Mr. Speaker, I may be the last speaker on Aspire, our budget for 2007, which will make for a stronger, safer and better Canada.
Our government has tabled a balanced budget that moves to restore fiscal balance to Canada, cuts taxes for working families, reduces the national debt and invests in key priorities such as improving health care and environmental protection.
Budget 2007 helps in the restoring of fiscal balance by providing $39 billion in additional funding over seven years, which will allow the provinces and the territories to do a better job in providing the services and infrastructure that matter to Canadians. That includes everything from roads, bridges and public transit to better equipped universities and colleges. It includes improving on health care. It includes clean rivers, oceans and air. It includes job training that helps Canadians compete with the best in the world.
We will see further tax relief for families with the working families tax plan, which includes a $2,000 per child tax credit. Budget 2007 also helps parents save for their children's education by strengthening the registered education savings plan program, and it supports seniors by raising the age limit for registered pension plans and registered retirement savings plans to 71 years of age from 69.
There are further debt reductions that will result in savings for Canadians. After paying down $13.2 billion on Canada's national debt in September 2006, we will further reduce the debt by $9.2 billion. Thanks to the government's tax back guarantee, the interest savings on this year's debt repayment will be returned to Canadians in the form of further tax cuts.
Our government will be investing in Canadians by providing $550 million per year for the working income tax benefit and $140 million over two years to establish a registered disability savings plan, something I worked very strongly on the finance committee to implement.
We are focused on preserving the environment with a balanced action plan, including rebates on fuel efficient vehicles and efficient alternative fuel vehicles, an incentive to get older, polluting cars off the road, and a green levy on fuel inefficient vehicles, and by providing $1.5 billion to establish a Canada ecotrust for clean air and climate change.
The budget provides a national water strategy, something for which I have been advocating since the last election. I am happy to see that the Hamilton Harbour has been specifically targeted as an area that we need to clean up.
Our government will continue to work at improving health care by investing $400 million for the Canada Health Infoway to support the development of electronic health records and up to $612 million to support jurisdictions that have made commitments to implement patient wait time guarantees, and by providing the provinces with $300 million for a vaccine to help prevent cervical cancer.
Budget 2007 is historic. It restores fiscal balance, implements major elements of Canada's long term economic plan, Advantage Canada, and will create opportunities for Burlingtonians and all Canadians to fulfill their dreams of a good job, a world class education for their children, a home of their own and a retirement they can count on.
What does the budget mean for Ontario? Managing Canada's $1.5 trillion economy means making choices and striking the right balance. In budget 2007 we have achieved this by balancing the budget, cutting taxes for working families, investing in priorities like health care, the environment and infrastructure, and restoring the fiscal balance by providing provinces the resources they need to deliver the front line services that matter to Canadians.
For my province of Ontario, restoring the fiscal balance brings federal support for Ontario to $12.8 billion in 2007-08. This includes $8.1 billion under the Canada health transfer, $3.8 billion for the Canada social transfer, which includes money for post-secondary education and child care, and $664 million for infrastructure. Also, $205.4 million is available to the Ontario government through the patient wait time guarantee trust. Another $117.2 million is available to the Ontario government to implement the immunization plan that I just mentioned.
As well, $574 million will be paid to the Ontario government for outstanding commitments under the Canada-Ontario agreement. There also will be $298.5 million in gas tax funding going directly to municipalities in Ontario. There is $400 million for an access road for a new Windsor-Detroit border crossing. We will see $963 million to fund transit projects in the greater Toronto area. There will be $38 million in corporate income tax relief from changes in capital cost allowances for buildings. There will be $383 million in additional corporate tax relief from the temporary two year writeoff for manufacturing equipment over the next two years.
We will see approximately $35.2 million in tax savings for farmers, fishers and small business owners through an increase in the lifetime capital gains tax exemption to $750,000. As well, Ontario will receive $586 million from the Canada ecotrust for clean air and climate change. For Burlingtonians and Ontario, the new $2,000 child tax credit will save parents in Ontario $597 million. An increase in the basic spousal amount will provide an estimated $109.6 million in tax relief in regard to those who are the supporting spouse or a single taxpayer supporting a child or a relative. Also, the working income tax benefit will benefit workers of Ontario with $212 million in tax relief.
Ontario farmers, some of my favourite people in the world, will receive approximately $240 million under the new initiative in budget 2007. Increasing the RRSP and registered pension plan maturation age will save Ontario taxpayers $56 million. As part of the national water strategy, there is $27.5 million to clean up the Great Lakes. There is $50 million for the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, and I am not exactly sure what it does, and there is $6 million to help move the CANMET Materials Technology Laboratory to Hamilton.
All of that was just about Ontario. I wanted to highlight what the numbers actually mean and what members are actually going to be voting against if they do not support this budget.
As a member of the finance committee, I had the opportunity to go across this country and also to talk to people here in Ottawa at meetings. I can tell members that not one group that I can recall came to tell us to spend less money. Everybody wanted more money, more tax money for whatever their cause was, and that is part of the balance of government. We cannot solve everybody's problems. We do have to set goals and objectives. We did that as the finance committee. We presented a report that had recommendations in it and some of those recommendations are in the budget.
Others are priorities of this government that we had set out during the election to accomplish for Canadians. We are doing it through this budget. We can stand up here all we want and talk about things that are not in the budget, but I can tell members about people who told me that for every dollar we spend we get three back, so let us add up the billions and billions of dollars we are spending. Under that scenario, which we know is not accurate, we would just continue to spend every single penny we had and it would come back threefold. That is just not the way the economy works. That is not the way the real world works. We have to make choices.
This budget makes choices. We have put in the budget a number of things that deal with restoring the fiscal balance of this country. Not everybody agrees. We have heard that from our own side. Not everybody agrees with our approach, but we cannot have side deals with different provinces all over this country and call it a national program. We have put together a national program. We are working on those issues. It takes up a big chunk of this budget. I have told this to my constituents who say there is no money for this or that. We need to set the record straight. We needed to get this country back on the right road from a fiscal balance perspective.
The party opposite does not believe there was a fiscal imbalance. If there was not, then why are people screaming and yelling at our door that they want more money and they want a different program than what is provided?
We have done that. We have taken the initiative as a government. We have taken some very bold steps with this budget. It tries to provide balance for everybody. It is a balanced budget and a good budget for this country. I am very proud to be part of the finance committee and of the government. I am proud of the budget aspirations because they will make a stronger, safer and better Canada.
