so it needs assistance from the federal government, but there is no carbon problem. There is no carbon dioxide. There is no smoke coming from these turbines. It is completely green energy.

Rather than investing in that, the government comes out with eradicating Kyoto. It comes out with a false green plan, with a plan that will take away the targets and take the base year forward to an easier year when we are at all time high levels of polluting. The government says it will consult for four years and have targets that we should meet in 40 years. Canadians are concerned about that, and when they see the removal of those incentives, they should be worried.

What worries me more, and what should worry them, is that when we look at the billion dollar cuts that were made this year, a.k.a. savings, the government promises to do another billion dollars' worth of cuts. What did the Conservatives do with these savings? I will try to run through a few of them.

They went to areas where they had ideological difficulties. They said to the very basis of their base support, look at what we did quickly with a minority government, so imagine what can be expected if we get a majority. Then we will get really right-wing, they said, and we will go far to the right and there will be social program cuts and people will see what they have been asking for.

For example, there is the court challenges fund.

As a member of a minority language community, I have to say that the court challenges program was very important to us. This program allowed minority language communities and other communities, people of different religions and so on, to launch court challenges to determine whether the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms would protect their rights in certain instances.

The communities in my riding benefited from the program when a French-language school system was put in place for the first time in the history of Canada.

My grandfather was a politician, When he was first elected in Nova Scotia, around 1907, French schooling was against the law. Whenever the school board inspector arrived, the teachers would hide the unsigned French textbook, which had been written by the parish priest, Mr. Daignault, to teach the students French.

A hundred years later, it is the law of the land. We have a provincial Acadian school board, and children throughout Nova Scotia have the right to education in both languages. However, that is not due to provincial goodwill, although I can say that Nova Scotia was proactive; it is due to the court challenges program.

I see here that there is an ideological bent, that the supporters of the Prime Minister do not believe in the charter of rights. They do not like what it has led to in certain instances, so the best way to do this is to take the oxygen away from the charter, to take away the possibility for citizens--or the provinces or others under the charter--to contest any laws of the nation.

Let us look at questions like that of the status of women. I mentioned this in the House in an earlier question. We have less than 50% representation of women in the House. We have less than 50% representation of women in senior positions in industry, corporations, the banking sector, the financial sector and so on. They are underrepresented. We have a way to go. We have made improvements since the persons case, but we have a way to go in this country.

One of the tools, not the solution to everything but one of the tools, is the status of women organization. What did the federal government do? It bent to the appeal of REAL Women. It cut the funding to status of women. Not only that, it said that people can no longer use that money to do research and that it cannot grant that money to anybody who does advocacy. If we cannot do advocacy and if we cannot do research, there is not much left. It is a backdoor attack.

Let us look at ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. There is a small program within ACOA, worth $6 million over three years, to work on the social economy, whereby the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency would be able to interact with the not for profit sector in the same way that it can with the commercial sector, the for profit sector, and where it would be able to make loans. For example, a sheltered workshop could have a loan to do an expansion or buy a new piece of machinery and go into a new commercial venture, a loan that it would repay. That has been removed. I cannot understand why.

Why reduce student employment grants and at the same time announce cuts to the museum assistance program funding, a double whammy for that sector, when the Prime Minister had promised increase funding for museums in this country? The student employment programs helped the volunteer sector such as the museums to operate efficiently and gave very good experience to the students. But they were reduced and they are getting reduced further.

As for job training, three months into this year, just three months, there was no more money in western Nova Scotia for adults needing retraining because they needed to change industries and get new skills. That is unacceptable. It is a rural part of the country. A lot of the areas are based on resources and, at one point or another, there are changes in industry. We have had mill closures. The softwood lumber agreement has not saved that. As well, there are changes in the fisheries. Some people have to retrain and get into new areas, but we do not assist them. Rather than the money being increased, it is reduced, and that is unacceptable.

On literacy training, how can the Government of Canada justify that reduction when it had a surplus of $13.5 billion and is looking at an equivalent if not larger surplus in this fiscal year? How can it justify that money be reduced for literacy training, whereby adults are trying to improve their literacy skills so they can seek training, seek employment, assist their children and have pride in themselves and confidence going into the job market? Under what conditions can we justify reducing that funding? I implore the government to review that situation, to yield to the will of the House, and to restore funding.

As for CAP sites, in rural Canada we do not have the broadband Internet access that people in urban communities have learned to live with. We do not have it in all households. We do not have it in all businesses. One of the very important ways in which rural residents can access the information they need is going to those community access sites. Because most of us, let us face it, need broadband in today's world.

This program has developed very well. In my riding, there are good numbers in the English language and in the French language, working with schools, community centres and libraries. These are all great partnerships, but now what do they find? Not only will they not be able to do any programming, but they probably will not be able to operate. We should restore that funding. We should continue that funding. There is no excuse for why the government would not do it.

Further, the Conservatives should steal our promise, and steal our platform to deliver broadband Internet access to all communities in the country over a very short period. It is a great investment in competitiveness in the nation, the education of our young and the continued education of adults. I would hope that would happen.

We still have communities in my riding that do not have cell phone service. We need investments in those areas. It has become a tool of safety. The ambulance drivers depend on it. The 911 system depends on those tools being available. We have communities that are shut out of that local market. The private sector cannot do it alone. There is a possibility for the federal government to participate, but we do not see it investing. We see it with large surpluses while refusing to make those investments, and it makes politically correct budget cuts, the GST. That helps the very rich but does not help the average Canadian.

Average Canadians, the lower income people in my riding, have seen their taxes increase because the level of taxation at the lower amount went up by half a point and they do not recover it on the GST. I think the government should review that.

There should be some investments within the communities to help them help themselves. We were able to do it in the last government by working with ACOA, the municipalities and infrastructure development. We were able to assist communities with water, sewers and fire halls. The town of Bridgetown in my community was ready and applied for funding to build a new fire hall. The town needs it. It is a volunteer fire department and people give of their time. The town is not asking for 100% of the money from the federal government. It is asking for a commitment, a contribution.

I ask the government to reconsider the billion dollars of cuts and the ideological bent as to how it is using Canadian taxpayers' money.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have an environmental disaster in our midst. The World Wildlife Fund said that we are quickly running out of global resources. We are seeing an increase in forest fires and a pine beetle infestation killing off our pines and forests. We know that we have a serious problem.

In this budget there is no investment in fuel efficiency vehicles. There is no investment in green transportation or technology. There is no real investment in public transit or in retrofitting buildings. However, it does continue the former Liberal government's practice of heavily subsidizing the oil and gas industry to the tune of $1.5 billion.

I do not know whether that member of Parliament finds that troubling. If there is an opportunity, would that member of Parliament, or the Liberal Party, vote against subsidies so that we can in fact take the $1.5 billion and invest it in all of those matters, especially for homeowners, so that they could retrofit their homes and be able to save on electricity while being able to create some jobs? Would that be an area that he would definitely work on or agree with the NDP?

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, what we are running out of in this country, according to the papers this morning, are communications officials for the Minister of the Environment. I read that she has gone through four in the short term that she has been in office. Why? It is because they cannot sell the measures that she is proposing as there is nothing on the table to sell. There is no concerted plan to improve the environmental situation in Canada and no plan to meet its international commitments.

The member made some suggestions as to where we could get the money to make these types of investments. I would not rule out that suggestion, but there are other places to get the money. We have a surplus of $13.5 billion. These investments in green energy pay for themselves because they improve competitiveness. We can be a leading nation in the world.

The previous government had invested a lot of money. It had some very good programs. There can always be improvements in the administration of programs, I would not argue with anybody on that, but I do not want to put this country in a situation where it is pitting one industry against the other and fighting one against the other. Everybody can participate in environmental improvement and green energy.

It is important for energy to be produced in this country. I am proud of the investments that we have made in the production of petroleum energy in this country, whether it be the tar sands or offshore in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland that bring much needed economic activity to those parts of the province.

I am very proud of the wind energy site in West Pubnico that received some contributions from the wind energy incentive program of the federal government. I cannot for the life of me begin to imagine why a government would cancel such initiatives. I cannot see why a government would remove programs like EnerGuide. It makes absolutely no sense.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question that relates to the court challenges program. The Conservative government eliminated a program which basically strived for justice to make us a more equal society.

We had a situation just a little while ago where a child of one of the war brides was given citizenship by an order in cabinet back in 1948 and the government denied him his citizenship on very questionable grounds. When it went before Federal Court Justice Luc Martineau, he ruled that the actions of the government were contrary to the legal section of the charter, section 7, and the equality section of the charter, section 15. The government has appealed that decision.

The reason I raise this is because it raises a fundamental question that very much impacts on the life of an individual in this country. An individual challenged the government on a question relating to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he won the case in the first instance, and now must face a government appeal and perhaps take it to the Supreme Court. An average individual does not have the resources.

In terms of public policy and pursuing a just society, we must have something like the court challenges program to ensure that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to everybody, not just to people who can afford it.

Could my friend comment on the importance of the court challenges program because these things happen to real people and they very much impact on people's equality and the justice that they can receive in this country?

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be asked this question by the member for Kitchener—Waterloo because I know he has a lot of interest in human rights.

I fundamentally believe that this is probably the most cowardly move that the government could make when it ideologically does not support the Charter of Rights of Freedoms. It does not have the courage to take the necessary action to have a true debate if it wishes to stifle it. It is choking the sunlight, removing the sunlight, shading the light, and removing the oxygen that makes it live by cutting the court challenges program.

As the member mentioned, it is the only way that an average citizen can afford to go to the Supreme Court of Canada or any other court level, whether it be federal or provincial. It is the only way that communities and organizations can do it. It is the way the Acadians did it for education. It is the only way that not for profit church organizations can have their rights tested and respected.

Rather than saying that it is against the charter, I believe the government has decided to stifle the charter by removing the oxygen that makes it live.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was glad to hear some of the tone and the content in the speech from my colleague from West Nova. He seems to have come to the realization that a country does not cut its way to prosperity. We do not build a great nation by cutting, hacking and slashing everything that we fought to build up in the post-war era, in that period when we were building this great country.

His own party went on a 13 year rampage, cutting and hacking and slashing everything we hold dear in terms of the institutions by which we define ourselves as Canadians. He seems to have had an awakening because he is being critical now of the current government for cutting too much.

Will he agree with me on one fundamental principle? Has his political thinking matured enough in this way? Does he agree that it was fundamentally wrong for his party to allow offshore tax havens to flourish and prosper all through these years, and for Canadian businesses to avoid paying their fair share of taxes by setting up dummy paper companies in Barbados and losing all that tax revenue? Has he come to our same conclusion that it was fundamentally wrong of his government and that this 2006 budget should have plugged those outrageous tax loopholes, brought those tax fugitives back within our revenue regime, and then we would have those resources to build a great nation with?

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would never accuse the member of trying to mislead the House, but I will understand if he has trouble understanding or recognizing true economic circumstances.

When we were operating at $42 billion deficits a year and building our national debt, and increasing the amount of money being taken away from the country in interest every year, we were going in the wrong direction and our ability to deliver social programs was leaving. That is why the Liberal government had to tackle the deficit. It brought the country into a surplus situation, reduced the debt, and left this country in the best financial position it has been in since Confederation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So who is paying down the debt?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Accountability.

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

Yes, it is accountability. Every day the same minister gets up in the House and pounds on the Liberals about Bill C-2, which is being stalled in the unelected other House. At the same time, the Conservatives have a minister sitting in the other House who is not elected, is not accountable and does not answer to Canadians. This is wrong. Conservative members should be in the House, accountable to Canadians, accountable to the House of Commons, the people who have been elected by Canadians. This is completely anti-democratic.

Canada is supposedly the best country in the world, yet we have 1.4 million children going hungry. There are more homeless on the streets of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, than we have ever had. How could the Liberals be happy or proud about that? They said they had to pay down the debt, but they did on the backs of Canadians.

This is entirely unacceptable. The Liberals have absolutely nothing to be proud of from their 13 years in power. They made cuts to health care in 1994 and now more cuts are being made today. Our grandparents and our children are in hallways in hospitals across the country: in Montreal, Moncton, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. It is unacceptable to take money to pay down the debt at the expense of people who are sick. The Conservatives are doing no more than the Liberals did.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's speech and it was quite interesting to hear the NDP's viewpoint, even though I find that there are many problems with his calculations and his logic. His logic leaves a great deal to be desired.

For one thing, it should not surprise our colleagues in the NDP that Canadians do not have confidence in them to form a government of Canada because of their ideas on economics, let alone mathematics, considering my hon. colleague just talked about 13 years of Liberal government.

Yesterday happened to be the 13th anniversary of the 1993 election in which Mr. Chrétien and the government were elected. I was first elected in that year, as my hon. colleague knows, before I took my involuntary sabbatical, as I call it, between 1997 and 2000. My hon. colleague should know that 13 years occurred yesterday. Therefore, the Liberals were in power for 12 years and 2 months. However, the NDP thinks that is 13 years, which is completely illogical and it kind of fits with the rest of his thinking about the deficit and so forth.

Earlier this year we saw the report on poverty in Canada, which indicated that it had been reduced over the past decade. That is totally contrary to what he said. The statistics, the facts are contrary to what he has told us and he knows that, but he wants to create a new myth that things have become so much worse. He knows and, more important, Canadians know that the Liberal government had to deal with the deficit. He thinks we should have ignored it and let it grow and grow. He fails to recognize that the Conservatives left us a $42 billion deficit, which was destroying our economy.

Canadians supported the measures we took and re-elected our government several times. His party never did anything to support any of those cuts, which put our country in much better shape. They helped us build a much better economy and created millions of full time jobs, which made the country and people better off and gave them a better quality of life and standard of living. His party voted against every one of those budgets and every measure ever taken to put our country in better shape.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague said that maybe I do not how to count between 13 years and 12 years and 2 months. It seems to me as if the Liberals were in government for 20 years. That is why I got mixed up in the count.

When one looks at the NDP, which government in our country balanced the first budget? It was done in Saskatchewan, under Roy Romanow. Programs were not cut the way the Liberals cut them. He said that it was getting better in our country. There are more food banks in our country in the last 12 years and 2 months. Did we have that many banks or credit unions open? The types of banks we have inherited from the Liberals are food banks.

People are poorer and students are poorer and in debt. That is what we got from the Liberals. Our whole system of health care went down the tubes. Now we have privatization of our hospitals. The Liberals shut their eyes to it, were blind to it and the Conservatives are no better. They are closing their eyes to what is happening to our health care. In 1994 the Liberals cut so much in health care. At one time the federal government used to pay 50% of the cost of health care for every province. That went down to 15%, and the member is proud of that? I would not be proud to be a Liberal today.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the hon. member and I am totally confused. A year and a half ago, after 13 successive years, the Liberals had 8 successive budgetary surpluses and they announced a lot of tremendous programs such as the Kyoto accord, the Kelowna agreement, tax cuts for lower income Canadians, affordable housing, public transit and post-secondary education. Much of this came about with close consultation with the New Democratic Party. Then all of a sudden for some reason, which has never been explained to me, the New Democratic Party, which the hon. member was involved with back then, voted against all these programs. Now we have the mess we are in today.

The member across is a handmaiden to this mess. He was involved; he is a conspirator. My simple question is, why?

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

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

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

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

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

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier on the hon. member spoke of cuts. These actually totalled $13 billion. They found a way to starve organizations that advocate for literacy, women's rights and the rights of Canadian francophones and Acadians.

I would like to hear what the member for Acadie—Bathurst has to say about the fact that the government says it is cutting waste while at the same time keeping annual tax benefits of not less than $250 million for oil companies.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Shefford raises a good point. That is exactly what I was saying. The government gives money to big business and its Bay Street friends. The government says that it will cut the fat. But is that what it is doing when it cuts the funding of organizations that advocate for the status of women?

Canadian women worked very hard to achieve equality for men and women, and that was done with the assistance of organizations. One woman did not do all that. Women had to band together, they had to obtain funding in order to establish a balance between the government and communities. That is where the government has decided to make cuts.

The government always gives to big business but it cuts funding for and takes away money from ordinary people, whether they are francophones or anglophones living as a minority in a region. They try to make us believe that the money was used to pay friends of Liberals and lawyers.

I am sorry, but Michel Doucet, a professor at the Université de Moncton, worked almost for free to further the cause of individuals living in a minority situation, as he received only half his pay. I can guarantee that there was no fat there. The government has cut the fat of the most disadvantaged and that is unacceptable.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have talked about a lot. Since 2000, there have been billions of dollars of surplus, but 1.2 million children are living in poverty and no progress has been made in reducing it since that time. The child poverty rate is stuck at around 18% since 2000, which is no progress whatsoever.

The number of children living in poverty has risen by 20% since 1989. It has got worse. Low income couples with children are still $9,900 below the poverty line. The poverty rate is virtually unchanged at 12%, and 41% of the food bank users in 2004 were children. That is approximately 325,390 children.

There is absolutely no progress. Will the member of Parliament from the NDP acknowledge that those are the facts in front of us?

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I would like to give the floor to my colleague.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Earlier today I took part in a meeting of the Standing Committee on Status of Women. I might have made a statement during the proceedings that some may have found inappropriate. I simply wish to apologize if I offended anyone and I withdraw anything that may have been offensive.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The Chair thanks the hon. member for the point of order.

In response to the question from the hon. member for Trinity--Spadina, the clock has run out but I will allow the member for Acadie--Bathurst a few moments to respond. I would ask that he keep an eye on the Chair, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for stopping the clock for one minute.

The answer to this question is simple. We have a $50 billion surplus and yet 800,000 people do not qualify for employment insurance. With those 800,000 people who do not qualify there are children. That is why I said that we have more food banks now than we have ever had and there are children there too.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak against the government's Bill C-28. I do this because it is part of the budget of 2006, which we on this side of the House are completely against.

Although there are provisions in the bill that we do support, as they are Liberal proposals from our budget in 2005, we do not support the agenda of the minority Conservative government at this time. Speaking of its agenda, it is important to note that, as we campaigned on, the Conservatives are showing their true right wing hidden agenda now that they are in government.

When the Conservatives introduced the budget, they announced massive spending cuts within it, even though they were handed a $13 billion surplus from previous Liberal governments. Why would they do such a thing when we have so much richness in this country that was left to them by our government? They did it because they had to appease their ideological, right wing Conservative base.

What did the Conservatives do with those cuts and where did they cut? They eliminated the early learning and child care program agreement across this country. It seems that the signature of the Crown means absolutely nothing. The fact that the Government of Canada and the provinces signed an agreement means nothing. By the way, that also happened with the Kelowna accord. Everybody had signed the agreement but again those signatures meant nothing.

I will not go through all the draconian cuts to Status of Women Canada of $5 million, plus changing all the criteria, which means that equality seeking groups can no longer get funding. Justice seeking groups can no longer get funding. It seems that the minister responsible for Status of Women said that women were equal in this country anyway because it says so in the charter. The fact that we need programs and advocacy organizations to ensure that actually happens means nothing to them.

They made cuts to the literacy program. I do not know what the Conservatives have against people learning to read and write in order to improve their skills so they can get better jobs. Productivity in this country is a major issue. The government says that it is interested in productivity and yet it is cutting literacy education which is where it is most needed.

Cuts to affordable housing affect the most vulnerable in our society but the Conservatives do not care. They have their narrow voter base to support and that is as far as they will go. They pick and choose income tax measures that satisfy the minority voters who support the Conservative Party. They believe it does not matter if it is bad for the economy as long as it helps them to get a majority government. Even their own right wing think tank has said to them that cutting the GST is a bad move because it does nothing to increase productivity in this country, but they did it anyway.

The NDP is no better. It used its own agenda to force an election and now it must deal with the consequences of a Conservative government.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I interrupt the member but we will now go to statements by members. When we return to the study of Bill C-28, there will be sixteen and a half minutes left in her time.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Before question period, the hon. member for Beaches—East York had the floor. There are 16 and a half minutes remaining in the time allotted for her remarks. I now call on the hon. member for Beaches—East York.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I said before question period, I am obviously not supporting the bill because of the cuts the government has made. Some of those are the elimination of the child care agreement and cuts to the Status of Women program, the literacy program, affordable housing and many others. Also, budget 2006 increased income taxes to Canada's lowest income earners and slashed important social programs.

Canadians will get a chance to cast judgment on this meanspirited government and they will see that the Conservatives are prepared to compromise the economic status that Canadians have worked so hard to achieve. The Conservative government had the opportunity to bolster productivity and lift Canada's capacity to generate long term growth and prosperity, but it threw that out the window for immediate growth of the Conservative Party instead.

As we have said before, the tax provisions outlined in the budget only benefit small segments of the population and when examined more closely, put more strain on students, low income families and the environment, among countless others.

Again, the Canada employment tax credit increases the basic personal exemption, but it only applies to employed taxpayers and not to all Canadians. To make matters worse, the government decreased the basic personal exemption for all Canadians, therefore raising their income tax. Especially for seniors and people on fixed income, this is absolutely appalling. We were raising the personal exemption up to $10,000 from $9,800. Now it has gone down to $9,300. Our system would have at least taken about 250,000 or more seniors off income tax rolls altogether. Therefore, this has hurt people because it is actually a tax increase.

Also the Conservatives are essentially giving only $77.50 per year to students who spend $500 on books. The Liberal government had proposed to pay 50% of the first and last years of the post-secondary program.

The program the Conservatives have does not create access for students to post-secondary education, who are struggling and pay little taxes to begin with. By cancelling $3.11 billion over five years and replacing that with $175 million tax credit is shameful. It is so paltry and absolutely embarrassing.

Again, the government obviously does not have a plan for prosperity. Education is a major part of prosperity and that does not seem to be part of its program. As far as I am concerned, it has a plan for disaster. Education, prosperity, innovation, research, students, universities and partnerships with the provinces are all gone. There seems to be no need for the government to invest in Canadians and to work with provinces.

Again, the transit credit that the government has put in is a joke. It leaves rural Canadians scratching their heads as to how this will benefit them. It does not increase in any way the ridership or take cars off the road. Environmental groups have no idea where the Minister of the Environment gets the idea that 56,000 cars have come off the road. Maybe she just thinks it is a good number. There is no way to verify any of that until well into next summer.

We all know that transit is not feasible for many Canadians. Money needs to be invested in better access and improved transit. A dollar per month tax credit will not do it. Nor will it do it with the environment, nor for people who need the investment, nor for the investment that the previous government was making with municipalities. The partnership that existed between the Government of Canada and the municipalities of this countries on many levels, housing, transportation, environment and green environmental programs is gone. That kind of partnership does not seem to exist.

I am not quite sure if the Prime Minister has even met with the mayor of Toronto. If he has, I am not sure what came of it. At this point I suspect that has not even happened, not in any meaningful way.

The fitness tax credit is the perfect example of another selective tax measure that effectively does nothing but support those few families that have children already enrolled in sports. Anyone paying the bill for sports knows that the final value of $77.50 for a year is no real help to anyone. It is a bit of candy in the window like the Conservatives have done in many other things, but there is no real value behind it. Actually, if we eat too much, it will give us a toothache. Added to that, the parents who pay for children to take acting classes or piano lessons or anything such as arts or culture related are left with no help from the government. This is no surprise. A carton of yogurt has more culture than the Conservative Party as far as I am concerned.

To top it off, all these tax credits are washed away with the half point income tax hike the government introduced. By raising income tax, the government is cancelling out any of these tax credits and putting low income Canadians at even more risk. They try to give it with one hand, then they hike the taxes on the other side and we realize at the end of the day we really do not have it. It is like “now you see it, now you don't”.

Again, the much touted GST cut does little for the poorest of all Canadians. It does not benefit all Canadians as the Conservatives claim, it only benefits the rich. People need a lot of money to spend before they can benefit from the GST reduction. The GST is not charged on basics such as food and housing, which are most of the expenditures of low income households and we all know that. There is nothing in this budget for the 1.2 million children and families living in poverty.

The government has to be concerned with the most vulnerable and all citizens of our country, which the budget and the Conservative Party do not do. As far as I am concerned, the recent budget cuts are meanspirited and expose a direct attack on Canada's most vulnerable. The average Canadian citizen is going to feel those cuts very badly.

All Canadians have to live with the cuts aimed at a very narrow spectrum of Conservative supporters. Ontarians remember the Harris tax cuts that left Ontario with no services and a massive budget deficit, something that the current government is still trying to fix. It is taking a long time and it is going to take much longer. Now we have the main player in that, the now Minister of Finance, who will do the same thing to all Canadians as he did to Ontario, no services and a deficit to boot.

The minority Conservative government is poised to cut even more. This “fend for yourself” society will leave our most vulnerable behind as we all know. I cannot support this direct attack on our citizens and the most vulnerable of them, and therefore cannot support the bill.

The current Minister of Finance in Ottawa was very much involved with creating the mess that we have in Ontario. Most Ontarians remember that there were constant tax cuts and constant service cuts. Welfare recipients were cut by 20%. All of the services at the municipal level are now fee for service so children who need the services have to pay a fee for them. For fixed income families and low income families, this means children cannot use sports and recreational facilities.

However, Mr. Harris, like the current government, had a lot of ideas about how to put those children in jail. We have an increase for building the jail system in the budget. This seems to be the current government's same pattern because it has the same bright lights guiding it too, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Finance.

I look forward to the next election when the people of Canada will pass judgment on these outrageous cuts and meanspiritedness. A Liberal government can work to cleaning up the mess the Conservatives are making of our great country. As I said, it is rather sad. The Liberals came in 1993 and had to clean up the mess that was created by the previous Conservative government. We had a deficit of over $40 billion, high interest rates, high unemployment and an economy that was in the tank. There had been huge cuts in services. There was the brain drain, which we all talked about for so long. There were no research funds of which to speak. Canada was nowhere when it came to research, investment in education and so on.

The Conservative government also cut the court challenges program and the women's program. It was forced to reinstate it at one point. We had to fix it and it was hard to fix. That hurt Canadians.

We moved beyond that. We moved to the point of reinvesting so the brain drain became the brain gain. We provided 1,000 research chairs for all the universities across Canada. The Liberal government established centres of excellence: the centres of excellence for women's health and the CIHR. We made investments in high technology and science to increase investment in this country to help our economy and our productivity.

Just before the last election, universities and colleges in this country said the brain drain had become a brain gain. More people were coming back to Canada. More young people were staying here because of the investments that the Liberal government made in our economy and our people. This included the investment in early education and child care, another major investment for our future productivity.

The Governor of the Bank of Canada, testifying at the finance committee, said very clearly that if he had $1 to invest, he would invest it in children and early education and child care. This is where the returns are in terms of our health as well as our productivity and economy in the future.

We were able to increase the guaranteed income supplement for seniors and invested $1 billion to look at a national program for caregivers.

The Conservative government does not seem to think that any of that is important. What did it do in the last budget? It eliminated the child supplement. Imagine taking away the child tax credit, which goes to modest income families in this country, and the child supplement, which goes to the poorest of families, while at the same time raising their taxes by .5% and lowering their personal exemptions.

The Conservative government lowered the GST, which these families cannot benefit from, and then taxed the little $1,200 it gave them for day care, which is not worth very much. There was no mention of child care or early education to speak of. These people have not gained anything. They have lost all the way through.

That is why I say the budget is meanspirited. It hurts people. It is absolutely unbelievable that a government with a $13.2 billion surplus would cut social programs. I understand there is even more money in the kitty of some additional billions of dollars. The government had this $13 billion surplus thanks to the management of the Liberal government.

What did the Conservatives do with all this money? They cut services. They cut literacy. They seem to have something against people who have not been able to get proper reading and writing skills and are not able to fill out their own application forms for employment or read the safety standards in their places of employment. They are not able to get the kind of quality jobs our economy is producing. An economy is competitive only if there is a modern well-skilled labour force. This again goes to competitiveness. The Conservatives talk about this only in terms of text facts, but they do not invest in people and literacy is about investing in people.

Then there is the court challenges program. The government is afraid of being challenged by the citizens of Canada. The court challenges program was established to allow the citizens of Canada to be able to challenge all levels of government policies and laws if they abrogated citizens' rights. Other countries have lauded us for having the strength and the respect to give that kind of control to our citizens. It strengthens our democracy. The previous Conservative government cancelled this program. We came in to clean up and reinstated it. Now the government has cancelled it again.

In addition to that, and this is not following the budget but nonetheless the cuts continue, the Conservatives have now cut money to Status of Women Canada and they have changed the criteria. Women in this country, according to the Minister of Status of Women, are equal because it says so in the Constitution and therefore they no longer need anything else.

Women fought so hard for their equality in this country. The only reason women have equality in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is because of Status of Women Canada which was established in 1971. When women were not in the charter when it was presented to Canada, they marched on Parliament with the assistance of women's organizations and fought for their rights. That is why they are in the Constitution in the first place.

The funding for those organizations that helped us to get our rights in the Constitution is going to be eliminated, so they will not be able to advocate, to research, and to fight for equality and social justice in this country. I cannot imagine a government eliminating the words social justice and equality by cutting funding to the women of Canada.

I will conclude by saying that quite frankly, I see very little in this budget to support. I am saddened by the fact that this is where we have arrived on this day.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to elaborate a little on the cuts to women's programs and the change in direction based on what they were able to do with the little amount of funds that they did get. I wonder if she could comment not only on the cuts to their programs but other things that may affect women's groups such as the cuts to the Law Commission and the cuts to the court challenges program.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin with the court challenges program.

There have been a lot of charter challenges that have gone to the Supreme Court which had to do with equality. I will start with one, the rape shield law. As the hon. member knows, women were pretty much put on the stand and raped all over again at times during those cases, and that was a charter challenge which assisted women in this country.

I myself was involved personally with a charter challenge to the Supreme Court to defend immigrant women. In 1986 the government was not providing them with English as a second language classes when they arrived in this country. Only men received them. The assumption was that women did not go to work, therefore they did not need English as a second language. If they did go to work, they did not need the language anyway because they went to factories, I guess, so the government did not give them subsidized language training. We actually had to start a charter challenge, a class action on behalf of immigrant women.

Aboriginal women who were working were not allowed to receive the Canada pension plan and again that was another challenge that went to court. It was upheld and of course today they do.

There were also other challenges for the disabled and so on. I could give long lists. That is no longer possible because the court challenges program has now been eliminated.

There are a lot of other equality issues and challenges that need to be addressed, but there will be no assistance because the government is too afraid to have its own policies and its own laws challenged by its citizens. That is what the program was for.

The hon. member asked about the changes of criteria with respect to the women's programs. The changes mean that organizations that are out there, as they were before, doing research and identifying areas where women do not have equality, such as pay equity, cannot get funded. They are out there informing Canadian women of the areas they need to know about where there is no equality, and then are advocating for them on their behalf to governments at all levels. They cannot get funded, so inequality is not funded. If they are fighting for social justice, again they cannot be funded.

It seems to me that the government is not interested in hearing from anybody who has anything to say about any problems that they may have with any policy the government presents because as far as the government concerned, it is all perfect which of course it is not.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am always intrigued with a debate on whether or not things can happen if the government does not pay for them. I am of the belief that they could happen.

When I was a youngster, which was many years ago, decades ago, there was very little government programming. Yet, when there was a need in our community, it pulled together. We helped voluntarily, sometimes at an expense and sometimes only the expense of time. I know I learned from my father and my mother that when someone was in need, we reached out and helped them. I believe in that principle. That is why I personally get involved as much as I can in the lives of individuals who are in need.

I think there is a difference in philosophy here. That is, for example, if one says if we do not fund the women's group, which the hon. member mentioned, then somehow the government is against them. That is a false assumption.

Also, I distinctly remember that the Liberal government, when it was in power, denied women's groups. I will mention specifically REAL Women. That group was not eligible for funding. Why were the Liberals against those women?

Personally, I would not even lay the accusation that the Liberals were against women with the kinds of ideas that that particular group showed. However, the Liberals did not fund them.

Why does the opposition now lay the charges at us that somehow because the government does not fund a particular group, that the government is against them? That is a false assumption.

I would also like to say that if it is true that the National Action Committee on the Status of Women represents, as it claims, all the women in this country, then all that group would have to do, and I think there must be at least 8 million adult women in this country, that would be my estimate, is have each woman donate a dollar. Then the group would have $8 million. This would be more money than the group could ever spend.

I think if people really believe in the Status of Women then they would fund it. I have had a number of women on different occasions say that the Status of Women does not represent them. I say that is their choice. Why should these women through their taxes be obliged to support a group that does not represent them?

I know I have gone on a rambling scheme here. I want to assure the member that simply because the government does not think the taxpayers should be funding a certain segment of any group, that the government is automatically against that group. We feel that the taxpayers should not be funding that group.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is quite a lot there to chew, and some of it, I have to say, I find somewhat offensive. I will tell the House why.

The philosophy of seeing someone in need and handing out a bit money is charity. Why should people be subjected to charity? They pay taxes. They have rights. There is dignity involved. I am sorry, but I think the member's philosophy is offensive.

I have seen people who work for a minimum wage which is so low. It is not acceptable. I find that offensive. If only we would increase the minimum wage, they would have a decent income.

I do not come from a wealthy family. My parents worked hard. I went to work long before I was able to go to university to help myself out. I do not expect that children today should have to live on alms. To think that the poor children of Canada should have to wait for charity before we help them out is offensive.

On the issue with respect to women, the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women was established purposely as an agency to assist women to achieve equality. With respect, REAL Women is not an organization that works to help women to achieve equality.

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

They sure do.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

No, they do not, not according to the Constitution of this country. Not according to what is stated. It was the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women that helped Canadian women get their constitutional rights.

If the hon. member is telling me that everything can happen by itself, why was it that in 1982 the Government of Canada in order to get the charter of rights, the compromise with the provinces was that women's rights were written out? There were no women's rights in the Constitution when it was first tabled. Why was it that the women of this country had to march on Ottawa in order to get themselves recognized in the Constitution of this country? It is only with that kind of assistance and the charter challenge program that women will have the ability to continue to help themselves in this country. By stating that equality is there by virtue of its existence is not good enough.

We can say that women are strong people. One of the members was mentioning today at committee that women are strong and must I admit that women are strong. Of course they are strong. My mother was a very strong woman. She worked for long hours in a factory that had no standards whatsoever. She was paid a pittance of a salary and she raised four children on it. She was a strong woman, but she should not have had to put up with that kind of situation, that kind of unhealthy work environment.

The fact that women are strong does not mean they deserve to continue to be abused. There are rights in this country. It is an issue of human rights. It is not an issue of alms or charity.

I resent that we are talking in terms of all the women pitching in a dollar. They pay taxes. They should not have to pitch in a dollar. The government has an obligation. We collectively have an obligation to help each other.

There is no question that our philosophies are different. Our ideologies are different. We believe in a collective responsibility of looking after one another. The Conservatives do not.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today to Bill C-28, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006. This bill is over 130 pages long.

In this bill, the budget that the Minister of Finance tabled last spring is divided into five broad areas. It addresses a number of issues and sets out tax measures affecting individuals.

This bill also proposes to extend tax benefits given to farming and fishing businesses; it deals with corporate taxes; it amends the tax rate for banking institutions; and it reduces the excise tax on volumes of beer under 75,000 hectolitres.

In the 20 minutes allotted to me to talk about Bill C-28 today, I would like to address the aspect relating to tax measures affecting individuals, but more specifically the 15.5% non-refundable tax credit for public transit that was announced in the budget. In order to be eligible for the credit, taxpayers must supply a receipt or proof of purchase of a long-term public transit pass.

I certainly do not intend in this speech to dispute the measure proposed by the government in the last budget; rather, I would like to demonstrate that this one measure alone, the 15.5% non-refundable tax credit, is insufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact the government committed itself in its budget to presenting us with a climate change plan, which we are still waiting for. The only environmental measure that the government is proposing is the non-refundable tax credit for public transit.

We believe, however, that this is not sufficient to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to meet Canada’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6% from 1990 levels during the period between 2008 and 2012.

Why is it not sufficient? Because a 15.5% non-refundable tax credit is not a sufficient incentive for people to use public transit. If the government genuinely wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote public transit, it will have to ensure that this measure is accompanied by adequate funding for public transit infrastructures, particularly in municipalities.

In fact it bothers me that the government is presenting this measure to us today, because the Department of Finance submitted a report to its minister showing that this measure alone would be ineffective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions even before he tabled this budget.

The minister had available to him a report showing that this measure alone would lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of only 0.01%, when Canada has to reduce those emissions by 300 million tonnes. Plainly this measure alone will lead to a reduction of only 13,000 tonnes in Canada.

The government, which sometimes says it believes in climate change and sometimes says it does not, is presenting us today with this tax credit that is the only environmental measure it proposed. Obviously that measure alone will contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by only 0.01%.

This is not enough. We have a government that is refusing to honour the commitments Canada made in the fight against climate change and that, in its budget, is promising to table a climate change plan in the future. Where are we at today? We have a government that is refusing to honour the commitments Canada made in Kyoto, that had promised in the budget to table a climate change plan and that said it would use tax measures in the fight against climate change. What do we have now? A government that is not honouring its international commitments, that has not tabled a climate change plan and that is tabling tax measures and environmental measures that will enable us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a mere 0.01%.

How can the minister tell us today that this one measure will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions? According to his own department, the finance department, this measure will increase transit ridership in Canada by only 2.5% to 3.3%, even though this government feels that we must fight climate change.

The minister is well aware that there were at least five options on the table, and he chose the worst one, the one least effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Department of Finance and the report that department officials submitted to the minister before the budget was tabled, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will be minimal. The government and the department had clearly indicated that this measure would not be effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and that, in addition, it was extremely costly. Officials estimated that it would cost $200 million annually to implement such a measure. What does that represent in terms of the cost of every tonne of greenhouse gas emissions that is eliminated? It represents $2,000.

So when the government tells us that we cannot achieve the Kyoto protocol targets and that it would cost a huge amount to do so, the government should look at the measure it has introduced. According to its own officials, this measure will cost the department $200 million a year, or $2,000 for every tonne of greenhouse gas emissions that is eliminated.

Far be it from me to criticize this measure, as I said earlier. I think that this measure can be effective only if the government decides to make the financial means available to the provinces to strengthen and improve the public transit network.

The government probably sees what I am getting at. The Government of Quebec wants $325 million to fund its plan to fight climate change. It clearly showed its hand to the government in Ottawa by saying it would use Ottawa's $325 million to strengthen its transportation network. That is the missing link that would make the measure announced in the budget—the 15.5% non-refundable tax credit for individuals who purchase public transit passes—really effective for Quebec.

I would like to quote an environmental economics professor at the Université de Sherbrooke, Alain Webster. He said, and I quote:

Ottawa's measure rewards people who are already doing the right things.

There is no clear evidence that the 15.5% credit will convince a lot of people to switch from cars to buses. On its own, such a measure is deceptive and totally inadequate.

This measure will not boost ridership. Yes, public transit ridership in Canada will increase, but according to the Department of Finance's own analyses, ridership will increase only from 2.5% to 3.3%. So what should we do? This is the only measure the government announced in its last budget to fight climate change.

What would we have liked to have seen? We would have liked the government to confirm Canada's support for Kyoto by committing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

We would also have liked the government to indicate that Ottawa intends to transfer to Quebec the $328 million committed by the federal government. That commitment was made not only by the previous government but also by the new government. We have some evidence of that. It has been confirmed not only by Bloc members but also by the Government of Quebec which, today, as part of a partnership, stated that it wants the Kyoto protocol commitments to be met in their entirety. Several individuals involved reacted by estimating that it would also take at least, and I insist on that, at least $328 million in order to ensure that Quebec reaches its targets.

We should point out that the government decided to continue with plans laid out by previous governments to give tax incentives of about $250 million to the Canadian oil industry—even though, since 1970, this industry has received more than $66 billion. That is quite a contrast with federal investments in renewable energy.

Why should we continue to fund the oil industry when we have a government, the Government of Quebec, that has submitted an action plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to respect the Kyoto protocol, and which is asking Ottawa for $328 million, or 20% of the action plan on climate change. Something does not add up.

What we believe is that if the government wants this measure to be effective, it must be accompanied by concrete agreements with the provinces. Concrete agreements that can result in improvements to infrastructure.

Some have said, and I will again quote an individual involved, “Such a measure was evaluated”. These are quotes and comments from federal public servants in the Department of Finance who made a recommendation to the minister regarding the measure included in the budget and who stated that such a measure had been evaluated. It could be implemented without fiscal implications.

What officials are saying is that we cannot consider this measure alone. Why did the government not announce a tax credit for more fuel efficient vehicles when it tabled the budget? Such a measure would have been more effective. According to the Department of Finance figures, this type of tax incentive for citizens who decide to purchase more fuel efficient vehicles would have resulted in a 0.3 million tonne reduction in greenhouse gases in 2010 and a 1 million tonne reduction in 2020.

We have always believed in this House that, in terms of fighting climate change, we must use both tools at our disposal: legislation and regulations, which must play in important role. Furthermore, upon analysis of the approach introduced by the government last week, what is it? It is an approach that aims only to go back to consultation with the provinces and discussion with industry. It is no more and no less than an approach in three phases, which might—and I stress might—lead to regulations in 2010.

I have been a member of this House since 1997 and I remember very well the previous government's commitments. In 2000, after ratifying and signing the Kyoto protocol, that government began extensive consultations with the provinces and with industry in order to implement the Kyoto protocol in Canada.

The government before us today has decided to throw away nearly six years of negotiations with the industrial sectors and begin all over again, although negotiations had already been undertaken by the Department of Natural Resources, among others.

I remember very well the Assistant Deputy Minister, Howard Brown, who had begun negotiations with the industrial sectors and was making progress in those negotiations. Of course, in certain cases, they led to only voluntary agreements. We would have liked to see stricter regulations, but this government decided not to take into account the negotiations with the various industrial sectors and to start all over again.

Consider, for instance, the automotive industry. It signed a voluntary agreement with the federal government in which it promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by five megatonnes within the automotive sector. What have we learned and what do we know about the viewpoint of the government sitting opposite, regarding that agreement? We are told that they are going to let that voluntary agreement run until 2010 and we will harmonize our automobile manufacturing standards with those of the United States, more particularly with the Environmental Protection Agency. While we were hoping that the government would harmonize our automobile manufacturing standards with more rigorous, model standards, such as those adopted by the state of California, our government decided to let the industry continue on its course, although, incidentally, that industry has yet to present any reports on how it is respecting that voluntary agreement.

I would say that the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development informs and guides us on the evaluation of this agreement. She says there is no independent mechanism—independent being the operative word—to ensure that the automobile industry will respect its commitments on the five megatonne reduction in the voluntary agreement. There is no independent compliance mechanism and no guarantee that the industry will respect its commitments. By the way, the industry can withdraw from this agreement at any time.

In closing, this measure could be interesting provided that it comes with a significant transfer, for Quebec in particular, of $328 million to allow us to consolidate and broaden our public transportation network.

Alone, this measure will not result in significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions; its impact is small. Furthermore, the government had five other options and it chose the least effective one as far as greenhouse gas emissions are concerned.

We hope the government now understands that Quebec wants this $328 million to allow us to meet our commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Kyoto protocol.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I found the comments of the member across the way thought-invoking. Most of what he shared I found dishonest or misleading. He started by speaking about waiting for the plan and saying that we do not have a plan.

That is not true. Last Thursday, a week today, seven days ago--and I believe he was in the House--Bill C-30 was tabled. Actually, if he would take the time to read the Order Paper and Notice Paper, he would see that Bill C-30 is on page 22. I encourage him to look at that. The fact is that I encourage him to read the bill, our clean air act.

He talked about the transit tax credit and said it may not work. That is his premise: that it may not work. In reality, the Bloc and the Liberals have joined together to obstruct Bill C-30, the clean air act. This is an act that will move--

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

It's awful. It's a mess.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

We hear more rhetoric from the other side.

The clean air act will address pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, while the former Liberal plan, after 13 years, did nothing. We will deal with both pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. One in 12 Canadians dies from pollution related illness.

It will also deal with greenhouse gases in Canada and globally. The Liberal plan is what the member across the way is supporting in his obstruction of our bill, but in the Conservative plan, greenhouse gases are dealt with both in Canada and globally. As well, we are moving from a voluntary plan, which is the old plan that did not work, and going to mandatory. We have notice of regulations of what we have introduced. They are gazetted. This deals with every sector and industry in Canada. The member mentioned the auto sector. We will be dealing with that in part of our clean air plan.

Why is he obstructing the clean air act? That is my question for the member. He, his party and the Liberals have been on notice that they are going to oppose that bill before they have even read it. Canadians want to know why.

On Sunday night I was on a panel. The vast majority of Canadians who phoned in said that the clean air act, of which the member is apparently not aware, has to go to committee. All members are being encouraged to send it to committee for good debate. That is a good idea, but what we have seen here is obstruction.

A tree is known by its fruit. An apple tree has apples. Why is that member not supporting environmental issues? Why does he not support cleaning up the environment? Why is he against the environment? Why does he not support the clean air act going to committee where it needs to go?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the member that we are not debating the clean air act, but rather Bill C-28. I can tell him, however, why we oppose the clean air bill. We oppose it precisely because this government has refused to listen to the arguments put forward by the opposition, a majority of which, last spring, demanded in this House that the government table a climate change plan incorporating the Kyoto objectives.

We have in front of us a parliamentary secretary who is trying to shift onto the opposition the blame for an approach that Canadians and Quebeckers do not subscribe to. The reality is that we would not have to oppose the clean air bill, had the government stood behind the motion passed by Parliament, voted by a majority in this House. The reality is that the government is the one that decided to be at odds with Parliament. I can make a prediction about that: the Conservatives will have a high price to pay come the next election.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to follow up on what the member just said.

The particular act he is talking about might change the definition of what the federal government is allowed to do. It is a step backward. We will continue discussions for another four years which have already been completed, another step backward, while our children, for the next four years, are hurt when they could have had the programs in place that were cut. The government is going to set targets when they are 100 years old. What about our children? Maybe our grandchildren will benefit.

Does the member not think that it would have been better to at least have maintained the status quo, which was a plan that worked with all sorts of renewable energies, wind, solar, carbon sequestration and clean coal. It worked with the final emitters. It had worked for years to come up with a plan that would have been implemented soon. It was giving money to the provinces and the territories. He could talk about the money that was reneged to Quebec that could have been going into effect. The one-tonne challenge was cutting thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gases and the voluntary auto agreement is one of the best in the world.

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

Mr. Speaker, I agree that it would have been desirable for the government to put a moratorium on existing programs. We had the EnerGuide program, which people wanted and which worked. It provided an opportunity to work together in cooperation with the provinces. In Quebec, for example, the government worked together with the Agence de l'efficacité énergétique and community groups like Équiterre. Why did the government decide to cut funding for a program designed to promote energy efficiency? Why did the Canada Wind Energy Association say today, during its conference in Winnipeg, that the government is blocking all wind energy projects?

This goes to show that the government has not only decided not to respect the objectives set out in the Kyoto protocol, but also decided to cut effective programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As if not believing in climate change was not enough, this government is also taking away every tool available to the provinces and community groups to honour the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member now admits that there is the clean air act. He does admit that his party will not be supporting it and one of his reasons was that he accuses the government of not respecting Kyoto.

We do respect Kyoto and we are very much a part of Kyoto. What we have done is we have been honest with Canadians. After 13 years of Liberal mismanagement and lack of leadership, which is what the environment commissioner said, we did not meet those targets. There were $6 billion worth of announcements and $1.6 billion spent and yet emissions went up dramatically. The member across the way is defending that. He is locked in step with the Liberals who are saying that we do not respect Kyoto, which is not true.

The fact is that next month, our Minister of the Environment will be going to Kenya and she has invited Minister Béchard from Quebec to accompany her. We are involved with AP6 and G-8 plus 5. We are looking at ways of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions.

A person can say that he supports the environment but, as I said before, a tree is known by its fruit. People cannot say that they support the environment and yet oppose the government's plan to clean it up, which is a good plan.

Why will the member not permit the clean air act to go to committee, as Canadians want it to? Why is he opposing and obstructing the government's plan to clean up?

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

Mr. Speaker, the government's big announcement today on climate change is that it has decided to invite Quebec's environment minister to a conference on climate change in Nairobi. That is ridiculous. While the Government of Quebec and 30 or so groups in Quebec are asking that the Kyoto protocol be respected and that the $328 million necessary to implement the plan be made available, the parliamentary secretary announced that the minister was inviting Mr. Béchard to an international conference.

I can tell the parliamentary secretary that we do not need an invitation from Ottawa to attend an international conference on climate change. We are quite capable of finding our own way there. What we want is not an invitation to an international conference, but the $328 million that would allow us to implement our action plan on climate change.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin my speech by putting this budget we are debating today into context.

Much to everyone's astonishment, in the throne speech this year it contained only five items. It seemed like the Governor General had only begun to read it and before we knew it she rose and left. Everyone asked where the throne speech was. A quarter of a million employees work in the federal government and yet the Conservatives could only come up with five new things it felt needed to be done. We have over 40 federal agencies and departments. Did the government think 35 of them had no problems or no priorities? I am sure each of those organizations had a strategic plan. I am sure they did not say that nothing needed to be done. It was shocking. I was a bit disappointed by the fact that the Conservatives were not taken to task at the time. The previous Liberal plan had 77 priorities, and the Conservatives only had 5. Ninety-five per cent of Canada was left out of the budget.

Let me discuss wait times, which are now getting worse. A journalist caught the Prime Minister in a speech trying to put another priority in rather than his priority of wait times. He did not get away with it. The Prime Minister tried to say that it was not one of his government's five priorities because he realized he could not accomplish his goals with respect to wait times.

He said that Canada's place in the world would be his fifth priority but in the recent budget cuts he cut Canada's place in the world. He cut money to foreign embassies and he cut the student exchange program. Even the fifth priority that he added has now been downgraded.

I cannot remember exactly what the five priorities were. One might have been the GST cut. That was roundly criticized by all the major economists and analysts in Canada. They felt it would be more beneficial, more productive and more effective to give an income tax cut to Canadians.

One of the other priorities might have been defence. How many Canadians feel safer today than they did at the time that statement came out? A promise was made to provide three icebreakers for the north. Whether or not they believe in icebreakers, they should not have convinced northerners to vote for them and then break their promise and not go ahead with it. If we had increased our defence abilities, then we would be continuing Canada's place in the world in our traditional peacekeeping duties.

What have we done with this increased defence given the emerging situations in the world? Have we done anything in the Congo, in Zimbabwe, in Darfur or in Somalia? There is certainly nothing to show for that priority.

The government wants to get hard on crime. As was mentioned today in question period, we announced a smart crime proposal and plan. The government would not even expedite certain crime bills that we offered today.

However, the government's first major bill, Bill C-9, would not have made Canada much safer as witnesses stated before committee. Those witnesses convinced all parliamentarians except Conservative members that Canadians would be less safe. Major modifications had to be made to the bill to make Canada safer. For example, a committee member was told by a witness at the committee that prisoners had 47 days on average for treatment and rehabilitation in order to make them safe for society. Instead, with home arrest and the programs that go with that, they would have received 700 days of treatment. The 47 days would not make society safer because these offenders would have less chance of being rehabilitated or they would get a summary conviction or probation. That was a failure.

What is more important than its failure on the five priorities is that the government missed 95% of Canada in both the budget and throne speech. There was nothing for the most vulnerable, women, the poor and the elderly.

If governments have problems with their budgets it is usually that they cannot or do not implement them and they do not set aside money for all the things in the throne speech. However, I cannot say that the present government had that problem because if there is nothing in a throne speech it is pretty easy to fund it.

Let us look at the budget that we are talking about today. I am a positive person by nature but the government has made it very hard for me to be true to myself during the past year but I will mention some good things in the part of the budget addressed by Bill C-28.

In particular, there are two items in the budget that were former Liberal proposals. We are very happy to see the tax reduction on dividends and the $500,000 in capital gains being transferred to fishers.

Another thing that was good for my riding and something on which I lobbied for a long time was the excise tax reduction for brewers. We have a great micro brewery in Yukon that makes Yukon Gold and Arctic Red and it will certainly appreciate that particular cut.

I do not have any objections to other tax cuts for Canadians and businesses other than the fact that they were not applied equally. When the government has lots of money and it is in the best fiscal position in the history of surpluses with room to manoeuvre, why would it not extend the tax cuts equally to the most vulnerable?

The one example of that is the new textbook tax credit, which works out to $77. I talked to our college bookstore and I was told that a student could barely buy one book with that money. The Liberals were offering $3,000 toward the first year and $3,000 toward the last year of tuition, and for poor students that amount was for every year. What is the alternative choice? It is $77. The government really cannot be serious.

I will not go into the transit pass deduction except to say, as the member from the Bloc just pointed out, that all the experts in the government, the environment officials and the public servants, had respectfully recommended to the government that there were far more effective ways. They said that this deduction would primarily be a subsidy to people who were already using transit. There could have been all sorts of ways to get far more reductions in greenhouse gases and pollution than offering the credit.

Let us talk about the doubling of the pension income credit. It is great. I do not have an objection with that but when I asked the government the question earlier today about the seniors who do not get that income tax credit and who do not have the pension income to get the credit, there was no answer. In fact, for those seniors the government has increased income taxes. Why would it pick on seniors and increase their taxes from 12% to 12.5% unless they are very wealthy? Why would it reduce the basic exemption for everyone which means an increase in taxes for all Canadians?

I would not have a problem with the tax decreases had they been applied equally for everyone. Wealthy Canadians, by and large, are very generous. They donate to many social causes and do a lot of good work. They are not the type of people who would have asked for tax cuts and then said that we should not give it to the poorest in society, not give it to the single mother trying to feed her family and not increase her tax from 12% to 12.5% or reduce her basic exemption.

There would have been no problem in just giving everyone a tax cut. There is enough room in the budget to do that. The government has heard about it incessantly, especially because there were no items in the budget for those vulnerable groups as I outlined at the beginning of my speech.

If the member wants to put this in the context of the previous government, in the Liberal government's throne speeches and budgets there were all sorts of programs for aboriginal people, the disabled and students, and programs in regard to homelessness, which we were talking about today.

I will take the President of the Treasury Board at his word when he says the government will not cut the SCPI program. SCPI is a tremendous program that is very well used in my riding. There have been all sorts of successful projects. My party will fight to the end to make sure the program is maintained. I am delighted that the President of the Treasury Board said he would maintain that very important program. It is one of the many initiatives of the former government.

In foreign trade, we have seen the emerging economies of China, India and Brazil and an increased foreign presence in the world for Canada. In fact, in regard to the “responsibility to protect”, a year ago September I was very proud of the United Nations when Canada got that through. Yet now we have a government that recently cut the foreign presence in Canada.

Earlier in the House members talked about climate change and the initiatives the Liberals put in place. I will grant one thing to everyone: we were terrible about explaining what we had done. It was disastrous, because Canadians did not know about all the initiatives taken by the former government, although there is always more to be done.

Canadians did not know about our initiatives related to renewable energies, reducing fossil fuels, wind and solar energy, clean coal, carbon sequestration, ethanol and, as the Bloc member mentioned, of course there was our tremendous EnerGuide program. Thousands of Canadians across this country were using the EnerGuide program to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases. The Conservative government has allowed the program to expire.

And what did we get from the government? We got a plan that could reduce the legal authority of Canada to prevent pollution. The plan asks for four more years of talk, but all that talking has been done for the last four years. The plan was put in place. This is a real insult to the excellent public servants of Canada, who did that talking for the last four years and came up with plans. Some of those experts in the biocap areas that we were supporting are world renowned. I do not think the government should be challenging them and telling them to go back and talk for another four years while our children continue to breathe smog.

In the north, where we find the most devastating impact of greenhouse gas, where the species are changing and the infrastructure is crumbling, where traditional lives are affected so dramatically, are we just going to talk for another four years? In fact, the government will put in targets that will be accomplished when I am 100 years old. I am not really worried about that, but what about our children today?

The programs initiated by the Liberal government were not perfect and may not have been enough, but certainly there were some kicking in that would have been tremendous. The deal the Liberal government had with the auto companies is one of the best in the world, unlike the government's plan. We cannot agree with the Conservatives. Because our deal was voluntary and because the auto industry complied with all the other voluntary initiatives, of course there would be a lot more buy-in and a lot more enthusiasm. That is a lot more effective than trying to force it, as the opposition parties are suggesting.

Of course in the Liberal budgets there were items for the north. For the north, what is in these budgets that the Liberal government has not already announced? As for the northern strategy money for the north, there is nothing new and nothing at all for my area of the country and, as northern critic, I would say there is nothing new for the other parts of the country, except of course the promise on the icebreakers that was reneged on.

The forestry industry is suffering from the softwood lumber deal, on which it is going to lose a billion dollars . We had a plan to help the communities, a plan worth close to a billion dollars, I believe, or at least over half a billion. We had a plan to help the communities and the workers. None of that was in this particular budget.

Of course all the infrastructure programs from the past government were new additions and were constantly increased in size.

There was also the new horizons program for seniors, which was well used in my area. And what about the pension increases?

In spite of all this, the Liberal government still had the largest tax break in Canadian history to that time, and we had two tremendous national deals. One was a deal on equalization, with tremendous increases for the provinces and territories of this country. Another was on health care, with huge increases for that by the last two prime ministers.

To get all the provinces and territories to sign on to those agreements and the early childhood agreement is an historic accomplishment. Everyone knows what it is like to try to get the federal government and 11 provinces and territories to agree. These deals were a tremendous accomplishment in those times.

How does that compare to the five items in the last throne speech that were funded in a budget? Even they were not successful.

Let us look at the historic Kelowna agreement. Since Confederation, trying to increase the quality of life of one segment of the Canadian population so it is at least equal to that of the rest of Canadians has been a sore spot in Canada. It can only be done with them, thinking of the solutions, being part of the solutions and in agreement with the solutions, and with the provinces.

It was a historic agreement. It is unimaginable that it even happened. The premiers, the first nations leaders and the federal government got together and came up with a plan,and with the largest amount of money in history for aboriginal people, but more important was the buy-in, which was almost impossible. Where are all these funds in the budget we are debating? Gone. Gone for something else and I am not sure what.

As I said, I was a bit disappointed that these points did not get wider condemnation earlier on as these two things came out, but perhaps people were giving the new government the benefit of the doubt. However, I think the government showed its true colours a couple of weeks ago with the cuts, the cuts that have resounded across the country and have groups up in arms.

We have had two emergency debates on the cuts. In each debate I did not have time to finish reading the input just from my riding, 1/1000th of Canada, and the farthest away from Ottawa, where people would not hear about their complaints. People were surprised, shocked and disappointed that on the day a $13 billion surplus was announced, $1 billion for the most vulnerable in society was be cut.

They were surprised that the court challenges program was cut. It has been used many times to ensure the integrity of our laws so they match our Constitution. As we are a constitutional government, what parliamentarian would not want that integrity for our country?

There was also the cut to the Law Commission, which has done excellent work, also in the area of the law. Parliamentarians are law makers. What parliamentarian would not want outside expertise in doing projects such as the one that was done on historical aboriginal law?I believe first nations people in my riding were part of that.

What about tourism? Maybe I have to speak louder than everyone else because I have the one riding in a province or territory where tourism is the biggest private sector employer. Tourism helps Canadians all across the country. How could the government cut marketing money from the Canadian Tourism Commission, especially when a province like Queensland in Australia probably already spends more than the entire country of Canada spends? Why would marketing money be cut when we need to sell Canada to the world in an ever more difficult time for tourism because of high gas prices and terrorism, et cetera? Not only did the government cut marketing, it cut the GST rebate, which makes it about 6% more difficult for tour operators to entice conventions to come to Canada.

Why would the government cut summer students? The tourism industry and museums use summer students. The museums in this country, which are so poorly funded, were apoplectic with all the cuts, including the summer students they lost, the heritage building program they lost, and the huge cut to MAP, the museum assistance program, one of their few programs.

I am almost out of time so in one minute I will briefly mention the other cuts. I was going to talk about the cuts to the Status of Women budget, cuts to volunteers, for goodness' sake, and cuts to youth employment and youth strategy. Why would funds be cut for youth? Why would there be cuts to CMHC? Why would there be cuts for aboriginal people on the aboriginal smoking strategy?

The very worst of all, which caused an outcry all across the country, is the cut to literacy. One constituent wrote to me and said he probably would be dead without literacy money. I read the letter for the House of Commons last time I spoke.

This is not a direction that we can go in. This is not the direction that Canadians believe in. This is not the kind of Canada that we want to support.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Before I entertain questions and comments, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Ahuntsic, Status of Women.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Burnaby-Douglas.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague talking on and on about the budget. He brought up several items that I thought were quite interesting. However, there is one part that I would like to talk to him about.

I have a background as an educator. I taught at a post-secondary level for five years. I have been a graduate of three post-secondary institutions with eight or nine years of post-secondary education behind me. Not once did I ever receive a tax credit or a tax write-off for my books. There was always money announced for education and so on, but not once did I get a tax credit for my books.

Another thing is, I applied for bursaries and for student loans, and a lot of this was under a Liberal government. I would apply for this money in the form of a student loan and I would get a little bit of money. Then I would go out and realize it was not enough to actually live on in Edmonton, or various other communities where I was living, to go to school. I would go to work and earn a little extra money for myself, so that I could help reduce the burden on the government. I would try to make it on my own, so that I would not be a burden on taxpayers because they were already generously paying 70% of my post-secondary costs to begin with on top of the fact that I was getting these student loans. The money was always clawed back .

So, in this budget which we see here, we are going to actually put money back into the hands of students. If we put money into education, a lot of it just gets swallowed by the system. As soon as organizations hear about more money coming in, there is always a rallying cry for more money to pay salaries and so on, but none of that money actually trickles down and benefits the students who are actually going there.

I would like to ask the hon. member if he is going to support this implementation which would put money back into the hands and the pockets of students to ensure that they will not have their bursaries and their scholarships clawed back when they have some extra cash for the hard work that they have done. Is he going to support that or is he going to reject this generous offer to students in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is nice and it is great that students can have a tax credit for their textbooks. However, in the long run, when students are emerging from university $20,000 in debt, $35,000 in debt, or $50,000 in debt, the tax credit on textbooks is not really going to make all that much difference. To me, it is great. How can anyone argue against doing that? However, it is a little band-aid on top of a big problem.

It is the same with ensuring that scholarship income is not taxable. It is another band-aid on top of a huge problem.

The staggering statistics around post-secondary education are not going to be altered by these two proposals that are in this particular bill.

The millennium scholarship foundation did a study that showed that four out of 10 university students were unable to graduate on time because they dropped courses because they had to go to work to pay for their education and living expenses. Some 66% of students worked on average 19 hours a week to afford to stay in school and three out of 10 students had to resort to private bank loans or family loans because of inadequate government student aid. Those are some of the people who are emerging with these huge debts coming out of university.

A Statistics Canada youth in transition survey found that more than 70% of high school graduates who wanted to go to college or university but did not listed finances as the main barrier that they faced in their decision not to go to university.

Between 1992 and 2002 university tuition fees increased by 135%. That is six times the rate of inflation in Canada. In face of those kinds of statistics, the two programs that the member talked about are really just tiny band-aids on the face of the whole issue.

In the previous Parliament, in this corner, we fought to turn back a tax break to wealthy Canadians and corporations and we asked the government of the day to put that money into reducing tuition. Unfortunately, that has not happened.

I am glad to say that the Conservative government did maintain that billion dollars and put it into infrastructure for the universities. I would have preferred that the money stayed with the original commitment to reducing tuition fees because I think that is where the pressure was. University administrators, I know, welcomed that money, but there is no sense building more classrooms if students cannot afford to get to the university in the first place.

We need to put the emphasis back where it really belongs, in ensuring that people can get to university. As I have said, the two programs that are part of this bill are just way too limited to do that job.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a brief opportunity to address the member for Burnaby—Douglas who has given us a very good sense of what this budget means in terms of people's everyday lives.

In my riding of Vancouver East a lot of low income housing, or what we call single room occupancies, has been closed down and low income people are being evicted. Housing is being lost at an alarming rate. Just recently, a number of people in the downtown east side took over a building. Is it any wonder homelessness and destitution are growing on the streets not only in the downtown east side but in other communities across the country?

The member for Burnaby—Douglas has outlined very well the situation in his own riding with respect to the cuts made to the summer student career program and the cuts made to the literacy program. We have to ask the question: Who benefits from this budget? Who are the winners and who are the losers, especially when the cuts are stacked up against the $13 billion surplus that could have been reinvested in substantial programs that people in this country really need?

One group that gets overlooked for sure by the government are new Canadians. As the very able citizenship and immigration critic for our party, my colleague knows that new Canadians want to settle into their new communities and learn English, and yet those programs have been cut back. We have seen that in British Columbia.

I wonder if he would comment on the need for investment in these areas given the fact that we have a $13 billion surplus at the federal level.

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

Mr. Speaker, the issue of housing is incredibly serious. My riding adjoins the riding of Vancouver East so we are neighbours in that regard. Our housing issues are different but similar at the same time. There are a lot of specific single room occupancy issues in Vancouver East that are not an issue in a more suburban riding like Burnaby—Douglas, although there are housing issues in my riding.

We would never have considered doing a homelessness count years ago in Burnaby—Douglas. Now every year people from my community go out to find homeless people living in Burnaby and every year there are more than the year before. People are living under overpasses and in our parks. It is easy to live full time in parks in the Vancouver area. The vegetation is pretty dense in the rain forest and homeless people are not easily found in those settings. Homeless people in Burnaby--Douglas are living in terrible conditions in public parks.

Homelessness or single occupancy buildings are not the only issues. In Burnaby—Douglas the issue is also housing co-ops. Just a couple of weeks ago NDP members from the lower mainland gathered at the Norman Bethune Co-op in my riding, which is one of the buildings affected by the leaky building crisis in British Columbia. Building envelopes have failed and the water has gone through the walls and caused all kinds of structural and health issues. Mould is growing on the walls of some of these buildings.

This co-op has tried for years to receive some assistance from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation with no success. The former Liberal minister of housing visited that co-op. In fact, hours before he visited it, a rotting beam collapsed. He saw the damage that it caused and yet nothing came forward to help the co-op. It is now facing foreclosure on its mortgage. It has been paying an exorbitant mortgage rate.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is more about being a bank these days than being a housing development organization offering any real assistance to people. This is good housing. In Burnaby we cannot afford to lose one unit of affordable housing given the high housing crisis in British Columbia and the lower mainland let alone the 24 units that are available at the Norman Bethune Housing Co-op.

Housing is a serious issue in all of our communities and I do not see anything in this budget that will help.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Before we resume debate, I remind members that the first five hours of debate on this bill have now expired. Speeches from here on in are 10 minutes, with a five minute question and comment period.

The hon. member forDavenport.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say that I am pleased to rise and speak to Bill C-28, but one has only to look at the content to realize that there is very little indeed to be pleased with in the first Conservative budget since the election.

Before making any comments on Bill C-28, let us go back to October 25, 1993 when the people of Canada chose the Liberal Party to form a government in the wake of nine years of Conservative rule. During those nine years we witnessed astounding short-sighted fiscal policies that left our country, one of the most prosperous in the world, with an enormous operating deficit and an ever increasing national debt.

Under the excellent stewardship of the new Liberal government that succeeded the Conservatives in 1993, we worked hard over the course of three mandates as our house was put into order. The operating deficit disappeared, the deficit was reduced, and Canadians received the services they both needed and deserved.

Imagine, upon taking office in 1993 the Government of Canada was operating with $40 billion annual deficits. Within four years the deficit was gone and Canadians had a balanced budget. The country's triple “A” credit rating was restored. The world could see what we had already come to know as a Liberal government put Canada's house in order.

I make mention of the fact that it was a Liberal government because from 1997 Canadians have to go back all the way to 1912 to find a Conservative balanced budget.

It was from this prudent fiscal management that the Liberal government was then able to move forward again with progressive policies that have made Canada the envy of the world.

In order to understand the differences in approach, we need only to look at the last Liberal budget in 2005 and the subsequent fiscal outlook also in 2005, both presented with great and deserved pride by the member for Wascana, our previous minister of finance.

What did we find in budget 2005? We found a robust economy, secure social foundations, a sustainable environment, and a sound fiscal framework. This sounds to me like the ingredients of a great fiscal policy that included responsibility, compassion for who needed our assistance, and a sound vision for the future.

In fact, the Liberal budget of 2005 recognized that the fiscal policy of the Liberal government had created the fastest rate of increase in living standards among the then G-7 countries since the budget was balanced in 1997.

What did we find in budget 2005? For one thing, we found a solid and measurable commitment to universal accessible policies and publicly funded health care for Canadians. This was not only talk, but action.

The Liberal budget of 2005 reaffirmed the government's commitment of $41.3 billion over 10 years to improve access and reduce wait times for Canadians.

This enormous commitment to health care highlighted in budget 2005 included investments in health based human resources, healthy living and chronic disease, pandemic preparedness, drug safety and environmental health.

These are the kinds of investments that we could make as a result of the sound fiscal management of the Liberal government since taking office in 1993.

Recognizing the unique challenges facing Canadians with disabilities, we changed tax policies to assist them and their caregivers.

The previous Liberal government increased the guaranteed income supplement over five years by $2.7 billion. Liberals understood the needs of senior citizens in this country and they acted.

Canadians with children also faced significant fiscal pressures and the Liberal government committed $5 billion over five years for our early learning and child care initiative.

The agreements and those being negotiated with the provinces would have created real and sustainable child care spaces. The Conservative government, of course, chose to cancel these significant steps forward and that is regrettable indeed.

In terms of the environment, the Liberal budget of 2005 included a $5 billion commitment to ensuring a sustainable environment.

The Liberal government was committed to the Kyoto accord which would have realized real and measurable action on greenhouse gas emissions. Once again, the Conservatives have chosen to join with the United States and abandon the Kyoto agreement in favour of an ineffective long term policy that has more to do with optics and political expediency than with any results on environmental protection.

What about our cities? The former Liberal government was delivering needed support to them with a share of the federal gas tax. This was a Liberal policy. It was innovative and it was welcome news in municipalities across the country. The total commitment was $5 billion over five years from gas tax revenues.

Canada has long been recognized as a leader in terms of assistance to developing countries across the world. The Liberal budget of 2005 increased our international assistance by $3.4 billion over five years. This was a sound and measurable commitment to those nations most in need.

These solid commitments, among many others, were reinstated in November 2005 when the Liberal government produced its final fiscal update. This plan outlined $2.2 billion over five years to improve financial assistance and to ensure that post-secondary education was within reach for lower and middle income Canadians.

Liberals believe that everyone deserves a chance to reach their maximum potential and that the country benefits when we all have the opportunity to achieve our goals.

There was $550 million over five years to extend Canada's access grants to all lower income students in post-secondary education. This was an incredible step forward that many students welcomed.

There were also tax benefits for low income Canadians contained in the fiscal update, as well as infrastructure commitments.

All of this was proposed while maintaining a sound fiscal footing within the context of a balanced budget. As all members of the House will know, the progressive commitments contained in the fiscal update were cast aside when members of the New Democratic Party joined with their associates, the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois to defeat the government in late November 2005. It was an election that nobody wanted and was completely unnecessary.

Members of the New Democratic Party will certainly need to reflect on the wisdom of their action now when casting an eye on Bill C-28. Gone are the major commitments in the 2005 fiscal update. Gone are the great strides forward in child care service in the country. Gone is the Kyoto agreement. The list goes on and on.

Instead of waiting a few short months, members of the New Democratic Party joined with the Conservatives and Bloc Québécois for the purpose of political expediency to force an election. They also caused some of the most progressive policies this country has seen in years to vanish with the cold wind of Conservatism that has swept through the esteemed corners of Parliament.

I am sure many of those who have in the past supported the New Democratic Party will now be asking themselves why their party would have joined with the Conservatives in voting against the Liberal government on that November day causing all of these commitments to vanish in a single vote. I am sure they will also have much to say about what took place in the House on October 24 when members of the New Democratic Party voted with the Conservative government against a Liberal motion which stated:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government inherited the best economic and fiscal position of any incoming federal government and has not demonstrated the need, value or wisdom of its announced expenditure cuts which unfairly disadvantage the most vulnerable groups in the Canadian society.

What possibly could the members of the New Democratic Party have found so offensive about this resolution that they would once again vote with the Conservative Party? The truth is that so much has been lost to so many Canadians as evidenced in the Conservatives' first budget.

For example, where would we find in the budget the great accomplishment that was the Kelowna accord? The answer is that we do not because it is not there.

The Kelowna accord budgeted $5 billion over five years to our native people in the country. It was negotiated with provincial premiers and aboriginal leaders. The Kelowna accord was described at the time as an unprecedented step forward. I believe this to be true. I believe the decision by the Conservative government to abandon the agreement is quite frankly an unprecedented step backward.

The reality is that there is little in the budget speech for ordinary Canadians. Even those things that have been heralded by the Conservatives as significant really amount to very little.

Take the so-called tax plan for public transit users. The Minister of Finance, and indeed the Prime Minister, make much of this part of the budget. However, when actually calculating the amount, it is about $12 a month for transit users, hardly anything to really cheer about it.

Ken Georgetti of the Canadian Labour Congress described the budget this way, “The arithmetic does not work for ordinary working Canadians”. This is true because at the end of the day there is very little in the budget for ordinary Canadians.

We can only look in disbelief and regret when we glance through the budget for the financial commitments that give substance to real action on the environment file. Stephen Hazell of the Green Budget Coalition stated after the budget was announced that there is virtually nothing in the budget to make good on the government's throne speech commitments to tangible reduction in pollution and greenhouse gases. He is right because there is nothing there.

Bill C-28, the budget bill, is really a confirmation that the government is not moving forward in a manner that reflects the real values of Canadians. We have only to compare the sparse commitments in this budget to those made by the previous Liberal government, both in budget 2005 and the fiscal update, to see the reality of the Conservative government.

Canadians are compassionate, hard-working and progressive people. Budgets are statements that reflect the priorities of the government. I cannot imagine any administration in recent memory more out of touch with the people of this country.

Canadians believe in the priorities outlined in the Liberals' fiscal plans, including the environment, seniors, public transit, cities, students and persons with disabilities.

We do not find much in Bill C-28. Clearly the government is very much out of touch with the people it is supposed to be governing. I trust all members will keep this in mind when it comes to cast a vote on Bill C-28, the Conservative budget.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that was an interesting history lesson as the member reflected on the months coming up to the election, not just last January and they were rather revisionary comments I must say considering the outcome that we saw earlier this year.

The member must not have taken into account the kind of tax savings that have been proposed for Canadians. The GST cut, for example, will put more than $5 billion back into the pockets of Canadians. I do not know how he might consider that that would somehow be a disservice to Canadians considering that this will be an improvement not just right across the board for all of those who buy goods and services in this country, but most important, 30% of Canadians will not even pay any income tax.

I wonder if the member might respond as to how that is somehow a disservice as I believe he described it.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to comment once again on what I see are the problems with this particular budget of the government.

The member raised the issue of the GST. He also forgot to mention the fact that the government also raised taxes for low income Canadians by half a point.

There are many things that also need to be addressed which I did not have the opportunity to address in my budget remarks. I would like to take this opportunity to address them. They are the cuts that affect the vulnerable in our society, the cuts to programs relating to literacy, students, seniors. This is increasing the social deficit in the country. There are cuts to museums and to the Law Commission.

Most important, something which was recognized internationally as very fundamental to the democratic rights of many Canadians, the court challenges program was cut by the Conservative government. It is shameful because that program has greatly enhanced not only the freedom but the equality of all Canadians. It is sad that the government could not see the wisdom of a program that has benefited so many Canadians.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way mentioned the issue of the vote the other night.

The opposition day motion put forward really was very thin soup for Canadians as not a penny was added for the people who have been hit so hard by those cuts, but it was a very rich appetizer for the Liberal soul. I think those things made a bit of a meal that we in the New Democratic Party had a hard time eating.

Parliament is here not to keep score or to deal in that fashion, but to accomplish things for Canadians. We would love to work with the Liberals, just as we would love to work with the Conservatives on accomplishing things for Canadians.

How do you think your motion would have restored any of the dollars that were lost to Canadians in those cuts?

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Just a matter of order. The hon. member should ask the member about his motion rather than using the second person. The hon. member for Davenport.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the member found so disturbing about the motion, given the fact that the motion clearly speaks about the lack of wisdom in the government's cuts and those cuts do in fact unfairly disadvantage the most vulnerable groups of Canadians. I thought that is exactly what the problem is with the budget and the way the government is acting.

The members of his party talked about the cuts that have taken place to the volunteer programs, to literacy, to the court challenges program, to the museums and to the Law Commission. These are things that we as Liberals had fought for. We put it in the budget.

It is the present government, which was supported originally by the NDP, which is making those cuts.

I do not have to explain myself. I think it is the member and his party who have to explain to Canadians why we see so many cuts, so many aggressive policies that are taking place and why the member's party supported the government.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-28.

The Conservative government is the most meanspirited retrograde government I have ever seen in the entire time that I have been in Parliament. It uses policies for politics, not for good governance. Let me give an example.

The Conservatives financed a cut in the GST by increasing income taxes. Good fiscal policy demands that there be a variety of tax sources. Most jurisdictions in the world have a consumption tax. The beauty of having a mix of taxes is that we are not victims in our fisc of economic circumstances. We can weather storms. This is the reason every single expert, economist, teacher, practitioner said that cutting the GST instead of personal income taxes was wrong.

When we cut personal income taxes, we are giving people options. They can spend the savings, as they can with the GST cut, but they can also have more money to invest and more money to save. That is why the income tax cuts that the Conservatives reversed on us were so important for the ongoing performance of our economy, to give us that money to reinvest in our capacity to compete in a global economy.

What did the Conservatives do with child care? We had meaningful child care spaces for parents in this country, as demanded by all of the groups. What did they do? They went back to something cut long ago, the baby bonus. Anyone with a child gets $100 a month. What does that do?

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That is taxed.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

And that is taxed back. What does that do to help people put their kids in quality child care? Nothing. That is why every child care expert in this country has condemned the stupid politics of the Conservative government trying to pander to everybody but doing no good for any of them.

What did the Conservatives do with Kelowna? It was a historic accord reached by our government with the provinces, the territories and the leadership of all our aboriginal communities. It was historic to allow that community to develop, to grow and to have the standard of living that it is going to need. Today many of our aboriginal peoples live in such shameful conditions that we cannot hold our heads high in this country. We had to do something about our first peoples, and what did the Conservatives do? They cancelled the Kelowna accord.

Let us look at the environment. What is the single biggest problem faced by us globally according to all of the ecologists, all of the environmentalists, all of the experts? It is global warming. What has the government done with global warming? It has said that within 45 years it will reduce emissions by 45% to 65%. Does any action have to be taken today? No, it is going to continue to consult, continue to consider what measures should be taken.

We do not deal with the crisis of global warming by renouncing Kyoto. We do not deal with it by not bringing in targets. This thing has been studied to death. We know what has been accomplished in other countries in the world, in Europe.

I am not saying our record was great in Canada, but we at least had in place a program for dealing with meeting the Kyoto targets by 2012. Even our biggest detractor, the Fraser Institute, said that our green program would have gone at least 80% of the way toward meeting those Kyoto targets. The Tories have not put in place anything to start dealing immediately with greenhouse gas emissions.

Global warming is taking place at an incredible rate, 30 times what it was 20 years ago. We see the melting of the ice cap. We see the disintegration of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in the Antarctic. This is serious. There is enough ice in the Arctic ice cap and in the Antarctic--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member because I know there is quite an appetite for his words, at least on one side of the House, but it is now 5:30 p.m. and the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business. The member will have four minutes and forty-six seconds remaining in his time.

The House resumed from October 26 consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I believe that the hon. member for Willowdale has five minutes left in his remarks.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when I was speaking yesterday, I was talking about how cynical, how divisive, and how doctrinaire the government has been in bringing forth wedge issues that are not based on good public policy, but politics at its worst.

I talked about GST cuts at the expense of personal income taxes, which were actually raised. I talked about a baby bonus of only $100 a month instead of real child care spaces. I talked about cancellation of the historic Kelowna accord with our first nations. I talked about how the government has rejected the Kyoto protocol and not even given us any short term or medium term goals for climate change. Instead, it has given us transit passes which will not increase ridership, but will only help those who are already using public transit.

Let me go on. A fifth area where this cynical government has misled us in bad policy is our cities. It cancelled our programs for needed municipal infrastructure. Sixth, on agriculture, it wants to do away with the Wheat Board without even giving farmers a full voice. In terms of justice, it has a let us get tough on crime mantra, but without doing anything to the real causes of crime in our country.

The Conservatives talked about the fiscal imbalance. They ran on that program, and they were going to do something about it. We have not seen one word about what they will do about it. They ran on a program that would reduce wait times in our hospitals. It was one of their five major planks. What have we seen? Absolutely nothing.

In terms of charter rights, they want to set this country back into the dark ages by ignoring the charter rights of those who are most vulnerable in our society. They want to revisit the very divisive wedge issue of the rights of people who are minorities in our society and have been accorded the right to marry by the Supreme Court of Canada. They are so cynical they will not even bring in the notwithstanding clause, which is the only way to undo what the court has said is a minority right in our country.

In terms of facing the great challenges of the new emerging economies of the world, what did the Conservatives do about China and India? They cancelled our $470 million, over five years, CAN-Trade program to put more people in place in those countries to help Canadians meet the challenges and opportunities of these new emerging markets, and to help small businesses form the partnerships and the alliances that they need in order to be competitive in our new global economy.

Last, what have the Conservatives done? We saw it lately. Who did they sock it to? Who did they cut the funds from? Seniors, adults who are illiterate, museums, and our court challenges program, which has been the basis on which many people have been able to assert their legal rights, their charter rights. They cut the Law Commission and they socked it to women's equality rights.

This is not the type of government that Canadians want. Canadians know that good policies are good politics. They will not stand for the government and that is why the government is falling so quickly in the polls. Canadians have seen its true colours. We will not stand for this. Let us get away from the cynicism and the small mindedness of the government, and let us govern for all Canadians.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know there will be many questions for this boisterous young fellow, so I will be as short as I possibly can. He is up in years. He is getting up there like me, a little older. He has been around a long time. I have been in this place 13 years and I think he has probably been here longer than that.

Could he tell me why the wonderful Liberal government that we had in charge for 13 years could not get rid of simple things like child pornography, which is destroying our youth and he knows it? Why did we not get that age of consent raised during those 13 years? We begged and pleaded for the sake of children. We should start doing the right things for them. Crimes against children are right out of control today. If members do not believe me, they should dig into it and find out because I have and I have been working on it for 13 years.

I cannot believe that an adult, a man sitting in the House of Commons, would not fight hard to get rid of child pornography, the biggest junk piece we have in this land and it is destroying youth. What is wrong with the Liberals that they would not get on the ball during these last 13 years and even attempt to do it? What are they afraid of?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are not afraid of dealing with the issues of children in our society. The most important thing that we can do to help children is to give them a good start in life.

In terms of getting tough on child pornographers and child abuse, absolutely. The most important thing for our children is that they have a good start in life, that they have the health care and the education that they need.

This is why the Liberal government brought in the child care program of $5 billion in order to partner with groups right across this country, so that there would be a good start for these young people. We want them to have the proper training, the proper values, and the proper care that they need when they have working parents. That is how--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. We do have many people wanting to ask the member questions.

The hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George briefly because there are others as well.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the feigned indignation of the member opposite is actually quite amusing, considering what my colleague from Wild Rose just said was very true.

All through the 13 years that the Liberal government was in power, it failed. The Liberals resisted every attempt by the Conservatives to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16.

The member opposite from the Liberal Party said that the best way to protect children from sexual predators and child pornography is to ensure that they are raised properly in a good home, with the right schooling and health.

I would say to the member that there are many young children walking around in our communities thinking that they are safe. They have been raised in exactly those conditions and exactly those circumstances. They are being preyed on, on a daily or weekly basis, by the perverts that his government refused to take off the streets. That is the problem. Kids are getting a good start in this country. It is the perverts that are preying on them that his government failed to deal with. One has to wonder why not.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could ask the hon. member--

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I asked you a question.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

And I am going to respond with a question. You are the government--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. Please address your remarks through the Chair.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

I apologize, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker, that party on the other side is now the government. It is up to it to bring forward its agenda and how it wants to deal with the very issues that we are talking about. Let us ensure that the government is held accountable for what it has not done.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the hon. member. He knows very well that in 2001 a shipbuilding policy was laid on the minister of industry's desk. It is now 2006. The Liberal Party, when it was in power, did absolutely nothing for the shipbuilding industry. We are now into nine months of the Conservative government and we still have no word on when a shipbuilding strategy will be announced by any government.

My question for the member is quite clear. Although he has some very valid points against the Conservative government, why did his own government not do anything to assist the shipbuilding industry in this country?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will recall that our then minister of industry, now the Minister of International Trade, had undertaken extensive consultations with the various regions in this country in order to develop a shipbuilding policy, one that would actually work.

The number of ships built in this country over the last decade or so has dwindled and declined. If Canada is to have a viable shipbuilding industry, it has to work with all the stakeholders in order to achieve the types of targets and the concentrated efforts that we want.

The Liberal government was working on that very actively when the election was called. I hope that the minister who was so active then is still carrying on the same type of consultations. I fully expect the government to bring forth that shipbuilding policy at an early moment.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the NDP caucus to serve notice that we will not support the budget implementation act, Bill C-28.

My time does not permit me to outline the many shortcomings of the budget but let me at least say that I am disappointed that we did not get an opportunity to manoeuvre or negotiate any benefits through the budget because five minutes after the budget was tabled in the House of Commons, the leader of the Bloc Québécois walked outside into the scrum area and told all and sundry that it sounded good to him and that he would take it.

All the Conservatives needed was a dance partner and they got their dance partner first off, which is when all negotiations stopped. Normally in a minority Parliament there are opportunities for the opposition parties to do a little bit of horse trading. We were denied that opportunity because one party cashed in all its chips before the bargaining even started.

I will simply preface my remarks by saying how disappointed I am as an opposition member of one of the opposition parties that this minority Parliament was not even allowed to function the way minority Parliaments are supposed to operate because of the self-interest and selfish action on the part of the Bloc Québécois.

Let me touch on two reasons why we are disappointed in the budget because time does not permit any more detail than that. I come from the riding of Winnipeg Centre that used to be represented by Stanley Knowles. Stanley Knowles has a reputation as one of the founders, the father perhaps, of the Canadian pension system. I can safely say that Stanley Knowles would be doing flip-flops in his grave today if he knew that after nine years of surplus budgets by two senior parties in the country, old age security paycheques for low income seniors are actually going down as a result of the budget.

It sounds shocking. Some would challenge me perhaps to the veracity of those facts. I had to do a lot of research to plough through our arcane and complicated tax system but here are the facts. In actual fact, seniors have walked into my office with their July OAS cheque and their September OAS cheque. It is $10 a month lower. The government actually lowered the basic personal exemption for OAS and GIS senior pensioners. In other words, pensioners are paying tax on $400 a year more than they were last year, which, at a rate of 15.25%, is $60 per year or $5 per month. However, because it is for this six months, it was doubled to average it out over the year. It is $10 a month for this six month period.

This only applies to seniors who, because they have such a low income and no other source of revenue, they qualify for the guaranteed income supplement. There is an offsetting pension credit in another category for private pension plans. However, if the person is one of those many low income seniors in my riding who are trying to survive on just his or her old age security and CPP, the person will get less this month than he or she did last month.

Maybe it is a byproduct or maybe it was an unforeseen consequence, I do not know. I am not accusing anybody of trying to starve low income seniors but that was the result and I cannot support it. I cannot do anything but condemn that result and consequence. The Conservatives should really rethink this. Surely, in a time of prosperity and record surpluses, we could do something for our low income seniors.

I talked with some anti-poverty groups and they said that the $10 a month probably represents four or even five days of a grocery budget for a low income senior. It is not quite one full week but what they have left over to spend for food, $10 a month is a significant drop. At the very least, it is a quality of life issue. It is one less thing that they will be able to do with their income.

That is one of the reasons I cannot support the budget. The other reason is perhaps what is not in the budget. I cannot understand for the life of me why in the first Conservative budget of a newly formed government, the Conservatives would not have done something to plug the outrageous tax loophole that allows Canadian companies to set up dummy companies offshore to avoid paying their taxes in Canada.

[Gerry Ritz]

Do you have an example?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

The one high profile example in this country that irritates me to no end is the fact that when the Liberals were in power they tore up 10 out of 11 tax havens but left one remaining.

[An hon. member]

Which one?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Barbados is the one they left remaining, exactly where the former prime minister, the current member for LaSalle—Émard, has nine of his dummy shell companies shielded from paying Canadian taxes in that particular tax haven. That is offensive to me. One would think a prime minister of Canada would be proud to pay his taxes in this country. I am not going to dwell on that because that is the past.

We now have a new Conservative government. Surely, it sees what is wrong when tax fugitives can use this blatant tax avoidance by setting up dummy companies. Some estimates say that the lost revenue is $7 billion a year. Why would the government nickel and dime all the little social programs that are important and critical to communities when it leaves $7 billion on the table? Who is it worried about offending?

The interesting thing about the changes to the election financing act is that big business can no longer buy elections or buy politicians. Who are we worried about offending by slamming the door shut on this last outrageous loophole? Big business cannot hurt anyone any more would be my message. We do not have to be afraid of Bay Street any more. We have been liberated. Why do we not stand up on our own hind legs and say that there will be no more freeloading and that companies can no longer be tax fugitives.

I got my information from this book that I will be happy to table. Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America is the name of the book. I agree. Corporate greed, run rampant, is undermining democracy and certainly undermining the ability of elected officials like us to implement plans, programs and strategies because it is starving us of resources.

I cannot understand why this budget did not deal with the outrageous issue of this tax loophole of tax havens. In the textbooks at Revenue Canada it is called “tax motivated expatriation”. That is the nice title for what we call sleazy, tax cheating loopholes. We demand that they be plugged and we will not let up until we close that last tax haven loophole.

I have another thing I want to raise. I cannot understand how the government failed to make the connection between two of its strategic goals and that is that it missed the opportunity to address job creation through energy conservation, or these burgeoning new economic opportunities coming from the necessary reality that we need to conserve energy in order to save the planet.

There is a connection to be made there and progressive countries and political parties around the world are recognizing that saving the planet through energy conservation is not a negative and not an economic job killer. The job creation potential is enormous. The technological development potential is enormous.

I argue that there should have been some kind of policy statement through this budget from the government that Canada should lay claim to this new burgeoning technology. We should become a centre of excellence of energy conservation technology to show the world. It frustrates me. We have a cold, northern, winter climate and we could demonstrate to the world how we do not have to freeze in the dark to conserve energy. There is an appetite in the country that our R and D could lead the way to saving the planet from global warming. Why we did not make that connection with the opportunity of this budget frustrates me to no end.

I will close where I started by saying that regrettably the NDP cannot support Bill C-28, the budget implementation bill.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the comments of my hon. colleague with interest and he had a couple of points that were worthy of further consideration.

He talked about horse trading. On January 23, Canadians got tired of the cattle and horse rustlers across the way when all they were left with was a pile of horse chips.

During the last campaign all four parties in the House professed a desire to get tough on crime. The NDP believes in cradle to grave socialism but apparently it has forgotten about cradle to grave protection from criminals. I am wondering why the NDP has now decided to go soft on its campaign commitment to get tough on crime and has left us doing it alone on this side of the House.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised to hear my colleague say that. He should perhaps look at the problems in Manitoba and the examples of where there is no contradiction between being a social democrat and being tough on crime. There is no connection between being soft on crime and being NDP.

In actual fact, the leader of our party, during the election campaign, was within, I believe, six months in the debate arguing about mandatory minimum sentences. The policy of the Conservatives and the policy of the NDP on mandatory minimum sentences were six months apart. It is not such a big bridge.

I cannot understand why the Conservatives missed the connection, when talking about being tough on crime, in clamping down on these tax havens. I call it economic treason when a company undermines the best interest of Canada, even though it is enjoying the benefits of the Canadian corporate structure and the stability of our great nation. That wholesale tax avoidance should be deemed to be criminal, in my mind.

[Myron Thompson, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, just a quick follow up to my colleague's question in regard to getting tough on crime.

I have heard the member speak several times on this issue about problems that he has had in his own riding. He knows very well what I am talking about. I agree that the talk was out there during the election campaign. I heard it. I was on the platform with NDPers and Liberals, and even the Green Party was talking tough on crime.

What amazes me is what happens when we get here. We get to a committee and we have a bill before the committee, Bill C-9, which would get rid of house arrest, quit mollycoddling criminals and would get criminals to pay the penalties for the crimes they commit, which is called getting tough on crime, and yet the member and his party would not support that. They gutted that bill.

Those members listened to every soft on crime witness that came before the committee but they did not listen to the victims of crime or to the police forces. They did not listen to a number of witnesses who testified why we need to stop things like house arrest. What they call petty crimes, it is not a petty crime when someone breaks into a home. It is not a petty crime when there is a home invasion. These kinds of things need to be dealt with right on the ground. This government had a bill to do just what Canadians asked us all to do and something on which we all campaigned.

Could the member tell me why his party is not supporting getting rid of house arrest for certain crimes that should never be even considered?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think we would like to take the cliché one step further. When people say tough on crime, it has become so commonly used that it has become almost meaningless. We prefer to say that we are smart on crime because our activities and our directions are results-oriented.

However, I will give one example where we are working at committee to strengthen one of the crime bills where we think the Conservative government was too soft, and that is the proceeds of crime components of the money laundering bill. We believe the federal government should be able to seize the assets of known criminals who are associated with criminal gangs, not just their bank accounts but their homes, their luxury cars, their luxury motorboats, et cetera. If they cannot show that those luxury items were bought with legitimately earned moneys, then the items should be seized and the reverse onus put on them to prove to us that the items were not the proceeds of crime.

That would be getting tough on crime and that would ensure that crime does not pay. It would go a long way to send a message to the biker gangs and the criminal organizations that flaunt their wealth and their luxury items right under the noses of the police officers. We believe in giving the police the tools they need to do their jobs and to make the case that crime does not in fact pay.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns I have about this budget is the lack of consideration for our seniors, especially those widows and widowers of our veterans.

There are many problems within the system where we claw back, we take away and we do not give benefits to particular veterans or their families or the widowers of veterans because of technicalities in legislation. One would think that with a $13 billion surplus last year and a $6 billion surplus this year, which means the government is swimming in an extra $19 billion, it would have at least reached out to assist veterans and their widows.

I would just like the hon. member, who is from that great city of Winnipeg, to comment on what effect this has on his veterans and their families in Winnipeg.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore for his concern for seniors and specifically for veterans.

It is not often that we get a letter from the Prime Minister promising something in writing, and we have it right here in our own hands, but my colleague was talking about a program called the veterans independence program, a tiny little program that costs pennies on the global scale of things and helps veterans and their survivors stay a little longer in their own homes before they have to be put into nursing homes, et cetera.

I have here a letter from the Prime Minister, then leader of the opposition, saying:

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

That is not just a campaign promise. That is a promise dated October 4, 2005. Why was that not in this budget? That tiny little budget line, this promise made, why was this not in the column of promises kept?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-28, a bill that implements certain provisions of budget 2006.

The Conservative government's first budget, however, fails to address the real needs of Canadians and Canadian families and it unfortunately fails to move the country forward. About the only positive aspect of this budget is that it builds on the eight consecutive budgetary surpluses delivered by our Liberal government. This budget promises another budgetary surplus and I hope the Conservatives deliver on that.

Given the strong fiscal record the Conservatives inherited from our former Liberal government, it is outrageous that the government is raising income taxes, slashing spending by $1 billion a year and excluding any real vision for the future of Canada's prosperity. Let me go through some examples of why this budget fails.

It fails to provide real tax relief for low income and middle income Canadians. Eliminating Liberal income tax cuts in favour of a 1% GST cut has been panned by every serious economist in this country as a plan that will benefit higher income Canadians at the expense of the more needy.

The Conservatives are hiking income taxes, which means that many people who got a refund for the 2005 tax year will end up paying in 2006. The Conservatives are increasing the basic personal amount by $200 and increasing to 15.5% the lowest tax bracket.

This budget fails to address the issue of climate change. The Conservative government has eliminated climate change programs and is abandoning the Kyoto accord. Its transit tax credit is costly and ineffective. It will cost about $400 million over two years and only increase transit use by 5%. This translates to a cost of $2,000 for each tonne of carbon dioxide saved, 10 to 100 times the cost per tonne under our Liberal government green plan.

Furthermore, the Conservatives are planning to finance this measure and their climate change plan, which they are still working on, by eliminating $2 billion worth of existing climate change programs.

Two of these programs are the EnerGuide for houses retrofit program and the wind power production incentive program.

EnerGuide worked. It was helping thousands of Canadian households achieve energy efficiency increases in the range of 30% and doing it in a way that was cost effective. The Conservative government should do the right thing, stand up for the environment and for Canadian consumers, and bring EnerGuide back. Our Liberal government's EnerGuide program supported the retrofitting of more than 100,000 homes for more efficient use of energy before the Conservative government cancelled it.

Wind power is another important component of Canada's response to the challenges of energy conservation and global warming. The wind power industry is responsible for thousands of direct and indirect jobs across the country, and our government's wind power production incentive program, or WPPI, as it is affectionately referred to, is essential to attracting investment and ensuring the viability of this industry.

The Conservative government has been exposed on this. We know that these programs were working and were cost effective. I am today calling for the government to immediately reinstate the EnerGuide program and the wind power production incentive program. The Standing Committee on Natural Resources recently adopted motions that also called for the reinstatement of these important programs.

Budget 2006 fails to provide a real child care choice for parents. As if $20 a week for child care is not bad enough, low income parents will be losing the young child supplement of the Canada child tax benefit. The Conservatives are cutting $1 billion from the Canada child tax benefit, a program that the Liberal government brought in and which was supposed to reach $10 billion this year.

Budget 2006 fails to establish a real plan to create child care spaces. Rather than honouring the Liberal child care agreements, something that the majority of provinces, parents and advocacy groups had demanded, the government insists on forging ahead with a nebulous plan which will mean that provinces will lose the stable funding agreed to by the previous government.

The budget offers nothing to meet the urgent needs of Canada's aboriginal peoples.

Rather than honour the historic Kelowna accord signed last November—which would have brought about great improvements in the lives of our first nations—the Conservative government chose to leave them behind and reduce planned funding by 80% from $5.3 million to just over $1 million.

Budget 2006 fails to make any significant investments in education and innovation. The Liberal government had a concrete vision that would have helped put us at the forefront of competitiveness and innovation. This lacklustre and visionless budget contains virtually nothing in this regard.

For example, our last fiscal update provided $2.5 billion for university research. The Conservative budget provides $200 million, less than one-tenth of our commitment. For student aid, our plan would have provided up to $6,000 per student for tuition over a four year program. The Conservative plan provides $80 for textbooks.

University students would like to see a portion of the Canada health and social transfer, the vehicle the federal government uses for transferring funds to the provinces and territories for social programs, dedicated to post-secondary education. This request I believe has some merit, provided accountability measures and performance benchmarks can be attached to these transfers along the lines of the 2004 health accord so that Canadians can evaluate how their province or territory is spending their money on post-secondary education and citizens can make comparisons with other jurisdictions. This makes some sense and is an example of a visionary initiative that is totally absent from budget 2006. Eighty dollars for students for textbooks just does not do it.

Budget 2006 fails because it cuts programs that help to build a highly trained and competitive workforce, programs like the training centre infrastructure fund. This fund was an important source for unions and management for the building of training centres. Union training centres are formed through partnerships among unions, management and government. They provide workers with the necessary information and on the job training to continuously improve their skills and remain at the top of their field.

The objectives of this partnership include developing and facilitating training programs that not only improve the vocational and safety skills of the industry but also enhance the employability of the students and meet changing and evolving market demands. In order to maintain this standard, training centres must upgrade their equipment and facilities to provide their students with the most innovative technology. The training centre infrastructure fund provided the necessary financial support to allow these centres to equip their facilities.

Recently, I attended the grand opening of a training centre operated by Local 285 of the Sheet Metal Worker's International Association in my riding. The local had been receiving funding from the training centre infrastructure fund until the Conservative government cut the program. The funding enabled the association to include in its training centre a state of the art welding laboratory and other equipment to ensure students receive the best training available.

The centre provides essential training to students entering the field and to professionals who have been working in the field for years but need to upgrade their skills to remain employable. It also plans to set up a training program to encourage more young people to get into welding. Unfortunately, the training centre infrastructure fund was cut, which means it will not have enough money to offer these programs now.

Budget 2006 also fails because it abandons Canada's forest industry and forest communities by caving in to the American lumber producers and the U.S. government and negotiating a bad softwood lumber deal that robs Canada of forest policy sovereignty. The U.S. will now dictate what forest policies we will have in Canada. The deals leaves $1 billion on the table in wrongly collected duties and it is in the hands of the U.S. government and U.S. producers.

The budget also stands by as our natural resource companies, companies like Inco and Falconbridge, are gobbled up by foreign companies. Are companies like Noranda and Husky Oil next? The government, with its laissez-faire attitude, does not care. I will be introducing legislation that will deal with this question and I am sure this House will have a good debate.

This budget really falls short. In 2007, or whenever the next budget is, the government will have a chance to rectify it. I look forward to that debate.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I note that the hon. member spent a great deal of time talking about the former Liberal government's environmental record. I am really surprised, because it has such an appalling record. I would never expose that kind of record to this House. In fact, under the previous government, the Liberals made commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions by 6% over 1990 levels and today we are about 35% over what we should have been.

How can we be proud of that kind of record? I would ask the member to simply comment on how he can defend an environmental record that was such an abject failure and that resulted in greenhouse gas emissions actually increasing by a substantial amount rather than going down by the 6% that his government committed to.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that our government committed to Kyoto. They were stretch targets. They were ambitious targets. In the last couple of years of our mandate, we were starting to make some progress with our project green.

How can that member stand up and justify this climate change response or clean air response with its intensity based targets, which means that the absolute amount of greenhouse gases, for example, in the oil sands, will increase dramatically? If this is not a sop to the oil and gas industry and the oil sands, I do not know what is.

The government does not have the vision, the wherewithal or the political savvy to do something that is appropriate and that will allow us to reach our greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The government's proposal, which is a plan to have a plan, does not really deal with climate change whatsoever. What we have to do is support our oil and gas industry, but we have to make sure it is done in a sustainable and environmentally responsible way. The government does not care one iota about that.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that member should be embarrassed to stand up and try to defend the failed environmental plan of the government of that day, the Liberal government.

First, something should be clearly said about the so-called Kyoto plan that the Liberals tried to sell to Canadians. Let me rephrase that. The Liberals tried to ram the so-called Kyoto plan down the throats of Canadian taxpayers. The Liberal plan had unreachable targets and unrealistic goals. As a matter of fact, there is speculation that the plan was written on the back of a napkin.

However, the important thing is this. While they were prepared to try to ram that Kyoto plan down the throats of taxpayers and target greenhouse gases in some obscure way, they were quite prepared to let cities like Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax and other major centres be totally untouched in regard to the air pollution and the smog created in those cities on a daily basis. There was nothing in the Liberal plan that dealt with smog in big cities or in any size of city.

All the Liberals had was an unworkable greenhouse gas plan, with no price attached to it, and unrealistic goals. That is an embarrassment for the government of that day. I am surprised at that member. He is quite a reasonable fellow and, I have been told, quite half-smart too. I am surprised that he would want to stand up and try to defend that at the risk of embarrassing himself.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, normally the member for Cariboo—Prince George speaks with some knowledge and integrity. This attack is totally uncalled for.

When I was a young person growing up, if I came home and said that I had tried to do well with the hockey team, but because the previous coach did this or that, it was screwed up, or whatever, my parents would have told me to grow up, to move forward and to take responsibility.

We hear this juvenile kind of attack by the Conservatives, time in and time out, about the Liberal government record. I am extremely proud of it. Our government accomplished so many good things during our mandate.

At one point the Conservatives have to take responsibility for their decisions. They have to move forward. The Conservatives cannot get away much longer with tossing the issues back to what the Liberals did when we were the government. We did a lot of tremendous things that Canada is much better for today, and I say that with some pride and some modesty.

The government is doing nothing about climate change. At least we committed ourselves to the Kyoto accord. They were tough targets. Frankly, we could have done a better job of providing the incentives, the signals and the market instruments to better get us there. The Liberal government started to make progress in the last couple of years of our mandate.

Instead of tossing stones, the government has to deal with the issue and move the country forward. The government is not doing that. It is ignoring the problem and Canada will not be a better place because of that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dear Mrs. Carter:

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

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

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

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

Dear [member for Sackville—Eastern Shore]:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the way knows the strong financial position that the government inherited from the Liberals, and as he mentioned, still the Conservatives have done nothing for veterans.

He also mentioned the string of years in which the former Liberal government had surpluses and that the surpluses were not put to some of the uses that he mentioned. I would remind him that the government of the day had to deal with the debt left by nine years of mismanagement by the Mulroney Conservative government. He has already pointed out that we have had nine months of mismanagement by the so-called new Conservative government. In his own words, they are swimming in cash and they have done nothing for the veterans.

How can any Canadians have confidence in the government when it cut the most needy in our country by $1 billion, a cut to the elderly, seniors, women's groups and the illiterate? And on the same day, the Conservatives took credit for a former surplus of $13.2 billion. How can anyone have any confidence in the so-called new Conservative government with the actions it has taken in its nine months of mismanagement?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my hon. colleague. There are many concerns I could talk about regarding the past ills of the Liberal government over 13 years, but we are going after the Conservative side right now.

I thank him for talking about the cuts affecting some of the most vulnerable in our society. We are getting a lot of mixed signals from the government. We got the supplementary estimates the other day from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The estimates very clearly show some pretty drastic cuts to science, health and oceans management. These are the estimates; I did not make them up. The estimates also show quite a reduction in full time equivalents in terms of the people who will be working in the department.

We asked the minister in committee about it. He said in the House and in committee that there will be no cuts to his department. He gave us his own estimates showing cuts and yet he stood up and said that there are no cuts.

The member is absolutely right. We are getting conflicting messages out of the government.

For example, the Minister of National Defence said maybe a military solution is not the answer in Afghanistan. The next day he asked for more troops and tanks.

We just want some consistency out of the government. If we could get that, then maybe we could have a proper dialogue in the country.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest, as I always do, to my hon. friend who clearly supports the military, as I do.

He talked about veterans benefits. I am a veteran. I spent 30 years in the air force and I am proud of it. I would like some acknowledgement from my hon. colleague from the NDP about the veterans charter and the broad based comprehensive list of benefits that it will bring to veterans in Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I should tell my hon. colleague that I have quite a file on him in my own office from the days when he was a non-politician and corresponded regarding issues at Shearwater. I thank him very much for those efforts.

The veterans charter as he talked about was actually done by the previous government with wide based consultation of all parliamentarians and it was introduced into law by the current government. Both sides actually deserve a bit of credit for that.

There are many programs that have been left out of the charter, such as the deductibility of the assistance program and the clawback of the pensions. When a veteran becomes disabled and applies for Canada pension plan disability, it is actually clawed back from his superannuation. There is the veterans independence program. There are many things we need to improve on behalf of veterans and their families.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I received yet another letter from an organization that has been axed to death by the minority con government, the summer work student exchange program. One would think that summer employment for students would be as high a priority for the government as it has been for the past 12 years.

In my riding of Thunder Bay—Rainy River, as it is with many similar ridings that have medium sized cities along with many smaller communities, we have been hit hard by the cuts to the students, student summer work, literacy, the environment, wind energy, agriculture, economic development, minority groups, volunteers, aboriginals, tourism and heritage.

Let me be clear. It is a very good thing that the government has listened to people and has restored funding to museums. There are several museums from Thunder Bay on Lake Superior to communities such as Chapple near the Manitoba border. Oliver Paipoonge, Hymers, Founders, the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame, Atikoken and Fort Frances are some of the communities that have plans that would have been hurt by the incompetence of those cuts.

Just last week in Fort Frances, when I spoke at a dinner in appreciation of those of Ukrainian heritage, many of those citizens reminded me that it was the NDP that supported the Conservatives. The people of northwestern Ontario also blame the NDP for the jobs lost and plants closed because the Liberal forestry package of $1.4 billion was not implemented. The NDP now talks about the forest industry but everybody who works in that sector knows that it was the NDP that stabbed them in the heart.

It is probably easier to list the damage that this unholy alliance has caused.

First, these include cuts to literacy, when more money is needed, and the Prime Minister's wife asked for money the day after $18 million was slashed from the budget, amazingly harpercritical.

Second, the lowering of every old age security cheque because the Conservatives raised taxes for the poorest in the nation.

Third, the elimination of the visitors' GST rebate is yet another blow to tourism in northwestern Ontario and, indeed, all of Canada will suffer.

Fourth, the damage to community and household environmental groups such as EnerGuide. I can only restate and reiterate my call for the reinstatement of this program. I truly hope the Minister of the Environment is listening to Canadians at the field level, in the communities and in their households who know this program was working so well.

Fifth, the court challenges program helped the disabled and other minorities and now, as a source of dissent, it has been snuffed out.

Sixth, the chainsaw massacre of FedNor's budget by $6.4 million is yet another example of the NDP-Conservative alliance hurting northern Ontario. This part of the nationwide maliciousness of $40 million lost to regional development will hurt our economy in all parts of the country.

Seventh, the leaders of my urban aboriginal communities and those of the 11 first nations I represent are also outraged by the abandonment of the Kelowna accord.

Eighth, the students of Lakehead University and Confederation College are furious at the spiteful way in which the student jobs, which are so vital to the furthering of their education, have been butchered.

Ninth, is another letter, this time from the Fort Francis Volunteer Bureau, stunned by the words of the Conservative government that volunteerism is “not a priority for Canadians”. That is a quote directly from their letter. I believe that everybody shares my amazement at the disregard and disdain for volunteerism shown by the government.

Tenth, northwestern Ontario lost 400 early learning and child care spaces thanks to the loss of the program. For us, for those communities throughout the north, it affects us dramatically. It may not seem like a lot to some people, but for a community to lose 25 or 30 spaces where there were only 35 or 40, it makes a horrendous difference in terms of parents being able to go to work and actually help the local economies.

Eleventh, for the record I believe the people of Canada were astounded that the NDP members again supported the Conservatives when they voted against our motion that would have restored support to those groups and organizations that are out there helping Canadians on a daily basis.

The motion stated:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government inherited the best economic and fiscal position of any incoming federal government and has not demonstrated the need, value or wisdom of its announced expenditure cuts which unfairly disadvantage the most vulnerable groups in Canadian society.

That is what happens to an organization such as a literacy group in a small community. A cut of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 may seem small but in many of these situations each and every one of those groups, whether it is environmental literacy or just plain trying to help their community in volunteerism, that amount of money pulled out of the equation is carnage. It hurts organizations and in fact kills them because they cannot leverage additional funds. It may mean the loss of a part time person but more often than not it will actually end the organization's ability to get funding from the provincial government, private sectors or others. It is the abandonment of federal commitments to people who need it.

This is what is really disturbing. Things work in small communities. As I travel through my riding of Thunder Bay—Rainy River, which has 11 first nations and 16 municipalities, and that is just one riding in northern Ontario and one of dozens in the nation across this country, each time one of those cuts hits someone, something collapses. Something is withdrawn from the community and someone is hurt, which means that those people who were helping can no longer help the many people they were helping.

Let us look at the letter from the Fort Frances Volunteer Bureau which recognized the tremendous assets that volunteers provide. In most communities in the nation, volunteers are the wheels that keep our country going. Indeed, in communities such as that, that douses the flames of community spirit.

I would use the community of Atikokan as an example. It came fifth out of several hundred, if not thousands, of Canadian communities that applied to be Hockeyville. The volunteerism and spirit that I saw there was absolutely amazing and inspiring. Indeed, that happens in every community all across this country every hour of every day.

We have great people who believe in the future and who give of themselves. Whether it is in a museum or helping people learn to read and write, it is a fundamental aspect of our society. For me literacy has long been an issue that is dear to my heart.

Organizations tell me that they need more money. They say that they do not need lot, that they just need enough to keep going so they can give people the tools they need to relate to others, to read and write and to participate fully in society. When $17 million or $18 million is taken out of one program like that and the money is divided into a few thousand dollars across the country, we see the difference. We see these little things implode. People wonder why the government is no longer caring about them and helping them. They thought the purpose of government was to give them assistance when they needed it. They do not ask for much.

People should see the facilities out of which many of these organizations operate. They are not on the 17th floor on Bay Street. They scrounge telephones, fax machines and use computers that are years old. They do what they must do because they believe in helping others.

We had a chance to do something but the vote was lost in the House of Commons. I am only encouraged by the fact that the government has at least recognized the museum component of it because many small projects across the country would have been devastated. Can we have EnerGuide back? Can we have literacy back? I believe those are the things that Canadians all over the country are not only asking for but are demanding.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I felt that I had to challenge the veracity of some of the comments made by my colleague.

In the introduction to my colleague's speech, he would have members believe that the reason he and his party were thrown out of office, still picking the feathers off their butt from being tarred and feathered and run out on a rail, was because the NDP kicked them out. For the record, it was actually the people of Canada who kicked them out. The reason they are now isolated in their shame and the reason they are sitting way over there isolated is because the people of Canada were well aware that they broke faith with the Canadian people. They lost their confidence and therefore they lost their jobs.

My colleague is living in some kind of state of denial if he thinks it was the NDP that kicked them out of office. In actual fact, the NDP members are doing their job as opposition MPs and criticizing the budget we are debating today, the budget implementation act. We oppose the bill and the budget and we are speaking against it in a constructive way.

Would my colleague not agree that if there were any opposition party on which we should be casting any blame, it would be the Bloc Québécois because five minutes after the budget was tabled in the House of Commons, the leader of the Bloc Québécois walked out of these chambers, stepped in front of a TV camera and said that he liked it and that he would vote for it? At that very moment all negotiations ended because in a minority Parliament the opposition parties could effect some fairly constructive positive changes if one of them did not bail out on the rest of us.

Would he not agree that if there is any choleric to be vented at this stage of the implementation of the budget, it should be directed toward the Bloc Québécois and its rampant self-interest?

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the hon. member is concerned about seating arrangements or whatever. I do not know where he is but he is that far that he is almost out the door.

Let us just clarify where we are. It is clear that the $1.4 billion forestry package that would have saved hundreds and thousands of jobs in this nation, because of the loan guarantees portion of it, the plant modernization component and the environmental support, was lost to all those workers who are now unemployed because the NDP joined with the Conservatives.

Let us be very clear that the early learning and child care program was adopted by all provinces and territories and already had money transferred to them. I will give a concrete example of what is happening in a municipality like Thunder Bay. The provincial money was transferred and is being used over four years, but after those three or four years are up, then the municipalities will all have to raise taxes because early learning and child care will need to be supported by municipalities again. That was done on a community wide basis across this country. The money was there.

When we talk about all these things, none of it would have occurred had there not been collaboration. Could the NDP not have waited for the election to be held after these things were up and running? That is a fair question.

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do need to make a comment for my colleague from the NDP.

It clearly was the NDP that stabbed us in the back, stabbed all forestry workers in the back and stabbed the child care workers in the back by siding with the Conservatives when we had plans to protect those jobs. We need to be clear about that.

My colleague and I both serve small municipalities in rural settings. When he travels to his municipality what does he hear the people saying about the absolute gall of the Conservatives when they announced the $1 billion cuts that affect those small communities on the same day that they take credit for a $13.2 billion surplus from the former Liberal government with its good fiscal planning and good management? I want to hear what my colleague has to say and what the people on the streets are saying about the gall of the Conservatives.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, they can see through the scam. They know they are being hoaxed. They know it is deception. They know it is smog and mirrors. They know all of these things are falsehoods being perpetrated, especially when the seniors come in with their old age security cheques and wonder why they are smaller than they were when the Liberals were in power. I say they can also blame the NDP for that.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-28, the budget implementation bill.

First of all, I would just like to respond to the comments made by the Liberal members across the way. It really astounds us every time we hear Liberals get up and blame the NDP for their own downfall. They conveniently forget that we had an election and it was the people of Canada, it was the voters in this country, who voted them out because of their arrogance, their corruption, and this sense of entitlement that they have, that they are somehow entitled to power no matter what happens.

It is unbelievable and even after an election, even after the Canadian people have spoken, we still hear this kind of rhetoric coming out of Liberal members. I guess they just do not get it. As the member for Winnipeg Centre says, I guess they just do not get it and they should be in therapy. It will be a long therapy session, but they have some lessons to learn.

[Gerry Ritz]

They'd want the taxpayers to pay for it.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Roger Valley, Liberal, Kenora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for recognizing that the $13 billion surplus that we had in no way should have led to the billion dollar cuts to a lot of the services that were mentioned.

The member mentioned many of the actions taken by the Liberal government back in 1993 when the Liberals threw the Conservatives out of power. She forgot to mention that the Liberals had to deal with a huge debt. They had to deal with nine years of mismanagement by the Conservative government. They had to deal with a country that was almost bankrupt. So, at that time, there were tough decisions that had to be made. Looking back, were all of them right? We do not know. Things change.

She said that the Canadian public judges on election day, and we accept that. We returned with 102 seats. That is four times what the NDP have.

I have a number of questions for the member. How does she face the forestry workers? How does she face them when thousands of jobs have been lost in my riding, right across northern Ontario in fact, and in Canada? When the NDP sided with the Conservatives to cause the election, thousands of people lost their jobs. There was $1.4 billion lined up to help forestry workers right across Canada. How does she justify that?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, very briefly, this idea that tough decisions were made by the Liberals back in the early nineties and that we all had to tighten our belts is a fabrication. The record shows that Canadians who paid for those decisions were the poorest of Canadians, the most vulnerable. They were hit the hardest.

Let us not forget that it was the previous Liberal government that gave $100 billion in corporate tax cuts when it was in power. Let us get the message straight.

In terms of the question about how we face resource workers or people in the lumber industry, we do not face them, we stand with them in solidarity. We represent those workers and their interests by pointing out how terrible the softwood lumber agreement is. We demand of the previous government and of this government that we support those communities that have been hit by that agreement. We have done that consistently in this House because we stand with those workers and we will continue to do that.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the statements of my colleague from the New Democratic Party and I realized that with the New Democrats we can never spend enough. More, more, more is always their call.

She said that all our tax benefits were for the rich. Cutting the 1% GST helps people with their utilities, gasoline, and all their basic living costs. The thousand dollar income tax credit for pensioners that we have implemented, the thousand dollar tax credit for apprenticeship trades, and the thousand dollar tax credit for workers all across the country, these are not aimed at the rich. They are aimed at working class Canadians.

Why is the New Democratic Party opposed to simple direct tax measures that help working class Canadians?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to see how these narratives roll out. One of them, certainly, from the Conservatives that we have heard many times is that the NDP just wants to spend more, more, more.

Actually, if we did an audit of NDP governments across the country, we would see that they have the strongest record overall of balanced budgets and dealing with debt.

We have this narrative and the Conservatives cling to it in desperation, but in actual fact the record is very different in terms of fiscal management for the NDP. It is a very good record.

In terms of the other questions that the member put, if we look at this budget, we have to make an assessment overall who were the winners and who were the losers. I would say that ordinary Canadians were the losers. Despite the few little bits and pieces that they might have received overall, they lost out.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to comment on Bill C-28.

I am a member of the finance committee. The committee recently completed a tour. We went from Whitehorse to Vancouver to Fort McMurray to Saskatoon and Portage la Prairie and then out on the east coast to St. John's, Halifax, Quebec City and Toronto. We wound up yesterday afternoon. I think we heard from over 400 witnesses. After a while we got a flavour of what Canadians seem to think about this budget. I have to say that they do not seem to think too much of this budget. In fact, after a while there were patterns that developed in the testimony.

I would have thought that thee Chamber of Commerce would have been an organization that would instinctively or intuitively support Conservative budgets. That organization had some rather critical things to say about this particular budget. The Chamber of Commerce said:

We note that Budget 2006 introduced piecemeal personal tax credits for a myriad of items. We believe this only serves to complicate the tax system--

And we all know that the Income Tax Act of Canada is a pretty complicated statute to begin with.

and relief should be delivered more broadly through rate reduction on increasing the bracket thresholds where the next tax rate is levied.

We ask whether the 1% reduction in the Goods and Services Tax rate was the “correct” method to effect a decrease in overall personal tax burdens. Generally, consumption taxes are preferable to income taxes, therefore we recommend reductions to personal income taxes rather than consumption taxes.

This was from a group that I would respectfully suggest is one of the key supporters of the Conservative Party.

We turn to the bill before us and we see immediately what it is that these people are talking about.

The first one is the new Canada employment credit. That sounds like a good idea on the face of it. If a person's income is from something other than employment, for example, a pension, investments, or things of that nature, this tax credit is utterly useless to that person. What is the point? Why would the government do that as opposed to bumping up the personal base exemption or reducing rates generally overall? We want to favour this over that. It speaks to the Chamber of Commerce position that the government has introduced a myriad of tax credits that end up complicating the system way beyond where it needs to be.

There is a textbook tax credit. That is just great. That is just wonderful. A student has 80 bucks worth of tax credits and a $5,000 tuition bill. That is a choice one makes. An $80 tax credit for goodness' sake is going to buy one textbook. That is great. The student can buy the textbook, but he or she cannot get into the school.

Witness after witness would say to the committee that this is lunacy. What people need is better access. That request would come generally from the student groups. They had some good ideas, all of which were ignored in the budget. The university side and the college faculty side want better infrastructure.

What they are really panicked about, and they should be, is that the various foundations that were funded over 13 years of Liberal government, those funds are not being replenished. As a consequence, the universities are afraid that the brain gain that we have had in the last few years will reverse itself again and become a brain drain. This could happen because there is no money available for the new applications that researchers put in.

Those folks are highly mobile people. They can do their research in California as well as they can do it in Toronto. They can do their research in New York as well as they can do it in Halifax. If we do not keep these foundations well funded with the ability to provide grants to do the leading edge research which has made Canada the number one publicly funded research country in the world, then these folks will find other places in which to do their research. What did the Conservative Party offer? An $80 book credit.

Then we come to public transit passes. That sounds great, but it is going to cost something in the order of about $900 million. It will cost $900 million to, in theory, increase ridership by 5%. That is a pretty expensive increase in ridership, $900 million on an annual basis. That does not build one kilometre of subway in my riding, not one kilometre. It does not even build a station. It does not replace any of the TTC buses in my riding, in the city of Toronto or in the GTA. It does none of that.

That is great; I have my tax credit. I am now going to get a tax deduction after I file my tax return, which has become so complicated that I now have to hire somebody to prepare my return. I am going to hand it in but I am not going to take the bus because the bus has flat tires all the time. These are utterly brilliant choices.

Then there is a credit for trades tool expenses. I kind of like that. What is wrong with that? Folks should be able to deduct their tool expenses. If one really thought about it for more than two minutes, one would say that a deduction for employment expenses should be broadly based because most people do not make their living in the trades. Most people make their living in services. We are becoming a services oriented country, so this particular credit is useless to most people.

The children's fitness tax credit is another one. I play hockey. My kid is a swimmer. I paid literally thousands of dollars annually for my daughter to swim. She is a nationally rated swimmer and now swims with McMaster University. I am going to get that credit. I kind of like that idea. I am happy about that, but my other daughter who dances is not going to get a credit. If any of my other children were participating in artistic endeavours, the credit would not be there.

Witness after witness after witness said that dance should be included, painting should be included and all kinds of other activities should be included. No one is ever going to make everybody happy. That is why it is crazy to try to do this.

I do not know whether you caught this, Mr. Speaker. The report to the Minister of Finance on how to handle this was released. The “Report of the Expert Panel for the Children's Fitness Tax Credit” states:

Fees for camps that emphasize physical activity theme.

That sounds simple.

To qualify, the camp program would need to last at least five consecutive days--

--not four--

--during which at least 50% of the activity during the program hours of each day would involve physical activity.

I do not know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I send my kids to camp and I am not sure my kids would qualify. The counsellors run the kids from dawn to dusk and make them do all kinds of things, but the activities are not always physical. Sometimes there are activities for painting, sometimes there are activities for learning about the woods and nature and things such as that. Those camps will not qualify.

This is going to be administratively ridiculous. No one is going to be able to keep track. It will place an administrative burden on all of these camps and then there will have to be a huge audit scheme to find out whether in fact a particular camp at a particular time had a five day program which involved physical fitness and physical fitness only.

In conclusion, the way to go is the way the Liberals set out in our November update, which was to raise the basic personal exemption and lower tax rates across the board if we want to do something in the area of tax relief for Canadians. This hodgepodge, mishmash, myriad of tax credits is administratively ridiculous and simply adds to Canadians' burdens rather than detracts from them.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might ask the member to specifically focus for a few moments on the disaster for post-secondary education students.

He is probably aware that students in Nova Scotia are more hard pressed than any others in the country because of the lowest level of assistance to students and the highest tuition rates. In general, I am wondering if he could speak a bit about the fact that the main impact of these budgetary measures is to increase the debt burden on students as opposed to measures that would really address the debt burden and deal in an effective way with the reduction of post-secondary education expenses.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question and it is one on which the finance committee received quite a number of representations.

To try to summarize it in a one minute response is going to be a bit tricky, but we can basically divide the issue into two. The first issue is access of students, which the hon. member is concerned about, and the second issue is basically the infrastructure, the buildings, the labs, et cetera, when the students get there. Both need to be addressed.

The way in which the government seems to have responded at this stage is an $80 tax credit for books. Well good for them, but it is not going to do anything for improving the quality of our schools. Certainly none of the budget responds to the issue of keeping the research councils well funded so that we keep our best researchers here, and certainly nothing happens for the students.

We heard repeated representations from various student groups. It did not matter whether they were on the east coast, the west coast or somewhere in between; they feel that the government has essentially turned its back on improved access to post-secondary education.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. friend's comments. It almost seemed for a point there that he was arguing for the Canadian Alliance's old single rate income tax. He was getting to that point.

The hon. member owes it to the House, if he is opposed to all these tax credits, to indicate what he would push for in the next election when his party puts forth its platform. Would the member and his party unequivocally commit to repealing all the tax credits that he has criticized, the tax credit for sports, the tax credit for employees, the tax credit for pensioners, et cetera? Since he is opposed to them, would he be willing to commit that the Liberal Party would definitely repeal all these tax credits should the Liberal Party some day become the government?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member is worried about our getting back into government sooner than he thinks, so in fact we have to be responsible about this issue. Frankly if he had read the November update, he would have almost a complete answer to his question.

The focus of the Liberal Party is to raise the basic personal exemption. The focus of the Liberal Party is to lower the rates at which the thresholds hit and to raise the thresholds themselves. That is broad base tax relief. By getting into a situation of this credit for this person and that credit for that person, all it does is creates a make-work project for a bunch of accountants. It also imposes huge administrative burdens on a variety of people who are in no way able to deal with them.

The answer to his question is that we are in favour of broad base tax relief. Whether it would also include credits, it may well do. The credits would be higher credits an they would be right across the board. The credit would not be just for physical activity. It would have to be activity. If one is going to go down that route, one might as well go the whole way, and the whole way is one has to cover the artists, the musicians, the athletes, pretty well everyone. In which case, one might as well just raise the basic personal exemption and that way everybody benefits.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, a short question.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be short and specific.

The basic personal exemption as per Revenue Canada's own website actually went down on July 1, 2006. Low income seniors are coming into my office and showing me that their income cheques for this month are $10 less than the ones for June and July. Is the member aware that those guys have actually cut the pay of the lowest income seniors by virtue of this budget?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is my point exactly; it has gone up for everybody, as has the threshold rate, the initial rate. The way the Conservatives are paying for this idiocy is by increasing the tax burden on all of us, but particularly on the most vulnerable, of whom seniors are a component.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes that are available to me, I very much appreciate the occasion to participate in the debate on the government's budget implementation bill. It will not surprise any of my colleagues here in the House of Commons to know that, like my NDP colleagues, I will not be supporting this flawed, short-sighted and meanspirited bill.

I am proud of the work that my leader and my colleagues have done, both here in the House of Commons and out across the country, to draw attention to the errors and omissions, the missed opportunities and the misplaced priorities of the bill that is before us.

I have heard from a great many people, certainly, from many parts of the country, in relation to the failure of the budget to in any significant way address areas for which my critic responsibilities apply, those of international development and foreign affairs. I do not have the opportunity to speak at length about that today, except to say that the disappointments in the budget as they relate to dealing with domestic issues certainly are matched by the profound sense of disappointment felt by a great many people across this country that we have yet again shown no significant progress in meeting our international obligations to seriously commit to the eradication of poverty and to preventable disease in the very poorest parts of the world. We have a lot of work to do on that front.

I have also heard, not surprisingly, from a great many of my constituents. I will just very briefly refer to one of many messages received by e-mail, letter and in person. One that came to me is a longer one than I have time to read, but it speaks about the budget, stating that “the Harper government” has confirmed “one of the largest budget surpluses in Canadian history, a whopping $13.2 billion”. It goes on to say:

Even with this excess surplus, the Government is still cutting back on funding for programs relating to women, disabled persons, aboriginals, and other disadvantaged Canadians.

Furthermore, programs for helping disabled persons get jobs are not receiving any additional funding, no additional programs to encourage employers to hire disabled persons, no funding for youth programs, no additional programs to get disabled persons into the workforce, no legislation requiring employers to hire disabled persons.

That is just one example of our most vulnerable citizens who feel very let down by this ultra-conservative budget. Not surprisingly, this is a memo that this young man in my riding entitles “Big Surplus and Betrayal from Conservative Government”.

My colleagues have had an opportunity to speak about the disappointments in the budget with respect to how it is going to increase child care wait lists. Despite all of the talk about addressing child care, it simply does not do so. The fact is that family allowances will effectively be diminished, because the budget is now going to tax the $100 a month allowance and will be eliminating the young child supplement.

The fact is that pollution undoubtedly will go up because, just like the Liberals before them, these Conservatives have no plans to seriously tackle, with detailed plans, targets and timetables, greenhouse gas emissions and to get on with serious reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

As well, as I have already had an opportunity to point out, student debt will continue to grow because there is no serious commitment to tackling this problem.

I am very, very pleased with the fact that constituents in my community, given the opportunity earlier this week to meet with the NDP finance critic and the NDP critic for post-secondary education and literacy, responded by coming out to participate vigorously and enthusiastically in a discussion about not just the flaws, failures and omissions of the budget implementation bill that is before us, but also the very short-sighted and meanspirited cuts that have been announced subsequently, very much within the same genre, within the same spirit, or lack of spirit, for how to improve the lives of Canadians.

Among those who gathered in that meeting in my riding on Monday night were those who were speaking up for women who are desperate about the threat of cuts to transition houses, which help protect them from the abusive relationships from which they are escaping, and desperate about the threat of cuts to women's programs that are helping women to rebuild their lives.

Others who participated came because they are very concerned about the lack of new housing initiatives in this budget and the continuing failure, right up to as recently as yesterday, to confirm in any kind of detail the continuation of SCPI funds and the commitment to new funds to basically rebuild what was once the best national housing program in the world, which was simply killed by the previous prime minister when he was serving as finance minister. The result, of course, was predictable: incredible numbers of homeless people.

At that meeting on Monday night in my riding, we heard from people who are very concerned about the cuts to the arts and about an attempt to somehow define as illicit lobbying the attempts of those who would champion the arts and try to get the government to understand that this is really about the heart and soul of the nation. It is really about the ability of Canadians to come together around who we are and who we want to be in today's world.

Others were there to speak with real concern about the unbelievable decision, announced since the broader budget framework, of killing the international youth internship program. It is absolutely unbelievable.

In this globalized world in which we live, at a time when our young people are anxious, eager and highly motivated to get out and really contribute their time and energies, and their hopes and dreams and aspirations, to building a better world, in one of the very best programs available to give them overseas experience and help open the doors of opportunity to valuable employment, the doors have just been slammed shut. This has to be one of the most cost effective programs from the point of view of the opportunities given to young people on their way to building careers in international service. This cut also is a real blow to the NGOs that depend upon the very significant contributions and skills of our young people in their hard-pressed, seriously underfunded agencies.

The list goes on and on in regard to the tremendous sense of loss felt across the country.

There is also the community access program, which has been very important, in this knowledge-based economy, in putting people on track to be able to use the Internet for modern communications.

There is the death blow to various volunteer initiatives and organizations.

I am sorry there is not more time, but I have to say that at the end of the day this is a budget that is a series of misplaced priorities and missed opportunities. For that reason, I too will be voting against this budget implementation bill.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I did not want to interrupt the member during her oratory but the hon. member will recall that at the beginning of her speech she made reference to another member by his name.

You have 25 years' experience as a legislator and you do care about decorum.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Fredericton.

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to my hon. colleague and thank her for her intervention. I could not agree with all of it, but I agreed with much of it.

I would like her to comment on what this reveals about the ideology behind the government, which really does not believe that the government has any place in financing criticism, that it does not have any place in financing the court challenges program, or in giving money to artistic organizations to do advocacy or to women's groups to do advocacy, to do pure advocacy. Service is important, but so is it necessary for governments that are sometimes isolated, sometimes living in rarefied atmospheres, to hear from people on the ground about what is important to them. I would like to hear her comment on what this says about the government and its ideology.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to address this question. Let me apologize for referring to a member by name. I actually cannot even recall to whom I referred to by name. I apologize, and I am going to have to figure that out later, because I do know better. I am not permitted to do that and I did not intend to do that.

I welcome the question from the member for Fredericton. By chance, the very next item I was going to speak about if I had not run out of time was the court challenges program, which serves as a screaming example of the hypocrisy of this government. I have to say that for a government whose members in opposition constantly talked about being the real grassroots democratic voice of Canadians, it is stunning to watch the many different ways in which they are trying to quash any meaningful advocacy and any meaningful discussion.

It is doubly hypocritical because, with great enthusiasm, the government has taken up the notion that we should really push our overseas development assistance obligations aside, or at least cut down on the extent to which that should be a really high priority, and instead commit to “democracy building” in failing and fragile states.

I absolutely think we should be committed to democracy building in failing and fragile states, but there is an expression, “Physician, heal thyself”, and maybe we could tweak that a little and say, “Politician, would-be democrat, heal thyself”. As for us going around the world on this, I worry about where this government really wants to take us in this democracy building exercise, because that can go as far as talking about regime change that causes chaos in the world.

Even acknowledging that an element of our overseas development commitment should involve contributing to the kind of capacity building and to the political sensitization of people who need and want to build a stronger foundation for democracy, it is unbelievable to me that this government is busy quashing dissent and cutting off opportunities for democratic expression everywhere we turn.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been puzzled by the NDP lately and maybe a lot of other people have as well.

[An hon. member]

Lately?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Yes, well, I guess it should not be unique, but I guess it is. Could the member tell me what the rationale was for the NDP to vote against the motion which questions the “value or wisdom of...[the] announced expenditure cuts which unfairly disadvantage the most vulnerable groups in Canadian society”?

I do not understand. I thought that regardless of pretty well anything, this is what the NDP stood for: the vulnerable groups in Canadian society. Why would the NDP vote against that motion?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have time to get into a full-blown discussion. I will only say to my hon. colleague opposite, with all due respect, that when the Liberals are in opposition, we often hear from the Liberal benches a great deal of championing of the most vulnerable.

But when the Liberals were in government, let the truth be known, after the deficit had been eliminated and after we were on our way to the third straight surplus budget, that Liberal government, instead of rebuilding the programs it had devastated, gave away $100 billion in tax cuts to those who least needed them, not the vulnerable.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, It is an honour to stand in the House and speak to this important issue. One could suggest that there is no more important issue that a government brings to the House than the budget.

When I talk to constituents about the proposals that have been put forward by the government they see this budget as an opportunity missed. Quite frankly, it is an opportunity missed because when we look at the fiscal accounting presently, we see that most recently there was a surplus of $13 billion of Canadians' money that we all contributed to in the general pot.

When the government was in opposition it was very clear on its concern, which we agreed with, that before the money that is in the surplus side of the equation goes to deal with the accumulated debt, we should have a debate and Canadians should have an opportunity to suggest where those moneys would go.

We saw most recently that the government, instead of taking its own advice when it was in opposition, and instead of having a debate and talking about where the $13 billion of surplus should go, it decided, with the stroke of a pen, to make the decision for Canadians on where the money should go.

Strangely enough, the government also decided to cut a billion dollars worth of programs, programs that affect everyday people. For example, the billion dollars in cuts affected people who are working in communities, be it here in Ottawa or across the country, who volunteer their time and sweat to help out local museums. This is one of the strangest cuts I have seen in a long time.

The government cut summer employment programs. The rationale was that these were subsidies for the private sector. I am not sure if it looked at the list that most of us look at each year to look at the summer employment opportunities, but I know in my riding none of them were subsidies to private sector ventures. In fact, all of them were helping out community based, not for profit enterprises.

For example, the Vietnamese Community Association cobbled together moneys for a summer employment program and, with the help of a meagre amount of money from the federal government, it put together a summer work employment program that gave an opportunity for youth to help it with the work that it does, helping people every day.

These kinds of opportunities for students in summer employment programs not only help these community based groups, but they also give opportunities for youth to be apprentices in certain areas, to gain very valuable experience in administration and be able to contribute to their community.

At the same time as the government had the $13 billion surplus, other cuts had to do with people who are working in areas to help people who are most disadvantaged and people who are working in the area of literacy. We have heard a lot about that. Giving people an opportunity to climb out of the darkness of illiteracy is something I believe is not only something government should do, it is something the government must do.

To see people who recently were in the news who were well into their eighties speaking publicly about coming out of the darkness of illiteracy and being able to finally contribute and be a full-fledged citizen is something that not only tugs one's heart strings but, more important, it allows us to understand the importance of these programs.

We had the government with this proposition in opposition, which said that when we have a surplus of Canadians' money, not the Liberal Party's money, not the Conservative Party's money, not the Bloc's money and not the NDP's money, we should be able to debate this. The Conservatives were very vigorous in opposition on this and we agreed with that.

One of the reasons we support and we propose to have someone oversee the budget spending, which we see in Bill C-2, is for this very reason. We do not just have the money holus-bolus written off because the Liberal Party, or the Conservative Party in this case, decides it should go wherever it likes. It should be opened up and there should be evaluation. We are hoping to see that when Bill C-2 comes into effect.

It did not happen with the Conservatives because it was just $13 billion and away it went with no debate. They went against what they said in opposition.

We need to look at how the process works. The billion dollar cuts, to which I referred, and the $13 billion surplus were outside of the budgetary framework and did not allow us as parliamentarians to debate it. We are bringing it up with regard to the billion dollars and will have motions brought to the House.

One with which I am sure the government will have a problem is the rebate to tourists. It obviously did not do its homework on that. It suggested only 3% of tourists take advantage of it but the government forgot that when people are in countries of origin that is when they take advantage of the GST rebate. Obviously it forgot to ask people how the program works and did not get the right statistics on it. We will probably see the government flip-flop on that. With that program the government showed the haste with which it made the cuts and it did not build it into the budget. It was in-between the budget of last year and the budget that will be coming up in the spring.

What is happening here is that the government is changing the mechanisms of how we debate as parliamentarians with regard to how citizens' money should be spent or, in this case, how their money is taken away. That is of concern because every citizen expects us to represent them and they expect that we will follow the rules and procedures of the House. To have a billion dollars worth of cuts without allowing us to have a debate on it is very problematic. Proposed cuts should come before the House for debate to ensure that everyone is fully aware of how it will affect our communities and the bottom line of the government.

This process and procedure of fiscal management should be done within the budgetary process and not the surprises that we have seen from the government, both on the surplus and the billion dollar cuts.

The final thing I will say about the billion dollar cuts is that they were clearly ideological cuts. We know the previous government booked more than the government cut when the previous prime minister came into power. In fact, he was going to cut five times as much. We know that was booked and that the government had to exact those savings. We see that now with the $2.5 billion it will try to get out of procurement.

I will take a minute to focus on procurement. The previous government went to Chicago and hired a consulting group. It was supposed to cost $1.5 million for the Chicago consulting group, A.T. Kearney, to come up with a plan on how the government could save money through reverse bid auctioning, which has been thrown out at this point. However, the price of the contract escalated all the way to $24 million.

My constituents became aware of this contract and when I became aware of it I mentioned it in the House. We had a contract, to be clear, that started off at $1.5 million and ballooned to $24 million. The icing on the cake was that the information the government got from A.T. Kearney was useless. That was what everyone in this town told the government before, that it was on the wrong track. We had to get the attention of the government to tell the government it was on the wrong track. Finally, it canned the project after we had sent $24 million to the consulting company out of Chicago. In my opinion, that is fiscal mismanagement. We thought we were done with that kind of mismanagement with the previous government.

I could go on about all the other programs that were affected and the missed opportunities here for young people, for post-secondary education, the no help for seniors and the child care plan that is a child care scam, but I will save that for another day. For reasons aforementioned, I cannot support the budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the visitor GST rebate fund that was cancelled by the government, thus affecting our tourists, especially in regions of our country such as Atlantic Canada.

However, the one thing the government did not tell us is that approximately 100 jobs will be lost at the taxation office in Summerside because of it. It is funny how the government never mentioned that when it talked about it.

In Atlantic Canada we like the idea of having full time employment. What would the hon. member tell the employees who are about to lose their jobs if this thing continues?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what I would tell the member is to support our party and to hold the government to account to reverse this decision, so that this does not happen and they will not lose their job. They then can continue to do the good work that they do on behalf of all Canadians.

As I said in my speech, the government did not do its homework on this particular cut. We will likely see it reversed. We will put pressure on the government to reverse this decision so they can keep doing the good work they have been doing.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It being 1:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

When we return to the study of Bill C-28 there will be three and a half minutes left in questions and comments for the hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

The House resumed from October 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to resume our opposition to the budget bill. Earlier in the original debate, I characterized the budget as being meanspirited, dishonest and visionless. In the days that have elapsed since that original statement, those three characteristics have only increased in magnitude.

In terms of meanspiritedness, at the time I referred to cuts to the most vulnerable in Canadian society, such as the cut to the Kelowna agreement, the cuts to the child care agreements, the abandonment and elimination of some of the most productive programs in natural resources, in energy efficiency, such as EnerGuide, and the increase in income tax applied to the lowest income Canadians. All of this is meanspirited.

Since that time, the meanspiritedness has gone up a notch, if that is possible, with the announcement of all the cuts a few weeks ago by the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board, cuts that are difficult to exceed in terms of the degree to which they impact the most vulnerable in our society. These include cuts to literacy programs, to museums and to the Status of Women. The original contention that this was a meanspirited budget has simply escalated in the intervening days and weeks.

It is no less the case today than it was before that it is also a dishonest budget in the sense that, while it purports to cut income tax, it in fact raises income tax. Relative to what Canadians were actually paying in 2005, the income tax rate has gone from 15% to 15.5%. In addition, rather than taking Canadians off the tax rolls, as the budget purports to do, it does the reverse. It adds Canadians to the tax roll by reducing the basic personal amount that Canadians are allowed to deduct at tax time.

Therefore, it is a meanspirited budget and it is a dishonest budget.

However, what I really want to focus on today is that it is a visionless budget. It is visionless in terms of the central challenge facing any government of our country, and that is our long term prosperity, competitiveness and productivity. The government does not seem to understand that the world does not owe Canada a living, therefore, it has to be the central responsibility of any finance minister to prepare our country for the competitive world that we face in coming years. The budget does absolutely nothing to that end. In fact, it is counterproductive.

If we look at the four largest spending items in the budget, none of them has anything to do with productivity or competitiveness. The four include a big increase in defence spending, GST cuts, narrowly based tax credits, scattered all over the place, and the child benefit of $100 per child. We can debate the merits of these four items and in some cases there may well be merits, but not one of them has anything to do with improving the prosperity, the competitiveness, the productivity of our country as we enter a period of challenges vis-à-vis the emergence of China and India as global economic powers and the aging population.

A responsible government has to take concrete actions to deal with this economic challenge to our country. The government in its budget did nothing. Worse, we know the finance minister will have his November economic update and he will talk about productivity and competitiveness. The problem is that the fiscal cupboard is bare. He has spent the vast majority of the money in this budget in unproductive ways, on GST cuts, universal child benefits, defence and narrowly based tax credits, none of which have anything to do with productivity. Now having spent the money, the horse having left the stable, he is going to try to tell us that he really cares about productivity and competitiveness, having devoted his funding to things that have nothing to do with this.

It is worse again because he still has two liabilities out there on which he has not yet spent money, neither of which has anything to do with productivity, but which will claim large amounts of future budgets. I refer, first, to the second GST cut of $5 billion or $6 billion a year, depending on when he does it. I refer also to the fiscal imbalance where the Prime Minister made commitments in the election to fix it. He has not given any money yet to the provinces. In fact, he has taken money away.

Those two fiscal items of fixing the fiscal imbalance and cutting the GST will weigh heavily on future budgets. Neither of those two items have anything whatsoever to do with productivity.

The notion that GST cuts, which are cuts to consumption tax, do nothing for productivity, every economist in the world, with the exception of the Prime Minister, agrees, whether it is the OECD, the IMF, or recently Dale Orr, the chief economist for Global Insight who said:

Some in the business community and some in the media are quick to identify a productivity/economic growth agenda with tax reductions.

This is a bad mistake.

It is a bad mistake to think that GST cuts have anything whatsoever to do with improving the productivity and the competitiveness of our country.

I would also add that we recently had two weeks of hearings of the finance committee across the country. I asked this question and I did polls of our witnesses, one in Vancouver and one on the opposite coast, in St. John's. In each case there were about eight witnesses, with widely disparate interests and priorities. I asked them if they thought it was a good idea to do the second GST cut that would crowd out so many other possible initiatives which would cost approximately $6 billion in additional funding per year. All the witnesses in Vancouver and St. John's were unanimous in saying that the government should not do the second GST cut because there were so many other much more important things that could be done with those funds.

A recent survey of leading Canadian business executives asked about priorities for income tax cuts, which we the Liberals wanted to do, versus a GST cut. Support for GST cuts has plummeted in recent months among the chief executives surveyed, while support for income tax cuts has gone in the other direction.

I have no hesitation for one nanosecond, and neither does the official opposition, to oppose the budget. It was meanspirited on the day it was given. The degree of meanspiritedness has been ratcheted up by these cuts to literacy and other programs, affecting the most vulnerable Canadians. It is dishonest because it purports to cut income tax when it raises income tax.

Perhaps most important and fundamental for the future of our country is it is a visionless budget which does nothing for our productivity and future prosperity. It does not acknowledge that the world does not owe Canada a living and it spends the money in unproductive ways with future huge liabilities for fiscal imbalance in the second GST cut, leaving very little money left for the Minister of Finance's economic update. Given that he has spent the money and given these liabilities still have to be paid, the statement will be words, but they will be hollow words because he has spent the money in unproductive ways.

For all these reasons, we on this side of the House will oppose the budget.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. colleague's remarks. I must first note that calling other members and their motions “meanspirited and dishonest” lowers the decorum of this place. I would exhort my hon. friend to use less controversial language so the decorum of this place may be improved.

My question for the hon. member is on the point that he continually criticizes these things. We are in a minority government. There may be another election next spring.

I have two basic questions.

First, by some miracle, if the hon. member's party happened to form the government again, would he guarantee to reverse the cut to the GST and bring it back up? Would the hon. member guarantee that the Liberals would reverse the tax credits?

Second, if in the next budget the government presents next spring, there were across the board income tax cuts, broad categories, raising the basic deduction, would the hon. member then commit to supporting that? This seems to be the thrust of his objections to the current budget.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to decorum in the House, I was simply stating the facts. I think members on that side of the House, with their canine references, are not really well placed to provide lessons to us on that subject.

How can we reverse a tax cut when it was not a tax cut; it was a tax increase? I do not know how many times we have to repeat this point before it sinks in to the opposition. The opposition raised income tax.

The choice before us, were we to form a government, which I think we have a very good chance of doing, would be whether we reverse the income tax hike imposed by the Conservative government. One cannot say for sure right now, but we would certainly wish very much to reverse that income tax hike imposed on the lowest income Canadians and at least reduce the income tax rate from the 15.5% where it stands today, after the budget, back to 15% where it was before the budget was enacted.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech quite carefully and agree with every word that he said. He and I went across the country together as part of the finance committee. He did in fact conduct these mini polls and they were overwhelming in their consistency.

I want to pick up on this mishmash of tax credits, GST, child benefits and things of that nature, regardless of their political merits. I want the hon. member for Markham—Unionville to comment on why this is mishmash and myriad of tax credits, which adds to the confusion of tax filers, is actually worse than doing nothing.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will remember that we had a very good presentation by the head of the chamber of commerce for Kitchener who explicitly criticized the government for this mishmash of a tax credit here for textbooks and a tax credit there for transit, things which were ineffective. For instance, in the case of transit, the studies show that some 95% of the recipients would use those services anyway. The least effective way of helping students is some sort of tax credit on textbooks and does not help access one little bit.

However, the point that this chamber of commerce representative made is that we want simplicity in our tax system. If we have a myriad of tax credits requiring a mounting bureaucracy to administer and to make judgments, for example, is dance eligible, is horseback riding eligible, is soccer eligible, all of these unproductive activities detract from a productive tax system and this witness, and many other witnesses as well, made strong cases for broad-based tax relief.

Let the government get out of the decision making process of families, of soccer versus horseback riding, versus music, versus dance. Let the government not be such a social engineer. Let families make their own decision and let the government administer broad-based tax relief. That was always the philosophy of our government. That was the philosophy of the witnesses who spoke to us. That is the way to ensure greater productivity, and a streamlining and a simplification of the tax system rather than a complicating, bureaucracy-enhancing level of more and more silly little tax credits.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for St. Catharines, for a very short question.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must rise to pay little homage to the review or the so-called poll that my good friend on the finance committee, the member for Markham—Unionville, actually held. He only held it in very specific spots of the country. He asked if those who wanted to abstain could abstain. Province after province and, quite frankly, chamber of commerce after chamber of commerce in provinces across the country supported the cut.

Why, if the cut did not work, according to the member, in 2006, would it have worked in 1993 when the Liberal Party of the day promised to get rid of the GST and not just reduce it?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Markham—Unionville for an even shorter answer, please.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, neither of us were in politics in 1993 and it sounds like the two of us were not in the same room when I did these polls. With group after group, there was either unanimity in opposing the GST cut, and once in a while a few people abstained, perhaps because they feared the--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in the finishing touches on the Conservative budget of May 2.

The bill we have before us today is one of a number of budget implementation bills that deal with the Conservative plan for this country and, as my colleagues from the Liberal Party have said, it is truly a budget without vision. It is truly a budget that is meanspirited, short-sighted, and will hurt Canadians in ways too numerous to mention in the short 10 minutes that I have. Needless to say, when we opposed the budget on May 2, we indicated our general position on the budget, so we oppose this bill.

The part that I find the most interesting, having listened to my colleague, the Liberal finance critic, is the similarity between the Liberal budgets of the last 10 years and the Conservative budget of May 2. It is hard to really tell the difference.

When the Liberal finance critic stands up and talks about a meanspirited budget, I can only think of half a dozen Liberal budgets. When the finance critic for the Liberals stands up and says this budget lacks vision, I can only think of Liberals and a decade of leaderless budgets. When I think of meanspirited, callous, short-sighted, and hurtful budgets, I think of Liberals and Conservatives.

I cannot tell the difference between this budget of May 2 and what the Liberals handed Canadians over the past decade, both equally hurtful, both equally lacking in vision, and both equally missing the mark in terms of what this country needs at this moment.

We described the Conservative budget on May 2 as being a missed opportunity. That it was, just like the last several budgets of the Liberals were missed opportunities because we have been in a significant surplus situation for a good number of years. We have actually considered how Canada could reap the benefits of this new-found wealth, and how for once in this period of 13 or more years, we would see money actually invested in things that matter to Canadians. Money invested in those areas would actually grow the economy, get people working again, and allow people to juggle work and family responsibilities with some comfort and some ease. It would also see that money generated back into the economy in terms of more taxes being paid, a better quality of life for all Canadians, and a benefit for all of us, in fact, the debt going down.

Instead, again we are faced with the same simplistic approach that the Liberals have used for a decade, being used now by the Conservatives, They are using the simplistic approach of simply taking any dividend, any surplus, and putting it against corporate tax cuts and benefits for the wealthy in this country, and putting the money against the debt. That is the simple scenario. That is what we get with Liberals and Conservatives, nothing more. There is no sophisticated analysis, no ability to think in terms of a balanced position, and no understanding of real economics in terms of what it means to actually pay down a debt and how to pay down a debt.

We keep getting efforts that in fact set Canada further and further behind. They are efforts that cut off our nose to spite our face. If we were to take every penny of our dividend and every cent of our surplus, and put it into corporate tax cuts or against our debt, we would do nothing to get ordinary Canadians working to their fullest potentials, contributing to the economy, and paying taxes, and thereby growing the economy and bringing down the debt. That is what we in this party have asked for during the last decade.

We have not asked for a complete allocation of money to go toward program spending. We have not said to not pay down the debt. We have said bring some balance to this place. As long as we have a surplus situation, we should make an annual contribution of significance toward the debt. We should take another part of that surplus and invest it in programs that have a dual purpose: first, they should help Canadians deal with difficult economic and social problems, and second, they should help them contribute back to the economy. They should help them participate in the economy so that we all benefit.

Every economist in this country will demonstrate for us and Conservatives and Liberals right across the board that we do not pay the debt down much faster than a few seconds by putting all of our money against the debt and none into programs that grow the economy.

It is a simple economic fact that if we were to take money and invest it in areas that help people achieve employment that matches their skills, we would reap some benefit. If we were to help women, who would now like to use their skills to get into the workforce because quality day care is available, we would reap the benefit. If we were to put money into pollution saving technologies, we would not only save costs in terms of our health care system but we would invest in a whole new direction of economic growth.

A new set of possibilities opens up this whole area for new green technologies. It will be a new economy that our young people can participate in and feel good about their participation. They will not feel like they are just another cog in a wheel and not feel that they have to handle two or three part time jobs in order to provide for their families. They will not feel they have to give up their quality of life or participation in their community or their church life. They would not have to give up being good parents; being there for their children at school, in their sports days and other activities; and being able to do it all without feeling guilty, without feeling depressed, and without feeling hamstrung by virtue of what the government has done to our economy.

We are here today to make one more plea to the Conservatives because there is a new opportunity unfolding. As my colleagues on the Liberal side have mentioned, we have just criss-crossed the country to hear from Canadians about the next budget. We have heard again what we have heard over the last number of years. Canadians want some of their money invested in programs that will help themselves, their families and other Canadians. They do not want a government to simply ram through a budget and with some deal-making get the Bloc on side to sustain the government, only to see programs that they believe in cut back.

They are appalled number one, by the low balling of the surplus dollars that we have seen now repeated by consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments, which means we as parliamentarians and as Canadians do not have an opportunity to actually deliberate upon where the money should go when there is a surplus. Number two, we have seen through consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments money slip out of this country into tax havens. We just saw it in the news this week. Under the Conservatives, we have $2 billion of lost revenue because Merck Frosst, a large brand name drug company, has shipped that money into a Barbados tax haven to avoid paying taxes. That is just like the Liberals did for years. We saw in the Auditor General's report comments to the effect that tax arrangements for foreign affiliates have eroded Canadian tax revenues of hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 10 years.

Finally, just like Liberals, we have seen with Conservatives that once the budget is through, they slip through cuts to programs that in fact have no mandate. They do not have to return to Parliament but they do it anyway. They cut literacy, job career placement programs for young people, housing, child care, women's resource centres, volunteer initiatives, social economy initiatives, and housing co-ops. They cut anything that is important to the life, breath and depth of our communities. That we speak against.

We speak against this measure, we speak against this budget bill, and we speak against this tradition of meanspirited, visionless budgets by Liberals and Conservatives.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I always listen with interest to my hon. colleague's impassioned speeches. She is very good at that and I know she cares about the issues deeply, but unfortunately I also think she has a tendency not to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Even though we have saved $1 billion, 37% of which was money that was not spent at all and 63% of which in total was money that was either not spent at all or spent with no return on investment, what she neglects to say is that at the same time we have increased program spending by 4.5% to deal with some of the issues that she feels are so important. I do not disagree that they are important.

I think we do know how to pay down debt. We reduced the debt by $13 billion, freeing up $650 million next year and every year thereafter for program spending, which I am sure the hon. member would have good ideas on how to spend. I am interested that she can speak for every single economist in the country from coast to coast as well.

We have looked at other examples around the world. Ireland is a good example from some years past. It bit the bullet, took some very tough measures and is now one of the strongest economies, with the kinds of social services, education benefits and so on that I am sure the hon. member and everybody here would like to see. I am wondering if she has any comments on the Irish example and how that may or may not apply to hard lessons for Canada, to things we might consider.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want my colleague to know that I will concede that I do not speak for every economist in this country. I will speak for the facts about what most economists say when they analyze what happens to our debt to GDP ratio when a lump sum is put against it, as the government just did with its $13 billion and is likely to do again next year because it has lowballed the surplus once again. We are already at $6 billion at the five month mark, which is $2 billion over anticipated revenues.

What happens when that is put against the debt is that the debt to GDP ratio is reduced at about the same rate it would be if we had put that money into areas that grew the economy. That is a known fact. That is the kind of balance we in the NDP are asking for. That in fact is what Ireland did.

The member should also know that while there was a government in Ireland that was committed to reducing taxes, it was also committed to putting money into education, for example, so that post-secondary education is available without charge. Ireland in fact has done what we have called for, which is a balanced approach so that we invest in our economy, address taxation on a targeted basis, where productivity and competition are increased, and ensure that the debt to GDP ratio is going down at a reasonable rate.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North has given a very passionate speech. In fact, I am a great believer in and a strong supporter of the agenda for social vision that we should have for this country, but at the same time we must have strong fiscal management.

I am certain the member knows that when the Liberals took power away from the Conservatives in 1993 Canada was going down and was in debt by $40 billion. We had to do something and we did it. At the same time, we restored social benefits, whether it was child care agreements with the provinces, health care or home care for seniors.

However, she talked about what economists have been saying for the last 13 years. She should look at the report in The Economist magazine, which said that workers were taking home 11% more income than they were in 1993. The hon. member can look at that magazine's report from last year which said that Canada was the second best country to invest in, next to Denmark. I do not believe that the hon. member is giving a fair statement when it comes to the record of the Liberal Party.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

There are 45 seconds left for the answer.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

First, Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that most economists and analysts in this country will give credit to NDP governments, whenever they have been in power, for running good, sound fiscal programs. In fact, recent surveys show, by the government's own statistics, that of those governments that balanced their books, 49% were NDP, 39% were Conservative and only 23% were Liberal.

The NDP has as good a track record as anyone in the House for being good fiscal managers. The Liberals, unfortunately, were not. They approached the deficit situation in 1993 like a bull in a china shop. They put all of their eggs in one basket. They took the biggest bite in history out of education and health--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on the budget implementation bill. I am following the member for Markham—Unionville, who took an awful lot of good arguments, so I will try to scrape together what is left.

I think that this particular time at which we are debating this bill we have the most attractive economy in the history of Canada. We can recall headlines in the Globe and Mail not too long ago which said that Ottawa is “awash in...cash”.

That cash is the cash of the people of Canada and it is the fiscal dividend of a decade of effective financial management. It was not an easy time in Canadian history. Canadians made sacrifices. In Atlantic Canada, we saw many sacrifices. The employment insurance system was changed. In my own community of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, the Shearwater base was closed.

There were a lot of cuts. There were reductions in the CHST, health care, social services and post-secondary education, which were necessary in order to preserve those very things. Would we even have a publicly funded health care system today if we had continued in the ways of the Conservative government that we took over from in 1993?

Since we got the economy under control, the Liberal government has reduced taxes. We reduced the deficit prudently. We balanced our priorities, much like the previous speaker said we should. We in fact did that, bringing in things like the child tax benefit, which economists have attributed with actually having had an impact in reducing childhood poverty, although there is much that we need to do.

When the economy improved, we put money into post-secondary education, health care, the child tax benefit and a host of other things. Today we have an unprecedented opportunity and I believe it has been wasted. It is an unequalled opportunity to invest in the social infrastructure that makes Canada unique, to close the gap between the rich and the poor, between those who have and those who have not. This budget does not do it. In fact, it does not even speak to the millions of Canadians who need a hand up.

The major priorities of this government do not make sense. The GST cut from 7% to 6%, and perhaps eventually to 5%, has been called the “triumph of politics over policy”. No serious unbiased economist in Canada thinks it was a sensible thing to do, particularly from a productivity point of view. It does nothing to help low income Canadians.

In fact, the government could have put the money into the child tax benefit. We hear, and the government seems to believe it, that the GST is good for lowest income Canadians because they do not benefit from personal income tax reductions, but there are other ways of helping the lowest income people in Canada. There are many others who would benefit from lower marginal income tax on the lowest rate and increasing the basic personal exemption to where it was in the economic update that we introduced last year.

Even business groups said this. My colleague from Markham—Unionville indicated his survey. He mentioned St. John's and Vancouver. I know he did it in Halifax and I know it was unanimous. I do not believe that in Halifax anybody even dissented or abstained. They all said it does not make any sense. They said that we have all these priorities in Canada, such as regional development and child care, and that there all kinds of things we could put the money into instead of wasting billions of dollars giving it to people who buy expensive cars and furniture.

And there are other priorities. We all would like to have low income tax and we would all like to have a lower GST, but the job of government is to make priorities. Surely when a government is awash in cash those who most need the help should be at the top of the list. It did not happen.

As for child care, in our finance committee travels, which my colleague mentioned, we met with dozens of groups to talk about child care. I am not sure of the exact number. It could have been 25, 35 or 40. Overwhelmingly they preferred a plan similar to the previous Liberal government plan of putting the infrastructure in place, because money on a monthly basis does nothing if one cannot find a space.

Even with the government bringing in the universal child care benefit, the $1,200 a year, it should have been done in such a way that it actually went to the people who needed help, not the way the government did it, where in many cases it actually favours people with higher incomes versus low income families who are struggling to get along.

In the budget, the cut for the GST and the child care plan are flops. They do not help Canadians who need help the most.

What is missing in the budget? I would have to say, first of all, that regional development is missing. We heard all the time from ministers of regional development agencies that they would not in fact be hurt, and then we saw the cuts of a couple of weeks ago, cuts that take the social economy initiative out of budgets like ACOA's, for example, which means $7 million to $10 million for worthy organizations. Co-ops, for example, came before us and said it was crazy and did not make any sense, and they are right.

Next let us talk about post-secondary education, which is a particular interest of mine. This has to be if not the most pressing need for Canada, then certainly one of them. How can any government in Canada have five priorities but not have one of them include education? I think it is the biggest issue facing Canada.

We have an educated population. We have done a good job of educating Canadians, including in post-secondary education, but other countries are catching up. We all know the story of the emerging economies and how they are investing. Countries in the European Union are putting money into education as well.

We need to keep up the strength on the research side, as an example, which the Liberal government invested in once we controlled the economy. We have put in some $13 billion since 1998, taking Canada from the bottom of the G-7 to the absolute top in terms of publicly funded research.

That is an amazing accomplishment. It has reversed the brain drain. That is what we heard all over the place five years ago. Now we do not hear about it. In fact, there is a reverse brain drain. Universities across Canada will tell us about accomplished scholars, researchers and graduate students coming back to Canada, choosing Canada because of our investments in the granting councils and CFI, Genome Canada and others. It is a significant contribution.

In fact, the government's own budget books indicate that the federal government contribution to post-secondary education has stayed constant over the past 10 years. We often hear that it has been gutted. In fact, the contribution has stayed constant and, although it has not been in the direct transfer, in the CHST, it has gone into research and to students in forms like the millennium scholarship, the learning bond or the Canada access grants at 25%.

However, I would argue that is the challenge of Canada because of the changing nature of the world. Although enrolments have not declined, we do know that there are three areas in which Canadians are not getting to post-secondary education, be it university, community college, apprenticeships, advanced training or catch-up training. We know there are three areas of Canadians who are not accessing it: low income Canadians, aboriginal Canadians, and persons with disabilities.

Last fall, the member for Wascana, who was the minister of finance, introduced an economic update that addressed these needs in a huge way, but budget 2006 did nothing. Tax tinkering assists those who are already in university or community college; it does not help those who are not there to get there. I believe that should be a role of the federal government, both from a social justice point of view because we want all Canadians to have equal opportunity, and also in an economic argument, in that it is good for the county.

Canada is a unique nation. It is a nation that we are all proud of. There are many things that symbolize Canada, both to Canadians and to the world: this great geography of a vast land; our cultural diversity, Canada being the first nation on earth to proclaim multiculturalism as a national policy; and our linguistic duality.

I also think Canadians take pride in the belief that we believe government has a role to play in bridging the opportunity gap between the richest and those most in need. Even some Progressive Conservative governments in the past have stated that as a goal and have done some things to try to make it better.

The budget does not even pretend to help those who need help. The government is neither progressive nor fair. The government speaks to a narrow constituency with narrow views. Canada is a wide country, of huge dimensions, huge dreams and huge visions, and Canadians reject the government's view of their land.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, up until the tail end of that presentation I kind of enjoyed it. It was largely factual until that little partisan diatribe at the end. I thank the member and congratulate him for his comments and his participation on the House of Commons finance committee in the pre-budget consultation process. It has been engaging in a very inclusive and educational way. The member for Markham—Unionville who spoke earlier, has also been part of that process.

I would like to respond though because I am sure the members would not want any kind of misperception to be on the record concerning the polling to which the member for Markham—Unionville alluded in terms of polling people who came to the committee and asking them a question concerning the GST.

It is important to put on the record that the question and the way in which it was worded was essentially this: “Would you support raising the GST to 7% again if it meant that we could then fund your specific project?”. The member directed that question to each of the witnesses, as he did at numerous meetings across the country.

Naturally, as we all understand very well, the fundamental principle of concentrated benefits versus disbursed costs, it would be very logical that the people to whom he would direct the question, who would be there on behalf of specific interest groups and lobbying on behalf of their chief issue of concern, would naturally answer yes, that they would like to see the GST higher to support their specific project because they would like to see, obviously, benefits concentrated in the hands of those they are there to represent.

That is quite defensible, However what is not defensible is putting on the record that it is somehow an indication of a broad based concern that the GST was lowered. It certainly is not evidence of that and I am sure the member knows that.

As far as the comments concerning mean-spiritedness, the member did not address a number of issues which I guess is understandable because they certainly supply strong and compelling evidence of something more than a compassionate nature, certainly more compassionate than would be the case under the previous government, the transit pass program, the tools programs, the textbook programs, the kids sports programs and numerous others which the member chose note to address.

No member here has yet addressed those issues. Those seem to be very well received and I think acknowledged by most in the House as positive and progressive initiatives that would be well received by Canadians, most of which were issues that we raised as a party in the last election campaign which saw considerable support brought to our party as a consequence.

The member is essentially saying to the witnesses who asked for more money from the taxpayer that they should trust us with the money. What the members are saying, in contradiction to their previous position on the GST reduction which they supported the abolition of in the past, is that we should keep it higher. The Liberals are asking us to trust them with the money but that they will not trust Canadians with 1% less on the GST. I would like the member to explain why that is.

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy being on the finance committee. The hon. member is a good chair and I actually look up to him, but he is six foot nine so that is about what one might expect. However, what he says, unfortunately, is hogwash. We do not mistrust Canadians at all.

He mentioned many things in his 25 minute question, things like the tax break for students and the tax break for recreation. We actually asked a number of witnesses who were involved and liked those measures as well if they would prefer to see tax tinkering, little bits here, throw crumbs out to people or would they rather see investment in infrastructure, for example, recreation infrastructure through their municipalities, or the child care program as opposed to little bits of money. Most people, even people who were directly involved in the areas he mentioned, preferred the investment in infrastructure that all Canadians could use without a membership card and without having to pay a membership fee, that they would have access to whether it is education, whether it is child care, whether it is physical recreation.

It is all a balance but Canadians do not want little piecemeal solutions. We heard that from the Chambers of Commerce in Kingston and Waterloo. Canadians want solutions, they want vision and they want a government that understands their problems and will work on them. They have not seen it from the current government.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to put a few thoughts on the record because I believe, and I think everyone would agree, that one of the most important things that we have responsibility for as a federal government is laying out a budget and speaking to the priorities that we see needing to be looked at, invested in for the people of our constituencies and the country and doing that in a fiscally responsible and fair way.

Members will note and people listening to this debate will note that the budget that was brought down by the Conservatives earlier this year is not that dissimilar from the budget that was initially brought down by the Liberals of the previous Parliament. The only change in that budget came when we as New Democrats found a way to wedge ourselves into the debate and make some significant changes that reflected the priority that we would bring if we were government in this place to the budgetary process to which I will speak just briefly because I have such little time.

The things we brought to the budget at that time, which were so important to people across this province, were gas tax flowing to municipalities, foreign aid, the first affordable housing project in years and investment in post-secondary education. Those things were just the beginning of the kinds of things that I believe people want the federal government to be taking a serious look at, be willing to give leadership on and to actually invest in if this country is to move forward.

We as New Democrats, wherever we have governed, are shown now, by way of a federal government financial department release, to be of the most responsible of governments, balancing our budgets 49% of the time when we have had a chance. The Conservatives have only balanced their budgets 39% of the time, while the Liberals, lagging behind, balanced their budgets only 23% of the time.

When we talk about delivering budgets that reflect the priorities of communities, families and individuals across the province, we are not talking about breaking the bank. We are talking about being very particular in terms of where we spend our money and where we make our investments. We certainly would not be going down the road of huge, mega tax breaks to corporations and individuals in this province who really do not need them and, in the long run, as has been proven over time, do not really reinvest them in things that help communities, people and workers across this province.

As I scoured my community over the last month to hear what they would like to see in a budget certainly reflected the priorities of the New Democratic caucus and the New Democratic Party. They were concerned that the money that has begun to flow by way of the NDP budget of 1985 might not continue to flow. They want the investment in affordable housing, the investment in post-secondary education and the investment in communities through the flowing of the gas tax to continue.

They also told us that they were very concerned about the cuts announced recently by the Conservative government. They said that if that were an indication of where the government was going that they would be thinking twice and working hard to ensure the Conservatives would not be returned after the next election to be the government of this country.

In my own riding, the municipalities had real concern that the gas tax that has begun to flow would continue to flow because the municipalities have been the biggest victim of the download by federal government to provincial government to municipalities over the last 10 to 15 years as the previous Liberal government tried to balance its budget on the backs of communities and on the backs of the families who live in those communities who are now expected, through their property taxes, to pay for health care, affordable housing, public health care and a number of things that previously the senior level of government, which, as everyone knows, has most of the money, used to work with them in partnership to ensure every community had those things in place and everybody who lived in those communities were allowed to live in a dignity that reflected the richness of this country.

In my community, which is a border community, the government did not support the cut in the GST rebate to tourists who come into our country.

We are living in very difficult times now with the fear of terrorism and the agenda of the American government to put in place the western hemisphere initiative, to put gunboats on our Great Lakes, to build fences and to erect towers. All of those things send the wrong message but that is under the control of the U.S. government.

However, Canada has control over things like the GST rebate. The rebate is an enticement or a little bit of a carrot for Americans who are looking at Canada as possibly a good place to have a vacation and perhaps buy a few items. The Americans now receive a rebate on their GST but the government intends to cut that.

The Chamber of Commerce in my community, which came to one of the prebudget consultations I had in my community during the constituency week, said that its number one priority when it was looking at the budget and what the government was doing in my community, which is very tourism oriented, was to stop the cut of the GST rebate. The rebate is only one of a few things that businesses have in their arsenal to compete and do well in the tourism industry.

On behalf of my Chamber of Commerce and of all of those tourism organizations across my region I would ask the government not to cut the GST rebate and to put that rebate back in place because it is important and very helpful.

The other thing that often came up as I met with constituents and had my consultations was the fact that the government does not seem to be able to do anything about the ever increasing price of gasoline. Anyone who lives in northern, remote or rural Canada will know that transportation is essential to any economy in those areas. If people need to travel everyone knows that gasoline is one of those fundamental basics that everyone has to put out for.

If the price of gasoline continues to rise and to vacillate as it does, we have no confidence that we will continue to be able to compete in a positive way in today's economy. Energy and gasoline prices are killing industry across northern and rural Canada.

The forestry industry is one example in northern Ontario that is on the ropes. Some communities are finished because the government has not been able to get its head around and work collectively on something that will bring some common sense and reality to this issue of the burgeoning price of gasoline.

If the government is not willing to regulate, it should, at the very least, put in place some vehicle that could force those companies that deliver that product that is so essential to us to justify their increases. The NDP is not against people making a profit. We know that is what makes the economy in this country run. However, when it becomes gouging and profiteering, my party has a problem.

The other issue that was raised very clearly with me by a number of groups and individuals in my community is the cuts to literacy. The government recently announced cuts to literacy programs that are so very valuable to individuals who want to participate, to communities that want their citizens to participate and to the economy. Any good economist who has looked at the question of literacy will say that an investment in literacy produces threefold down the line. When these individuals learn to read, write and use computers they can participate in the workplace in a more positive way and become better and more productive workers which makes the company more efficient.

I do not understand what the underlying value was of the government, and in fact of the previous government, when it came to budget making. If members would look at the NDP budget of 2005 it would understand what the priority is for the New Democratic caucus here in this place today.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of things I would like to point out for the member. Perhaps he is driving an electric car and does not buy gas. If that is the case, I commend him, but I fill my tank fairly regularly and the price of gas has gone down considerably in the last little while.

This government would not take any credit for that nor would it take any blame for the cost of gas increasing.

The member talked about workers and supporting workers and he mentioned the forestry industry. Is he aware that $945 million went out this week to Canadian forestry companies which will clearly support the industry, the workers and the towns across Canada that rely on the forestry industry? Does he think that is an important thing for people in those communities today?

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised two very important questions.

I do not think he would deny that the approach the gasoline companies seem to be taking in raising the price of gasoline is that they raise it to $1.25 a litre and then drop it back to $1.05 a litre, and we think, “Oh my God, we have ducked a bullet. Look how low the price of gas is”. He keeps forgetting that before Labour Day last year, the prices of gasoline was between 70¢ and 80¢ a litre. It is now up over 90¢ a litre in my community. Only a year ago it was hovering up around $1.25 a litre.

That is the game the companies are playing and the member has obviously bought into it. The people who live in my jurisdiction in northern Ontario have not. They understand. They know that when the prices of gasoline goes up to $1.25 a litre and then goes back down to $1.15, it is still higher than the 75¢ it was the month before. That is their trick. Somehow we have to find a way to bring the companies before us an ask them to justify this. We have to look at the patterns, look at the money they are making, the profiteering that is going on, and challenge them so that we can act as a government in the best interests of our communities and the workers and the people who want to drive an economy in this country.

In terms of forestry, certainly in northern Ontario we have seen no benefit and no effect. St. Marys Paper, the paper mill in my community, just last week filed for bankruptcy protection. I dare say that in northwestern Ontario there is not a community that has not been drastically negatively affected by the way the previous Liberal government and the current government have acted on their behalf.

We are killing an industry that should not be killed. It should be viable and vital to this country. Unless we do something about it, that is the direction we are going in.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech. It had references to the cuts in literacy. I assume that he is concerned about the cuts to the housing programs, both SCPI and RRAP, and the cuts to museums and things of that nature.

I am just wondering if the hon. member would enlighten me as to why his party voted against the motion last week which stated in part:

--the government inherited the best economic and fiscal position of any incoming federal government and has not demonstrated the need, value or wisdom of its announced expenditure cuts which unfairly disadvantage the most vulnerable groups in Canadian society.

What does he say to the people for whom he is purporting to speak, those folks who are in favour of literacy programs, those people who are in favour of housing programs, those people who are in favour of museums? How could the NDP in all good conscience have voted against that motion?

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very simple. We could not stomach the self-congratulation that was the very premise of that motion. That motion was a simplistic attempt at trying to bolster the fortunes of a party that the citizens of this country summarily threw out of office because it could not manage and could not be held responsible for the public funds for which it was given responsibility over some 13 years.

The member did raise a good point. Certainly the issue of literacy and the cuts to youth employment services, et cetera, that the current government has made will hurt the populace. We heard at our prebudget consultation that literacy is a human right. To read and to write and to understand what is going on is basic to a person's independence and enjoyment of life. Literacy impacts on so many areas: jobs, skills, reading prescriptions, seniors. Increasing literacy 1.5% has a 2.5% GDP return down the line.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was present in the House when the finance minister addressed this bill. I noted a couple of things that he commented on and one important thing that he did not and I was wondering why. I thought I would rise to make sure that members are aware of it.

The government inherited a very healthy financial situation. In fact, the Auditor General reported in September that the surplus for the year ended March 31, 2006 was $32.2 billion.

It reminds me of the discussion we had in 1997 when we had the first balanced budget in a very long time. People were asking what we were going to spend the surplus on, but that really was not the right question. We have to determine the benefit to Canadians. Ultimately the experts, the economists who consulted with parliamentarians, basically came to the conclusion that the real fiscal dividend to Canadians was not the surplus itself, which is a one time thing, but it was the ongoing savings, that is, the savings on interest on our national debt.

Over the last number of years we have had surpluses each and every year and have paid down about $89 billion worth of debt. If we look at it in its totality, the national debt today is just a little smaller than it was when the Liberal government took office in 1993 because the previous Conservative government had left a fiscal situation which had us at a $43 billion deficit in one year. There was almost another $100 billion of debt created by the time we could balance the budget. Canadians should know that the national debt still is an important issue and that the real fiscal dividend is the savings in interest. The savings estimated from the surplus for the last fiscal year is about $600 million a year. That is $600 million in interest savings that will be available each and every year to take care of the priorities of Canadians. I certainly wanted to make that point.

In the budget the government delivered a 1% decrease in the GST. Canadians were aware that that was an undertaking and it was done. If a Canadian spends $1,000 that means a savings of $10, 1%. Canadians ought to keep it in perspective that the GST cut is not very significant unless they are large spenders. A person would have to spend $30,000 a year approximately to save $300 in taxes. When we consider the fact that the government increased income taxes by a half of one per cent on the first marginal rate, one breaks even if one spends $30,000 on GST taxable goods. There is a very false economy here.

In addition to the budget items, the finance minister also boasted of a billion dollars in cuts to program spending. Canadians would generally understand that cutting unnecessary spending or fat within the system is a good thing, but the cuts include a $5 million cut out of the status of women, $45 million from CMHC housing support, $18 million from the literacy skills program, $55 million from youth employment initiatives, $6 million from the court challenges program, $39 million from regional economic development and more. When we consider there was a $600 million savings in interest on the national debt each and every year, was it really necessary to make these cuts?

With respect to the cuts to literacy specifically, I looked at some of the information. It is hard to believe but 22% of adult Canadians struggle throughout the day with ordinary tasks because they simply cannot read. Approximately 5.8 million Canadians cannot cope with the demands of a typical workplace. Further, about 3.2 million Canadians cannot read the label on a medicine bottle, deal with a job application or read their child's report card. These are fundamental things. Why would the government attack the adult literacy program?

The President of the Treasury Board told us exactly why. He said in this place that in his view it is already too late to deal with those people; they cannot read, that is it and we cannot remediate adult literacy. That is nonsense. In fact, there are adult literacy programs in conjunction with all of the provinces and territories across this land and they are working. We had a partnership with them and these cuts mean that the partnership in many cases has been damaged and in some cases has been broken.

It is not good enough just to say in a macro sense that $1 billion in program spending was cut. Where did it come from? Why did we touch the court challenges program? Why did we touch the status of women where we are talking about important issues affecting Canadian women in society? The equality provisions and other things, to ignore them is simply irresponsible.

The minister talked about things like the transit pass tax credits. Experts have told us that 90% of that tax credit is going to go to existing transit riders and the rest to people who try to get on transit, but there are very few public transit systems in Canada today that have excess capacity to take on enough people to make this credit worthwhile. It is really spending $9 to try to save $1. It makes no sense.

If we look at many of the items, in totality the budget has no streaming. It has no vision, no plan, no integration. It is just a mishmash of one-off issues to buy votes and on which the finance minister had to deliver because that is how the election was run.

I have often said that the success of a country is not an economic measure; it is a measure of the health and well-being of its people. It is not good enough to balance a budget to make a surplus. We have to take the savings and efficiencies that were built in and invest them in ways to help the people who are most in need, such as seniors, youth, the disabled, the illiterate, women who are disadvantaged in the workplace. Those are the kinds of things that Canadians are looking to be addressed.

Canadians are not just looking to be given $100 to go away and take care of things themselves. This is a fend for oneself type budget. I always used to say that $1 in the hands of a taxpayer is better than $1 in the hands of the government because the government does not know how to spend it.

When we consider even the $100 a month so-called child care benefit, that is not going to create child care spaces. It is not going to take care of early learning and child care so that our children get a good head start. It is going to do nothing. It was put there as a proxy for the government to say, “We have done our job. Here is your $1,200 for your child for the year. Take care of it yourself”. Everyone knows that it costs $1,200 a month to care for a child in third party child care, not $1,200 a year.

What is worse, and the government does not say this very often, but it had better start reminding Canadians not to spend that money too quickly because when people file their income tax returns, they will find that the $1,200 they were given is taxable. Depending on people's marginal tax rates, some people are going to have to pay back a lot of that money, especially employees who usually have the precise amount taken off during the year and upon filing their returns either owe or get back $1. They are going to be faced with owing hundreds of dollars. That is when they will realize just how bad this is.

I want to raise what this budget does not include. It does not include one of the election promises that was number five in the throne speech, the guaranteed wait times on health care. There is not $1 in this budget for guaranteed wait times. Health care remains the number one priority of Canadians. This is totally irresponsible. How is the government going to explain to Canadians after promising that if people could not get services in their own communities it would pick up the cost to get them in another province or even in the United States? This is a promise broken. This is totally irresponsible.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the hon. member's comments. He talked about cuts and quite frankly I suggest that his long term memory is not working very well because the Liberal cuts of the mid-1990s created real disparity in Canada.

Health care wait times doubled under the Liberal government. Far more children live in poverty today than before the Liberal government came to power. Far more people rely on food banks than before the Liberal government came to power. I would like the member to talk about the effects of the cuts the Liberals made to the provinces which bled down to people and caused real hurt.

The Conservatives may have targeted a few programs that we consider not to be efficient, but we did not spend any money on a sponsorship program that put money into our friends' pockets.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member wants to inform the House, he should inform it about the real facts. He is talking about when the Liberal government took over. The real fact is in the mid-nineties there was a $43 billion deficit. That is when we were characterized as a third world country in terms of our financial health. If we did not get our fiscal house in order, the situation that the Conservatives created would have continued to spiral down.

How could we get our fiscal house in order? It took some tough decision making and it took some cuts. In fact, the Government of Canada itself took a greater level of cuts, but I know Canadians absorbed a lot of the burden. There were a lot of cuts to important programs, but we have to look at how our economy looks today.

Today we have the best financial situation in the G-7. Our growth rate continues to lead the G-7. Our financial health is very good. Every dollar cut in those programs during the years when we had to clean up the mess left by the Conservatives was reinvested. We had $130 billion of income tax cuts and we invested hundreds of millions of dollars back into the health care system, even $42 billion to establish benchmark wait times.

We could do that because there was fiscal prudence and fiscal responsibility. When we have a problem, we deal with it. We have to take the pain: short term pain; long term gain.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I always listen with interest to the hon. member. He is an experienced member, he is passionate and he is a good debater.

However, members opposite like to bring up revisionist history. I remind him that in 1993, yes, the Liberals inherited some things from the former Progressive Conservative government. However, he forgets to talk about 1984 when the Mulroney government inherited a literal socialist sack of hammers from Pierre Trudeau. It took nine years of Progressive Conservative government to bring in some measures, which were brought in against vigorous opposition by members across the way.

Starting in 1993, the former Liberal government used, to great effect, the GST and NAFTA to earn the balanced budgets for which they now take great credit.

I suggest that those measures and those surpluses that run to date really started in 1984 when the Progressive Conservatives, under Brian Mulroney, started fixing the sack of hammers left by Pierre Trudeau.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the nine years of Mulroney government ran a deficit each and every year, which left a $43 billion deficit in 1993 when the Liberals took over. I am sorry, but the hon. member cannot say that they did all those beautiful things, but drove our economy into the ground. That is what happened.

If the member wants to come up with examples, he should look at Brian Mulroney's $100,000 capital gains lifetime exemption. That was supposed to be an exemption to allow people to invest in small business in the Canadian economy so we could stimulate the economy. What did they do? They made it available to all kinds of investments, including offshore properties, art work and all types of things that had nothing to do with economic growth.

What is worse is that they made it retroactive. Anybody who had $100,000 capital gain on a piece of art work and who was a good Tory supporter instantaneously got $100,000 lifetime exemption against it. It was just a gift.

If the member wants to argue about the good the Mulroney government did, I will not criticize him at all. Yes, it did some good things, but in that regard, it was a giveaway to friends.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. members]

On division.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)