Bill C-52 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2007

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007

Part 1 implements income tax measures proposed or referenced in Budget 2007 to
(a) introduce a tax on distributions from certain publicly traded income trusts and limited partnerships, effective beginning with the 2007 taxation year;
(b) reduce the general corporate income tax rate by one half of a percentage point, effective January 1, 2011;
(c) increase the age credit amount by $1,000 from $4,066 to $5,066, effective January 1, 2006;
(d) permit income splitting for pensioners, effective beginning in 2007;
(e) introduce a new child tax credit of $2,000 multiplied by the appropriate percentage for a taxation year, effective beginning in 2007;
(f) increase the spousal and other amounts to equal the basic personal amount, effective beginning in 2007;
(g) increase the age limit for maturing registered retirement savings plans, registered pension plans and deferred profit sharing plans to 71 years of age, effective beginning in 2007;
(h) expand the types of investments eligible for registered retirement savings plans and other deferred income plans, effective March 19, 2007; and
(i) increase the contribution limits for registered education savings plans and expand eligible payments for part-time studies, effective beginning in 2007.
Part 1 also amends the Canada Education Savings Act to increase the maximum annual grant payable on contributions made to a registered education savings plan after 2006.
Part 2 amends the Excise Tax Act to clarify the legislative authority that allows the Canada Revenue Agency to pay refunds of excise tax directly to end-users, where fuel subject to excise has been used in tax-exempt circumstances. It also amends that Act to repeal the excise tax on heavy vehicles and to implement the Green Levy on vehicles with fuel consumption of 13 litres or more per 100 kilometres. It also provides an authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to pay a refund of the Green Levy for vans equipped for wheelchair access.
Part 3 implements goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed or referenced in Budget 2007. It amends the Excise Tax Act to exempt midwifery services from the GST/HST and to zero-rate certain supplies of intangible personal property made to non-GST/HST registered non-residents. It also amends that Act to repeal the GST/HST Visitor Rebate Program and to implement a new Foreign Convention and Tour Incentive Program, which provides rebates of tax in respect of certain property and services used in the course of conventions held in Canada and the accommodation portion of tour packages for non-residents, and establishes new information requirements in the case where rebates are credited by the vendor.
Part 4 implements other measures relating to taxation. It amends the Customs Tariff to increase the duty-free exemption for returning Canadian residents, from $200 to $400, for absences from Canada of not less than 48 hours. It amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to clarify that when a federal corporation listed in Schedule I to that Act pays provincial taxes or fees, wholly-owned subsidiaries of that corporation also pay provincial taxes or fees. It also authorizes the Minister of Finance to make payments totaling $400 million out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the Province of Ontario to assist the province in the transition to a single corporate tax administration. This last measure is consequential to the October 6, 2006 Canada-Ontario Memorandum of Agreement Concerning a Single Administration of Ontario Corporate Tax.
Part 5 enacts the Tax-back Guarantee Act, which legislates the Government’s commitment to dedicate all effective interest savings from federal debt reduction each year to ongoing personal income tax reductions. That Part also commits the Minister of Finance to report publicly at least once a year on personal income tax relief provided under the Guarantee to Canadians.
Part 6 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to set out the amounts of the fiscal equalization payments to the provinces and the territorial formula financing payments to the territories for the fiscal year beginning on April 1, 2007 and to provide for the method by which those amounts will be calculated for subsequent fiscal years. It also authorizes certain deductions from those amounts that would otherwise be payable under that Act. In addition, it makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 6 also amends that Act to provide increased funding for the Canada Social Transfer beginning on April 1, 2007, and to provide for the method by which the Canada Social Transfer and the Canada Health Transfer amounts will be calculated for subsequent fiscal years, including per capita cash allocations. It also provides for transition protection.
Part 7 amends the Financial Administration Act to modernize Crown borrowing authorities.
Part 8 amends the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act to permit the Minister of Finance to lend money to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Part 9 amends the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act, the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, the Payment Clearing and Settlement Act and the Winding-up and Restructuring Act to allow the Governor in Council to prescribe the meaning of “eligible financial contract”. Those Acts are also amended to provide that, after an insolvency event occurs, a party to an eligible financial contract can deal with supporting collateral in accordance with the terms of the contract despite any stay of proceedings or court order to the contrary. This Part also includes amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Winding-up and Restructuring Act to provide that collateral transactions executed in accordance with the terms of an eligible financial contract are not void only because they occurred in the prescribed pre-insolvency or winding-up period.
Part 10 authorizes payments to provinces and territories.
Part 11 authorizes payments to certain entities.
Part 12 extends the sunset provisions of financial institutions statutes by six months from April 24, 2007 to October 24, 2007.
Part 13 amends the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act to provide the Minister of Public Works and Government Services with the power to authorize another minister, to whom he or she has delegated powers under that Act, to subdelegate those powers to the chief executive of the relevant department. That Act is also amended with respect to the application of section 9 to certain departments.
Part 14 amends the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to allow the Minister of Finance to provide funding to the Agency for activities related to financial education.

Budget Implementation Act, 2007

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

moved that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, l am very pleased today to be able to present the budget implementation bill at second reading.

This year's budget is historic.

It is historic because it accomplishes so much to ensure that Canada remains strong today and becomes even better tomorrow.

That is because Canada's new government has an economic plan for Canada, a plan that will create greater opportunities for Canadians to fulfill their dreams of a good job, a world class education for their children, a home of their own, and a retirement that they can count on.

To that end, budget 2007 follows through on our plan with key investments in Canada's future.

This year's budget invests in Canadians, preserves and protects our environment, and improves the quality of our health care system for all.

Budget 2007 also restores fiscal balance by working with provinces and territories to deliver sustainable services for Canadians and their families.

The budget creates competitive advantages for a stronger economy for Canada, an economy that will put us on a solid track for tomorrow. It does this by reducing Canada's debt and lowering the taxes of hard-working families.

Budget 2007 also ensures that multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

It helps Canadian businesses compete globally by making unprecedented investments in the infrastructure that connects our nation.

Budget 2007 does much more.

It makes our communities safer and more secure.

It supports the men and women of the armed forces, including our veterans, and it brings new hope to people beyond our borders through more effective international aid.

As the Minister of Finance said when he introduced budget 2007 in this chamber, “it is time to unleash Canada's full potential”, and unleash our potential it does.

Budget 2007 aims to create a Canada that we will be proud to pass on to our children, with a standard of living and quality of life second to none.

The measures contained in this bill before the House today reflect those goals. I would now like to take a few minutes to illustrate.

Bill C-52 contains some of the key initiatives taken by Canada's new government to make Canada a better place in which to live and do business. Legislation to implement the remaining budget 2007 measures will be introduced in a later bill.

First is tax relief. Our government has heard it from Canadians from all across this great country of ours: we pay too much in tax.

Budget 2007 builds on the previous action in last year's budget by reducing personal income taxes to encourage people to work, save and invest. It also helps businesses succeed, through lower taxes to spur innovation and growth.

Those of us with children know that raising a family can be a challenge. With higher costs of living, housing and energy, it is not easy.

That is why in budget 2007 Canada's new government makes life more affordable for hard-working families by creating a working families tax plan.

The government understands that no two Canadian families are exactly alike. Each has its own circumstances and needs.

Budget 2006 introduced the universal child care benefit, which provides $100 per month for each child under age six to help parents choose the child care option that best suits their family's needs, whether that means formal care, informal care through neighbours or relatives, or a parent staying at home.

This benefit provides more than $2.4 billion each year to one and a half million families and over two million children.

Bill C-52 proposes to provide even more support for families to recognize that raising children involves additional expenses.

Effective January 1, 2007, families will be able to claim a new tax credit for each child under 18. The new child tax credit proposed in this bill will benefit about three million taxpayers. This measure takes up to 180,000 low income Canadians off the tax rolls and provides more than 90% of taxpaying families with the maximum benefit of $310 per child.

Currently, taxpayers who have low income spouses or single taxpayers who support dependents such as a child or elderly parent receive a tax free amount of up to $7,581 in 2007. The tax relief for the supporting person is reduced as the spouse's or dependent's net income increases and is fully phased out once it reaches $8,340.

Bill C-52 will increase the credits for low income spouses and dependents of single individuals. This measure will provide up to $209 in additional tax relief so that single earner families will receive the same tax relief as that already provided through the basic personal amount to two earner families. The new child tax credit and increases to the spousal and dependent amounts will provide significant personal income tax relief to families.

Bill C-52 also enacts the tax fairness plan, which delivers over $1 billion in additional tax savings for Canadian pensioners and seniors. This plan, introduced last fall and committed to in budget 2007, proposes to increase the age credit amount and allow pension income splitting for pensioners. This builds on the almost $20 billion over two years of tax reductions provided for individuals in budget 2006 and will significantly enhance the incentives to save and invest for family retirement security.

Canada's new government delivers on its commitment from our economic plan, Advantage Canada, to dedicate all interest savings from federal debt reduction each year to ongoing personal income tax reductions. This is our government's tax back guarantee. It will ensure that Canadians benefit directly from federal debt reduction.

To ensure that happens, as the federal government pays down national debt it will be required to use the interest savings to cut personal income taxes for hard-working Canadians. Bill C-52 proposes to set out the tax back guarantee in legislation.

Budget 2007 takes historic action to restore fiscal balance in Canada.

A restored fiscal balance will ensure that provinces and territories have the means to build and provide things that matter to Canadians. When the provinces and territories invest in health care, post-secondary education, modern infrastructure, child care and social services, everybody wins and all of Canada is stronger.

Budget 2007 invests an additional $39 billion over the next seven years and puts all major fiscal arrangements on a long term, principles-based track to 2013-14. Bill C-52 implements a number of key fiscal balance measures.

It renews and strengthens the equalization and territorial formula financing programs, which will be providing $2.1 billion more in the next two years to eligible provinces and the three territories. It improves the fairness of the Canada social transfer and the Canada health transfer by legislating an equal per capita cash support for these transfers as they are renewed.

It also renews and strengthens the Canada social transfer by making new and growing investments in support of post-secondary education, children and social programs. The restoration of fiscal balance will allow governments to go forward and focus on building a stronger and more prosperous Canada.

It is our responsibility as Canadians to protect our environment. It is only through a healthier environment that Canadians can create the quality of life and the standard of living to which we all aspire.

That is why budget 2007 invests $4.5 billion to clean our air and water, reduce greenhouse gases and combat climate change, as well as protect our natural environment.

Bill C-52 proposes to enact one of the important environmental measures from this year's budget, a new Canada ecotrust for clean air and climate change, announced by the Prime Minister on February 12, 2007.

Climate change and air pollution affect all Canadians. That is why our response must be national in its scope.

The new Canada ecotrust for clean air and climate change will provide support to those provinces and territories that identify major projects which will result in real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants. Moreover, the provincial and territorial initiatives supported by the ecotrust will complement industrial regulations and existing federal initiatives.

Projects could include provincial and territorial technology and infrastructure development, such as carbon sequestration and clean coal and electricity transmission, which will lead to a significant decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.

Under Bill C-52, the government will invest over $1.5 billion in the trust.

Few among us would disagree that the Canadian health care system is one of the things that makes Canada the modern, compassionate and prosperous country that it is.

Budget 2007 takes action to improve our health care system by helping reduce wait times, preventing diseases like cancer of the cervix, and modernizing Canada's health system.

Bill C-52 provides funding for the development of patient wait time guarantees, which will be used to assist the provinces and territories as they move forward with the implementation of guarantees.

Specifically, to support jurisdictions that made commitments to patient wait time guarantees prior to the end of March 2007, Bill C-52 proposes to set aside up to $612 million, well over half a billion dollars, to be used to help accelerate the implementation of patient wait time guarantees.

There will be $500 million allocated on an equal per capita basis and funding for eligible provinces and territories will be paid into a third party trust. Through the trust, those eligible provinces and territories will also be provided with base funding of $10 million per province and $4 million per territory to move forward with patient wait time guarantees.

We know that immunization is considered a very cost effective means of preventing illness and provides long term savings to the health care system. When effective new vaccines become available, it is in the best interest of Canadian families to receive them as quickly as possible.

Cancer of the cervix is the second most common cancer in Canadian women aged 20 to 44, after breast cancer. In July 2006 the government approved a vaccine for use by young girls and women that prevents the majority of this type of cancer, providing protection against the two types of human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for approximately 70% of cancers of the cervix in Canada.

The government will provide funding to the provinces and territories to support the launch of a national program for the HPV vaccine that will focus on protecting women and girls from cancer of the cervix. Bill C-52 proposes to put $300 million, a third of a billion dollars, into a third party trust in 2007-08 for the benefit of provinces and territories, allocated on a per capita basis.

Canada's new government understands that a strong system of higher education is a crucial source of ideas and innovation, creative energy that our economy needs to foster national prosperity. We know that having a post-secondary education contributes to the well-being of Canadians and that of their communities.

The government is also aware that parents across this country are struggling with the costs of post-secondary education. We are helping parents save for their children's education by strengthening the RESP program, and we have invested more in post-secondary education.

Bill C-52 proposes to increase the Canada social transfer by $800 million per year starting in 2008-09 for provinces and territories with the objective of strengthening the quality and competitiveness of Canada's post-secondary education system. As a result, CST funding for post-secondary education will increase by 40% to $3.2 billion in 2008-09.

Just as importantly, this support will continue to grow over time as a result of the annual 3% escalator that is part of the renewed CST. This increased and earmarked transfer of funding meets the government's commitment to deliver a new approach to funding support for post-secondary education by ensuring long term predictable support for provinces and territories, and greater transparency and accountability to Canadians.

In summing, what does Bill C-52 mean to Canadians? For one thing, it means lower taxes. Canada's new government followed through on its commitment to cut taxes for Canadians and going forward we will continue to look at new ways to reduce the tax burden on hard-working Canadians.

Bill C-52 also proposes funding to ensure that our major fiscal arrangement with the provinces and territories are on a sound and principled track for the future. This bill proposes initiatives that will help improve the operation of our education and health care system.

In short, Bill C-52 will deliver significant benefits to Canadians, benefits that help secure a strong future for Canada. I would therefore encourage all members of the House to support this budget implementation bill.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would call this a salt and pepper budget. It increases government spending by $10 billion. It takes an ever greater percentage, ratio, of federal spending to the GDP than we have seen in some time. It advocates very little money for research and development for the future of our country and for secondary education. The list could go on.

I know in terms of what was presented today, we do not see a lot of money allocated for so-called tax relief to those people most in need, the people with low incomes.

We have seen here this week a challenge to our party on the budget. We noticed that the Bloc was able to support it, but I know the people who talk about the people who are most in need in this country are not getting a lot of tax relief.

The tax relief is mainly for those earning a lot of money. It certainly does not help out the working poor. I would like to hear more from the parliamentary secretary on a budget that has no vision, no direction, and no great programs to educate people. It sees an additional tax revenue, additional spending, and not good control of our federal money.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member ought to read the budget. If he were to actually study the figures, he would see that from 2005-06, when our government came to office, to 2008-09 spending growth would average 4.1%, almost a full percentage point below the projected rate of economic growth in that period. That is substantially below the rate of growth under the Liberals, when the average spending was over 8% per year and in the final years of their mandate was 15%. We have brought that down to 4.1%.

Setting aside the cost to restore fiscal balance, which was a one-time cost which we promised in the election, tax cuts established since budget 2006 are more than twice as much as spending measures in the budget. I know that the member will be happy about that and that his concern has been well met.

With respect to low income Canadians, we have done so much for low income Canadians, again something that the member either missed or chooses to ignore because he is following his leader's directive to go out and trash the budget for partisan purposes instead of giving the facts to Canadians.

In fact, we have a new working income tax benefit for the working poor. He knows that. We have a new $2,000 child tax credit for the poorest Canadians. He knows that. We have reduced the GST, which is the only tax that lowest income Canadians pay. He is aware of that.

This past budget and this budget takes three-quarters of a million Canadians completely off the tax rolls because they will be paying less tax under our measure. He is aware of that as well.

I would suggest that the facts do not square with the trumped up concerns that the member tries to bring forward. This is a good budget for Canada. It is a good budget for Canadians. It is a good budget for every Canadian.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has been fighting a long time to have the fiscal imbalance corrected. We have decided to support this budget because it starts to address fiscal imbalance.

We are well aware that this is a minority government budget, and that this government would never have begun to do anything for Quebeckers if there were not 50 Bloc Québécois members and a minority government. However, there is still a lot of work left to do, partly because the fiscal imbalance cannot be fixed without a tax solution. What we have here is a monetary solution.

I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary a question on equalization. It was completely arbitrarily decided that non-renewable natural resources would be excluded from the calculation and the inclusion rate set at 50% and even 0% in some cases. This is completely arbitrary and is designed to favour some provinces over others.

I would like the parliamentary secretary to explain why they made this decision. For example, why were aerospace revenues not excluded? It would be a good idea to exclude these revenues, 60% of which happen to be in Quebec. Why are hydroelectricity revenues not excluded, which would also help Quebec? Out of the entire tax base, why was the only tax revenue excluded one that just happens to be something that puts Quebec at a disadvantage in the equalization calculation?

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly appreciate the Bloc's support for this good budget. I suspect if the Bloc had not been willing to support the budget, one of the other parties might have found it in their hearts to do so.

However, with respect to equalization, I remind the member of a few things. The new equalization formula, which brings the equalization program for have not provinces back onto a principled, certain and long term track, was actually the work of an independent third party panel. This panel was set up by the former Liberal government. It was run by experts in this field, well respected people, and they came up with this formula, which I believe most objective people believe to be extremely fair, extremely principled, and extremely balanced for Canadians.

For a member from Quebec to complain that somehow this was not good for this province probably would not find a lot of support in the rest of Canada, and I might suggest that the Bloc itself acknowledges that this new formula is very good for the province of Quebec.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, Conservatives are very good at telling us to read the budget. I did read the budget. I read it twice. There are so many things missing, but with the shortness of time I will concentrate on one issue.

When the hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill was in opposition, she was a terrific critic for her party, going after the Liberals, and rightfully so, on many faults they had. When she and her party were in opposition she was very well known for saying that when a motion passes this House of Commons, this should reflect the government's ideology and what it should be doing because the will of Parliament has spoken.

Not only did the Conservatives ignore the veterans' first motion in the budget, helping VIPs, widows and injured soldiers, for example, but they completely omitted autism. Autism did not even get a mention in the budget, even though it was passed with Conservative support in a motion by the hon. member for Fredericton.

I have a simple question. With a $14.2 billion surplus, could the Conservatives not find it in their hearts, one, to have included autism in the budget to help those families and children across the country; and two, why did the government ignore a motion passed by this House of Commons?

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member knows that the government does have a very strong advocate for autism. One of our own members has a young child who has this difficulty and the government is moving on this front.

I find it very interesting that we have a budget that provides $39 billion in new funding for health care, education and infrastructure, $4.5 billion to clean up Canada's air and water, a $2,000 tax credit for every child under 18, a working income tax benefit, a tax fairness plan to reduce taxes for seniors and on and on, and the only thing the member can find to criticize is that somehow there was not a specific announcement about a specific condition that the government is already addressing.

I think that is a ringing endorsement for the budget which is so good for Canada and all Canadians.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the parliamentary secretary for her very eloquent summary of budget 2007. I am getting extremely positive feedback from my constituents in Kitchener—Conestoga, specifically as it relates to the support for working families.

It is clear that by removing 180,000 people from our tax rolls, we have listened to ordinary Canadians. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could confirm that with the measures in this budget and 2006 that we have actually directed 75% of our tax relief to those who are earning $75,000 or less.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is a fact and figure that is in the budget which some members who are trashing the budget on the orders of their leader must have read. They say they have read the budget, but somehow missed the fact that the budget is targeted largely to lower income Canadians, middle class Canadians, and hard-working Canadians who pay their taxes and look after their families. This is the focus of our budget.

Parties who are not supporting the budget need to explain to their own constituents why a new working income tax benefit for the working poor is not worthy of their support and why a new $2,000 child tax credit should not be supported. Why are they not supporting $16 billion in new infrastructure funding? Why are they not supporting a 40% increase in support for post-secondary education and on and on.

Members of the House who are trying to trash the budget for partisan purposes should have to explain that to their own constituents and to Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the debate today on the government's second budget released on March 19. On behalf of the constituents of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing in northern Ontario, I would like to offer a few opinions.

First, I would like to point out that among the various instruments that governments have to tell voters, tell the public what it is they are about, what it is they plan to do for a country, the two main instruments are throne speeches, which we see typically every two years, and budgets, which we see every year usually in February or March.

In the span of 100 years, we would see 100 budgets from different governments. That underlines how important budgets are. Not only do they set a course, or they are supposed to set a course, but they are also supposed to provide the government's vision for the months and years ahead. They are supposed to tell Canadians how the current government of the day wishes to continue building the nation.

Quite frankly, as important as budgets are, I believe the government has missed a very serious opportunity to add its piece to the grand and important puzzle which is the building of this nation. I am not going to say that it lacks an agenda but indeed, it lacks a vision.

What I find most interesting in the budget is what the budget does to fulfill what I consider to be the hidden agenda of the government, which is to actually weaken the central government of this country. In so doing, it limits the capacity of the central government to create programs of national concern, whether they are in the economic domain, the social domain or the environmental domain. When one weakens the central government's ability to lead, to draw in the provinces and territories on national initiatives, one in fact weakens Canada.

There have been numerous surveys over the years which have indicated over and over again that of all levels of government, the public trusts most the federal government, its national government. The public sees in its national government the best tools, the best ability, the strength to keep our country together for all citizens from coast to coast to coast, regardless of where they live, whether they live in rural areas like my area in northern Ontario or in urban areas like downtown Winnipeg, Vancouver, Toronto and so on. Fundamentally Canadians are generous. They want to share this nation with each other and with those who come from foreign shores to join us and to live in Canada. That generosity means that Canadians want, as much as is reasonable, that programs and initiatives be for everybody.

Let me give an example of the government's attempts to weaken the central government. I have to reach back to last year's budget. This budget is a continuation, in my view, of that central theme of a hidden agenda to weaken a central government. There was an announcement last year, and we were expecting to hear more about it but for some hidden reason we did not hear part two, but last year there was an announcement that the government would cut the GST by 1% and eventually by another 1%. This was against the advice of virtually every economist in the country. We have to trust our professionals. They said that giving away between $5 billion and $6 billion on a 1% GST cut would only weaken forever the central government, because we cannot get that percentage back.

Think back to governments that tried to increase taxes. We cannot get that percentage back. That $5.5 billion that was lost in the first 1% GST cut is $5.5 billion that is not available for the government to invest in health care, in municipal infrastructure, in the Kelowna accord which, incidentally, would have cost about $5 billion. One year of that 1% GST cut would have funded the Kelowna accord. We are talking about 1% every year ongoing, every year indefinitely.

It is interesting that the government in this budget did not mention what was going to happen to the second 1%. It may be that the government finally listened to the advice it received last year, or it just felt that it would prefer to do that in a majority government.

I do not think Canadians are going to be easily fooled. Frankly, I do not recall meeting any constituents in my large riding who said, “Wow, that 1% GST cut really was a great benefit to me and my family”. In fact, the opposite is the case. When I asked them, virtually every one of them said that they did not notice that 1%. I pointed out that a wealthy person who bought a $100,000 boat would receive $1,000 in GST relief and that wealthy person would notice it. My constituents replied, “Of course they would notice it, but I am an average Canadian and I am not buying a $100,000 boat”.

In fact, the average Canadian family would have to consume taxable goods for years and years to achieve that $1,000 in GST relief that the wealthy person would enjoy when buying that expensive boat. To me, what the budget really does is it promotes further the hidden agenda.

Let me speak to some of the concerns in northern Ontario in my riding. I will start with forestry and I will continue with concerns for my aboriginal constituents and aboriginal Canadians from coast to coast.

In the forestry sector, communities such as White River, Smooth Rock Falls, Chapleau, Espanola, Nairn, Opasatika, Hearst, Kapuskasing, and the list is far too long, are experiencing tremendous layoffs and cutbacks. Much of the layoffs and cutbacks are in the softwood sector. There are key industries that have suffered in the pulp and paper sector in my area as well.

There is no mention in the budget of what should be done to deal with a sector of our economy which is extremely significant not only in direct jobs and what it does for our single resource communities, but the incredible spinoffs as well. A tremendous price is being paid by families in these communities and the communities themselves as well. Those communities see the loss of their capacity to keep their schools open and in fact, to maintain their basic infrastructure because people have to leave those communities if they can.

At the very least I would call on the government to bring together all stakeholders, community leaders, unions and companies, all those who have a stake in the forestry sector. The government should bring them together in a national forestry summit so that our best minds and our best efforts can be focused on that one issue to see if something can be done for the long term of this country.

Quite frankly, when we consider what the softwood lumber deal has done to communities in my riding, I looked for measures in this budget that would have assisted them. The day before the agreement went into effect, the import tax in the U.S. was some 10 point something per cent, roughly 10.5%, but the day after the agreement was signed, it shot up to something like 15% because the U.S. import tariff was replaced by an export tax.

It will take me a long time to understand how that is good for our industry. I understand it is the Canadian government that has had to advance the duties from the U.S. back to Canadian companies, because the U.S. actually has not repaid those funds, to the best of my knowledge.

I will move on to my aboriginal constituents on Manitoulin Island and on the north shore of Lake Huron and the Chapleau and Wawa areas and up at Constance Lake near Hearst.

When the aboriginal leadership in my region and all Canadians saw their premiers, the prime minister and the senior aboriginal leadership of this country sign the Kelowna accord in November 2005, they saw the parties come together to sign a historic agreement. Funding for that agreement was put in place immediately thereafter. The money was booked, as our then finance minister confirmed and has confirmed numerous times.

For some reason the Conservative government has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the validity of that agreement. As recently as last week the government voted at third reading not to support the private member's bill of my colleague the member for LaSalle—Émard, which further calls upon the government to honour the Kelowna accord.

Our aboriginal Canadians, our first nations leadership, have been severely disappointed by what they have seen from the government when it comes to measures to understand and appreciate the great heritage, the great history, the great culture that our first nations bring to this country. They are disappointed that as a nation we have still not adequately dealt with the needs of our first nations communities and people when it comes to education, health, water, and those supports that are necessary to live in a modern society. After all, it is our aboriginal youth we will count on considerably in the years ahead as the labour shortage in this country continues to increase.

I recall before the last election that our then leader and prime minister, the member for LaSalle--Émard, made a commitment to students to pay up to $3,000 per year toward tuition fees. That was a significant offer to Canadian families. Then the election came along and we can debate whether that should have happened. However, I look at this budget and there is nothing for undergraduate students. There is a bit of money for post-grads and that is great, but it only assists about 4,000 students.

I go back to my comment about the hidden agenda and the fact that this budget has no vision. There is no overarching view of what the future of this country will be like. It is a hodgepodge of small measures designed to attract individual demographic groups within the larger society. I do not begrudge that there are certain small measures that are important to some people in the budget, and that is great for them, but even they would agree that the government should have a vision with its budget. It should have an overarching idea of where the country is going.

When we were in office great progress was being made with respect to research and development and post-secondary education. We were making sure that our best minds could do research and network with the best minds around the world. It seems that we are now taking backward steps. We must take care of the fundamentals of education. If I could speak to each of my colleagues here one on one, I doubt anyone would disagree that education is the basis of all that we do not only in our personal lives, but as a nation.

I was very disappointed to see the lack of any grand vision when it came to education and productivity for this nation. We are competing in a world that is advancing rapidly. It is our duty to make sure every day that not only individual Canadians but our nation together keeps up and demonstrates the leadership that Canada has become known for around the world.

There are about 55 small communities in my large riding of 110,000 square kilometres. The leadership of these small communities, mayors, reeves, chiefs, are all struggling to maintain the basic infrastructure of their communities.

I know the budget mentioned a short term commitment to share the gas tax with municipalities, unlike the leader of my own party who said that commitment will be an indefinite commitment. Some off my colleagues who have been here since 1993 will remember that when the previous Liberal government brought out a municipal-provincial-federal infrastructure program there was tremendous resistance from the then Reform Party and later Alliance Party. In fact, MPs from those parties would not even participate in local ceremonies to launch infrastructure projects. They were dead set against infrastructure.

I know the Conservative Party is the current metamorphosis of the original Reform and Alliance Parties, but the genes of the Reform and Alliance Parties are still present and we still see a lack of real commitment to local governments.

When the Liberal government was first elected in 1993, one of the first commitments we made was to help local governments improve roads, sewer and water systems and so on because we understood that there was an infrastructure deficit in the country at the local level and that the federal government had to take its share.

It is not only local infrastructure. Where is the grand vision when it comes to those nation building projects that Canada needs to address? If there is one that stands out among others, it is the whole issue of climate change. If there is a national project, indeed, an international project, that requires our very best efforts, it is climate change.

I am very pleased that my colleagues in this party and the opposition parties have been able to craft a renewed Bill C-30 which I believe will move the standards quite considerably when it comes to Canada's responsibilities in the world with respect to climate change.

I will now talk about northern Ontario in general. Northern Ontario, like other regional rural parts of the country, is experiencing a population loss. It is not difficult to explain. Families are not as big as they used to be. Our population growth, and happily so, is made up of fine new Canadians who come from all parts of the world to our country. At the same time, it is important to remember that it is from the rural areas from which Canada was first built. If we forget where we came from, we will soon forget where we are going.

It is very important that the present government and any future government, whether it is my party or another, take measures to ensure the strength and vitality of rural Canada, whether it is through immigration measures or supporting programs like FedNor. As much as the government might say one thing about FedNor, one thing we know for sure is that there was a cut in the total funding for FedNor.

FedNor, by the way, for those who are not aware, is the federal economic development agency for northern Ontario, an agency which we were very happy, through the years 1993 to 2006, to support and to in fact increase and grow the funding and supports for.

FedNor needs to be further supported. We need to increase the funding for FedNor, as we need to do for the other regional economic development programs in the Atlantic, west Quebec and so on. I referred to the genetic predisposition against municipal infrastructure support from the federal government. That also exists when it comes to economic development. If anyone has old copies of the Reform and Alliance platform documents, it is explicit that they do not support regional economic development programs.

One cannot change one's genes. Some may try but they cannot do it. Either the government owns up to what it really believes about economic development or it can keep trying to fool the country for another little while.

I will conclude by saying that I still have constituents in my riding, some of the older ones, who refer to the Diefenbaker times and the fact that it has usually been Conservative governments that have put us into deficit.

When we came to office in 1993, we had to deal with a huge $42 billion deficit and, with the help of Canadians, that deficit was slain which put the country in the enviable position of having surpluses that could then be invested in health care, infrastructure, education and so on.

My constituents may not for the most part really think tax cuts are the most important thing that we should be doing. I am not against appropriate tax cuts targeted to the poor and middle income Canadians but these shotgun blast tax cuts, like we have with the GST, do not really do anything positive. With that kind of an attitude and the $10 billion in new spending in the last budget, which one of my colleagues mentioned, I am really worried that we will be going back into deficits. It will only take some kind of calamity to cause that unfortunate time to reappear. It would not be any surprise to see this happen under--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague and I work together on the veterans affairs committee and he knows very well, as he has been a long time member of this chamber, that when the Conservatives were in opposition they always mentioned the fact that when motions are passed by the House that should express the will of government in its financial statements and in everything else.

The hon. member knows very well that we passed a motion in the House recently that would assist widows, widowers and veterans themselves. In a couple of cases, the VIP, which he knows was promised to Joyce Carter, a lady from St. Peter's, Cape Breton, in a letter written on behalf of the then opposition leader, saying that if the Conservatives formed a government they would immediately bring in the VIP for all widows and widowers of veterans, regardless of the time of death.

That was almost 16 months ago now and we are still waiting. If the government is going to deliberately mislead widows of veterans, who else is it going to mislead in the country? It has easily mislead Atlantic Canada on the accords, for example. It is quite despicable that the leader of our country, in previous opposition times, can have a letter which deliberately misleads a widow of a veteran.

The budget did not even mention the VIP for widows of veterans, even though it was a motion passed in the House.

Does my hon. colleague, who is also on the veterans affairs committee, not find it despicable that a government, with a $14.2 billion surplus, cannot find a couple of hundred million dollars out of that, less than 2% of the total budget, to assist all widows and widowers of veterans who helped serve our country so greatly in its time of need?

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

Mr. Speaker, both my colleague from Nova Scotia and I are vice-chairs of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. Indeed, the motion to which he referred was passed in the House. It was a motion that really underlined the current government's promise made during the election.

I almost wish I could have Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador in my place right now to maybe answer his question about things said during elections and things being done now. If I could not have him in my place, maybe I could have somebody representing the modest income families that had their life savings in income trusts. I guess the list could go on.

It is indeed unfortunate, as my colleague said, that the budget did not mention one word about the VIP for widows of veterans.

The member does great work on the committee and he is one of the House's finest advocates for veterans. I concur with him. I think it is, I will choose my words carefully, extremely unfortunate that that campaign commitment has not been kept.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I noted that when the member made his intervention he said that the government does not have a plan. I guess he missed the fall update when the government brought out its advantage Canada economic plan for a strong future for Canada, to give Canada a tax advantage, a fiscal advantage, an infrastructure advantage, a knowledge advantage and an advantage in less red tape for our businesses.

The member also criticized the GST but one of his own members, the member for Halton, said that the GST would actually put more money into the pockets of low income Canadians.

I sometimes wonder how members opposite can look themselves in the mirror when they blindly follow orders from their leader to trash a budget that is so good for Canada, that follows a clear economic plan and that will build a strong future for our country. How can they look themselves in the mirror and follow those kinds of orders?

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

When we last discussed Bill C-52, there were five minutes left for questions and comments for the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. He is ready to respond to a question from the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.

The hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing.

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

Mr. Speaker, just before we broke for today's question period, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance made reference to the fall update of the government when I correctly alleged that the budget of some weeks ago was not a budget with any vision. It was without an overarching plan for the country. Quite frankly, it would not be very difficult to take the fall update to find much of an echo of that in the budget of March 19.

In fact, will read a quote, which our leader used in his speech, from the Caledon Institute. It states:

—the worst part of the Budget is what [it lacks]....No measures to reduce child poverty, no early childhood education or meaningful national child care, no plans to address real infrastructure needs now, no commitment to tackle the abysmal reality of Aboriginal life in Canada, and no housing program.

Our leader goes on to say, “The budget is short-sighted and the government has the responsibility to ask where do we want Canada to be in 10 years and how do we get there?”

That is what budgets are about along with throne speeches. They are supposed to help Canadians understand how government will go from now to some time in the future. This budget fails to do that.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I look through the budget, the government claims to be reducing taxes. Acknowledging that the government appears to be cherry-picking through Canadian society and has in a few areas extended tax benefits through the tax system, those are apparent and appear to be tax benefits to people who already have some substance or wealth.

There is nothing wrong with benefiting taxpayers, but the government, although it is saying it is reducing taxes, does not appear to have reduced taxation for the most vulnerable in Canadian society. It has not reduced taxes, at least that I can see, in the budget for the poor, for the single, for the single senior, for the childless. It has missed all these very important categories in our social spectrum.

Therefore, I rather regard the government's attempt to extend tax cuts to the friendliest group as kind of a cynical approach to politics and tax policy.

Could the hon. member respond to my perception that the budget is quite unfair to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to my colleague's question. In fact, the first thought that comes to mind is that I understand better, because of this budget, why the word “progressive” was dropped from the Conservative Party's name. When we look at the tax measures proposed, we can see that in fact they are absolutely non-progressive.

As for a progressive tax rate, generally we have consumption taxes, income taxes, capital taxes and so on. What we want our tax system to be is progressive, meaning that the greater the capacity of an income tax payer to pay, the greater the opportunity for governments to share the wealth of the nation.

My colleague is quite right. The poorest among us and middle income Canadians have failed to benefit from any real tax relief whatsoever in this budget.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, how can the member say that there is so little support in the budget for the working families of our country when it is clear that 75% of the tax breaks given in the 2006 and 2007 budgets are earmarked for those who are earning less than $75,000 a year?

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

Mr. Speaker, what my colleague across the way has to remember is that when we remove the billions of dollars for early childhood education and day care programs from the provinces and when we remove the supports for aboriginal communities through the Kelowna accord, the net result is a net loss for low income and middle income Canadians.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has decided to support this budget. It is easy to see that this is a minority government budget.

There never would have been a start toward correcting the fiscal imbalance if this Conservative government had had a majority. Without the work of the Bloc Québécois, Quebec never would have gotten the gains it recently obtained and will obtain in the future, if there had not been 50 Bloc Québécois MPs in this House.

Furthermore, I am not the only one to say so. We have often heard government ministers say this in the House. The Minister of Transport said he needed the Bloc Québécois' help. The Minister of Finance and other ministers also asked us to support this budget.

Since our decision to support it, the Prime Minister and a number of ministers have thanked the Bloc Québécois for its support. This shows, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the Bloc Québécois does constructive work in this House and that it allows Quebec to advance and make real progress.

In my opinion, this is a clear message to Quebeckers. If Quebeckers continue to support the Bloc Québécois and send as many Bloc members as possible to represent them in the House of Commons, they can be sure that Quebec will have a strong position and a voice to defend them that will not give in to blackmail and will always be loyal to Quebec.

We have made many gains. A number of them were the result of lengthy battles that are starting to pay off. I am talking about the fiscal imbalance or rather the start of the process of correcting the fiscal imbalance. I will come back to that later, but obviously that is what comes to mind first. Nonetheless, that is not all. Quebec received $328 million from the Canada ecotrust, which will allow Quebec to meet its Kyoto protocol obligations and reduce greenhouse gases. This is something else the Bloc Québécois has long been asking for. We pushed really hard for this. We questioned the government about it in the House.

I also know that my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development worked very hard on it. At meetings of the Standing Committee on Finance I often questioned the government. We showed that this amount of money was needed by the Government of Quebec to achieve the Kyoto protocol objectives. Even though the government was opposed outright to this protocol and did not hesitate to subject Canada to the ridicule of the international community by reneging on commitments made, the Bloc Québécois exerted enough pressure to have this government listen to reason and allocate this amount to Quebec for the environment.

It should be noted that the amount allocated in the budget was announced beforehand, when the Bloc Québécois, during one of its opposition days, was debating a motion calling on the government to take action. That proves that our work is effective.

In addition, the $200 million allocated for the reconstruction of Afghanistan was largely due to the efforts of the Bloc Québécois, who asked that the Afghanistan mission be rebalanced. You will recall that the Bloc Québécois voted against extending the mission in Afghanistan, among other things because the government was asking for a blank cheque. This government did not answer questions and did not know the criteria for the success of the mission. It still does not know them and has not answered the questions. It does not have a comprehensive plan and it does not know where it is going in this matter.

The government asked us, in just a few hours, to fast-track the debate and give it carte blanche to extend the mission in Afghanistan, which we, the members of the Bloc Québécois, all opposed. Nevertheless, with the support of many Liberals, the mission was extended. Parliament gave the Conservative government carte blanche.

This tells me that it would have taken only two or three more Bloc members to avoid giving this blank cheque to the government, this permission to do nearly anything in Afghanistan. Once again, this perfectly illustrates the importance of sending a maximum number of Bloc members to Ottawa.

As we all know, this is not the first time that Quebeckers have lost a vote in this House. That said, although we lost that vote in the House, we nevertheless retained our hard-hitting approach and we continue to work to ensure a balanced mission, at the very least, specifically, to see that perhaps a little less money is allocated for the military aspect and more is spent on humanitarian aid. In Afghanistan, the solution depends largely on the humanitarian aspect. Once people have acceptable living conditions, there is a good chance that matters of security will be more easily resolved and conflicts will diminish.

Work has been done on this aspect. We have fought and we have kept saying that this had to be a balanced mission. A great deal of work has been accomplished, the results of which can be seen in the budget. This idea, long advocated by the Bloc Québécois, comes out in the budget presented by the minister. Thus, Afghanistan will receive a little more humanitarian aid. We are very proud of that.

I would now like to talk about the GST visitor rebate. Once again, this accomplishment comes largely thanks to the Bloc Québécois, although the opposition parties were against this measure. In short, the Conservative government's original proposition consisted of doing away with all GST rebates to visitors, tourists who come to Canada and then return to the U.S. At present, and until the legislation is passed, tourists who spend money in Canada—on things such as accommodations or goods purchased and taken back to the U.S.—can be reimbursed for a portion of their expenses.

This is reasonable, because we must definitely regard tourism as an export industry. We export our image, our culture and our landscape outside our borders. We ask people from other countries to come to Canada, but in fact, it is really an export industry.

Of course, there is no other export industry anywhere— in almost all countries that have a consumer tax—for all practical purposes, nowhere are exports taxed. That is completely counter-productive. Even though the GST rebate for foreign visitors was originally implemented by the Conservatives when they brought in the GST, they wanted to change things later and abolish the measure. We know that that would have been disastrous for the tourism industry. The government argued that only 3% of travellers claimed the rebate. The problem—and this is often the problem with the Conservatives, unfortunately—is that they cannot count.

I took the time to delve a little deeper into the numbers. I admit to being somewhat conditioned by my profession. Before I was elected to this House a year and two months ago, I was an engineer and among other things, I did a lot of data analysis for my former employer.

Let us say that I was not taken in by the 3% figure. It is important to understand that people often travel in groups of two, three, four, five or more, and they travel as a family. A family of four that makes a lot of purchases during a trip does not submit four claims. When they get to the customs post, they submit one refund claim. That increases the figure significantly. If you multiply that figure by 2.5 or 3 people on average—we do not have an exact number—you get almost 10%.

The other thing to keep in mind is the money this represents. If you take visitors who come for the day and tourists who come for more than 24 hours, the ratio is about the same. For all practical purposes, it adds up to the same number of tourists: 17,470,000 versus 18,690,000. However, visitors who stay for several days—that is, more than one day—spend three times more than those who stay for just one day. In my opinion, for our listeners—I do not know how many there are—I do not think it is a huge revelation to point out that people who stay for more than a day spend more than those who stay for a day.

Obviously, those who stay less than a day usually do not have accommodation expenses, which are often the biggest expenses: a hotel room, renting an apartment or something like that. People who come for less than a day, who do not even spend $100 in Canada, are obviously not going to claim a rebate at the end of their stay. To say that the system is not working, that the program is useless because people are not claiming these refunds, if we include day visitors, then these figures go down.

We have to look at this in terms of money. For frequent travellers, people who come and spend a lot of money in our economy, how many of them are going to claim the rebate and what sort of commercial advantage does this represent? In committee I asked the government representative to tell us, relative to the total amount of money people are entitled to claim, how many people file a claim? I am not talking about the number of visitors. We do not even know if all the visitors are entitled to claim the rebate or if they all have an amount to claim. Of the total amount that can be claimed, how much money is claimed? No one was able to give me an answer. This shows that the government has no idea whether this program is effective or not. And yet it has come to the conclusion that the program should be eliminated. That is a shame and it worries the tourism industry greatly.

Another aspect that has been underestimated here is the commercial or marketing effect this will have. Just because people do not claim their refund does not mean that they did not take it into consideration when choosing their vacation destination. People who work in marketing, who work for example with mail-in rebates, would be able to explain this phenomenon. There are more and more products purchased that sell at full price, and that come with a sheet to fill out to receive a mail-in rebate in 6 to 8 weeks.

Anyone who works in marketing will tell you that a large proportion—it varies from one product to another—of people choose to purchase product X, Y or Z, because there was a mail-in rebate, but never send it in. But measuring the effectiveness of these mail-in rebates based on the number of people who send them in is not what counts. What counts is how many people made the purchase because there was a mail-in rebate. We can see that this is the ideal situation. Someone purchases the product because of the mail-in rebate, but never uses it. That is the ideal situation. It is the same thing in the case before us.

Say that people decide to travel here because they hope to claim a 6% GST refund, and that they never do so. Personally, I think this is a great thing for the government. We attract these people and they do not even use it. So we can see that the government did not know where it was going on this.

We have put a lot of pressure, and I think that the government realizes it was going to make a big mistake. It has backtracked a little. From now on, it will reimburse GST paid during conferences or tours. However, it will not reimburse individual travellers who are not part of a tour. This makes me think that the government realized it was going to make a big mistake. So it decided to make a small mistake rather than a big one. It is a mistake nonetheless. But, we succeeded in making them backtrack and limiting the impact.

The Bloc Québécois has made progress on one of its longstanding demands: GST refunds for school boards. The Liberals never pushed this issue. At the time, the Liberals never followed through, despite court decisions ordering them to refund GST to school boards. It is in the budget.

For its next challenge, I would like to see the government abolish the GST on books. Culture and education are important. In Quebec, books are now exempt from the provincial sales tax. The federal government must do the same regarding the GST.

A little earlier, I said I would talk about the fiscal imbalance again. I realize I must do so quickly. The Bloc Québécois has been fighting against the fiscal imbalance for quite some time. We are the members who raised this question in the House. This has been the work of the sovereignists for a very long time. We even had to explain to the Conservatives what the fiscal imbalance was, since they knew absolutely nothing about it. Apparently, they still do not fully understand the concept. The fact that the Minister of Finance said that the issue is resolved is proof that the Conservatives do not understand the fiscal imbalance. How can the fiscal imbalance issue be resolved when no fiscal action was taken?

When the Séguin commission met, its members introduced the concept of the fiscal imbalance. They chose to name the problem. They did not open a dictionary and choose words at random with their eyes closed. These words were not pulled out of a hat. There is a reason it is called “fiscal” and there is a reason it is called an “imbalance”: because it is a fiscal problem and it is an imbalance. The solution to the fiscal imbalance is to restore the balance by way of a fiscal solution. That seems obvious to me.

We will have to keep repeating this to the Conservative government because it does not seem to have understood. The Liberals, for their part, have always denied the existence of this problem. In its next budget, the government will have to transfer tax points or tax fields like the GST—which would be the simplest solution—to the governments of Quebec and the provinces so they can benefit from stable, predictable revenues that will not change from budget to budget or from government to government. For example, Quebec's recent gains could be completely erased in the next budget or if there is an election and the government becomes a majority government, or if the Liberals return to power. We will always be at the mercy of the central government's vagaries. To Quebeckers, that is the price of dependency, budgetary dependency, which is a logical result of political dependency.

I would like to end by talking about equalization. I have just a few seconds left, so I will be brief.

Unfortunately, the government decided to exclude half of non-renewable resource revenues from this budget. This measure unfairly penalizes Quebec. Why did they not exclude revenues from the aerospace industry or hydroelectricity? It just so happens that that would have benefited Quebec. The Bloc never asked for these exclusions because it has never asked for an arbitrary advantage. I do not see why other provinces should be given an arbitrary advantage.

This is unfortunate. We will continue to fight for this.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Ottawa Centre.

It is with great pleasure that I rise on the budget debate this afternoon. I know that all governments have to make choices. Choices are made easier when there is access to finances that can be used. If we did not have access to finances, then we would have to make tough decisions in that regard.

This particular budget is severely lacking in what were considered as promises and indications made by the Conservatives when they were in opposition and now when they are in government.

We have seen various reversals of positions. Some people call them broken promises. Some call them deceptions, deliberately or indirectly, but the reality is that there have been major reversal decisions without much consultation with the public.

We can take the reversal on the income trusts as an example. Although we believe in the end that it had to happen, these trusts should never have been set up in the way that they were in the first place. Governments knew full well that these major tax concerns would be affecting the government in some way.

I personally believe that the government should not have made that promise before the campaign. People would then have been very careful with their tax dollars.

What I find most offensive about this particular budget is that the Conservatives have a $14.2 billion surplus, more than they anticipated. When they were in opposition, they repeatedly criticized the Liberal Party for excessive surplus budgets by saying it is coming from employers and employees in the country.

With that kind of money, $14.2 billion, regardless of how it was achieved, we would think the government would be able to help some of the most vulnerable people in our society, some of the most bravest in our society.

We moved in this House a veterans first motion. Elements of that motion were the veterans independence program for widows and widowers; raising the pension allowance from 50% to 66%; getting rid of what is called the gold digger clause, so regardless of when a person remarries there would not be any discrimination after age 60; and that a person's second spouse at the time of his or her death would be entitled to that person's pension benefit.

There was to be an end to the clawback at age 65 for those who have become disabled, the clawing back of the CPP pension and then the disability pension. There was also the SISIP program. Two DND ombudsmen said it was unfair and it needed to be rectified. The House of Commons moved a motion stating that.

Many people across the country had repeatedly asked the previous Liberal government to deal with this issue. It failed. Now the current Conservative government is failing on the issue of protecting our veterans and those who have become injured within our military service and their families.

For less than 2% of the total surplus of the budget, the government could have dealt with the SISIP issue once and for all. The $290 million estimated price tag would have once and for all fixed the financial situation, so that these thousands of injured soldiers and their families would have financial relief and be able to move on with their lives.

One would think that with a $14.2 billion surplus the Conservatives would somehow find $290 million to fix the problem once and for all. What was the answer? No. It was not even in the budget. What a shame.

On the VIP, the now Prime Minister gave assurances to a woman in Cape Breton named Joyce Carter that if his party formed the government the VIP would indeed be extended immediately to all widows and widowers, regardless of the time of death of the veteran. Sixteen months later what do we see in the budget? Nothing.

This House also moved a motion on autism which the Conservative Party supported. We have asked that the government immediately reconvene a meeting with the provinces and the stakeholders to discuss the best way to move this issue forward. We know it is going to take financial and human resources to assist the provinces and territories in the delivery of care and treatment for families with children dealing with autism.

We thought that after the motion passed in the House, even with the support from the Conservatives, that it would be mentioned in the budget. Not a word.

There were also aspects on the fishery concerns. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they wrote letters to Danny Williams saying they would immediately invoke custodial management on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. There is nothing.

We also had promises on equalization, promises that the offshore accords for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia would not be touched. Again, there is a complete reversal of position.

Here is the reality with a surplus of $14.2 billion. People in our income bracket, those making well over $100,000, are doing quite well now. The reality is that I do not need a tax cut. Those people who need help with taxes are the low income earners and the pensioners, those in the lower middle class. MPs and senators do not need a tax cut.

The reality is that at the same time we need to reinvest to help those people who are disabled or widowed or who are struggling to get through their day to day lives with the excessive costs of health care, et cetera. They are being ignored by this budget.

What is most offensive is that these assurances were given by the Conservatives when they were in opposition. They said that if they ever formed a government, they would clean up 13 years of Liberal inaction and move forward on these issues.

We hear them time and time again saying to stand up and support the troops. I congratulate them for doing it. I am glad to see that everybody in this House does, but I question the Conservatives when it comes to supporting the troops when they have to take their uniforms off, when they become disabled and have to leave the military, or when they become old and aged veterans, or when they pass on and their families are left behind and their spouses are looking for help.

I have over 20 world war and Korean veterans in the area of the Halifax Regional Municipality, HRM. Every single one of them has one thing in common with the others: they were denied hearing aids.

They were denied hearing aids because of the fact that a lot of them did not have a hearing test when they left the war in 1946 or 1947. They were young and they got on with their lives, but now their hearing is really suffering. They have been told by audiologists that there is a connection between what happened in their wartime service and their loss of hearing now, but DVA says they did not have a test in the beginning so they do not qualify.

With a $14.2 billion surplus, one would think that DVA and the government would honour the words that the Minister of Veterans Affairs said in opposition and has said in government, which were that we should always give the benefit of the doubt to the veteran. He said that repeatedly.

I ask this government, the cabinet and the DVA to honour the commitment in those words of the Minister of Veterans Affairs and give the benefit of the doubt to these aged veterans so they can have some comfort in the remainder of their lives. With a $14.2 billion surplus, if they cannot do it now, when are they going to do it? These are not young men and women any more.

Our injured soldiers deserve better.

Children with autism deserve better.

These are just some of the elements, in a short 10 minute speech, that I am able to talk about a bit. There are so many more deficiencies with this budget.

Again, when we have the finances at our fingertips to really help people in this country from coast to coast to coast, why did the Conservatives ignore them? Why was the government so callously arrogant in its approach to this budget, thinking that these people would not notice?

These are people who served our country. They deserve better. We have the opportunity to do it. We should have done it, but they missed out. It is not good enough to stand in the House and say, “We are working on it and we will get around to it”. That is what was said when they were in opposition. That is what they are saying in government.

The government needs to move much, much faster on this issue, because if we do not, an awful lot of these brave men and women will pass on because of their ages, and they will not have received the help they required.

That is not how they should end the rest of their lives. They should know that the government and this House of Commons, regardless of political party, cares about what they have done. The reality is that it should have been in the budget and it was not.

It is not too late. The Conservatives can turn around right now, stand up in the House and say very clearly that they made a mistake, that it was an omission and they will put it back in.

For children with autism to be told by the government that there is no help for them because it is not in the budget is unacceptable. That is why, along with many other reasons, we in the NDP cannot and will not support the budget.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to give you greetings before the end of Lent. On this last day before our two-week break, I would like to wish you and the entire House a happy Easter.

My question is for the member who just spoke.

The hon. member is extremely passionate and he knows about some of the work that I have done in a previous time with respect to the program known as VIP. I received a lot of support in my riding from a number of legions as well as from Dominion Command and Ontario Command.

I want to ask the hon. member a question because we had a chance to talk about this very briefly. Does the hon. member have a comment with respect to the pension issue? As the hon. member knows, a wounded soldier receives a certain amount of money after three years, depending on the nature of the injury.

It is not by accident the defence minister is behind me. We were having a very good discussion on another matter, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you.

I want to ask the hon. member if he has any comments that might help the wounded soldier in the long term, and on what would happen under the previous programs. The new veterans charter began with my party when we were in power, but clearly the number of complaints and concerns that have been raised are significant.

While the budget was very silent on this, I think that for the future, in order to instruct, Parliament has to proceed with this issue on this the 90th anniversary of Canada's contribution in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, which created or gave impetus to this country. Could the hon. member tell us his thoughts? What are his thoughts with respect to ensuring that our wounded soldiers, long term, not only receive the care that they do, but also that they receive a pension?

Over a period of time, that pension could be as much as an average of about $1.2 million to $1.4 million in the life of a soldier, versus a lump sum payment of just $250,000. Although it might seem great up front, the reality is that in the long term we may be able to do more for our wounded soldiers. I would like the hon. member's comment.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question. Let us say that an individual signs up for the military and two and a half years later is severely injured and has to leave the military because he can no longer serve. What happens to that individual? That is a very good question.

That is why the new veterans charter has been described by all parties as a living document. When individual cases of this nature come into play, it is up to government and the departments of DND and DVA to work together to consolidate their resources to make sure that not only do the individual and that individual's family have the immediate treatment they require, but that they have the opportunity to move forward.

However, in the unlikely event that they can never work again, either through physical or mental challenges they may have suffered as a result of their injuries, we as a government should be as compassionate as possible to ensure that their needs and the needs of their families are met extremely well.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore for his thoughtful comments on the budget. The member has a reputation for bringing members from all parties together to discuss a range of issues from time to time. It is a very good initiative to bring people from all parties in the House together so we can share our common concerns and interests.

I have a question for the member. We know that budgets respond to the priorities of the government. One of the things that saddened me was the fact that there were so many people excluded from this budget, such as our aboriginal Canadians when the Kelowna accord was not funded. These people are in desperate need of housing and education. They have simple needs, like clean water.

Also not funded were the child care agreements that the Liberal government had negotiated with something like eight provinces to establish child care spaces in those provinces. These are the people who need our help, the women who work outside the home, and men in some cases, and who need to look after their children. They need to find child care spaces.

I wonder if the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore would comment on that.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore is asked to make a short comment because the clock has run out.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the meetings the member talks about are our shipbuilding and marine conference meetings and we are hopeful they will go ahead.

The reality is that the member is correct. The Conservatives' $100 a day so-called day care plan is blowing up in their faces, because I am getting calls from people who are asking, “Since when did this become taxable?” Now they are having to claim that as income. The government did not create one day care space. Businesses were supposed to create all these day care spaces. It did not happen.

As for first nations people, the neglect of this budget--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House to speak on a document that is as important as our budget. I want to start with some of what I think is actually positive about this budget and some of what we fought hard for in opposition, both with the previous government and with the present government.

Not to alarm anyone, I will have a critique on some of the things that I find puzzling and am concerned about in terms of this budget. Sadly, they outweigh the positive things I see in this budget.

Among the things I see as important and that we in the NDP fought for is that we are looking at money for reduced wait times. I think there is a consensus in this country that this needed to be done. There also was some budget money put toward e-health technologies.

We fought for the expansion of the transit pass credit to weekly passes. That is going to be addressed. As well, there is the incentive to buy green cars, which I will come back to in a minute.

Another positive thing is the move to conserve land like the Great Bear park and boreal forest.

That is about it. After that, we have negatives. Sadly, there is a long list.

There was no national housing strategy. There was no national transit strategy.

There was nothing on employment insurance reform. There was no establishment of the $10 minimum wage to deal with the prosperity gap. There was no poverty reduction strategy. There was no plan to end student debt. There was no cancellation in regard to the corporate taxes.

There was nothing for pharmacare, home care, long term care, or improved access to health care for aboriginal people. There was nothing for coordinated training for medical professionals. There was nothing about catastrophic drugs for the Atlantic region.

There was no significant new money for aboriginals.

There was only a quarter of the money we wanted and needed in child care and there was no real vision for child care. There was nothing on autism, as my colleague mentioned.

There was no ban on bulk water exports.

There was nothing new for the pine beetle.

There was nothing for seniors. There was no increase in OAS. There was no action on the veterans first motion.

There was nothing on forestry, nothing for ACOA, and nothing for western diversification.

That is quite a long list. I want to point to a couple of things in the budget. I did read it carefully. It is important to look at the budget from last year. I looked at page 33 of the budget, which talks about corporate profits. We see from the graph by Statistics Canada that corporate profits were at an historic high, with a 14.2% increase in corporate profits.

This year it is in a similar vein. We see an increase in corporate profits. Some would say that is a good thing because it shows a healthy economy. I do not disagree with that, but the problem we in the NDP have with it is where those corporate profits are going and where they are being spent.

They are not being spent in reinvestment. They are not being spent on retooling. Sadly, there is only a small smidgen of action in the budget about making sure there is some money for the manufacturing base so it can put money back into plants and into capital, but it is not directed enough.

In fact, what we have is more corporate tax cuts, because they were there before and they continue. Sadly, this budget does not address the prosperity gap. It does not address the kitchen table economics that we speak of. It does not address the need for more investment in people and the need to make sure that corporations invest in retooling, which is so desperately needed.

There is another thing I want to mention. On page 218 of this year's budget, the government talks about the initiatives around foreign credential recognition. It states:

This initiative, along with the improvements to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, will increase the number of individuals wanting to come to Canada. Budget 2007 provides $33.6 million over the next two years to ensure that those who come to Canada through these avenues have the valid documentation and meet Canada's health and security requirements.

I am not sure if the Conservatives have been talking to people who have come to this country recently, but this is not the problem.

If they are spending money on this initiative and not dealing with foreign credential recognition and real employment for people in the professions, then they have wasted time and taxpayers' money, because the issue is not about trying to get valid documentation to meet the health and security requirements. In fact, that is part of the problem.

I will give an example. I had three town halls before the Christmas holiday. They showed that for people from all walks of life who are foreign trained professionals, doctors, engineers, people in the medical profession, pharmacists, et cetera, the main problem for them is Canadian experience, foreign credential recognition and employment. Sadly, in this budget there is nothing to help them.

There is nothing in the budget that says there are opportunities right here in the public service or to coordinate job opportunities. The government promised to deal with the issue of foreign credential recognition in the budget but it did not. All there is now is a referral desk. That is not what anyone envisaged in terms of what needs to happen on foreign credential recognition and employment for those who so desperately need it.

I also wanted to touch on those who are falling behind, those who need child care, those who need housing and those who are disabled, who cannot take advantage of tax cuts. The budget is a little bit for everyone but in the end there is nothing for anyone in many respects. The budget contains little tax credit boutique programs, which the Conservatives readily critiqued when they were in opposition. The Conservatives are helping the people they think are their target voters, let us make no doubt about that.

In fact, before the budget was presented, the Prime Minister went on the road and made 21 announcements on new initiatives. He did it in campaign style. He is trying to win a majority but he is leaving people behind. The prosperity gap grows and the people who need the help are not being helped by the budget.

I will read some comments that I have received from constituents who have told me their stories and what is happening to them:

I am a disabled person; paying high rent. I can barely make ends meet. I have applied for subsidized housing in 2003, and was told I have to wait “8 yrs”.

It will eight years before the application is considered. Try living on $979 a month, with a rent of $600 and phone bills for emergency purposes. This person is not going to be helped by the budget. These are the people we need to help. Another person who wrote to me recently is a little better off, but is looking at taking out a $60,000 loan to afford child care in downtown Ottawa:

I am securing middle class but cannot afford child care! Help!

There is nothing in the budget that will help that person. They are real people, ordinary Canadians, everyday people we are here to represent. They have been forgotten, the disabled, aboriginal people and those who are in the middle class who are trying to secure a middle class way of life and cannot and who are having to take out a loan for child care. It is a disgrace. It is wrong. That is why I will not be able to support the budget, why my party will not be able to support the budget.

If we had some vision in the country we would not be putting all of our eggs into one tax cut basket, or corporate tax cuts, which has happened in previous years. We would invest in Canadians.

During the Quebec election campaign we saw the handover of money from the federal government, no strings attached, to let the province spend where it will. It made our federal government look like an ATM machine where the provinces can take out money at their will, but where does it go? It does not go to services. In the case of Quebec. It will go to a tax cut.

Exactly what Quebeckers wanted was better services. I think the story of the Quebec election was that there was a population that demanded services and got nothing in return but another broken promise. They will see that the federal government will not take a leadership role and provide real investment, show real leadership and make sure that the dollars that are sent to provinces are spent on child care, housing, dealing with clean water and other issues.

It is an opportunity missed. Last year the title of the budget was “Focusing on Priorities” and this year it is “Aspire”. Sadly, what we have is a missed opportunity, little aspiration and definitely no vision.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a correction to some of the mistruths the member is projecting.

Our new government recognizes autism spectrum disorder. It is an important concern and we are committed to working with our partners, provinces, territories and other stakeholders on this issue.

The federal government supports research on ASD through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. It has invested nearly $50 million since 2000. It is a sponsor of the ASD stakeholder symposium in 2007. These are just a few examples.

The institute is beginning to explore the establishment of a research chair focusing on effective treatment. It has launched a consultative process on the feasibility of developing an ASD surveillance program. It has a dedicated page on the Health Canada website. The Health Policy Branch of Health Canada has been designated as an ASD lead.

The member is quite concerned about what the provinces might do with the money and he specifically mentioned Quebec. He should look at the rest of Canada. His counterparts in Saskatchewan have no respect for any of these issues. We have lost children with autism to Alberta because Saskatchewan would not educate or help the parents and families.

I would suggest that the member maybe look a bit deeper. He will find out that it is Alberta specifically and Ontario that lead in helping parents with an autistic child. Saskatchewan has abandoned these children. Saskatchewan has an NDP government. That province will be one of the beneficiaries of the really good agreement that has just been promoted through budget 2007.

The provincial NDP government in Saskatchewan has just announced its budget and there is nothing in it for farmers and agriculture, which is the backbone of that province. Our health minister could not get Saskatchewan on board with respect to wait times. Our Indian affairs minister could not get the province on board with respect to education for aboriginals.

Why does the member think that I do not like to see some of this money going to Saskatchewan? I want what is fair and what is equitable. However, I want a premier too who will spend it where it is needed.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think there was a question there somewhere.

I will address the autism issue. I heard the member mention websites, processes, and special projects being set up. I can take that member to communities where people are remortgaging their homes because they are trying to afford a way to deal with their children's future.

It is not good enough to talk about plans and websites. We know what we can do about autism. We can stand up and deliver. Sadly, this Conservative budget did not. It is plain and simple.

On the issue of provinces, let me be very clear. The government had a surplus of $14.2 billion. There was no debate in terms of what we should do with that surplus. Our party said we should have a debate so we know where the money is going and not just decide to fob it off on programs, or tax cuts in the case of Quebec, as I mentioned, without any strings attached.

We need to start talking about national standards. If I were raising an autistic child in Ontario and I go to Saskatchewan or Alberta, I should not have to worry about whether or not that province has the capability to deal with my autistic child. If I were to send my children to university in Quebec, I should not have to worry about whether or not they were born there so they can have an affordable education. That is the reality and that is the reality that the Conservative government does not understand.

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

Mr. Speaker, I take note of the fact that this is a good news budget. There is more good news all the time from this government. I am very pleased that there are a sufficient number of members in this House who recognize it is a budget worth supporting. They are doing that and looking past some of the misinformation that is being put out by different individuals across the country, misinformation that unfortunately does not communicate properly what this budget does achieve and what we are doing on behalf of Canadian people.

I am so seriously supportive of this budget that I would like to move:

That this question be now put.

[Some hon. members]

No.

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

Yes, I can do that.

[Some hon. members]

No.

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

It is not unanimous. Mr. Speaker, I am afraid you did not hear this. I moved, seconded by the member for Blackstrap, that this question be now put.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Hull--Aylmer is rising on a point of order.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the member wanted the question to be put.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Mr. Epp, seconded by Mrs. Yelich, moved that this question be now put.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, perhaps for the edification of other members, some of whom have not been here quite as long as I have, this is a motion that simply precludes the putting of further amendments to the motion. That is what happens, and now we simply resume debate and carry on and hopefully we will get to 1:30 p.m. and we will go to private members' business.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I am calling for debate on this question. Debate. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Etobicoke North.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to the budget because I found it to be totally lacking in vision and direction. It has a number of little things here and there for various groups, but when we look at it substantively, we realize that it lacks direction and vision and leaves out large segments of our society.

One aspect I find particularly disturbing, although there were a couple I mentioned earlier in a question and comment period, is the fact that aboriginal people are left out in the cold again. After the Liberal government negotiated in Kelowna a very strategic accord which would help aboriginal people with housing, education and water and the Conservatives callously ignored that.

They also callously ignored the child care agreements that the Liberal government had meticulously negotiated with the provinces. They would have provided real child care spaces for people who needed them. The $200 a month allowance per child just does not do it. It does not create any child care spaces.

The other aspect I find very disturbing is this. If we are to compete in a global economy, an economy that includes emerging economies like India, China and Brazil, there is nothing in this budget to encourage that. In fact, we take steps backward.

When the Liberal government came into power, it had to deal with a $42 billion deficit that it inherited from the Conservatives. When we got it under control, within a very short time, the Liberals started to reinvest in R and D and put chairs in universities, which was very well received. We also established the Canada Foundation for Innovation, founded the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and provided overheads to the universities.

Guess what happened? Researchers came back to Canada because they were very pleased with the research environment here. What does that lead to? That leads to invention, innovation and entrepreneurship. That is what we need in the country if we are to create the value added jobs of the future.

What has the government done? It has taken a few steps back. Now we are hearing from researchers that they are going to leave Canada because the research environment is not very conducive to the kind of work they want to do. That is a tragedy after the Liberals built that platform. It could have been built on further. There is an amount in the budget for research, but with other steps the government has taken, it is really moving backward.

There were many other flaws in the budget. I watched the Minister of Finance stand in this place and present the budget. He made a statement along the lines that the problems and disputes with the provinces and territories were gone forever. Not knowing what steps would follow, anyone on this side of the House would have known that to make a statement like this was naive in the extreme. I think he was living in fantasy land. We learned very quickly afterward that many provinces in this country disputed the Minister of Finance's claim that disputes with the provinces and territories were over.

In fact, all colleagues from Atlantic Canada on this side of the House know from the detail in the budget that Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan and other provinces have been shafted. My western colleagues also know that full well. They had a good deal under the Liberal government and the Conservative government took it away and left those provinces swinging.

There are other aspects that I find terribly disturbing. The Government of Canada, under the Conservative government, tried to buy off the province of Quebec with increases in transfers. Another $700 million in equalization was handed to Quebec. The ink was barely dry on the cheque when the premier of Quebec said that he would cut taxes by an equivalent amount. I find that shocking.

I know that technically and legally the province can do what it wants with equalization. However, members of Parliament have heard the provinces and territories complain about the fact that they cannot properly fund health care, education and social programs and that they need more transfers from the federal government. We transferred an additional $41 billion in our last mandate in addition to other amounts we had increased.

The province of Quebec, complaining that it needed money for health care and education, got the additional equalization, and then wanted to cut taxes. It did not work. Even though I am sympathetic, and I know my colleagues on this side of the House and perhaps on the other side of the House are sympathetic as well to the federalist cause, we wanted to see the Liberal government trounce the separatists, which it did. However, I think it was a sad commentary and it showed really that Quebeckers could not be bought.

What it tells us is that in the next round of discussions with the provinces and territories, we will hear their bleats and their complains as very hollow when we know that one of the largest provinces in the country took the equalization and cut taxes.

It is also a sad commentary that the province of Quebec, one of the key provinces in terms of population and economic activity, is a have not province. Of the total equalization that is paid out by the federal government, some $12 billion, roughly $7 billion goes to the province of Quebec. I have argued in the House and other places that it is because of the policies of the separatists that Quebec is a have not province.

The other sad reality of the budget bill is that it tries to implement the provisions with respect to the income trusts. A promise was made by the then leader of the Conservative Party that he would not tax income trusts. Many people in my riding of Etobicoke North and other ridings across Canada, based on that assurance when the Conservatives came into power, put their money into income trusts. Guess what? The Conservative Party reneged on that.

Whether we agree that something had to be done with income trusts, and I for one think we had to make some adjustments, the adjustments could have been made in a much fairer way for those people who were already exposed and who ended up losing about $25 billion to $30 billion. The government has done nothing about that in this budget. Nor has it done so in the budget implementation act.

There are a couple of provisions in the budget that I support. One is the pension income splitting. It is helpful to seniors that they can split income. It in some sense partly addresses some concerns of the citizens in my riding, middle income seniors, who have saved all their lives, put money into pensions and they find that their old age security, notwithstanding their best plans, is taxed back in some cases. It starts to get taxed back at around $55,000. Therefore, pension income splitting does not address that fully, but it is a good initiative.

The other sad reality is the budget reflects some of the priorities of the government, one of them being the fact it will arm the guards at the border of Canada. We heard at the committee that it would cost about $1 billion over 10 years to arm the border guards. That does not include the reclassification of the border guards who will become public safety officers. The number I have is about $15,000 per year in added salary. The $1 billion are to train and equip them with guns.

The RCMP advised us that the deterrence effect would be minimal. In fairness to it, it said that no one knew for sure, but it felt the deterrence effect would be minimal.

[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.

(The House resumed at 12 p.m.)

The House resumed from March 30 consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this morning I am pleased to speak about the bill to implement the budget, particularly because this is my first time addressing the House as the Bloc Québécois' new finance critic. The member for Joliette was appointed leader of the Bloc Québécois in the House of Commons, succeeding the member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean, whom I would like to thank for his competence and experience in helping me learn more about the work of parliamentarians over the past few years. The member for Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean passed on a lot of knowledge and know-how, and I wish him every success in his chosen pursuits. I also have complete confidence in the member for Joliette's ability to fulfill the leadership role the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie has entrusted to him. I would also like to thank the leader of the Bloc for entrusting the finance critic portfolio to me.

I am therefore happy to rise today to speak on the budget implementation bill. I would just like to say that this appointment comes at an especially good time, seeing as the budget process is just starting. Consultations for the next budget will begin in the coming weeks and months, even if the budget is not tabled until next year. I plan to make sure I have solid support in my riding and to hold a consultation. Then, I will speak for the Bloc and listen to all the people who want to have their say about the next budget, in order to get the same results the member for Joliette helped us get in this budget.

We need to remember that the bill before us today follows on the passage of the budget. We agree on the principles of this budget and on the government's proposed funding mechanisms. Other bills will be needed to effect legislative change as needed and implement individual measures.

The Bloc Québécois has fought very hard on the issue of the fiscal imbalance for a number of years. It believes that the government has made significant progress on spending and that this will at least give the Government of Quebec additional fiscal flexibility. The fight will continue, and, in light of past experience, we hope that the arguments we have made about the principle of the fiscal imbalance will lead to measures that go beyond strictly financial promises. In the near future, the current government must take real steps to correct the fiscal imbalance permanently. This means tax point transfers and possibly also GST transfers, but the solution must be enshrined in legislation and must not come about simply because the federal government's finances are healthy enough that it can afford to pay Quebec more money without changing how things are done.

The Conservative government itself admitted this was the situation. In advertisements criticizing the leader of the Liberal Party, it said that if the Liberal Party regained power, decisions could be reversed and the money could end up no longer allocated to Quebec. We have it from the government itself that there is a contradiction between the position of the Minister of Finance when he says that the fiscal imbalance has been corrected, and the Conservative government advertisements saying that the Liberals could undo all this.

The Bloc Québécois wants a permanent solution to this problem so that Quebec and the provinces, which need money in order to be able to provide services, will be able to go ahead and provide those services with confidence, knowing that the money will be available over a period of several years and they can do some sort of financial planning. Right in the middle of the last election campaign in Quebec, we saw how a federal budget dictated the money available for Quebec in a last minute kind of way. This situation will have to be resolved at some point, and I am sure a lot of time will be spent on doing so in the coming weeks and months.

The bill before us deals with the implementation of certain provisions of the budget. It covers five main areas. First, this is a bill that implements various personal and corporate tax measures. I will discuss this later on. Second, it amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, to introduce the new equalization formula as well as a per capita distribution mechanism for Canada health and social transfers.

It also includes an annual escalator of 3% for social programs, through to 2014. This is the second focus of the bill.

Third, the bill creates three new trusts and authorizes the Minister of Finance to contribute amounts set out in the bill according to guidelines he deems acceptable. He will be able to contribute these sums from the 2006-07 surplus if he thinks that is appropriate. In other words, legislation is needed to allow the federal government's surpluses to be allocated to foundations that have specific objectives.

We must also ensure that these foundations are accountable for the way in which they manage the money. We have to make sure the Auditor General has all the necessary information. When it comes to the environment, we think it is important for this to be included in the bill.

Furthermore, the bill establishes a legal framework to ensure that all the savings from paying down the debt are translated into tax cuts. This other aspect of the bill will allow that to happen when the bill is passed. This is one of the things the Bloc Québécois took into account.

The fiscal imbalance is the cornerstone of this budget. Quebec has been very supportive of the Bloc's decision. Instead of triggering an election on the eve of the budget, which would have prevented money from being paid to Quebec, there was no election and Quebec will get its money.

The Bloc Québécois did the responsible thing. In the current context of a minority government, this is a significant insurance policy for Quebeckers and the Bloc. It allows us to ensure that the Conservative government's decisions are supported by the Bloc before being accepted. In my view, this model has been somewhat effective. It may even partially explain the election results in Quebec. During this provincial election, Quebeckers felt that a minority government could also lead to something positive for Quebec. I am not saying I was pleased with the results, but this is nonetheless a consequence.

These are the measures under five broad headings. There are personal and corporate tax measures.The budget implementation bill includes 500 categories of tax measures announced on March 19.

First of all, there is the tax fairness plan, along with some tax relief and continued GST refunds for conferences and tours. I would remind the House that the Minister of Finance had announced an ad hoc plan to eliminate the GST-HST visitor rebate. This sudden decision was criticized by the entire tourism industry in Quebec and in Canada. The Bloc Québécois spoke out on behalf of those individuals. As industry critic, and together with the finance critic of the day, I personally wrote to the minister. Now, the new budget remedies the situation.

I also recall the opposition expressed by the Quebec Outfitter Federation, for example. As a direct result of the Conservative government's misguided policy, that organization was losing an important tool for attracting tourists. With this bill, that measure is at least partially corrected and the Bloc Québécois is pleased with the results.

This issue must be closely monitored to ensure that tourists who do not come as part of an organized tour are not penalized. At least one important benefit results from the action taken. At the outset, the government was entirely opposed to the idea of any corrections to the bill. In the end, there have been some corrections.

The Bloc Québécois is very pleased to have so constructively and effectively represented an industry that very much relies on government measures to help it—and not the reverse—and to have achieved the results we did.

In the area of tax measures, there have also been some changes to the rules regarding RRSPs and RESPs. An RRSP allows individuals to save for their retirement. More detailed changes will be outlined later. An RESP allows parents to set aside some money, to which is added a contribution from the government, for their children's future. It was also important to make improvements to this area.

Finally, there is a surtax on inefficient vehicles, even though the government told us that that the environment was not a major problem in Quebec and Canada. In recent years, Quebeckers and Canadians, as well as all manner of experts, have been pointing out that there is a real, far-reaching and significant environmental problem that everyone on this planet should be worried about. By hammering the message home, we are beginning to see the introduction of measures such as the surtax on inefficient vehicles.

This is merely one aspect that the federal government should be addressing to achieve a quality environment. In my opinion, it should start by recognizing the Kyoto accord. We are not there yet but at least some measures have been put forward as a result of pressure by the opposition parties and the environmental movement. Furthermore, I would say that the general public is more aware of the gravity of the environmental situation than the government, which is now coming up to speed. Let us hope that, at the end of the day, we will achieve tangible and global results.

There are four tax fairness measures in the part of the bill dealing with taxation. There is a $1,000 increase in the age credit, which will further reduce taxes for older individuals. This is a worthwhile measure. Matters pertaining to seniors must be studied in more detail. It is often said that their pension is indexed to the cost of living. I believe that their basket of goods and services—the market basket for seniors—is not necessarily appropriate. Seniors often need certain types of equipment, for example a handrail to help them get in and out of the bathtub.

Furthermore, with respect to prescription drug costs and other additional expenses, the cost of some items is rising much faster than the general rate of inflation. There should be a special basket of goods for seniors that takes into account the rate of inflation for their cost of living. That said, today's measure—increasing the age credit by $1,000—is a step in the right direction, albeit a rather weak one. It is like using just one crutch, not the pair. We have to resolve the underlying issues to ensure that seniors are completely and truly protected with respect to the cost of living, especially women living alone who have to absorb extra costs, particularly when their spouse dies and they transition from life as a couple, in a house or apartment, to single life. The government still has to improve the Canada pension plan.

Next, there is the implementation of spousal income splitting, which came into effect January 1, 2007. I would note that taxpayers will not feel the impact of these measures until they complete their 2007 tax returns. Unfortunately, this will not show up in this year's tax return, but eventually, this measure will ensure better income distribution.

Beginning January 1, 2011, the tax fairness plan will reduce corporate income tax by 0.5%. The Bloc Québécois made recommendations in the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology to offer incentives such as accelerated capital cost allowance. We are very pleased that the government decided to act on that recommendation. However, the government must ensure that it is in companies' best interest to go ahead and use these tax measures. We think this is a better way to go than reducing corporate income taxes across the board. In my opinion, the government has done the bare minimum to satisfy industry lobbyists who made representations. I think that there is more to be gained from encouraging businesses to invest in their own productivity than from simply lowering taxes.

Lastly, the government is implementing the new income trust tax regime. Everyone knows that the Minister of Finance did not follow the script on that one. In-depth studies and a better solution to the problem are needed so that small investors do not get hurt. Perhaps this work should go on during the new round of consultations for the next budget.

Second, there are two tax measures providing tax savings for families. A child tax credit for $2,000 was introduced, which will enable families to save up to $310 per child per year. In addition the government is increasing various basic personal amounts, providing up to $209 in annual savings for a supporting spouse or a single person supporting a child or relative.

Following pressure from the Bloc, the government decided to rethink its decision to abolish GST refunds for conferences and organized tours. I spoke about this earlier. I think that all tourism sectors are very happy with this decision.

The fourth area, which we already talked about, deals with the retirement and education savings plans. Then, there are measures for the fiscal arrangements with the provinces.

The equalization payment formula has been changed. More money will now be available. However, this does not address Quebec's historic demands. For example, the equalization formula does not take into account all of the revenues from natural resources—which is a step backwards—and it contains loopholes that favour provinces producing fossil fuels, by allowing them to remove natural resources revenues from the distribution formula. The 2007 budget does not set a termination date for the underwater oil agreements in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia.

More work is needed on these issues. Quebeckers can count on the Bloc Québécois to ensure that budgets are as reasonable as possible and meet Quebeckers' needs. I believe that that is one of the reasons why Quebeckers formed a political party like the Bloc Québécois, which has accounted for most of the members from Quebec in the past five elections. The federal system in Canada may not be perfect, but with the Bloc Québécois, Quebec can at least make its voice heard and get results in the end.

I would like to continue talking about trusts and new funds and draw members' attention to the ecotrusts. Thanks to this bill, the government can use up to $1.519 billion of the 2006-07 surplus to create ecotrusts. The money will be divided among Quebec and the provinces according to their demographic weight and will help improve environmental management.

The government is providing $614 million to fund post-secondary education in some provinces. The distribution method will be set out in the trust indenture. We will see how things work.

Speaking of trusts, the government will also invest in human papillomavirus immunization by creating a $300 million trust to provide Quebec and provinces with money to support HPV immunization.

The bill also covers a wait times guarantee, payments that will be made directly to the provinces for child care spaces, payments to the territories and payments to the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Canada Health Infoway.

As the former industry critic, I take a special interest in one provision of the bill, and that is the money for CANARIE Inc., which is spearheading work on the next-generation Internet in Canada. We have to continue making this sort of investments if Quebec and Canada are to increase their productivity in this sector. I believe it is important that we move forward.

The measures in this bill will allow us to move forward, especially on the fiscal imbalance and other issues, which is why the Bloc Québécois supported this budget.

Nevertheless, we find these improvements insufficient, because we still need to see a definitive solution to the fiscal imbalance issue, one that involves the transfer of tax points. This bill—the budget—does not provide such a solution.

In closing, the Conservative government has an obligation to govern and an obligation to follow through on its commitment to correct the fiscal imbalance. It has demonstrated this through financial commitments. However, it must now take concrete action that will translate into a true resolution of the fiscal imbalance issue, through the transfer of tax points.

A lot of work remains to be done. The Bloc Québécois is pleased to have supported the budget because we believe that this is what Quebeckers wanted and that it is in their best interest. However, this in no way means that we are giving up on obtaining real equity, particularly in terms of the fiscal imbalance. I can assure this House that, in the new phase that is beginning and with next year's budget in mind, the Bloc Québécois will remain equally committed to achieving better wealth distribution and creation.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and take part in the debate on the budget implementation act. It is obviously one of the most important legislation that comes before the House every year.

When I thought what I might talk about today there were a number of things. I have to bypass the easy way, which is to only talk about the Atlantic accord that is resonating throughout Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. I might touch on the subject of the Atlantic accord, but I want to talk more generally about the budget and how I think it has divided Canadians. It is a very cynical budget.

There is a lot about which we can talk. With the amount of money spent on this budget, the richest budget ever, Canadians would be right to have assumed that everybody should have had Christmas Day on budget day. In fact, it was far from festive for most Canadians. The budget could have done a great many things if it had been focused on helping those who needed help the most, or maybe if it had focused on innovation, the productivity gap, aboriginal Canadians, the environment and other things.

I suspect the response to the budget across the country has not been what the government wants or what the Minister of Finance wants. We can go to the minister's website and see the online poll he has done. He asks Canadians if they have benefited from the budget and 93% of the respondents have said no. That is a pretty significant number.

It is not only the minister's website. A number of other people have done some very open-minded and objective evaluations of the budget. One of the institutes that I go to quite frequently is the Caledon Institute. It does great research and work on a number of issues. I notice that its evaluation of the budget was, as usual, very thorough and effective.

I will read a few quotes by the Caledon Institute. It calls it “Mixed Brew for the 'Coffee Shop' Budget”. It says, among other things:

The ‘new’ child tax credit—in reality an obsolete program resurrected from the 1980s—tops this list. The funds for this inequitable scheme could have been far better spent on increasing the existing progressive Canada Child Tax Benefit or creating additional child care spaces. These...investments would have been much more helpful to ordinary Canadian families than a child tax credit that gives $310 to millionaires who do not need it and nothing to the poorest who do.

That is quite indicting.

Another quote says:

Ottawa has chosen instead to introduce a bundle of tax carrots that will serve a variety of particular groups but will provide little or no benefit to the broader population of low- and modest-income Canadians. The Budget could well have been named “Opportunities Lost.” With a $19 billion price tag, never has so much been spent with so little result.

It seems to me that the leader of our party has said very similar things to that. I agree with him and I agree with the Caledon Institute.

The institute also refers to specifically “The “New” Child Tax Credit: a policy zombie resurrected”. It says:

All non-poor families will receive $310, including the very rich; some low-income families with a low tax liability will receive a smaller amount, while the poorest will get nothing at all because they do not owe income tax.

The poorest families will get nothing. This measure will make income inequality among families worse, not better.

It refers to last year's universal child care benefit and says:

—this Budget’s non-refundable child tax credit are inequitable, wasteful programs that deliver benefits to upper-income families for whom the payments are a meaningless drop in their income bucket, while depriving low- and middle-income families...

The institute goes on in a lot of different ways. For example, it talks about aboriginal Canadians who are noticeably absent from the budget. It says:

The Kelowna Accord was a solemn agreement signed by the provinces, territories, First Nations and Aboriginal organizations, and the previous Canadian government.

It talks about the new federal government rejecting the Kelowna accord and says:

Now it becomes apparent that Canada’s New Government has no plan at all, unless doing as little as possible can be characterized as a plan.

That is a reasoned, thought out, analytical view of what the budget has done. It is not only the Caledon Institute that says this. I suspect if Kelowna is a socialist plot, then the government would think that the Caledon Institute is probably a socialist organization to the government side.

It is a long time since I have heard Andrew Coyne called a socialist. The National Post suggests:

—with this budget. [the Minister of Finance] becomes officially the biggest spending Finance Minister in the history of Canada. That's after inflation and population growth is taken into account. They've now increased under this Conservative government...spending by $25 billion in two years. Is this what Conservative voters wanted? No sense of priorities, not a nickel in real, honest to God tax cuts of any kind. There's a lot of spending programs disguised as tax credits for children...which may be fine programs, but they're programs, not tax cuts.

Nancy Hughes Anthony, president of the Chamber of Commerce, another well known socialist, suggests:

I don't think there's anything new there. [He] actually told us at the time of his income trust announcement in October that he would adjust the tax cuts corporate tax cuts in the future...instead, we saw small little targeted breaks for everybody from lacrosse fans to truckdrivers.

In general, this is an unfocused budget. Most Canadians know that if we really wanted to increase productivity and benefit Canadians, particularly those who might be able to use a bit of a break, we would lower personal income taxes, perhaps to the level the Liberals did in the economic update of November 2005.

What else got mentioned in the budget but got very little action? How about the environment? John Bennett, senior policy analyst for the Sierra Club of Canada, says:

This government has abandoned its obligations to the Kyoto protocol and abandoned its moral responsibility to keep our international commitments...This government has no intention of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It has every intention of trying to sound like it does, but has no intention to actually do it.

That is consistent throughout the budget. The government sounds like it can do something without actually having to do it.

On social programs, Monica Lysack of the Child Care Advocacy Association says:

For a government that identified childcare as one of their priorities, this is an admission of failure.

There was an editorial in the Toronto Star. There are a number of things I could say, but let me quote this. It says:

What is left, then, is not a crafty pre-election budget, but a financial document that is unfocused, that is devoid of a national strategy to tackle any of the major social issues facing this country, and that does little to help the poorest of the poor.

Aboriginal Canadians are perhaps the most targeted group in the budget by their exclusion. Phil Fontaine, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, says:

We're extremely disappointed, frustrated because it's obvious that those that did well today are those that are considered important to this government. Those that are viewed as unimportant did badly, and we did badly.

An awful lot of issues in the budget have not been addressed.

There are a couple more issues in the development area, both regional development and international development. For the second budget in a row under the Conservative government there is no mention of regional development programs like ACOA.

Previous governments had a big plan for ACOA, which in the last number of years has done some amazing work in Atlantic Canada and has invested in research and innovation. The Atlantic innovation fund has driven university research and has helped Atlantic Canada's strong but generally smaller universities to compete and provide innovative solutions and also commercialization of products. There is no mention in the budget.

The minister suggests there have been no cuts to ACOA, and we hear that all the time, but consistently the estimates indicate not only cuts to regional development across the board but to ACOA. The money is shifted from here to there, but there is never any evidence of what is actually happening with the spending. Regional development is a big issue.

On international development, I will tell the House a story about a trip I took to Kenya with three other members of the House, three friends, the Conservative member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, the member for Halifax and the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, who sponsored the great private member's Bill C-293, the overseas development assistance act, to make poverty the focus of international development.

There is so much that Canada can do in the world. It does not all have to be centred on Afghanistan. In fact, we see everyday in countries like Kenya the needs of the developing world and so many ways that Canada can help. Canada has helped and I hope it will continue to help.

When the four of us went to Kenya, we saw some amazing things and amazing people. We met Beatrice, who lost all seven of her children and their partners in less than two years to HIV related issues. She was a grandmother. She was a street beggar. She had 12 grandchildren. What was she going to do? She thought she would have to poison her grandchildren because she could not take care of them. Instead, she got up one day and decided she would do something about it. She borrowed $15 U.S. from a micro credit in the slums of Nairobi, and today she runs three businesses in the slums.

This is the kind of resilience that exists in third world. These are the kinds of people who can make a huge difference.

Susan is a woman who we met in Eldoret in western Kenya. I remember my colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood was particularly touched by her. She worked in a microcredit in a big, open, empty warehouse with some sewing machines and people making bags. We went over to talk to Susan. She looked up at us happy and smiling and said, “Thank you, God” for the blessings he had given her. She is HIV positive and was given up for dead. Now she is living and working because of a microcredit. She makes lovely cloth bags with beads on them. We asked her how many she could make in a day. She said that she could make five bags in a day. How much does she get paid for each bag? Eight Kenyan shillings. She makes forty Kenyan shillings a day, which is the equivalent of 65¢ or 70¢ Canadian in a day.

We all know about the terrible rates of poverty, disease and the lack of sanitation in which people exist throughout the world. Working full time, she makes less than $1 Canadian a day and she considers herself fortunate.

What the people of Kenya can do with little should be such a spur to countries like Canada to invest in making their lives better. We can do so much. We should hit our millennium target of 0.7% of GNI to international aid. I felt that on the government side. We can do this.

In countries like Kenya and other African countries in sub-Saharan Africa there is a resilience, a strength, an entrepreneurial savvy among the people who simply have nothing, but make do. Not only do they make do, but they thank God for what he or she has given them. It is an inspiration.

Canada can do a lot more. I would like to see more mention of international development. I would like to see Canada commit to reaching 0.7%. At the very least I would like to see us ensure that we maintain the work we have done in places like Kenya where CIDA has been active. Its funding may be threatened over the next few years for the work it does on tuberculosis.

Kenya is a country about the size of Canada. Three hundred Kenyans a day die of tuberculosis. How many people in Canada even think tuberculosis is still a disease about which to worry? Five hundred people a day die of HIV. Millions of young African children die of malaria. We can do so much more. The area of international development is lacking in the budget as well.

I want to turn for a second to the issue of the Atlantic accord. This is an issue that has absolutely dominated discussion in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador. We hear about it from Premier Danny Williams and a bit about it from Rodney MacDonald. This is the dominant issue in Atlantic Canada. We can listen to what the premiers have said about it.

We have all heard what Danny Williams has had to say. He has stood up and he has fought for his province. He wants to keep what he fought for. He says:

A promise was made. We expected that promise to be kept by the Prime Minister and, indeed, his government....Even though he is claiming that they are excluding 100% of non-renewable natural resource revenues [they are not]....There is a sense of betrayal, a sense of disappointment.

That just about says it all.

Rodney MacDonald, the Premier of Nova Scotia is not the most fiery of speakers. He is concerned about the accord, though. On March 19, he said:

It's almost as if they want to continue giving handouts to Nova Scotians rather than us keeping our offshore accord and that to me is fundamentally unfair.

A lot of people in Canada do not fully understand this. When we debated it in the House of Commons, people on the other side stood up and asked foolish questions. It does not matter to them. They get briefing notes from some hack in the Department of Finance or a backroom Conservative who hauls it out and says “Go fight the battle”. They have no idea what this actually means.

Let me just educate members a bit on the Atlantic accord. This is the agreement that was reached between the Government of Canada and the Government of Nova Scotia on offshore revenues on Valentine's Day 2005. It says:

—the Government of Canada intends to provide additional offset payments to the province in respect of offshore-related Equalization reductions, effectively allowing it to retain the benefit of 100 per cent of its offshore resource revenues.

Then it says:

The amount of additional offset payment for a year shall be calculated as the difference between the Equalization payment that would be received by the province under the Equalization formula as it exists at the time...

Very simply, this means that offshore revenues are excluded from equalization. If equalization goes up, the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador would get the improved equalization plus they would keep their offshore revenues. A choice has allegedly been offered to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador which would have the old equalization with the old formula or the new equalization that some in the rest of Canada will benefit from. We should have both. It should not be one or the other.

The former Prime Minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, the member for Halifax West, who was regional minister, and the then minister of finance and now our House leader, did a great job on that for the people of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.

If anybody thinks the offshore is just politics, I would like to read a few headlines. I will not go into details. Marilla Stephenson said in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald dated the week of the budget:

Note to Rodney: Stephen played you big time. The Prime Minister has played you like a fiddle. If any theme rang through the Prime Minister's budget delivered on Monday night, it was that the have-nots are to remain, well, have-nots. The Prime Minister stoops to conquer. Jeering from the sidelines were the budget's unlucky trio of obvious losers: Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan. All are now victims of a calculated insult--

David Rodenhiser in the Halifax Daily News said:

Nova Scotians are left asking themselves: Who's standing up for us? Right now, the answer is no one. Certainly not our federal cabinet minister, the member for Central Nova, who's defending Ottawa rather than Nova Scotia on this. And not MacDonald, who's content to pursue process rather than take action. MacDonald repeatedly stated yesterday that provincial finance officials are gathering information and requesting meetings--

Here is a headline entitled: “Atlantic Tories running for cover; Cabinet representatives urged to stand up for region's rights”. Another one says it all. The headline in the Chronicle-Herald reads: “Federal Conservatives shaft province, once again”. There is not much more to be said about that.

Now the topic has even changed a bit because for a while we heard that the provinces did not really get a bad deal because they had a choice of two deals. That lasted about a week.

In the Halifax Chronicle-Herald on Saturday it stated, “It appears that Ottawa and Nova Scotia are now working on an accord deal. Plans said to be a compromise on the scrapped 2005 Atlantic accord agreement”.

There is not much question that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador were betrayed by their cabinet representatives and by their Conservative members with the dismantling of the Atlantic accord, a deal which provided such hope for the people of Nova Scotia and for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Apparently, other provinces feel the same way. Having spent two weeks back home, I can tell the House that this is not an issue likely to fade anytime soon.

ACOA, international development, the Atlantic accord, the failure on child care, and leaving the poorest of the poor vulnerable are not acceptable. Some things were not even mentioned in the budget that have come to pass.

Last Friday, members of the Coast Guard in my own community of Dartmouth--Cole Harbour were called to a meeting and were told there were going to be new Coast Guard vessels. They would be made in Canada. They were also told that their jobs would be moved from Dartmouth, where they have been for years, to St. John's, Newfoundland, which happens to be the riding of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the minister responsible for the Coast Guard. There was no explanation, no business plan, or no idea of where this came from. There was no explanation given to the workers about what was going on. We do not even know if there is a dock in St. John's that could handle them. That is an insult to the people of Dartmouth--Cole Harbour. They are rightly concerned about this issue.

This budget is designed very clearly for the next election, not the next generation. It is political arithmetic, add a few votes here, appeal to a few votes there, pander, troll for votes in bunches where they can be found. If people do not vote Conservative and likely never will, or they contribute too small of a voting block, too bad. There is nothing for them. Aboriginal Canadians, sorry. Low income families, sorry. Atlantic Canada, sorry.

The budget is a cynical concoction of winners and losers. Guess who the real losers are? The real losers are the people who need help the most.

We have benefited as a nation from governments, mainly Liberal but also PC, that have built the social infrastructure of Canada. We are now witnessing a government that is ignoring the needs of the vulnerable and is spending billions of dollars trying to buy the next election. It is not the way good governance is done. It is not the way to inspire a nation. It is wrong and it needs to be fixed.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's comments. I had the opportunity to serve briefly on the finance committee with the hon. member. We had an opportunity to tour communities across the country. We know that while often we get into regional debates with the budget, we have to look at the effects of the budget on the entire country and the benefits to all Canadians that are provided in the budget.

I want to ask the hon. member about two very specific issues, ones that I know are very important to him: first, the 40% increase in post-secondary education, and we spoke at length about Dalhousie University and some of the challenges it was facing; and second, the additional measure that was taken to vaccinate for the human papillomavirus that will prevent cervical cancer in almost 80% of the cases which is in addition to the $260 million that was invested in the Canadian Cancer Society strategy last year. I would like to hear the member's position on those specific measures.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I did enjoy working with my colleague in the finance committee. He knows of my passion. I argued for the HP virus vaccine to be put in the budget and he supported that. It was in the budget recommendations and I think it is a positive thing for Canada.

On the increase in post-secondary education, the government in effect has said that we are going to go to some kind of a dedicated transfer in post-secondary education. It is nowhere near enough and it is not in any way targeted. We do not know what the criteria is for that.

That does not do anything for Canadians. It does nothing for students and particularly students most in need. That is who we should be targeting: low income families; aboriginal Canadians; persons with disabilities through things like the Millennium Scholarship Foundation, which I hope will be renewed; and Canada access grants. That is the way we need to go.

The member talked about taking a regional approach. We have to take a look at Canada as a whole. When I talk about Atlantic Canada, I am elected by the people of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour to represent them here and not to represent here to them. They sent me here with a message. They do not want me going back home with speaking points. They want me to go back and talk to them and bring their message here.

They were betrayed by this budget. If it is any consolation to the member, the rest of Canada got a bad deal too, but ours was the worse.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's speech, and noted particularly the way in which he defends his home region.

Had the Bloc Québécois voted the same way as the Liberals on the budget, we would be in the midst of an election campaign today and Quebec would not have the additional monies promised in the budget. No one wanted an election.

In my opinion, we have a very different view of the budget. I do not know the statistics for the Maritimes, but I do know that there is significant support for the budget in Quebec because it was felt that, in the circumstances, we had to follow through.

I have a more specific question for my colleague. Does he not believe that the next step for the Conservative government should be to provide a practical framework for the federal spending power?

Under Mr. Trudeau, the Liberals formed a very centralizing government. Mr. Chrétien had the same approach. Is it not possible now for the federal government to put some limits on its spending authority so that it stops interfering in areas that do not fall under its jurisdiction and which, in the past, resulted in significant deficits?

Last of all, if the general rule applied to the fiscal imbalance was that there would be transfers of tax points, the provinces—and Quebec in particular—could use the money transferred to put in place their social policies, which may be different from those found in the rest of Canada. It is not unusual for different societies to make different choices.

We could push not only for additional money, as we did this year, but also for structural changes in order to ensure that the fiscal imbalance is resolved once and for all, including the issue of spending power. Is that not the way to go?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, if any members understand the importance of defending and advocating for their region specifically when we come to the House, it would be our colleagues in the Bloc Québécois. They are very concerned about the fiscal imbalance.

Let me tell the House what the fiscal imbalance is that matters in the province of Nova Scotia. It is the imbalance between the rich province and the poor province. It is the imbalance between the rich Canadian and the poor Canadian.

I believe that the national government actually has a role in evening that out. The budget makes it worse, not only because it rips the Atlantic accord out of the hands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and Nova Scotians but because the way that money is going to go from the federal government to the provinces in the future is going to further penalize the poorer provinces.

We have always believed that a strong national government has a role to play. Constitutionally, there are differences between the federal government, provincial governments and municipal governments. We have always felt that areas like ACOA and investing in those most in need is a strong and reasonable role for the federal government to play. In the budget we see some of that being dismantled and we are concerned about it in Atlantic Canada.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, last summer I had the honour of going to a number of communities in my riding to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Treaty No. 9. After about the third community I must confess that there was not much to celebrate in the fact that we have signed treaties and ripped them up the minute they were signed.

The federal government went into those communities and basically lied to the people and had no intention of living up to signed agreements. Unfortunately, we see that sad history with almost any signed agreement with first nations. So many of them have been ignored and ripped up.

In my community we have a signed agreement between the Government of Canada and the people of Kashechewan to move them off the squalid flood plain they are on and move them onto high ground, yet in the budget there is no money for first nations and nothing for education. We can buy tanks to send anywhere we want in the world, but we are going to leave Canadian citizens on a third world flood plain and there is no money, nothing for them.

I would like to ask the hon. member what he thinks about that, looking at the budget and the amount of money in the federal coffers but nothing being put forward for the most desperate people we have in our country?

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my comments, the biggest gap in the budget is with aboriginal Canadians. We believe that aboriginal Canadians have been the victims of poor development over the years and in many cases the government has not had an inspired look at how aboriginal Canadians can play a role within Confederation.

The Kelowna accord was an agreement that the Government of Canada made. It has been put into the dustbin of history, and that is shameful, in the same way the Atlantic accord for Atlantic Canadians has been shelved.

I agree with the Caledon Institute that the biggest missing piece in this budget is: what are we going to do at a time of great affluence to ensure that aboriginal Canadians take their rightful place in Canada and have the opportunities that the rest of Canadians have? I think it is particularly shameful.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member will know there was a broken promise related to a wait times guarantee and the health minister advised the House that he would not be able to deliver on this until after the next election. Now we find that there are agreements coming out where instead of having funding for all five priority areas, one priority area will do it and the Conservatives are claiming that it is a promise kept. I wonder if the member would care to comment on that.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Mississauga South is entirely correct. This is a perfect example, a further example, of how the government puts politics over public policy and does not try to move the yardsticks on wait times, but tries to move the perception of the yardsticks on wait times. That leaves Canadians with a choice. If they are going to get sick in a region, they had better hope they get sick of the right thing or else they are in an awful lot of trouble and that is not right.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-52 on the budget implementation.From the outset I want to confirm that the Bloc is in favour of it. As I will have the opportunity to point out later, one of the reasons we were in favour of the budget brought down by the government was that it introduces a major step toward correcting the fiscal imbalance. However, I am tempted to say this is an unfinished symphony. I do not remember who wrote the Unfinished Symphony. In any event, it is still unfinished and we therefore we do not know the final result. I will come back to that.

Bill C-52 before us confirms that Quebec will receive, through equalization and various tax transfers, some $3.3 billion more a year, in 2009-10. It also confirms the creation of the ecotrust, which will allow Quebec to implement its plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

By the way, the federal Conservative government would do well to look at what Quebec is doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Quebec's leadership role in this has not gone unnoticed on the international stage. Hon. members will recall that a French political leader recognized Quebec as a true innovator at a conference in Nairobi, Kenya. We also know that at that same conference, while the Conservative government had promised that Quebec would play a more significant role on the world stage, the former environment minister refused to give Quebec's then environment minister, Mr. Béchard, a chance to explain the difference and the avant-garde nature of Quebec. Quebec's environment minister had asked for a mere 45 seconds, but was denied. The federal government said it was speaking with one voice, the voice of Canada. And this government brags about having an open federalism. We saw in Nairobi what this government means by “open federalism”. Quebec's environment minister, Claude Béchard, just waited in the wings.

Bill C-52 also confirms the payment of $110 million for reconstruction in Afghanistan in 2007-08. Last week's sad events prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this mission must be re-evaluated, its objectives made much clearer, and we must focus our efforts more on reconstruction.

Over the weekend, I heard my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Jean, the Bloc's defence critic, speaking to the media. He told Radio-Canada, I believe, that he has visited Afghanistan twice, but that the members of the Standing Committee on National Defence were never able to see for themselves any reconstruction work, any schools back up and running, any hospitals fixed up, or any roads or bridges rebuilt. Instead, they were confined to the air base to receive briefings—and not to say “biased briefings”—given by military personnel. I therefore believe that this $110 million for reconstruction in Afghanistan constitutes a step in the right direction, but the mission in Afghanistan must be seriously reconsidered. In any case, this is what the Bloc Québécois has been calling for from the beginning.

Lastly, Bill C-52 introduces the government's tax fairness plan, which enacts legislation regarding the new tax regime for income trusts, while allowing income splitting between spouses and an increase in the age credit.

In the time I have, I would like to focus on one area in particular, and that is the fiscal imbalance. Naturally, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, and the Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec like to strut through our regions boasting that they have corrected the fiscal imbalance. We believe, however, that the fiscal imbalance has only been partially corrected, as I said at the beginning.

However, they forget to talk about the one party in this House that, for years, even before the election in 2000, has been pointing out the fiscal imbalance and fighting for the correction of the fiscal imbalance. In this House, that party is the Bloc Québécois; in the Quebec National Assembly, it is the Parti Québécois. I would remind the House that it was Premier Landry who established the Séguin commission, who mandated the former Liberal finance minister—himself a federalist—to study the whole fiscal imbalance issue.

I recognize that the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities comes to our regions to announce good news. Last week, I was with him when he announced that the issue of the Les Escoumins and Trois-Pistoles wharves had been settled. But this is another unfinished symphony. As I stated in my press release after the announcement, the minister should set aside money to compensate the regions affected by the closure of the wharves and the cancellation of the ferry service. The regional economy—both Les Escoumins in my riding and Trois-Pistoles in the regional municipality of Les Basques—has suffered as a result. We would have expected the government to set aside some money for compensation of the regional economies.

The Bloc Québécois believes that the government recognized that there was a fiscal imbalance because of all the hard work that we, the sovereignists, did. The Liberals refused to even accept the term. Hon. members will recall that the former Prime Minister and member for LaSalle—Émard, who was elected in 2004—I cannot name him because he is still a member—refused to use the term “fiscal imbalance”. It was as if it gave him hives or he was afraid he would get pimples on his tongue if he said the words. He recognized that the provinces suffered financial pressures.

With regard to financial pressures, the federal government in Ottawa collects too much tax from Quebeckers for the services they get. That is the fiscal imbalance: Ottawa has the surplus, but the provinces have the needs. We, the sovereignists in the Bloc Québécois, succeeded in having the term recognized and put pressure on the government in the hope of eliminating this fiscal imbalance.

Without being overly parochial and partisan, we recognize that Bill C-52 on the budget provides initial financial results for Quebec. But it is not enough.

We believe it needs to go further. The federal transfers included in the budget are not quite enough for eliminating the needs Quebec is currently facing. That is why we feel that the current Conservative Prime Minister did not entirely keep his promise to eliminate the fiscal imbalance.

Upon reading budget 2007-08, we see that the full correction of the fiscal imbalance promised by the Conservative leader has not been achieved. The Prime Minister is completely disregarding the Séguin report, which achieved consensus in Quebec. There was consensus among the National Assembly, the Liberal Party of Quebec, the Parti Québécois and the Action démocratique du Québec. They all agree that to fully correct the fiscal imbalance would require a transfer of tax points or the GST to Quebec and the provinces. That is what prompts us to say that the budget is still unfinished.

The tax fields must be redistributed so that Quebec can increase its independent revenues and thereby have more room in terms of the choices that Quebec and the elected members of the National Assembly could make to protect themselves from unilateral cuts by the federal government.

I will conclude my presentation by speaking about one more point. The Bloc Québécois deplores the fact that the Conservative government has not made any plans to put an end to federal spending power in Quebec's areas of jurisdiction, as recommended by the Séguin report. It is all well and good to say that monies will be transferred. However, if the vicious circle resumes at the first possible opportunity and the federal government interferes in provincial jurisdictions, we are not making progress. According to the Constitution, the federal government has spending power even in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. This interference must stop. In future, when there are pan-Canadian programs in place and Quebec decides to implement its own programs, it must be able to withdraw unconditionally and with full compensation each time it believes it must do so.

I would like to close by saying that the Conservative government, with its budget, now has the obligation to govern. It has a fair bit of work to do to find a definitive solution to the fiscal imbalance and to deal with the other concerns of Quebeckers.

The Bloc Québécois members will continue to fight to bring the decisions of the National Assembly to this House. On March 26, an election was held in Quebec. The minority government will have to continue working with the decisions developed in the past in the National Assembly. The Bloc Québécois will do its duty and bring the decisions of the National Assembly to this House . Defending the interests of Quebeckers is an intrinsic part of the responsibilities of the Bloc Québécois and all those elected under the banner of our party.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy today to have an opportunity to speak briefly on the budget debate. I want to indicate at the outset that I am planning to share my time with the hard-working member and NDP finance critic from Winnipeg North.

Much has been said about what is and is not in the budget. I think there is a pretty broad consensus that it is a budget born out of political cynicism and that it is simply an array of broken promises and spectacular betrayals. One hears many comments about the many aspects of those broken promises and disappointments. I want to run through a couple of them in the time available.

I think every member of the House can appreciate that it takes a pretty major force to bring every member of the Newfoundland and Labrador legislature, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats alike, together with every member of the Nova Scotia legislature, Conservatives, New Democrats and Liberals alike, to stand together in opposition to the broken promise and spectacular betrayal with respect to the government's treatment of the Atlantic accord and offshore revenue resources.

I am not going to go into all the ins and outs, but let me say very clearly that it is no secret to anybody that what inspired this budget in general, the many choices made by the government and the betrayal with respect to the treatment of offshore resource revenues is the crassest of political objectives. It is the idea that the Conservative minority government can throw overboard anybody in any community, any constituency and any province where it does not think it can make gains to elevate itself to a majority government in the election that it wants to call at the earliest possible opportunity when it calculates that is achievable.

I do not think that this is going to stand up in history as one of the most inspirational visions for a nation. It will be up to the people of Canada to decide, but I think it is absolutely transparent that this was the driving force behind the budget.

Let us be clear that for starters, going into the budget, the government was sitting on and dealing with a surplus of $14.1 billion. Yet when we go through the things that are not even touched or addressed in the budget, it is clear that there is a complete disregard and insensitivity. One cannot even give the government members the benefit of the doubt and say that it is just out of total ignorance that they do not know of the depth and breadth of the unmet needs ignored by the budget.

There is no national housing strategy, this after the previous Liberals destroyed the best national housing program in the world over a decade ago. Nothing has been done to replace it.

There is no national transit strategy. Never has it been more important to have a public transit strategy with our Kyoto challenges and the climate change fiasco that is unfolding.

If it were not for Bill C-30 and, frankly, the leadership of my leader, the member for Toronto—Danforth, we would have no strategy, no timetables and targets. It is my leader who provided tremendous leadership in saying that we cannot face the nation or the world without a strategy, without timetables and targets, and without something meaningful to begin address climate change, the devastating impact on our country and our commitment to try to work with the other countries of the world to minimize that impact and start to rebuild alternative energy plans.

There is also nothing to repair what remains with us as outstanding damage to the employment insurance system. Again, those damages were so fantastic in areas of high unemployment that to this day people are still angry at the smashing of that unemployment insurance system by the Liberals in the mid-1990s. We still have not seen it repaired and there is nothing in the budget to address it.

There is nothing to reduce student debt or the continuing crisis of escalating tuitions.

I could go through the many omissions, but I want to dwell on two in particular.

There is absolutely nothing meaningful in the way of a national anti-poverty strategy. That is despite the fact that what we had in this budget was the opportunity to take a significant portion of this $14.1 billion surplus and ensure that we begin to reduce the gap between the haves and the have nots, to reduce that growing prosperity gap, which is growing in part because this government saw fit to continue on through and implement further corporate tax cuts contained in the past budget. It is an absolute tragedy when we look at the impact on the lives of individuals and families and literally whole regions.

Finally, I want to speak briefly about the complete failure to deal with our disgraceful record with respect to meeting our international obligations for official development assistance. I know that Conservative members are fond of jumping up and down and saying that the budget honours the commitment made by the Liberals to increase by 8% our ODA budget. Our level of ODA is such a humiliation and such a disgrace in the world today that anything short of beginning to make a major leap forward to make up for the foot dragging and the lagging by the Liberals over a 10 year period is simply inadequate.

As a matter of fact, with this budget, to the best of anyone's ability to calculate, we will be at the lowest level of international development assistance since the beginning of really tracking the OECD countries' development assistance levels. Just very briefly historically, that of course was actually making some progress under the Mulroney government and had reached 0.52%. A former finance minister's budgets dragged it down to less than half of that.

As a result of this budget kicking in, we are now going to rank 14th of the OECD countries, moving lower to 15th, and falling so short of those obligations that we do not even begin to contribute to meeting the millennium development goals. Today was a day of teachers in this country coming together to plead for the government to deliver on 0.7% or we will not even begin to make progress toward ensuring universal education for the children of the world.

This budget is a spectacular betrayal. It is a humiliation. One hopes that the government understands that the people of Canada are not prepared to reward the Conservatives with votes of applause until they mend their ways and get on a more progressive track.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member with interest. I am surprised by her tone in addressing the budget. I think the budget accomplishes an awful lot of very good things that I believe the NDP actually supports.

I want to speak specifically of education and see if I can get a response on education. The budget delivers $35 million over two years for new graduate scholarships; a $500 million annual investment, beginning in 2008-09, toward labour market training; an $800 million increase, or a 40% increase, for post-secondary education; $50.5 million over two years for the temporary foreign worker program; and $34 million over two years to ensure foreign students and skilled temporary workers already in Canada can meet health and security requirements to stay in the country. What about these specific education measures could the NDP possibly stand against?

That is not to mention the significant improvements in health care, the significant increase in health care funding, and the significant investment in the health care Infoway. I want to hear the member's response on education, but I could go on for quite a while.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, with a surplus of $14.1 billion, the government cannot spend the amount of money it is spending in dribbling a little here and a little there and end up saying that this is huge progress.

One of the problems is that we have never returned to the base funding. Huge cuts were introduced in 1995 and subsequently did enormous damage to our post-secondary education infrastructure. They did enormous damage to our health infrastructure. They did untold damage to the level of commitment to overseas development assistance. The result is that we need nothing less than major infusions into rebuilding the base and ensuring that we are not just introducing a little bit here and a little bit there and a little bit somewhere else, which effectively atomizes our capacity as a nation to really deliver on these national, universal and exceedingly important programs.

Nobody is fooled. The government can go through it and say there is some for this and some for that and some for something else, but one thing is absolutely clear. Until the funding gutted out of these important programs by the previous Liberal government is restored to the base so that year after year it is built in, then we are still going to see the erosion of the quality and the accessibility of our health, education and other social welfare programs.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have a quick question for the member. The one item in the budget for disabled people is a registered savings plan for disabled people. Would the member comment on that?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the hon. member's question on what I think about the registered savings disabled persons plan.

I can only tell him what many disabled persons have told me. They are individuals who are living with disabilities and struggling with inadequate incomes. They cannot even pay adequately for nutritional food, let alone additional costs associated with their disability, whether it is added transportation costs or added costs for technical aids or whatever.

The reaction I have heard overwhelmingly from individuals as well as advocacy groups for the disabled is that a disabled persons savings plan misses the fundamental point, which is that disabled people do not have enough money at the end of the day or the end of the week, let alone at the end of the year, to invest in a savings plan. It misses the point that today 60% of our persons who are living on the streets and homeless are disabled persons and that disabled persons make up 40% of the users of our food banks.

I think such a plan utterly misses the mark. I think it misdiagnoses what it is that persons living with disabilities most need. Like everything else, there is a little of this and a little of that, but it does not add up to anything significant or meaningful that would actually alter the lives of working people or persons who are not able to be in the workforce precisely because the nature of their disabilities and the lack of support services do not enable them to be self-supporting.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Peterborough provokes some discussion in the House around Bill C-52, the budget implementation act. He suggests that this budget is filled with so much goodness and so many progressive ideas that we should be falling all over ourselves to support it.

Tories do that. Conservatives, just like Liberals, have done this for years. They give us a scattergun approach. They do a little here, as my colleague from Halifax just said, and a little there but they do not address the systemic issues facing this country, and then expect all kinds of support to miraculously appear.

The member for Peterborough should know better because he sat through all the committee hearings. The finance committee heard from hundreds of groups from across the country. People recommended a substantive, meaningful approach to education once and for all. They did not recommend another series of band-aids on band-aids. They did not recommend a hodgepodge of little tax cuts here and there.

Every major institution that appeared before the committee, every student organization, every professor organization, every administrative organization pertaining to education, whether it had to do with college or university, recommended that the government, once and for all, increase transfer payments to at least the point they were before the Liberals cut the heck out of education. They wanted to see transfer payments increased and an overhaul of the student aid program which is now a mess because of neglect over the last 13 years. They wanted to see a separate education transfer.

I cannot think of anyone at our hearings who disagreed with that. I do not think anybody said that we should not make education a priority and not have separate transfer funds for education. Everybody, from businesses to labour organizations, to social justice coalitions, to ordinary citizens groups, to individual citizens believe that the future of this nation rests on how we ensure that everyone, regardless of background, has access to quality education.

Members sitting on the Conservative and Liberal benches should remember that we do not have a universal education system today. We have a selective system that allows the well-to-do to access post-secondary education and those who come from families who have been able to invest in things like registered education savings plans, but it does not open doors or provide anything for those who struggle day to day to make ends meet and who have as much right to universal education as their rich next door neighbours.

The system is getting more elitist with every day that passes. If it were not for the efforts of some provincial governments, like the Manitoba NDP government that has frozen tuitions, there would be exclusive education with very few opportunities for ordinary rank and file Canadians to better themselves and look for future opportunities through our post-secondary education system.

On the most important issue facing the future of this country, this budget fails and fails miserably.

Much must be said about this bill but the most fundamental thing that has been mentioned by my colleague from Halifax and others is that it is our job as parliamentarians to ensure that we work to equalize conditions in this country. That is the role of government and of Parliament. Our job is to close the gap between the rich and the poor. Our job is to ensure that so much wealth is not concentrated in so few hands; that we see opportunities and conditions equally available and distributed in this country.

I will go back to education for a moment. Education is one of the last remaining institutions to equalize conditions in this country. Over the years, through consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments, we have seen national programs that help equalize conditions disappear, cut back, torn apart, deregulated, out-sourced, privatized and so on.

Education is one of the things that we hold on to. Health care is in deep trouble as privatization is allowed to take hold. There is no meaningful national family allowance care program because we have never come to grips with what that really means in terms of families. There is no national child care program There is no set of programs across the country that help to equalize conditions.

Although education is vital to our future, the Conservatives missed a golden opportunity in the budget. They blew it. They did not get the point that Canadians raised with us time and time again and that is if we invest at all we must invest in education.

The budget does not close the prosperity gap. It does not ensure that education remains as a national institution to help equalize conditions. It does not help those who are working hard to improve themselves and their families and are looking for some assistance from government so they can help themselves, like literacy.

Today the teacher's federations from across the country are all over this precinct lobbying members of Parliament for a number of very important objectives that we thought had been accomplished long ago but we are starting all over again, one, of course, being the achievement of 0.7% in international aid; the other being the restoration of literacy programs, the court challenges programs and programs that help women and women's equality. Those are the very issues that help people to help themselves but which the Conservatives decided to throw out the window.

After hearing from so many representatives and receiving so much testimony, the finance committee agreed that the government should restore the funds that it cut from literacy, court challenges, women's equality programs, museums, the volunteer initiative, and the list goes on. All of those programs are important for individuals and communities to help themselves through difficult times. This is not a hand out but a hand up. This is not social assistance but the tools by which they can fend for themselves and feed their families. When it comes down to it, that is the one outstanding and fundamental truth when it comes to elected representation in this country and our role as members of Parliament.

The budget has denied Canadians the opportunity to help themselves. Today we stand and implore the Conservative government to not do what we have seen happen over the last 13 years, which is that the very things that create unity in this country, that connect us, the ties that bind, are not destroyed and dismantled in the face of this compelling determination to create the survival of the fittest philosophy, survival of the laws of the jungle and a free for all in our society today.

The government must recognize that the founding principle of this country is to help one another, to cooperate and to build a strong society. That is fundamental to who we are as Canadians and that is being torn apart and being allowed to be destroyed through this kind of a budget. We cannot let that happen. It has been going on for too long.

I could go on at length about the last 13 years but I made a promise to focus on the present, a promise that I intend to keep because Canadians know that the Liberals let them down over the years but now we are on to a new scenario and we must try to do the best we can to convince the government to repair the damage that was done by the Liberals and build for a better day in the future.

I implore members on the Conservative benches who are listening here today and who, I think, are ready to ask questions, to do what they can to put back at least the funds that were chopped out of fundamental issues starting with literacy, child care, equality programs, with basic--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. It is now time for those very questions.

The hon. member for Peterborough.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for the honourable mention at the beginning of her speech. I appreciate it and there is no such thing as bad publicity.

I will begin by acknowledging that it is very important to increase funding for education. The 40% increase for post-secondary education that is in the budget is what we disagree on. I think a 40% increase is substantial but I suppose the member thinks that a greater increase would have been better.

However, I would like to ask a very pointed question with respect to infrastructure. We know that Canada faces productivity concerns and I would like to bring up some specific infrastructure measures in the budget; $17.6 billion in gas tax transfers and base funding for municipalities; $8.8 billion to the building Canada fund to support investments such as core national highway systems; and $2.1 billion for the gateway and border crossings, including funding for the Windsor-Detroit corridor. I know the NDP has members who represent that very area.

There is also a $1 billion increase in funding for the Asia-Pacific Gateway over what had already been pledged. I know there are NDP members from British Columbia. These are very specific infrastructure investments that the Government of Canada has made to help us improve productivity and put Canada on a good footing. I would love to know why the NDP does not support them.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party have not failed in acknowledging where there are significant steps in this budget. We have acknowledged that there is some movement with respect to infrastructure.

We have acknowledged that there is a tax investment savings plan for people with disabilities. We have acknowledged that there is finally, after much pressure from New Democrats and others, money for hazardous training for firefighters in this country. We have acknowledged that the government has agreed to change the transit pass tax credit to ensure that people who buy their transit passes on a weekly basis get the same credit as if they bought them on a monthly basis. There are little things in this budget we agree with.

We appreciate that the government chose to listen to some of our suggestions but we must judge the budget in terms of what money was available and what size the problem was. There is no better example than when it comes to infrastructure where we have a $60 billion deficit that is growing every day that we neglect it. The question then is whether the government has actually put enough into this area on a planned basis so that municipalities can appropriately address this very serious issue. I say no in the context of two budgets that produced a $22 billion--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. There are a lot of other people rising.

The member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. There are a lot of little things in the budget but there is a very substantial thing in the budget and that is under the fairness provisions the imposition of a 31.5% tax on income trusts. This is probably the greatest fraud ever perpetrated in the history of Canadian political life. It is a promise broken. During the last election, the Conservative Party said that it would never tax income trusts and then it turned around and did it.

What is worse is that the NDP, and that member specifically on the finance committee, supported the broken promise.

When we look at what has happened lately, it is very clear that the expert testimony at the finance committee indicated that the so-called tax leakage was a fraud. The witnesses explained that the finance minister had failed to take into account legislative tax changes in calculating the tax leakage and had also failed to account for the revenues associated with taxes paid by RRSPs, as examples.

In summary, the bottom line is that the tax leakage was a fraud but the NDP continued to support it. The member should explain why the NDP is against seniors.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there go the Liberals again on their hobby horses. As my colleague from Timmins just asked, is the ego of the member for Wascana so tattered and embattled that his colleagues must rush to his defence and try to explain a sorry chapter in the history of the Liberal Party?

This is a perfect example. When it comes to Liberals, they would much rather stand up and defend the interests of big business and big banks than ordinary senior citizens who have not fared well by the government under either the income trust program or any others.

In fact, seniors know that if the Liberals had dealt with this issue when they ought to have, we would not be in the mess today and people would have some certainty in the marketplace and also would not have had to face the problem of $500 million or more in lost tax revenue because of the trends we were facing and the inaction of the Liberal government.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the best summary of the budget , and the one we hear most often from people, is how so little could have been done with so much money. The Liberal Party left the government with the best fiscal situation in Canadian history and the Conservativefinance minister has spent the largest amount of money ever, much to the shock of Canadians across the country. The Conservatives cut government programs and expenditures supposedly to be more efficient and now Canadians have learned that the Conservatives have made the greatest expenditures in Canadian history. Many Canadians will not benefit, or will benefit very little, from any of those huge expenditures.

One of the previous speakers today told us about a survey on the finance minister's website asking Canadians if they benefited from the budget. Ninety-three per cent of Canadians apparently said that they had not benefited. Where did all that money go? Why is it not going to those Canadians who really need the help, and who I am sure are part of the 93% who do not feel they have been helped.

It is unprecedented that premiers are screaming that promises have been broken in a budget. When in Canadian history have we ever seen a premier take out a full page ad against a federal finance minister for breaking a promise? Another premier is suggesting he might sue the federal government. The budget is a litany of broken promises. There are a lot of expenditures in it, but not in the way most Canadians think they should be made.

I always try to be balanced in my speeches in the House, so I will try to go over some of the positive things in the budget. I will talk specifically to those things that relate to my area in the north.

We have formula financing in the north. We commissioned a study to look at formula financing and to make recommendations for the future about whether we should go back to a formula or remain on a fixed amount. Fortunately, the government followed the recommendations in the O'Brien report. The result can be found on page 119 of the budget which shows $3 million more this year than the guaranteed minimum allocation that would have been received under the Liberal government. The amount went from $537 million to $540 million. If we compare that $3 million to the $30 million the Liberals put in for economic development, or the $40 million for the northern strategy, it is not a large amount of money, but any increase for the territories is good from my perspective.

In the last election campaign when I was asked what my priorities were, I said that my main priority was to try and keep the status quo. The Liberal government did much for the north. We put in many programs. We provided assistance. As an opposition member, I was hoping to keep as much of that as possible. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they did not applaud those things. I am happy that some of those positive things for the north, and for many parts of Canada for that matter, have been kept in this budget.

Infrastructure is one example. More than $15 million was put into the municipal rural infrastructure fund in my riding and $40 million was provided for the strategic infrastructure fund. For the Canada Games centre $20 million was provided. This was one of the prerequisites for having such a successful Canada Games in the Yukon. The Conservatives have finally agreed that the Liberal infrastructure idea is a good one and have carried on with $25 million in this budget. We are very happy about that.

The Conservatives were skeptical that giving municipalities a gas tax rebate was a good idea. We fought for a long time for the government to keep it as we said we would, and the Conservatives finally agreed in this budget to provide the rebate from 2009 to 2013.

The finance minister did muse that there might be some changes in the conditions. I would like to hear very quickly from the finance minister what those changes are going to be. I am sure municipalities across Canada would like to hear what those changes are going to be. What changes are going to be made to the gas tax? What changes are going to be made to infrastructure funding requirements and conditions?

Those programs were successful and were applauded by municipalities across the country. I certainly hope the money will continue to go to municipalities.

We met with the Nunavut Teachers' Association this morning. There is a big infrastructure need in Nunavut. We hope that recreational facilities will be eligible under the conditions for the continuation of these good programs.

I applaud the setting up of a Canadian mental health commission to produce a mental health strategy. We will be watching very closely to make sure the Conservatives actually do it and that it is not another one of their broken promises.

As was mentioned earlier, there have been a number of broken promises by the government. The one on income trusts is a perfect example. It is inconceivable that the Prime Minister could promise absolutely that the government would never tax income trusts and then totally break that promise. A single mother in my riding told me that based on that promise she transferred her registered education savings into an income trust. Because of that broken promise, she lost a substantial amount of money for her child's education.

I am also supportive of the anti-drug strategy in the budget. We will be watching carefully for the results of that. It is very important for my riding. Sandra Henderson of the Yukon Teachers' Association was here this morning. I was talking to her. She was talking about mothers who use drugs during pregnancy. Doctors are saying it is resulting in children who are angry and who are very disruptive in the classroom. This is obviously unsustainable. We will be watching for a lot of progress on the anti-drug strategy and emphasis on prevention. We want to reduce the number of children with FAS and children who are affected by the use of drugs by the mother during pregnancy and other substance abuse problems.

It is beneficial for my riding that the mineral exploration tax credit of 15% is increased, but only until March 31, 2008. There was a little bit for business. Less paperwork is great. It follows up on the Liberals' initiatives in that area to reduce the paperwork burden for businesses. Although it will not help my riding a lot, the capital cost allowance accelerated write-off for manufacturing is going from seven years down to two. This is positive. A small item for seniors, the RRSP change from 69 to 71 years is good.

The national water strategy in theory is a good idea, but the devil is in the details. What are the details? What will actually help? I will be watching very closely to see if it is treading on the responsibilities of municipalities and provincial governments in dealing with water quality. When the Liberals were in government, we did an audit of all the first nation communities in Canada. We set up a plan for all of them. There are still a number of communities that have serious water problems. The recommendations have not been fully implemented. We will be looking to the government to move as quickly as possible on that, considering that it is now putting an emphasis on a national water strategy.

There are a number of things in the budget of which I am very supportive in the sense that they are there, but how they got there is sad. Previously they were all successful Liberal programs, but the Conservative government cut them or gave no indication the programs would continue. Finally, after lobbying in budget speeches and in committees, we have finally convinced the government, and the people of Canada and the NGOs have finally convinced the government that these are necessary and effective programs that should be carried on. Finally, the programs were reinstated but sadly with a smaller amount of money than they had in the first place and sometimes with a fewer eligible recipients.

A perfect example is the GST rebate. There was an uproar in the tourism industry across Canada. In fact, the cuts affecting the tourism industry have probably hurt my riding more than any other because the Yukon is the one area of Canada with the largest number of employees in tourism in the private sector. It was shocking that the government would take money from the Canadian Tourism Commission which it could have used for marketing and that the government would take away the GST rebate to tourists.

As a result, the tourism industry, as is the case for any group or organization that has limited resources, had to spend this spring fighting along with us to get that reinstated. It is fortunate that at least part of it, but not the full amount, was reinstated in the budget. The part of the program that was being put in place was the ability for conventions and groups coming to Canada to get the GST rebate. There has been some damage done, but hopefully that will be diminished and will not extend into the future. The GST rebate was not restored for individuals travelling to Canada. It is still a burden and a negative mark on our tourism industry.

A whole speech could be given on funding for museums. It is astonishing that such an underfunded part of Canada's heritage, the small museums, went through such tribulations. It is ironic that the money for large museums was increased under the national museums program, but all the small museums, which are so important to tourism across the country, are still underfunded.

There was the horrendous situation a few weeks ago of the attendance of the heritage minister at the museums conference. The conference showed the lack of faith there was in that particular funding area.

Another area I am delighted to see in the budget, but it is sad how it came about, is the aboriginal justice strategy. They are workers in the justice system. The strategy is very important and is one of the few components that is actually working. It is reducing crime. It should be a part of the justice system. That strategy was about to expire. There was no information being given. People were being laid off and projects were closing. In just a few weeks before the strategy was to expire, the government wisely decided to keep the program.

I did not hear the government telling all the police officers in Canada that their funding was expiring and they would have to look for other jobs and start closing up shop, and two or three weeks before the funding expired it was put back. The aboriginal justice strategy is a fundamental part of the justice system. It is very important. It is a tragedy that those people had to go through all that turmoil, and still only receive funding for another two years, I think it is.

The aboriginal justice strategy should be considered in the same light as police officers, prosecutors, defence lawyers, judges and probation officers. It should be a permanent part of the justice system. Canadians are looking to the government to continue the goodwill of extending it by two years by making it permanent funding so that this trauma to our justice system does not happen again. The Conservative Party talks so much about justice. Canadians expect that the Conservative Party would at least be very positive and productive in an area that has been so effective in the justice system.

I am pleased that the meal allowance for truckers was increased to 80% from 50%. This is something for which I had lobbied.

We are also pleased that the ecotrust program was put in place. Once again, this is a perfect example of something the Liberals had put in place, the partnership of the federal government with the provinces and territories to reduce greenhouse gases and emissions. The Liberal government had a $3 billion program. I compliment the Conservative government for restoring the program. However, it was only restored at $1.5 billion which is half the previous amount.

Someone in the Prime Minister's Office suggested when the program was announced that it would be done on a per capita basis. I wrote to the minister of the environment at the time and said that per capita is not sufficient in the north and that we need more than that. The northern premiers made the same case. Fortunately we did get an increase. We are now getting more per capita and we are using that to increase the electrical generation.

The Conservative cuts to literacy programs caused a big outrage across the country. I do not think the Conservatives expected the uproar from all the opposition parties and from the people that work in the literacy field. How could any responsible modern day government in the world cut literacy programs.

Fortunately, some of that money has been reinstated. Some good literacy projects have been approved in my riding and in other areas. Unfortunately, some of those projects have a time limit of one or two years. We will be looking for permanent funding for literacy. Literacy is a basic foundation for a modern society and those programs are necessary for the most vulnerable people in a modern society. Literacy is far more important now than it ever has been. As society becomes more technical, how can the poorest of the poor ever survive without a good grasp of literacy and numeracy.

The homelessness program is another on the huge list of programs that the Liberal government put in place that was very effective and helped out. These programs were cut or cancelled or the suggestion was made they would not be re-funded and, fortunately, with a lot of pressure were put back in place. Thank goodness the homelessness program that was referred to as SCPI under the Liberal government was reinstated and re-funded. I am not sure about the rest of the country, but in my particular area that is one of the most successful programs the government has ever put in place. It is very important.

Another area that I guess one could give a very small compliment for is child care. As we know, the Liberal government negotiated a $5 billion agreement with the provinces across the country. It was unprecedented that this kind of agreement could be reached for something that is very important, especially for single mothers and people who really need support in child care.

The Conservative government, as we know, promised $250 million, which is a lot less than $5 billion, to industry to create day care spaces. It found over the last year that it could not create one single space and it did not work, so it has transferred that to the provinces and territories, thank goodness. Any citizen watching can see that $250 million compared to $5 billion is a small amount. Yukon will certainly be looking forward to getting its portion, but it had already received $1.3 billion from the Liberal government. This is a small amount and Yukon certainly will not reject it, but it should certainly be a lot more.

Another area is education. It has been talked about a lot in the debate so far. I want to talk about one aspect of education and that is undergraduate students. I congratulate the government for providing scholarships for graduate students, but all the undergraduate students listening should remember that had the Liberals been elected, they would have been receiving $3,000, up to a half year's tuition for their first year of education, and in their last year of education, up to $3,000. That is $6,000.

What did they get under the Conservative government in last year's budget: a textbook. I checked with a bookstore and the amount the government gave on the textbook rebate would not even buy some of the textbooks in the store. That is a good indication of the scope of things in this budget and what is there for people.

Another good thing that the Conservatives finally put back was the Liberal program to take the working poor off social assistance. I commend them for that, but it is a far less amount of money than the amount the Liberals put in.

Finally, I want to talk about the north. The last government put tremendous emphasis on the north and I have to commend it for that, specifically the $40 million for the northern strategy and the direction that all departments in the north have a special place in Confederation. They are very important to Confederation and were given that emphasis. The only promises the Conservative government made to the north were for icebreakers and a northern port. What happened to those two promises? They vanished. They are not in the budget anywhere.

Probably the biggest disappointment that has been mentioned by many people is the lack of funding for aboriginal people. I do not think I have enough time left to go through the whole list but there was roughly $440 million. That is a tiny amount compared to the $9 billion or $10 billion which was the normal budget for Indian Affairs. The Liberals were not going to add $440 million but $5 billion in Kelowna, plus $2 billion for residential schools.

Where is the money for the increase in inflation and for the increase in the population of aboriginal people? The Conservatives cancelled the aboriginal procurement program and aboriginal languages program. Those programs lost all sorts of money. Other programs that aboriginal people used, like the non-smoking strategy, were all cancelled. I do not have to add what everyone else has said about it being such a disgrace.

There was the ANCAP program for aboriginal people to reduce emissions. There is a community in Kluane that wanted to use that program. It is gone.

In summary, there are a few good things in the budget, but as I said at the beginning, most people are asking how could spending so much money get so little results for the people of Canada?

When Canadians are filling out their income tax returns right now at home, they are looking at last year's schedule 1 where it shows they were getting charged 15% income tax on the first amount of money and this year's schedule 1 it shows 15.25%. They are wondering how could all this money be spent, the largest expenditure in history, and they get an increase in income tax, especially the most vulnerable people in society. Why should they have that increase in their income tax rate?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague across on his speech and his focus on the north.

In the budget, fairness was addressed in a number of ways, but I do not think fairness was addressed in terms of the northern residents tax deduction. It was mentioned in this budget but for 18 years, under the Liberals, there were no cost of living increases to the northern residents tax deduction and that has left it in a position where the benefit is not worth nearly what it was in the beginning.

The Conservatives recognized that they needed to raise the lifetime capital gains exemption from $500,000 to $750,000 because it had not been done for 20 years. The same thing applies to the tax benefits that should be there for northerners. They did not do anything about it and the Liberals did not do anything about it for 18 years.

I have a question for my hon. colleague. How does he feel about being in a government that ignored this very important part of the northern benefits structure for so many years and how can he ensure that we get this back on the agenda to make sure that northerners are treated fairly in the tax system for a change?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would just reiterate what I said in regard to the budget, that the previous government put unprecedented emphasis on the north, with the northern strategy and with having every department look at the north. There was $40 billion for that. There was $30 billion for northern economic development.

The fact is that the Conservatives decreased income taxes not just on the northern living allowance, which fortunately is still in place, but they decreased income taxes for all Canadians, and it has much more of an effect than what the member is talking about.

However, I am glad he raised the point about the added costs in the north, the cost of doing business, the cost of living, and especially the cost for the most vulnerable people in small, isolated communities with small tax bases. They live so far apart they need that assistance. That is why we had to argue in a number of cases, and I am glad the government agreed, that we need more than just per capita funding in a number of these programs. We need base funding to cover the remote harsh climate and then per capita funding on top of that.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

When the matter was last before the House the hon. member for Yukon had the floor for questions and comments arising out of his remarks. I therefore call for questions or comments. The hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his intervention in the debate on the budget implementation bill, Bill C-52. He is a member from the Yukon and travels a great deal to participate in this place. In fact, he is here as often as anyone doing his job. His constituents should be very pleased with that.

He spoke very eloquently about the impact of the budget on his constituency, about the impact on the needs for aboriginals and maybe the lack of support for the needs of the aboriginal community. His speech was so full of insight that I want the member to elaborate on the consequences of not having the kind of funding that would have been prescribed under the Kelowna accord but which the Conservative government has totally rejected and voted against. What would it mean to our first nations, Inuit and Métis to have the kind of supports that were proposed in the Kelowna accord represented in the budget?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, before I answer the question, I want to mention two things I am in support of, but which I forgot to mention. One is the $300 million for cervical cancer immunization. That is excellent. The other is the registered disability savings plan. At least it gets disabled people on the agenda again.

With regard to the member's question, as I said in my speech, just over $400 million was added to the regular budget of $9 billion or $10 billion a year for aboriginal people, which is a totally insignificant amount in a very few areas and would not address the major issues. Fortunately we had the recent experience that the major issues were identified by the aboriginal people themselves in the historic Kelowna agreement. All the premiers, aboriginal leaders from across the country and the federal government got together to make this historic accord with the bottom up itemization of those issues. Instead of $400 million there was $5 billion that would have dealt with those issues, such as housing, economic opportunities, education and health care.

This morning the teachers' association visited me and talked about how aboriginal people in Nunavut actually sleep in shifts because there are so many people living in a house. How can people survive in school when they have to sleep in shifts in the bedroom because there are so many people living in a house?

There is an obvious need for economic opportunities in rural areas where aboriginal people are found. Compared with the rest of Canadians, the statistics in all these areas for aboriginal people are much lower. Canadians are generous people. They want to narrow the gap in educational achievements so aboriginal people can achieve more. In certain cases, special assistance is needed in the classroom and in health care. Why do more aboriginal mothers and babies die in childbirth than the average Canadian? These are critical issues. I imagine there are very few Canadians who would not want to reduce that disparity. The $5 billion in the Kelowna accord would have done that. Instead, we did not even get enough money in this budget to deal with inflation and the large increases in aboriginal people and other types of problems.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the broken promises of the government is that it has failed to deliver on the health care wait times guarantee. There were five priority areas. As we know now, the government is working out deals with each province individually saying that if a province satisfies the wait times criteria in any one of the five areas, it will get the money. That makes it interesting considering the health difficulties and the challenges faced by aboriginal people in Canada.

What exactly does that mean in terms of providing the same kind of benefit to the Canadians in Yukon and the other territories? What negotiations are taking place? Where is the money going to go? Is Yukon going to get any money under the so-called broken promise of wait times guarantees?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question because the government has, to its credit, seen that the issue is different in the north. The fact is that a lot of those surgeries do not occur in the north. In a lot of cases, people have to go south for them. The access is to primary health care, actually getting in at the primary stage, because of the long distances people have to travel. We have half of the area of Canada and only three full scale hospitals. People sometimes have to travel hundreds of miles. Primary health care access is a huge issue.

The government's energies in this area are going to be concentrated on reducing the wait times for that primary access and making sure that primary access occurs for all people in the north. That is good and I will certainly be watching to make sure that is implemented.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in debate on the budget implementation bill, Bill C-52. As you know, from the moment the Minister of Finance delivered his budget speech, the Bloc Québécois has supported this budget, even though it is not perfect. This has to be made very clear. It does, however, have enough good stuff in it for us to be comfortable voting for it and, consequently, voting for Bill C-52.

Obviously, in the budget implementation bill, not all budget items are implemented. But the bill does contain items such as measures concerning corporate and personal income tax, fiscal arrangements with the provinces, particularly with respect to equalization, the Canada social transfer, and the Canada health transfer. This budget implementation bill also deals with trusts and new funds, the amount of such trusts, and direct payments to the provinces, territories and other entities. It also provides the legislative framework for using money saved in debt service from paying down the debt to lower taxes, and it contains a number of other measures I do not intend to get into in any great detail, except perhaps for one, and I will start with that one.

As I was saying, this bill has many items, some more interesting than others. I will primarily focus on the measures affecting fiscal arrangements with provinces and environmental issues.

Moreover, I want to start by bringing up an extremely sensitive point concerning income trusts. Obviously, the Bloc Québécois has supported the principle of preventing corporations from converting into income trusts as of the Minister of Finance's announcement on October 31, for a number of reasons based on various factors. Tax leakage was obviously brought up. While the committee was working on this issue, I realized that there were some revenue losses because of income trusts, but the department was unable to pinpoint to what extent. We were given an absolutely unbelievable figure, which included tax deferrals, since some shares in trusts are in registered retirement savings plans. This represented at least half of the figure presented, and, though I will not go as far as to call it dishonest, I think this method was completely biased.

There was tax leakage for the federal government and the Government of Quebec, but certainly not to the extent that the minister was talking about. Moreover, Minister Audet, who, up until the last election, was the Quebec finance minister—we will soon know who will replace him since, as you probably know, he decided not to run again—told me that the Government of Quebec was currently losing approximately $40 million a year because of income trusts. This is rather far from the figure provided by the Minister of Finance, which was in the billions of dollars over the next few years.

I believe that the government decided to put the brakes on income trust conversions primarily because they would have put pressure on a number of businesses. Take BCE, which did not necessarily want to convert to an income trust but was under pressure because a competitor, Telus, had announced that it intended to do so. It was therefore conceivable that in the future, some immature sectors needing investment would convert to income trusts, thereby causing problems for all of Canada and Quebec. I find this argument more convincing than the tax evasion argument.

Moreover, as I said, on October 31 we were in favour of no longer allowing corporations to convert to income trusts. However, that did not address the problem of existing income trusts. We would have been comfortable with changes to existing trusts that had taken advantage of the established rules for years. The Prime Minister's announcement during the election campaign that the rules were set in stone was irresponsible. It is clear that he promised not to change the rules for income trusts. He broke his promise, but as I said, it was an irresponsible promise anyway. I explained why a few minutes ago.

Nonetheless, the people who invested in existing income trusts did so in good faith, thinking they could trust the Prime Minister, who, as I said, promised not to touch income trusts.

We studied ways to minimize the impact on existing trusts. We would have been comfortable with keeping the 250 or so existing trusts and preventing more from being created. We could have agreed to that.

The government, however, decided to force them to convert back to corporations within four years or to pay the equivalent of the taxes paid by people who invest in regular stocks—which is not entirely true, as the committee found during its work.

As I said, the government decided to allow just four years for the transition. We think the government could easily have extended that period to eight or ten years to mitigate the impact of the October 31 announcement.

As I mentioned earlier, we are going to support the budget. However, when election time comes, the government, that is the Conservative Party, will have to explain to us why it did not heed the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance. The Liberals, like the Bloc Québécois, gave suggestions for minimizing the negative impact on the 2.5 million Canadians, including Quebeckers, who invested in good faith in these income trusts and who have since been swindled, despite the Prime Minister's promise during the election campaign.

These 2.5 million Canadians, including many Quebeckers, are not all millionaires or wealthy people. Many of them are even retired individuals who are now having a hard time making ends meet, because they have had a good portion of their income cut off. I understand why they are angry. The Standing Committee on Finance, the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party have made suggestions to the Minister of Finance. He did not consider those suggestions. Thus, it is up to the Conservatives, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to explain, in an election campaign, why they did not consider the suggestions made to them, for example, by the Bloc Québécois.

That said, as I mentioned, we agreed with the approach in principle. We believe that the Conservative government, the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister failed to show compassion for hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands of people who invested in good faith in income trusts.

I therefore wanted to send out this caveat—or update—because, clearly, many people who followed the work of the Standing Committee on Finance concerning income trusts are having a hard time understanding that, even though we disagree with how this measure is being implemented, we are nevertheless going to vote in favour of the budget.

We are going to support the budget because—as I have said many times—it represents a significant, yet largely insufficient, step towards correcting the fiscal imbalance. We are talking about money that Quebec desperately needs.

As we all know, the Prime Minister promised on December 19, 2005, to correct the fiscal imbalance. Thus, the Bloc Québécois supported the previous budget primarily, although not exclusively, because it promised to correct the fiscal imbalance in this budget.

The Bloc Québécois looked at what an appropriate solution would mean for Quebec and made a certain number of conditions. They may not have been met in their entirety but some have been partly met by this budget. In any event, the conditions have been met to the extent that the Bloc Québécois feels it can support Bill C-52 at this stage. However, this is not an indication of what will happen in future, especially when the next budget is tabled. If no other significant steps are taken towards the definitive resolution of the fiscal imbalance, we reserve judgment on future budgets.

I would like to say one thing. What was extremely important to the Bloc Québécois was that there first be an increase in transfers to Quebec and a change in the equalization formula to take some of Quebec's claims into account. When the amounts were announced, the financial imbalance caused by the Liberal government, the former Prime Minister and the former Minister of Finance in 1994-95 and 1995-96—when draconian cuts were made to provincial transfers to deal with the deficit—had to be corrected. At that time, the problem was simply dumped on the provinces.

What is very serious is that, beginning in 1997-98, large surpluses were routinely recorded and the situation was not resolved. The imbalance has yet to be corrected.

We calculated that $3.9 billion was needed to correct the fiscal imbalance. Because we are realistic, understanding and moderate in our approach, we proposed that this amount be disbursed over three years. Therefore, in this year's budget, there is the equivalent of an additional $1.7 million in equalization payments, the Canada social transfer and the Canada health transfer.

Unfortunately, I must subtract $270 million from this amount because the Conservative government unilaterally tore up the child care agreements it had with the provinces. Therefore, this year there is an additional $1.723 billion for Quebec, which is not bad in view of the fact that two years ago the Government of Quebec had to sell $800 million of its own assets in order to balance its budget. This money was needed.

For the next year, according to the 2007-08 budget, the government is already announcing an additional increase of $888 million and of $330 million for 2008-09. I know that this is very far from now, but this wish has been expressed and put down on paper. This comes to a total of $2.9 billion, or almost $3 billion. Adding a number of other things, we reach $3.3 billion, which is not far from the financial target of $3.9 billion that we had established.

This is a financial adjustment. The former Liberal prime minister said that the provinces were under financial pressure and this would have to be corrected at some point. That had never been done systematically. Some money was put into health and some into infrastructure programs, but, as a whole, the government had no approach and was unable to put a figure on the adjustment that had to be made to reach a fiscal balance.

However, the current Prime Minister promised us to redress the fiscal imbalance, not the financial imbalance. Now, all he has done is partially redressing the financial imbalance. As I was mentioning, the increases that would be necessary to correct the situation that was created in the middle of the 1990s were estimated at $3.9 billion in the third year, and he is at $3.3 billion. Let us say that, in the next few years, we force him to put in a little more, if we are all still here, of course. As we know, this Conservative government is in a minority position, and I hope it will keep that in mind.

So, we are currently at $3.3 billion. A little extra effort will be necessary to get closer to $4 billion. Still, that does not correct the fiscal imbalance because, as indicated by the word fiscal, this is a fiscal matter, something having to do with the level of fiscal autonomy that can be achieved by the provinces and Quebec. This means that the tax base will have to be renegotiated. But there is no indication in Bill C-52, or in the budget for that matter, that the federal government is prepared to open negotiations with the provinces to transfer the part of the tax base corresponding to the transfers for health, education and social programs. It makes absolutely no sense for Quebeckers to send money to Ottawa and then be forced to grovel on their knees to try and get their tax money back for programs that fall under the jurisdiction of the provinces, Quebec in this instance. We are talking about health, post-secondary education and social solidarity.

It is another ball game where equalization is concerned, because equalization is entrenched in the Canadian Constitution. As long as we are a part of Canada, the Constitution should continue to apply to us. Incidentally, I often like to joke about the Bloc Québécois being the only party in this House that really cares about enforcing the Constitution of 1867 and respecting the areas of responsibility of the provinces and the central government, which is much more than a federal government. That is what we will be working on in the coming months. My colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, who will be taking over as our finance critic, will therefore bring pressure to bear so that negotiations are opened with respect to transferring to those provinces that so desire the part of the tax base corresponding to the transfers for health, post-secondary education and social programs. Quebec so desires, and the Séguin commission was very clear in that regard.

As I have already mentioned, equalization will continue to be implemented. This program is not only enshrined in the Constitution, but it is a program that transfers revenues with no strings attached for the Government of Quebec to use as it sees fit, which is not the case with dedicated transfers. This is the first thing that is missing from Bill C-52 that we are working on.

The second thing is federal spending power. The government has not been silent about this, but it talks about it in a roundabout way and it simply pays lip service. The federal government and the Conservative Party are committed to limiting spending power. We do not want to limit it; we want it to be controlled. We are waiting for a very clear bill from the Minister of Finance to explain how he intends to control the federal government's power to spend in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. How can federal spending power be controlled in Quebec's jurisdictions? There is just one way: by giving the provinces who so desire the unconditional right to opt out with full financial compensation of a program implemented by the federal government in a shared jurisdiction or an exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces; and the province should be compensated.

Unfortunately, that is not exactly where things are headed. I will read a number of paragraphs from the 2007 Budget Plan for budget 2007-08. For example, I will read from page 120. In the objectives stated by the government, by the Minister of Finance, for renewing and strengthening the Canada Social Transfer, they talk about jurisdictions belonging to Quebec and the provinces. Among the concerns are: “The accountability and transparency of the CST—”.

As far as the accountability of the Canada Social Transfer is concerned, what are the Conservatives talking about? The provinces and Quebec are accountable to the federal government when it transfers their money to them.

We are far from the true approach to controlling or even limiting the federal government's spending power. The following sentence is smooth, “—Canadians are not informed of how much federal support is being provided to each of the three priority areas that the CST supports (post-secondary education, social assistance and social services, and support for children)”.

Not only does the Conservative government not have any intention of limiting or controlling the spending power, but it also wants to ensure that federal support—which is essentially the taxes of all Canadians and Quebeckers—will be more visible in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. It has absolutely no responsibility in this jurisdiction.

However, because of the fiscal imbalance, the federal government has more money than responsibilities. It is looking for responsibilities and is finding them in provincial areas of jurisdiction. So it adds money. Otherwise, what would it do with that money? It could lower taxes and transfer that money in the form of a tax base to the provinces that want it, as I already mentioned. It could also do useful things in its own jurisdiction. For example, what about the RCMP detachments that were closed? The Conservative Party promised to reopen RCMP detachments that had been closed, as was done in the Lanaudière region, where the Saint-Charles-Borromée detachment was closed. What about employment insurance, which falls under federal jurisdiction? It could at least ensure that the program meets the objectives for which it was created.

As we can see, it is a small step that is significant enough for us to be comfortable supporting Bill C-52, but not enough to talk about correcting the fiscal imbalance. I am sure that Quebeckers understand this very well. I am also sure that they will send back a majority of Bloc members to the House after the next election, to truly defend them. They will force the government—Liberal or Conservative—to genuinely correct the fiscal imbalance. The government cannot just go part way, as it is doing now, when it comes to restoring federal government transfers in areas of provincial jurisdiction.

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

Mr. Speaker, how important does the member think it is to pay down the national debt and does he agree with the tax back guarantee that the minister has decided to legislate?

Does he agree that the national debt should be paid down? Does he agree that Quebeckers would be quite happy to be a part of the benefits of the tax back legislation and guarantee?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as far as we are concerned, paying down the federal debt is clearly not a priority. I am not saying it is not a good thing, but until we deal with the fiscal imbalance, the priority should be to transfer the tax base, the federal government's surpluses to the provinces, to help them assume their responsibilities in their jurisdictions.

Let us not forget that paying down the debt is not as effective as promoting economic growth. What will happen if we do not help the provinces assume their responsibilities in post-secondary education? Neither Quebec nor Canada will prosper.

Recently, there was an article in the Hill Times, if I am not mistaken, in which it was said that Canadian universities do twice as much research as universities in the other G-7 countries. Therefore, if we do not restore funding for post-secondary education, universities will no longer be able to do research. This is true for Quebec, but it is also true for the rest of Canada and we will shoot ourselves in the foot, because we will jeopardize the conditions that must prevail to ensure economic growth.

This is why I have nothing against paying down the debt when the issue comes up. Over the past eight or nine years, the Liberals have paid down the debt at the expense of conditions that promote economic growth. We are beginning to feel it very clearly considering that, for the month of February alone, 33,000 jobs were lost in Quebec's manufacturing sector. Why? Because research and development are insufficient. This is true in Quebec, but it is also true in the rest of Canada. There is not enough occupational training, because of a lack of funding.

There is nothing in the Budget Plan 2007 for post-secondary education. The document refers to an amount of $800 million, but it is for next year. We need the money now.

If we really want to reduce the debt, we must do so based on our collective wealth, which is measured by using the gross domestic product. The GDP increases with economic growth which, in turn, depends on our ability to innovate, be competitive and have adequate infrastructures. Unfortunately, our infrastructures are not only increasingly obsolete, but they also jeopardize our economic prosperity and even people's lives, as we saw with the overpass on Laval's Concorde boulevard, in Quebec.

In this sense, it would be better to correct the fiscal imbalance, to allow Quebec and the other provinces to assume their responsibilities in priority areas that are essential to economic growth.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from the Bloc has been resonating the myth of the fiscal imbalance. It was ironic that Quebec received a tremendous amount of cash in the last budget and the Premier of Quebec right away offered tax cuts for people, not a program for investments in social, education, health, infrastructure or to help anybody. It was strictly to give tax cuts in order to buy votes.

What we have in Canada is a social and development imbalance, not a fiscal imbalance. Some of the things the hon. member talked about such as the reinstatement of the RCMP stations and a shipbuilding policy to help out the people of Levy, Quebec would be very important. However, those things are not done on tax cuts. Those things are done on investments.

Would he comment as to why his premier received this tremendous amount of cash and offered tax cuts during a provincial election?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question and I thank my colleague for it.

First, I can assure you that I did not vote for the Liberals in the last Quebec election. Quebeckers democratically chose to elect a minority Liberal government headed by Jean Charest and an official opposition formed by the Action démocratique headed by Mario Dumont. The Parti Québécois ended up with less members even though its percentage of the votes was practically the same.

There will be a debate. To please voters, Jean Charest wants to use the transfers that were announced by the federal government to cut taxes, which he has a right to do. Once the money is transferred, discussions must take place. The fiscal imbalance is evident in various ways: not only is it difficult to invest in services and infrastructures, but taxes are being raised because the government must assume its responsibilities. As you know, Quebeckers are among those who pay the most taxes. In this sense, there is some legitimacy in wanting to cut taxes, but that is not my priority.

With regard to the debate that will take place in Quebec, I am convinced that the Parti Québécois will defend its position, which will be different from that announced by Mr. Charest. Even though Mr. Charest made that announcement, it will result in a good debate in the National Assembly and we shall see what comes of it. However, it is up to Quebeckers to debate this matter. It is not up to the federal government or the rest of Canada to tell us what to do with this money.

Having said that, if they are not satisfied with Jean Charest and his decisions, Quebeckers will vote for the Parti Québécois the next time and there will be a social democratic government in Quebec.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was a little taken aback by the member's suggestion that paying down debt was not a priority. Even the member would understand that not paying down debt and transferring $3 billion to the provinces would represent an amount of money for which there would be no strings, no accountability and would in fact be a one time distribution because it is an absolute amount of money.

In the alternative, paying down the national debt in an orderly fashion saves interest. That interest is the real fiscal dividend to Canadians. It is ongoing savings year after year. It is there to support, for instance, the Canada health and social transfer, which goes for the benefit of all Canadians through the provincial transfers and has accountability provisions built into it.

Would the member like to reconsider his view of paying down debt as opposed to not paying down debt and simply transferring amounts for which there would be no accountability possibilities for the Government of Canada?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what matters when we take on a debt is its amount in relation to our wealth. For example, if I have a $100,000 mortgage on a home worth $300,000, it is not the same as having a $100,000 mortgage on a $100,000 home. Everyone should understand that.

Since the Liberals began paying down the debt, it has decreased by 48% or perhaps 35% of GDP. I do not have the figures on hand, but the debt has been reduced significantly. 80% of this is due to economic growth and only 20% to debt repayment. If you use money to pay down the debt rather than investing in factors that contribute to growth, you shoot yourself in the foot, as I stated earlier. What is even worse is that the provinces are forced to go into debt. At present—with the exception of Alberta—all provinces are on roughly the same footing, with balanced budgets, or slight deficits, or very large deficits in some cases. Provincial debt is more costly for taxpayers. Does it make sense to pay down debt which costs less in terms of interest paid and to make provinces go into debt and then force them to borrow on the markets?

The Quebec debt increased by $11 billion when the Liberals were in power. I guess that they did try to prevent things from getting worse but they did not succeed, in part because of fiscal imbalance. The interest rate on that $11 billion is higher than that on the federal debt. As a taxpayer, I would prefer to see the federal debt increased by $11 billion because the interest rate on it is lower, than in the provinces that have to pay higher taxes. I think that that would be totally logical from an accounting and a financial point of view.

I am not against paying down the debt but I think it is not a priority for the present situation. Our priority should be allowing the provinces to ensure sufficient financing for their public services and their social programs. If there is money remaining after that, we could then lower taxes or make payments on the debt or a combination of both.

Right now, the fiscal imbalance has not been corrected and the dire financial situation of provincial governments is proof of that. I always find it funny to see in the documents on the financial situation of the provinces that there is a surplus of $X billion. Almost 90% of that surplus comes from Alberta. As for the others, one year things go well, the next they do not go as well. It is not helping the taxpayers to burden them with the debt that is the most expensive for them, when the federal government made a huge surplus of $13 billion last year. I think that this is simply a question of financial logic. It is not an ideological issue at all.

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the federal budget and the impact of this budget not just on Atlantic Canada but on New Brunswick.

This federal budget, as many colleagues in the House know, is a major disappointment. Over and over again, the Prime Minister spoke about this budget representing his Canada. As a member of Parliament from New Brunswick, I can tell members that this budget does not look anything like the Canada I know and love.

The Prime Minister promised New Brunswickers and Canadians that he would fix the equalization program and respect the Atlantic accords. He has done just the opposite.

While Quebec received an increase of 29%, or $698 million in the next fiscal year, New Brunswick's share grew by a meanspirited 1.8%, and Atlantic Canada receives little more than 4% of this new money. New Brunswick's finance minister, Victor Boudreau, has stated this about the Conservative budget:

If [this budget] was to fix the fiscal imbalance, as far as New Brunswick is concerned, I wouldn't give it a passing mark.

Glaringly, this demonstrates that the Prime Minister does not care about Atlantic Canada and builds on his reputation as a divider pitting one region of the country against another. The Conservative government has squandered a golden opportunity to show Canadians that leadership is representing the rich and the poor, the east and the west, big cities and small towns. It has failed miserably.

Let us ask Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador. What did he have to say about this budget? He said:

Fairness...is about keeping your word. Fairness is about making a commitment and making a promise to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan and living up to that promise. If your government doesn't keep this promise to us, then how can the people of Canada in any province rely on any promises or commitments that you make to them in the future? And I would caution the people of Canada on a go-forward basis.

Let us ask Premier Rodney MacDonald of Nova Scotia or perhaps Premier Lorne Calvert of Saskatchewan why they are so outraged that this budget has divided Canadians.

One of the first things the Prime Minister did upon taking office was to increase income taxes for those in the lowest income tax brackets, hurting working New Brunswick families. The lowest income tax rate was raised from 15% in 2005 to 15.5% in 2007, hurting those who need it most.

Despite the spin of the Conservative government, this budget does nothing to fix this situation. The fact remains that tax relief for hard-working New Brunswickers averages a mere $80 per taxpayer and the tax hikes imposed by the Prime Minister cancel out the benefit of the new child tax credit, which does little for poor parents who pay little or no income tax.

John Williamson is someone whose name should be very familiar to some of the members opposite. He is president of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and has said this about this Conservative budget:

The fellow working the line or anyone or anyone with a salary income and no children will receive no tax relief. That's disappointing. Ottawa is running huge surpluses. This is a good time to cut the rates for all taxpayers up and down the economic ladder. Government decided to broadly target, for example, seniors, not tax relief, in this document for all taxpayers.

When it comes to child care, the Conservative government has not created one single child care space despite promising to create 125,000 new spaces over the next five years. This promise was not worth the paper it was written on.

What is worse is that the so-called universal child care benefit is fully taxable. This is the Prime Minister's sleight of hand: giving parents $100 and taking back $99.

The Liberal government signed an early learning and child care agreement with the previous Liberal social development minister, the member for York Centre, and then premier Bernard Lord. That would have invested $146 million in our province of New Brunswick for New Brunswick kids. This would have created real and lasting child care spaces.

However, we do not have to ask the politicians about it. We can ask front line workers like the YM-YWCA's child advocate Janet Towers, who promotes child care and early learning to keep our New Brunswick children globally competitive. The Prime Minister killed this deal and took this money away from the province.

Budget 2007 allocates $6 million in child care funding for New Brunswick, with no money trickling to Saint John, New Brunswick. This will do nothing to create child care spaces.

The Prime Minister's approach to child care is to offer tax credits, not child care, and that is not our Canada. Never has a government done so little, with so much, for average working Canadians.

Just last year the previous Liberal government left a $13 billion surplus. Yet rather than investing in affordable housing, which was not in this budget, rather than investing in tax breaks for seniors, which was not in this budget, and rather than investing in literacy, which was not in this budget, the Prime Minister chose to make drastic ideological program cuts.

The Conservative government has not allocated any new money for affordable housing. This has huge implications for Saint John, New Brunswick, which has some of the oldest housing stock in Canada.

There is also nothing in the budget that corrects the inequities in the employment insurance program.

This budget does little or nothing to address poverty or child poverty, which is a national disgrace, and it does not stand up for working class families. This budget does nothing for them.

This budget fails to offer new support for students. It does not put a penny in the pockets of Canada's undergraduate students. It gives graduate students a little money while the vast majority get nothing at all. That is the kind of Canada the Prime Minister wants to create with this budget.

The Conservative government's budget fails to help Canadians safeguard their environment or fight climate change. It cuts back on our commitment to renewable energy. It reduces funding to New Brunswick by one-half. Without an overall plan for the environment, we cannot meet our Kyoto commitments. That is not our Canada.

The Prime Minister's budget does not provide the long term, predictable, stable funding for cities and communities that mayors across Canada have been begging for so they can meet their basic infrastructure and transit needs. A massive infrastructure deficit remains in Canada as a result of this budget's lack of support for cities and communities.

While there is some new money in the budget for recreational infrastructure through the Canada building fund, this money is being allocated on a per capita basis, which disadvantages smaller provinces like New Brunswick. While we may have a smaller population in New Brunswick, we still have very pressing recreational infrastructure needs and a smaller tax base to fund them.

I am currently working as part of Team Saint John toward the construction of a new multiplex facility. Letters to my office, conversations with community leaders and recent town hall meetings held throughout Saint John have all confirmed that there is both a pressing need and widespread support for a multiplex project in greater Saint John.

The recreational and health needs of our children are at risk as a result of the lack of current facilities available. As greater Saint John experiences growth, it is imperative that a viable solution to the current shortage in recreational facilities be resolved so that the quality of life in our community continues to advance.

With rising levels of obesity in Canada, the government needs to ensure programs are in place that provide funding to meet the recreational needs of our cities and our communities across Canada.

The feasibility study that has been commissioned by the recreational implementation committee of the city of Saint John recommends a multiplex facility. The cost of this facility is in the neighbourhood of $34 million. I urge the government to ensure that the allocation of money for recreational infrastructure takes into consideration the unique needs and challenges of smaller provinces.

The lack of infrastructure funding in the budget puts projects like the one-mile interchange in jeopardy. We need to have this interchange in New Brunswick completed by 2010 at the latest in order for our region to better leverage investments and opportunities in our industrial parks.

This interchange will take truck traffic off Saint John streets, which is vital for our tourism industry, and will also reduce the wear and tear on our downtown community. Taking this traffic directly to the industrial areas of our city will also promote growth for the industrial parks and help support new investments in the oil refinery, the LNG project and the proposed green industrial park on Bayside Drive.

The importance and significance of this one-mile interchange cannot be overstated. With an expected $5 billion to $7 billion reinvestment in a proposed second refinery being considered in the eastern part of our city, the largest single private investment in Atlantic Canada, and an anticipated completion date of 2012, we need to ensure that this key piece of infrastructure is in place.

There is nothing in the budget on forgiving the debt on another important issue in Saint John, the Saint John Harbour bridge. The bridge was built at a cost of $18 million. It is the only federal bridge in Canada that has a toll on it. The citizens of Saint John have paid approximately $23 million toward the bridge, yet we still owe $23 million.

There is something seriously flawed with that model. It is like a mortgage that is impossible to repay, and it keeps growing. Our community has more than paid for this bridge already. We cannot be expected to continue payments in perpetuity. It is just simply not fair. It is time for the government to do the right thing and forgive the debt on the Saint John Harbour bridge.

The Prime Minister's budget breaks more promises than can be counted. He has broken promises on equalization and on child care. He has broken his promise to seniors not to tax their income trusts. He simply cannot be trusted to protect the interests of our province, our region and our country.

A leader unites a country. The Prime Minister is a divider. He has shown his true colours and his colossal and shameful abandonment of New Brunswick and all Atlantic Canada.

We work hard. We pay our taxes. We contribute to the betterment of Canada. A government cannot pick favourites. It cannot pick winners. It cannot pit one region of the country against another. It cannot force the poor to subsidize the rich. It cannot ignore the plight of working families, of children, of aboriginals and of seniors. This may be the Prime Minister's Canada, but it is not ours.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's statements. I think the member is suffering from a bit of a long term memory loss. I am sure he remembers a time in government when there was a $60 billion infrastructure deficit presided over by the previous government. The largest growth between rich and poor in Canada's history was presided over by the previous government.

His comments with respect to the budget demonstrate to me that we maybe should have a bit of a tutorial on it so we can explain exactly what is in it. All Canadians benefited from this budget. All Canadians who rely on our health care system will benefit from significant investments into health care. All Canadians who rely on a good education system have to be very proud of the fact that this government saw fit to put an additional 40% into post-secondary education. All Canadians have to be very proud of a government that seeks to fix the infrastructure deficit in which the country unfortunately finds itself.

The fact is this budget puts our country in a good position to step forward to meet the challenge of tomorrow's economy and to succeed. I encourage the member to support it.

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I could quote some very prominent Progressive Conservative leaders in the country, like Premier Danny Williams, who object to the promises that have been broken by this budget. If members do not like Premier Danny Williams, then let me suggest they listen to some of the comments made by Premier Rodney MacDonald. Both are Progressive Conservative premiers who are outraged at the breach of promises that have occurred in the budget.

However, I agree with one premise of the hon. member's point of view. Over the past fiscal imbalance period that they continue to allege exists, why then would the present government and the present Prime Minister not have paid attention to any of the independent reports that were prepared? Why have they turned their backs on New Brunswick, on Atlantic Canada and on the west? Why have they broken their promises to the people of our region?

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, not to belabour the point very much, but the member represents Saint John city, a great city in New Brunswick. He also knows very well what happened to the Saint John shipyard. Under the Liberal watch, that shipyard went down and it gave the Irving company $55 million of ACOA money to help shut it down.

A shipbuilding policy sat on his minister of industry's desk since 2001 and it was never acted upon. The current government has also failed to act upon it, which is a pox upon both those houses.

However, I want to give him a bit of a break. What was not in the budget was the issue of VIP services for widows of veterans.

We have a letter from the Prime Minister, signed by him when he was opposition, which said that the Conservatives would immediately extend VIP services for all widows and widowers of veterans regardless of time of death or application. He wrote that on June 20, 2005. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs from Kamloops, when she was in opposition, said the exact same thing, that when they formed government they would immediately extend that program for all widows and widowers. We have asked since January 2006 when it would it happen.

My hon. colleague from New Brunswick has an awful lot of those widows of veterans living in his riding. Why does he think the government not only ignored a motion passed in the House, but with $14 billion worth of surplus why could it not come up with $280 million to help all widows of all veterans?

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore well knows that our views on shipbuilding are probably not much different. I regret and wish that the world labour markets would have made shipbuilding more progressive and more competitive for us in Atlantic Canada. I agree with my hon. colleague.

I also agree with my hon. colleague on the point he raises on veterans and widows. The minister is from New Brunswick. I believe the hon. minister will be given the opportunity over the course of the next weeks to hopefully fulfill the promise on which he and many members on the opposition side are working. I do not want to be in the position of defending the Minister of Veterans Affairs, but I know the hon. gentleman and I know he is listening to and watching very carefully the interventions today.

Hopefully in view of the tragedies that have occurred in Afghanistan over the last weeks and the media attention that has been paid to the families of these veterans, some of our senior veterans will start to get the attention they deserve. I agree with the hon. member on that very important point.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to take issue with the member for Saint John and his comments with respect to fiscal federalism. He mentioned both the government's plan in this budget to address equalization and to address other major fiscal federal transfers, and I have to disagree with him on this.

When our government took power in February of last year, the previous government left us with a mess with respect to equalization. Equalization for decades had been run on a principle based approach until the previous government took power. That previous government completely took apart the equalization formula and we were left with the difficult job of trying to put together a new formula that would apply consistently across the country.

The previous government signed the Atlantic accord, with which we agree. It also signed the Canada-Ontario agreement in May 2005. The problem with those agreements is the way in which they were done. They were done in isolation from the rest of the other seven provinces that were not party to those agreements. As a result, the previous government created a situation where equalization was not done on a principle based approach and we were left with the difficult job of trying to disentangle that mess. That is exactly what the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have done in the present budget.

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I really do not think we want to start looking too far back in history as to messes that were created by previous governments.

Most members of the House will remember 1993 when the mess was a $40 billion deficit. When I see the fiscal prudence that occurred with the Liberal government and the difficult choices that had to be made in the 1990s and then when I see the sheer abandonment that has occurred in housing, in literacy, in seniors and when I see a $13 billion surplus being given to the people of Canada and the equalization formula not being respected or followed in our province of New Brunswick, it is a bit disingenuous for the hon. member to try to allege that there has been a less than fair approach taken by the previous government.

The previous government tried to equalize some very serious inequities that occurred. Equality in the country is not about giving everything to Quebec and Ontario. We need to remember that the Atlantic provinces and Saskatchewan are provinces too.

As you think about inequity, I would appreciate you thinking about New Brunswick and the 1.8% increase that it received.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I would appreciate it if the hon. member would not refer to other members in the second person.

The hon. member for Egmont.

[Joe McGuire, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment the member for Saint John for an excellent speech.

To follow up on the equalization question that was just posed, once upon a time equalization was based on need where the citizens in all provinces could expect basically the same level of service. Now that formula is based on per capita formula and not on need.

How would small provinces like Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Atlantic ever have the ability to deliver programs approaching those services given to the richer provinces if this new formula, based on per capita, is followed through?

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is they will be unable to deliver programs. We will end up with a checkerboard. We will end up with region against region, rich provinces and poor provinces. We will end up with Quebec and Ontario doing very well and Atlantic provinces, Saskatchewan and even parts of northern British Columbia in a situation where, I am afraid to say, they would be unable to deliver any national program that looks vaguely like Canada has looked in the past.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst, The Budget; the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River, The Budget.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in the debate on Bill C-52, the budget implementation act. I want to share my time with the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park.

In this corner of the House, NDP members did not support the budget that was presented by the government at the end of March. The main reason we did not support the budget is that we do not believe that it addresses the growing prosperity gap in Canada. We do not believe that it helps ordinary and working class families meet their expectations, see the advancement they had hoped to find. It does not help immigrant and refugee families find their place in Canada and find that new life in Canada they had hoped for when they came to this country.

We do not see the budget as doing anything to end the growing prosperity gap that Canadians face. We could have made some progress on that. The government has a strong surplus at its disposal which it could have used to bring in the kinds of programs that would reduce the growing prosperity gap in Canada.

The government could have chosen to end some of the huge corporate tax giveaways that it has made since coming to power, $9 billion worth of corporate tax cuts that could have been used in other ways that would have been of benefit to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

This is pointed out very clearly by some of the work the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has been doing on the prosperity gap in Canada. A recent study it put forward demonstrated that most Canadians are not better off in recent years and that in fact most Canadian families are putting in more work time and 80% of them are getting a smaller share of Canada's growing economy. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has shown that over the last 20 years Canadians are working longer hours and for fewer benefits. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing largely because, as it points out, the lion's share of benefits of Canada's economic growth are going to the richest 10% of families. It is not going to the majority, the 80% of families whose income is under $100,000, and that is a huge number of people and a very high threshold.

The income gap is growing. In 2004 the richest 10% of families earned 82 times more than the poorest 10%. That is almost triple the ratio in 1976 when the richest earned only 31 times more; it was significant but it was only 31 times more in 1976. That gap is at a 30 year high.

It is also not just a question of incomes, but people are working longer for those questionable incomes. All but the richest 10% of families are working more weeks and hours in the paid workforce, 200 hours more on average since 1996, and yet only the richest 10% saw any significant increase in their earnings, a 30% increase. Everybody else either stayed the same or actually lost ground. In fact, the poorest Canadians saw their real incomes drop in that period.

We do not see that the budget has done anything to alleviate that situation. That is a pretty hard statistical overview of the situation. It does not look at the real hardships that are caused to families, families who cannot afford the drugs they need when they are ill, families who cannot afford the child care they need, families who cannot afford the education they know will help them realize some of their hopes for life in Canada.

The budget was a huge missed opportunity to address the growing prosperity gap in Canada.

I want to talk specifically about the post-secondary education situation in Canada. There are two major post-secondary institutions in my riding, Simon Fraser University and the British Columbia Institute of Technology, one of Canada's leading polytechnic institutions.

We know in my riding that affordability in education is a huge crisis for most families and for students. Students are graduating with huge debts. Families are struggling to ensure that their children can have a decent post-secondary education and build for their own futures.

Working and middle class families and immigrant and refugee families particularly know the importance of a good education. Many of them are struggling to ensure that their children have a good education here in Canada.

In this budget the Conservatives put students last. The measures that are introduced in the budget do not go any way to help reduce the cost of post-secondary education. The budget directly affects only 1,000 students by the graduate student scholarship. That is one-tenth of 1% of all students in Canada. There are one million students in Canada and the Conservatives have chosen to only look out for about 1,000 of them.

In fact, the Conservatives have given more money in the budget to attract students from other countries to Canada, $1 million, than to increase access for prospective Canadians to college, undergraduate, medical or law students. They have tweaked the RESP system, but the benefits disproportionately go to wealthier families. That is something that is completely unfair in this country at a time when ordinary middle class families are struggling to ensure that their children get a decent post-secondary education. With a $9 billion surplus and $8 billion in corporate tax cuts, the investment in post-secondary education is less than $1 billion in the coming years.

There are some marginal increases in core transfers, but the rate is so small that it is going to take years to accomplish anything significant. It is going to take years to even get back to where we were in the 1980s and early 1990s.

In 1983-84 the percentage of GDP for post-secondary education transfers was .56%. That dropped to .41% in 1992-93 and went way down to .19% in 2004-05. It dropped again to .17% in 2007-08 and has come up only very slightly in the projections for 2008-09 to .22%. We are still dramatically behind where things started out before the Liberals made their huge cuts to transfer payments for post-secondary education in Canada. There is nothing that will get us back to the point where there is some real assistance for students to ensure their education in this budget.

Students were explicitly excluded from the working income tax benefit even though hundreds of thousands of students have to work full time to afford their tuition fees and lower their eventual student debt. There is no plan to address student debt in the budget. There is no plan to address the expiry of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation.

That is not where the problems end with this bill for young people. Last week in my riding I attended a conference called Toward Effective Community Practice for High Risk Youth. Youth workers from Burnaby and New Westminster attended. There were many concerns raised about the lack of a coordinated approach to high risk youth and the problems they face in our society. There is no national strategy on youth, no coordinated effort to deal with the problems of high risk youth. There is no attempt to deal with the various boundaries and jurisdictional problems that face young people in difficulty in our country.

Programs for 8 to 12 year olds are particularly important, but they are the ones most dramatically lacking. Teens and those reaching the high end of the age limits of these programs are left without any kind of support whatsoever at a huge cost to Canadian society later on. The question of how we support youth in our society is also something that is very significant.

I hope to talk a bit about the situation of new immigrants and refugees in Canada and what this budget has not done for them. Maybe I will get a chance to do that later, but I want to mention three specific things in Burnaby.

There are three important projects for which the city of Burnaby was looking for support from the federal government and which did not appear in this budget. One is for the establishment of an immigration and refugee services hub in the centre of Burnaby. We need money for infrastructure in Burnaby to deal with the growing population of immigrants and refugees in the community. It is a good thing for our community, but the infrastructure is not there. We need a facility to do that. The city has put aside the land for it, but needs help from the other levels of government.

The city of Burnaby and other communities in the Lower Mainland also need support from the federal government for the World Police & Fire Games in 2009. We need to show support for our police and firefighters by supporting them in this project. The games were recently completed in Adelaide, Australia and the premier of the state of South Australia has indicated what a huge boon they were to the economy of that state and how important they were to its communities.

There is also the question of Burnaby Lake. There was money in this budget to help Lake Winnipeg and Lake Simcoe but there was nothing for Burnaby Lake which is quickly deteriorating from an open water lake into a swamp and marshland. We need to preserve this important habitat for all kinds of wildlife to ensure that Burnaby Lake remains an open water lake.

The city of Burnaby has been seeking a commitment from the federal government for years. It was not forthcoming from the previous government even though the Leader of the Opposition when he was minister of the environment visited and promised to look into it. Nothing was forthcoming and there is still nothing forthcoming from the current government even though the city and the province have committed to this important project.

There are many things missing from this budget, many things that do not address the prosperity gap, many things that do not address the particular needs of the community that I represent. The government could have done a better job.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to disagree with my colleague from the New Democratic Party on one issue, what he calls corporate tax giveaways. I want to bring to his attention two parts of this budget that fly in the face of that assertion.

The first is that the government in this budget has called for the elimination of the accelerated capital cost allowance for the oil sands, something which the leader of the New Democrats has long called for and something which this budget delivers on. Many economists in Canada have long argued that capital cost allowances should reflect real life usage and not provide a subsidy to businesses that are economically viable and successful. This is a case of an industry that will make close to $100 billion in new capital investments in the oil sands in the coming years and the reason we as a government decided to eliminate the accelerated capital cost allowance for this sector. That is one item in the budget that counters the member's arguments that it is full of corporate tax giveaways.

The second element in the budget that flies in the face of the member's assertion is our decision to eliminate the tax deductibility of interest on loans that are borrowed by Canadian corporations to invest in operations abroad, a tax loophole that many Canadian corporations use to shelter domestically produced income from domestic corporate taxes in tax havens abroad. Our government in this budget, under the leadership of the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, has decided to eliminate the tax deductibility of interest on loans taken to invest in those operations and those tax loopholes abroad.

Those are two things that the budget does that completely contradict the member's assertion that the budget is full of “corporate tax giveaways”.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if the accelerated capital cost allowance for the oil sands were truly eliminated, it would be done now and not by 2015. This is something that has gone on for years. It is something that is inappropriate when Canadians need the kind of programs that that money could go toward. If the government were truly committed to doing this, why is there such a long timeline for dealing with that particular issue?

There are Canadians who need the kinds of programs that help them flourish, that help their children get an education, that help their children get cared for, that help everyone get the kind of health care they need. That is not happening in many cases. We need those resources to go to those kinds of programs that were so severely cut by the previous Liberal government and which the Conservative government seems to have no intention of addressing in its work.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the issue of the prosperity gap.

I am pretty sure he has some seniors in his riding and I am pretty sure he had some feedback from his constituents with regard to the announced taxation of income trusts. Some 70% of Canadian seniors do not have defined benefit plans. It meant that a lot of them were relying on income trusts. It meant that the 31.5% proposed tax cost them probably anywhere from 12% to 20% of their nest egg. It created the kind of prosperity gap the member is talking about. I know why the member did not talk about it in his speech, because his party, particularly his party's finance critic, supported the taxation of income trusts at finance committee.

I wonder if the member would comment on whether or not we should look for a more fair and equitable way to address the issues of income trusts, rather than putting the burden on seniors and making them part of the prosperity gap problem.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have not been able to listen to the entire debate but I know the member likes to get up and ask that question of people in this corner.

The reality is that if people in his corner of the House had addressed the problems with income trusts when they were first pointed out to them, we would not have had the mess that exists now for so many Canadians.

We in this corner of the House will not take any responsibility for doing something wrong when the responsibility clearly lies in the corner of the House where the member who asked the question sits. Those problems with income trusts should have been addressed years ago. It is too bad it got to the condition that it was in. Something had to be done. Unfortunately, the Liberals had the ability to deal with it long ago and chose not to.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the implementation of the budget but it is not a pleasure to examine this budget. I and my party view it as an incredible missed opportunity for Canadians.

After years of sustained surpluses and the economy doing very well, we are seeing, however, that more and more Canadians are not doing well. The budget had a chance to amend the damage of deep cuts implemented by previous governments to social and physical infrastructures in our country.

It was a chance to bring Canada into the 21st century by investing in children's early education, post-secondary education in a meaningful way and in adult lifelong learning. It was a chance to ensure that no Canadian lives without shelter or goes to bed hungry. It was a chance to ensure that the most vulnerable Canadians, those with mental and physical disabilities, those suffering from addictions, seniors, those facing the barriers of racism, poverty and abuse get a helping hand and firm support. Frankly, the budget failed them.

It is a budget that has failed to close the growing inequality gap in our country. In addition, it has failed to adequately tackle the challenge of climate change.

I will first speak to the growing prosperity gap. With ongoing billions in corporate tax cuts, the budget will further widen, not shrink, the gap between those families at the top end and the rest of us, the middle and working class families.

After years of sustained surpluses, we now see the benefits primarily going to the top 10% of families as opposed to those in the bottom 10%, and this is at a 30 year high.

The budget fails to reinstate a federal minimum wage cancelled by the previous government and set it at $10 an hour, which would be the poverty level which should at least be the minimum in this country. We need to provide a living wage for people and it is time that our federal government took the lead with this important initiative.

There was nothing in the budget for affordable housing despite a growing crisis of homelessness on the streets of Toronto where I represent the riding of Parkdale—High Park. Parents and their children in my community continue to need a national child care program, although with the government and with the budget we have seen an ABC approach, which is anything but child care.

There is the money to sustain current spaces but this is not a child care system. It is not a system of early education and development. Parents in my riding tell me repeatedly that this is creating a crisis in their families. Parents are spending up to $1,500 a month per child for child care. Even at these exorbitant rates, hundreds of children are on waiting lists to get adequate care. It is simply disgraceful in a country with our wealth and where we pretend to be a modern society and a modern economy that we are behind the rest of the developed world in this regard.

I see on the streets of Toronto and in my community the growing signs of poverty. I see people homeless on the streets. I see the distress of families with young children who line up for breakfast programs and free meals on a Sunday evening. More than one million workers in the Toronto area earn less than $29,800 a year, many of them new Canadians who have been here for generations. Many workers of colour are women but they all share one thing in common: the work they do is often undervalued and under-paid.

In Toronto, over 200,000 children live below the poverty level, which is almost 20%, and this rate is growing.

I must recognize the passing of June Callwood, a journalist and social activist who, increasingly in her later years, became so distressed that as a society we could not marshal the political will to resolve the crisis of child poverty in a country so wealthy and especially with surplus budgets year after year and a growing economy. I am saddened that June Callwood passed without seeing a government that would take the initiative to come up with a plan to tackle this blight on our society today and for the future. We are still waiting for a government to do that but clearly in this budget the government has not.

Immigrants and newcomers make up about half of Toronto's population but 57% of them live in poverty. The child poverty rate among recent immigrants has been growing in every decade since the 1980s. I know an issue that newcomers tell me about repeatedly that is so tragic is that skilled workers, such as engineers, doctors, specialists and professionals of all kinds, who come to Canada cannot work in their field because they cannot get proper accreditation of their credentials.

I know the government said that it would study the situation but for the families that are living in poverty because the parents are driving taxis or working in bagel stops instead of practising in their profession as an engineer, a psychologist or a dentist, a study does not cut it. People want action and results and they want their credentials recognized. They want a system that welcomes them and recognizes their credentials now, not in several years to come.

The government did initiate the tax credit for low income people. Tax credits can be beneficial and protect the net incomes of earnings from living wages through compensating workers for income tax assessments and social insurance charges. The tax credits can address fluctuations and deficiencies in labour market hours which we know to be a big problem.

However, the adoption of living wage standards, that is a $10 an hour minimum wage, and the introduction of work tax credits must take place together. If not, then work tax credits become subsidies to employers for paying poverty wages. These subsidies would then provide unfair market advantages to less responsible employers over employers who pay living wages. The two must go together.

I also want to comment on the issue of infrastructure which is a huge issue in the city of Toronto. The budget has failed to deliver for large urban centres such as Toronto. In fact, I would argue that it is a step back for Toronto. My constituents in Parkdale—High Park tell me that they work hard, they pay their taxes and they want to see more of those taxes invested into our city in the critical social and physical infrastructure that we need.

So much of what we need in Toronto right now is borne by our property taxes. Property taxes are going through the roof. Seniors, especially in their twilight years, who are in their own homes are squeezed because they have fixed incomes and their property taxes keep going up. Property taxes are regressive and disproportionately affect working and middle income people and seniors are especially hard hit. Property taxes also make it hard on small businesses across the city.

Toronto is Canada's largest city and it has the sixth largest government in Canada. It is home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people. It is the economic engine of Canada and one of the greenest and most creative cities in North America. We need a national transit strategy like the one I have been calling for and the one outlined by the big city mayors. The economy and the environment of Toronto depend on better transit, more buses, streetcars and subways.

I know the government has announced funding to extend the subway to York University and Vaughan, which is a positive step, but we need ongoing, sustained, multi-year funding and a plan to grow transit in the city of Toronto as the city is growing.

Another huge disappointment is that culture has received such short shrift in the budget. It is only a part of a page in the budget. There is nothing for the big six projects in the city of Toronto and there is no new money for CBC which will affect not only the people who work in this sector, but will affect us as a nation because this is so important to our voice and to who we are as a country.

In summary I would like to say that with no urban strategy, with no help for the working poor and with very little in environmental protection, this is a budget that is a step back for Toronto and for Canadians in general.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again I take umbrage with the member for Parkdale—High Park in her criticism of the budget, particularly when she focuses on the area of early childhood learning and child care and argues that our government is not doing anything in this area.

I have two broad points to make to suggest that is not the case. The first is that this is an area of provincial jurisdiction. Our government has indicated that in certain areas of provincial jurisdiction we will continue to play a leadership role: things like health care through the Canada Health Act, where the Minister of Health recently announced some very good initiatives with respect to patient wait time guarantees; things like national infrastructure projects in which the government will be investing a record $33 billion over the coming years; and things like post-secondary education and training in which the government is making record investments. In certain areas we will be playing a role but early childhood learning and child care is not one of those areas.

Much in the same way that the Government of Canada, as with most members of Parliament here, would never choose to tell a province how to run its public school system or tell a province that we will set up a federal department of education to run the provincial public school system, similarly, early childhood learning and child care is really an extension of the public school system, an extension of an area of provincial responsibility. To that end, our government has respected provincial jurisdiction in this area because what works in downtown Montreal, in Westmount or in Outremont may not work in the rural wilds of Saskatchewan. What may work in downtown Toronto may not work in rural Ontario. What may work in High Park may not work out in Fergus, Ontario.

We have chosen to allow the provinces to deliver the service. Many provinces are already doing so. Quebec has a system that has been in place for years. Ontario has the early years centres.

We have increased the transfers to the province so that they can better deliver the service. We are increasing it by $39 billion over the next seven years and this will assist parents and children throughout the country.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how the member can stand in the House with a straight face and turn his back on the children of Canada. I think that is a disgrace.

This country has an obligation to the children of Canada to create a national child care program. To put the falsehood to the member's argument that this is only provincial jurisdiction, why did the government offer tax cuts to corporations to create child care spaces? We told the government that those tax cuts would not create a single child care space and, guess what? We were right.

Our federal government has an obligation to act in the best interests of Canadian children. We need a national child care program and all the fudging by the government will not get it out of that responsibility.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that this is the largest spending budget in history. The government has quite upset Conservative people by breaking its promise that it is being more efficient in government, cutting government spending and all of a sudden it has this huge spending spree.

Does the member think that the government should have broken its promise or its philosophy and upset so many Conservatives in the country by spending so much money, the largest spending in history?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the government has an obligation to respond to the needs of all Canadians. We are in a period of budget surpluses and the economy is doing well. As I said earlier, it is the people who in many cases are not doing well.

We have an opportunity, that does not come along very often, to take the initiative and make up for the cuts that have happened in past years by investing in housing, children, and investing in a meaningful way in post-secondary education and the arts. We have an opportunity to really invest in nation building. From that perspective, I believe the government has failed.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill. I did not take the opportunity to participate in the debate on the budget itself. As members know, the implementation bill is a bill which takes the specific provisions of the budget and puts them into the legal language necessary to amend various statutes, and to create new statutes to give effect to them, and that is what the House is dealing with.

One of the things that I thought I would do is rather than try to blanket the budget and the budget implementation bill and give my own personal commentary, I wanted to carve out at least two issues which I think are very important to Canadians. Those two issues happen to be issues for which I believe that the government has broken its promise.

This is a very serious issue, to suggest that the government has broken a promise. In fact, the Prime Minister himself in circulating a document prior to the last election put out this document which said on the cover that there was no greater fraud than a promise not kept.

Let us talk about income trusts because I think this has to be the most significant broken promise in the history of Canadian politics. I am pleased to see that the finance minister is here. He is already upset that I am raising this.

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

This is hyperbole. Who is going to defeat him?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

He is already losing it because he knows that he is going to hear all of the details.

Income trust is kind of an interesting one because in the last Parliament the then government had a consultation process. It was a three month consultation process which looked at the taxation of dividend paid corporations as opposed to looking at those that are structured as income trusts in which the income trust organization itself does not pay the tax but rather the recipient.

It is very significant to know that there are only about 30% of Canadians who actually have defined benefit plans. That means that 70% of seniors do not have a defined pension benefit. They have to find another way to get an instrument which is going to give them the same kind of cash flow on a regular basis, on a monthly basis, to pay their bills. That instrument is an income trust. An awful lot of Canadian seniors invested in income trusts and--

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

Are you going to defend income trusts? Oh, my God, you don't believe a word you are saying.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister continues to be agitated and he is continuing to heckle here, but I am going to continue with the facts.

Maybe I should at this point add that on the minister's own website there is a question that people can answer which asks, “Did you receive a benefit from budget 2007?”. What was the answer? These are people who responded to the finance minister's own website. Some 93% of Canadians who responded to his own survey said they did not benefit from the 2007 budget. That is the truth.

Do members know what is even more truthful? The minister had it yanked off his site yesterday. He had it yanked off his site because he did not want anybody else to see it.

[An hon. member]

The truth hurts.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

It really is an issue of truth.

So, let us get back to income trusts because the minister is going to want to hear this.

The last government, after consultation, decided not to tax income trusts. In fact, there were adjustments made to the taxation of corporate dividends that narrowed the gap. Then, during the last election campaign, what happened? The Conservative Party said it would never tax income trusts.

That was a fatal promise to make because in the first place it was interfering with the capital markets. It was interfering with the financial markets because it gave a confidence level to investors to say that the Liberals did not tax income trusts and the Conservatives said they were not going to tax income trusts. Canadians were saying that now they could invest in income trusts safely because they were not going to be taxed at a usurious level. What happened is that more and more Canadians, particularly seniors, invested in income trusts.

What happened on Halloween? The Halloween massacre occurred. That is what it was. The biggest broken promise in the history of Canada was the announcement for the taxation of income trusts. How much? Canadians--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Remember the GST.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, listen to members of the Conservative Party trying to shout me down because they do not like to hear the truth. Let me carry on with the truth.

How much is the tax on income trusts? There is 31.5% tax on income trusts. Yes, it was not going to kick in until 2011, but because the market value of an investment today has to reflect the long term yields that the--

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

What about tax fairness? What do you have against everybody paying their fair share?

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

What about the GST broken promise?

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

Why do people have to pay more taxes? Why do you favour corporations? You don't care about people.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

When the finance minister gets so rabid on these issues, it tells me that I am on the right track. The yelling by the finance minister tells me I am on the right track. With a 31.5% tax on seniors, I am on the right track.

I can say that when one gets the market valuation of an investment instrument discounting the future, the long term yields, and it shows there is going to be a 31% tax starting four or five years from now, the present value of that investment is going down.

How far did it go down? Canadians understand how far those investments went down. They went down immediately, the very next day. They went down by $35 billion of investment value, mostly seniors' investments. Their retirement nest eggs were wiped out. The minister will say that is nonsense.

I have the information and I can tell the House exactly how many seniors were involved in this. About 1.5 million seniors were damaged by this. There is nobody in the House of Commons who did not get more feedback from people on this income trust debacle, this broken promise than any other issue. This was the issue of this Parliament. This is a promise broken that destroyed the retirement nest eggs of a significantly large number of Canadian investors, most of them seniors.

Obviously parliamentarians were concerned. In fact, it was the Liberal caucus that went to the finance committee and made a proposal to look into this. It is not enough to just have rhetoric and yelling and screaming. The Conservative members want to yell and scream. Let us have some debate on this. Let us bring it to committee. Let us get some expert witnesses. Let us find out what the true facts are.

The finance minister came before the finance committee and said it was going to cost $500 million a year for six years, that $3 billion was going to be lost in tax revenue to the government and that we could not afford it. What happened? Experts came before the committee and the committee tore the finance minister's arguments to shreds. He said there was $3 billion of tax leakage. There was not $3 billion worth of tax leakage.

Don Francis, for example, an economist, said there was no tax leakage. Cameron Renkas said that studies done by BMO capital markets have shown there was not any tax leakage. Yves Fortin, an economist who the minister knows, said the allegation of the existence of tax leakage was unfounded and the tax leakage argument was incorrect and unsubstantiated.

There were others who characterized the methodology used by the Department of Finance in its 2005 consultation paper, which the committee was told has not changed, as faulty.

Gordon Tait suggested that in his view some of the assumptions used by the Department of Finance were flawed.

These were expert witnesses coming before the finance committee.

The Canadian Association of Income Trust Investors described the tax leakage estimate as grossly exaggerated and not supported by fact and indicated that there was no clear, credible data.

I have talked about conclusions that some people reached. How about some facts? I was there and I participated in those debates and hearings. I was there because it was important to my constituents.

The best testimony came from HDR/HLB Decision Economics Inc., which laid out different assumptions with respect to four key factors that might explain the difference in the analysis that it did compared to that of the finance department. They were identical in all respects except for a couple.

Here is one that will blow your socks off, Mr. Speaker. The first one is that the finance minister's calculations over the six years, the $3 billion calculation, failed to take into account legislative tax changes that this Parliament already had passed. He just left them out and assumed that they were not going to happen even though they were law.

The government made a mistake, but the minister did not agree. He did not defend his position. He did not acknowledge that he made a mistake. Why not?

There was another item. HDR/HLB came back and said it was assumed that persons as income trust investors through an RRSP did not pay taxes because RRSPs do not pay taxes and that the tax would be paid only when money came out of the RRSP. But this analysis assumed that anybody who bought income trusts through registered retirement savings plans would never pay tax, never ever, nobody in Canada, for all time.

Obviously that is not a tax leakage: it comes out. In fact, we can look at the public accounts and see how much tax revenue people pay on deregistering of RRSPs or conversion to RIFFs and taking the money out in the prescribed fashion. That was an error in the computation of the tax leakage by the finance minister and the finance department.

There is also the effective corporate tax rate for energy trusts. History shows what it is. The big charts that the finance minister trundled in before the finance committee were totally wrong. They did not tie in with the actual historical corporate tax rate for the energy trusts.

There were problems with the proportion of income trust units held as tax exempt units. As well, the value of deferred taxes was handled wrong.

I could go on, but the bottom line of the HDR/HLB Decision Economics Inc. analysis, which was applauded by all, was that instead of having an estimated $500 million tax leakage for 2006 it in fact was $164 million, and in 2010, instead of being another $500 million, it was actually only $32 million. We see quite a difference just by correcting the errors that the finance minister made before the finance committee.

Did he or any of his officials in the subsequent hearing days ever challenge any of the testimony of the expert witnesses? The answer is no. There was no rebuttal. There was no explanation of the criticisms of the computation of the tax leakage. That tax leakage calculation was the only reason that they moved forward. They made a mistake. They are not prepared to admit it, but the impact on Canadians is unbelievable.

What did the finance committee do in its 14th report to the House of Commons? It made three recommendations. The first is that the government has to be “as transparent as possible”. It recommended that the government “release the data and methodology it used” in estimating the amount of the federal tax leakage.

The committee was satisfied that it did not receive the information and the methodology. In fact, in a response given to an access to information request, all of the rows and columns of the analysis were blacked out. All that was delivered were the titles across the top and down the side. It was effectively a blank piece of paper.

That was the response by the finance minister to a legitimate access to information request. The Standing Committee on Finance of the Parliament of Canada wanted it. Did it get the information it asked for? The answer is no. The finance minister refused.

The second recommendation made by the committee was that rather than dealing with these income trusts together with a few other items in a ways and means motion, maybe the House of Commons ought to handle as a separate item income trusts and this terrible broken promise that destroyed the pension nest eggs of so many seniors across Canada, rather than burying it in a whole bunch of other things. Parliament would have been given an opportunity to express itself in a clear vote on what it thought about the income trust decision.

The third recommendation stated:

Overwhelming evidence indicates that superior and far less damaging alternatives were available to the federal government. The Committee urges the government to consider implementing one of two such alternative strategies....

What were those strategies? I know what one of them was. It was a Bloc Québécois proposal basically saying that instead of deferring the implementation of this 31.5% tax by four years, it should be delayed by 10 years. Certain death would be delayed. I do not agree with that one.

However, there was another one. It was proposed by Liberal members of committee in consultation with the Liberal caucus. That proposal was to change or wipe out the 31.5% tax on income trusts and replace it with a 10% tax, but that 10% tax would apply only to those who were not Canadian residents.

In other words, there would be a rebate to Canadians so that Canadian investors in income trusts would not be hit. That means Canadian seniors would not have lost their nest eggs. Experts have indicated that up to about two-thirds of the lost market value of their investments in income trusts would be recovered by going at it in a less draconian fashion.

Members who have talked on the budget have talked about it being divisive, about it pitting some Canadians against others. This is an example of where the government has put a lot of seniors at a disadvantage.

There were better ways to do this. If the finance department is not prepared to provide the Standing Committee on Finance with the detailed calculations on which it based its decision, it shows there is something wrong.

In fact, the expert witnesses showed that it was wrong. The government is not prepared to open up to that. It is not prepared to admit it. It is not prepared to defend its position. It is not prepared to show where the analysis of the expert witnesses was wrong. Why? Because it cannot. That is the issue. The government cannot defend the indefensible. It was a bad decision, from the way it was handled right back to the promise not to tax income trusts. Why interfere with the markets?

Now I must tell members that the government decided to offer pension income splitting because it thought that might help to appease Canadians. The fact is that when we look at the numbers one of the things we are going to find on pension income splitting is that after adjusting for the number of people who have no one to split with, and after adjusting for those who are already at the lowest possible rate or who have a partner who is at the lowest rate and bracket, after all those factors, according to Yves Fortin, an economist who appeared before the finance committee, only 12% to 14% of all seniors will benefit at all from pension income splitting.

It is not enough. This is smoke and mirrors, as has been suggested. Even in some of the documents the government has, the government refers to it as income splitting, not pension income splitting. Why? Because again it is part of the strategy of the rhetoric of the government to suggest that something exists which in fact does not. There is somehow this belief that if it is said often enough people will start to believe it and it must be so because it has been heard so many times.

Let them understand one thing. The Prime Minister was right when he put in the document that I referred to earlier that “there is no greater fraud than a promise not kept”. The income trust decision was a fraud and a broken promise.

[Diane Ablonczy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I was at the finance committee hearings that the member speaks of. He obviously was at a different committee, because the preponderance of witnesses before that committee supported the government's move to change the arrangement whereby Canada's business sector was rushing headlong into the trust mode.

In fact, the finance minister appeared and provided full and complete accounting for the numbers that he based his decision on. In fact, the member will know, because he has been in government before, that departments do not release advice to cabinet. That is why there was a blacked-out document, but the minister did release to the committee the figures that he based his decision on. No one has suggested that those numbers were in any way incomplete.

More to the point, the whole decision was taken because something unexpectedly changed very massively in Canada, and that was a huge move to the trust mode by Canada's business sector. We saw the telecommunication sector going that way. We knew one of the major banks was talking about it. The biggest oil and gas company was going that way and others surely would have followed.

We would have had a business sector that effectively was not paying tax, that was becoming disconnected from the whole social construct of our country. This had to be stopped. No other country has allowed this. The member's own finance critic said after the announcement that it was absolutely the right thing to do.

I ask the member, would he want a country where all the corporations, all the businesses, were not paying tax and were disconnected from what has to be done in providing social programs? The member says we could tax them at only 10%, then, not the same as other businesses. That would just mean that trusts, at a much lower tax rate, would swallow up other businesses. It would have the same result. Unfair taxation would take place.

Is that the kind of unfairness the member is talking about? I know he has had fun railing against this decision. The government obviously did not take this decision for political points, because we knew we were going to get this kind of rhetoric in return, but we did it for the good of the country. Will the member not at least admit that we cannot have an entire business sector of a country not paying tax?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what I will admit is that the member has totally misled the House.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

I did not say deliberately. I said misled.

With regard to the fact that some people came before committee and said they agreed with the government's position, they relied on the government's calculation that the leakage was $500 million a year. Even the Governor of the Bank of Canada came there and embarrassed himself after the other experts came forward and discredited the computations.

The member asks if we do not want corporations and income trusts to pay the same amount of tax. The member is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. She is on the finance committee. Surely she must know that taxes are paid by either the corporation and/or the investor and that corporations have some corporate tax elements and some personal dividend tax elements, whereas income trusts have no equivalent corporate, but all of the tax is paid by the individual. Why does she separate it? Why does she try to compare company to company rather than looking at the full loop?

Let me conclude my answer to what the member was asking me about not wanting good things to happen in Canada. I have to tell her that the decision of the government to tax income trusts has made our energy sector vulnerable. There have been no less than 15 takeover attempts in the last five months that could threaten Canadian economic sovereignty. The Conservatives claim that their policies are about main street, but the reality is that the benefits are going to accrue to Wall Street, not main street.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the broken promises of the government. I will start off with the broken promise of not using patronage. The first thing the Conservatives did was bring one of their Conservative bagmen into the public works ministry as the minister and made him a senator. Then they accepted a floor crosser, something they said they would not have done before. Then they broke their promise on the income trusts. Then they broke their promise on the Atlantic offshore accords.

The promise that offends me the most is this. If the Conservatives are going to deliberately mislead the widow of a veteran, this is something that should never be allowed in the House of Commons. When the Prime Minister was in opposition, he wrote a letter dated June 28, 2005, to Joyce Carter of St. Peter's, Cape Breton. He promised her that if the Conservatives formed a government, they would immediately invoke the VIP service for all widows and widowers of all veterans, regardless of application or time of death. The Conservatives even went so far as to put that in their policy platform at their last convention.

The member from Kamloops said, “You are talking to the converted, Mrs. Carter. We will do this immediately upon forming government”.

The Conservatives have had two budgets, $21 billion in surpluses and nothing to extend the VIP services for widows and widowers of veterans.

I just spoke to Elizabeth Hamilton of North Bay, Ontario, who herself is very angry at the Conservatives for breaking their promise to that widow.

If the Conservatives can break a promise and deliberately mislead a widow of our beloved veterans, what makes Canadians think that breaking the income trust and everything else is part of the program? This is what the Conservatives do. They become the vicars of vaseline. They have no time in the House of Commons. The sooner they call the election the better it will be because then we can get rid of them once and for all.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Before I recognize the hon. member for Mississauga South, I am not as experienced in the House as he is or as the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore is. However, they will both know, and all members will know, that the use of judicious language is more conducive to open discourse and more order in the House.

I would appreciate a more judicious choice of language. Thank you very much.

The hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member summarized it very nicely at the end of his question. He basically said that this was what we were getting. This is a government that says one thing and does another. The Conservatives make promises that they do not keep, or they do something else and then they tell Canadians that they kept the promise.

A perfect example is the health wait times guarantee. That was in the platform of the Conservatives in the last election. They said that in five priority areas there would be a wait times guarantee. If Canadians could not get it in their hospital, then they would pay to transfer people to another hospital, out of province or even to the United States.

What has the health minister said? Initially he said that was all covered in the $42 billion health care accord, which the previous government had done. Then the health minister admitted that wait--

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Are you against Dalton McGuinty?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will finish. In February 2007 the health minister finally admitted that the wait times guarantee would not be delivered before the next election: promise broken.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Hogwash. Tell the truth.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the hon. member is the following. It seems to me that in terms of the government's promise on income trusts one of two possibilities exists. First, at the time when the government made the promise, it fully intended not to keep it. Second, it did not understand the situation that income trusts might be problematic and it woke up to the problem much later. In other words, the government was in fact incompetent.

Therefore, either the government was knowingly misleading the Canadian people or it was incompetent. These are mutually exclusive possibilities, so it has to be one or the other. Could the hon. member comment on that.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, all I can say is that if standing committees of Parliament do not accept the testimony of expert witnesses, those who had done the work after, unanimously said that the calculation of the finance minister was erroneous and wrong. He relied on information that was incorrect and could not get out of the problem. He went forward using bad information, which was a bad mistake politically and a bad mistake for Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Peterborough has 30 seconds.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I will summarize very quickly, Mr. Speaker. The S&P/TSX income trust today is 151. On October 1, it was 154. The market has rebounded.

I will stand up for a government that stands up for tax fairness and ensures that the corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Why will he not—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we had the market data come before the finance committee. I do not know where the member gets his numbers, but in fact they have recovered from a 12% loss down to only an 11% loss. It is still over $25 billion lost to Canadian investors, their nest eggs for retirement. That is shameful.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that I can voice my opinion on some very important issues. One is in particular to me and to my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador and it concerns the recent debacle about equalization.

I will quote the Minister of Finance who said in his speech on the budget, “We are keeping our commitments on equalization”. He said:

We are returning Equalization to a principled, formula-based program....As we promised, every province will be better off under the new plan. Under the new plan, provinces will get the greater of…

Notice he said, “As we promised, every province will be better off under the new plan”. Therein lies a very good point. Recently in Newfoundland and Labrador we received the opinion of an independent economist who stated quite clearly that we were not, in Newfoundland and Labrador. I will illustrate those points in a few moments.

Before I do, I want to bring up the issue of equalization and the imposing of a cap. On February 14, 2005, we signed the Atlantic accord agreements, which provides offset payments for Newfoundland and Labrador, allowing it to be the principle beneficiaries of our resources, particularly when it comes to oil and gas. I will quote from November 4, 2004. This is from the then leader of the Conservative Party, now Prime Minister. He stated:

Unfortunately, the solemn word of this Prime Minister turned out to be not good enough. The Prime Minister ignored letters from Premier Williams on June 10, August 5 and August 24 urging him to confirm his promise. Suddenly, the Prime Minister and his Minister of Natural Resources fell silent.

There is an eerie similarity between what was then and what is now. Let me go on to also say what the Prime Minister brought to the House in 2004. He said, “Additional annual payments that will ensure the province effectively retains 100% of its offshore revenues”. Therefore, he endorsed the fact that Newfoundland and Labrador should keep 100% of its royalties. Then he quoted the minister:

—for an eight-year period covering 2004-05 through 2011-12, subject to the provision that no such additional payments result in the fiscal capacity of the province exceeding that of the province of Ontario in any given year.

He goes on to say that the eight year time limit and the Ontario clause, which effectively is the cap, gutted the commitment made to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador during the election campaign. That is very interesting because the then leader of the Conservative Party now Prime Minister stated unequivocally in 2004, he did not agree with the idea of a cap. He goes on to give several examples from his own experiences. He said:

Why should Newfoundland's possibility of achieving levels of prosperity comparable to the rest of Canada be limited to an artificial eight year period? Remember in particular that these are in any case non-renewable resources that will run out. Why is the government so eager to ensure that Newfoundland and Labrador always remain below the economic level of Ontario?

Therefore, he is saying why should Newfoundland and Labrador be subject to a cap, when in fact they should be principle beneficiaries of their own resources?

However, all that I have said in the past little while and all the evidence that has been given here in the House on November 4, 2004, suggests unequivocally that the current Prime Minister did not believe in a cap.

Let us fast forward three years later, 2007. The budget states, and the Minister of Finance said this to the House:

A fiscal capacity cap will provide fairness by ensuring that Equalization payments do not result in a receiving province ending up with a fiscal capacity higher than a non-receiving province.

In other words, it is not to go above the level of Ontario currently in that situation.

What happened between 2004 and 2007 to change his mind? A couple of campaigns happened. In that campaign again they stated non-renewals out of the equation, no caps, no hindrances whatsoever, for it is Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia that should be the principal beneficiaries of their own resources.

I will go on to say what he also said. I am quoting the Prime Minister because I thought he made a good argument on why we should not have a cap, certainly for Nova Scotia, whether it be the natural gas projects, such as Deep Panuke, or in Newfoundland and Labrador, Hibernia, White Rose and Terra Nova. He said:

This is what happened in the case of my province of Alberta. Alberta discovered oil and gas in the 1940s and 1950s. Alberta was a have not province. From 1957 until 1965, Alberta received transfers from the equalization program.

Here is the key. This is good stuff. He went on to say:

Alberta was allowed to keep 100% of its oil royalties and there was no federal clawback.

In other words, Alberta was allowed to punch through any idea of the cap.

What has happened since then? As the Prime Minister pointed out:

This is what allowed Alberta to kick-start its economy, to expand and diversify, to build universities, to advance social services and to become one of the powerhouses of the 21st century Canadian economy.

That is a very good point for being a principal beneficiary of one's own resources.

If we look at the financial circumstances which Alberta is under today, it is quite astonishing and quite successful. Why? Because it was allowed to be the principal beneficiary of its own resources.

Today we find ourselves in this situation where Newfoundland is not allowed to receive that privilege.

The Prime Minister before he was here said that he was president of a company that should have understood. I would think that the current Prime Minister would understand as well given the fact that he speaks so eloquently of it. He said that when the Atlantic provinces rejected the latest federal offers, the caps, the limits and the exclusion, the government engaged in a clumsy divide and conquer tactic, a tactic that gave away its obvious objective of holding back the development of the Atlantic provinces.

The current government set out to fix this fiscal imbalance but it has created a brand new one: a fiscal imbalance between provinces, between those that are rich and those that are poor, but those are relative terms.

Many members in this House perhaps do not realize it but Newfoundland and Labrador, believe it or not, based on a per capita GDP export, has the highest in the country, not particularly poor but particularly in debt.

When we set out to negotiate the Atlantic accords, we knew that by 2020 we would become that economic powerhouse that the current Prime Minister bragged about Alberta being. We would be that place. We would be, as my colleague addressed, the economic jewel of the north Atlantic, buy we do that by taking ownership of our own resources and being that principal beneficiary.

I mentioned a while ago that an independent economist had several things to say about the situation going on now in the 2007 budget and the implementation act and he ran some numbers through. He got all his information and he looked at it and originally came out with a number that stated that if Newfoundland and Labrador went to the new equalization formula touted by the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, Newfoundland and Labrador would gain $5 billion into 2020. However, here is the catch. Several days later, after several inquisitions, Dr. Wade Locke came to realize that the new formula did not work that way.

Interestingly enough, prior to that, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the regional minister of Newfoundland and Labrador, even praised Dr. Wade Locke by saying that the provinces do gain. However, when new information was brought forward last Friday, Dr. Wade Locke had a look at those numbers again and put out a release talking about what he had to look at. He said:

The Equalization changes contained in the 2007 budget gave the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador an option of which Equalization formula would apply.

However, s.84 of the budget implementation Act (C-52) makes a significant change to the 2005 Implementation Act...

This was the Atlantic accord deal that was reached when we were in government.

Section 84 states:

The definition “fiscal equalization payment” in section 18 of the Act is replaced by the following:

“fiscal equalization payment” means

(a) for the purposes of section 22, the fiscal equalization payment that would be received by the Province for a fiscal year if the amount of that payment were determined in accordance with section 3.2 of the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, without regard to section 3.4 of that Act....

That is a very key point. That information was not available when he first ran his numbers.

Let us look from now until 2020. We did the Atlantic accord in two sections, until 2012 and then to be renewed, if still in equalization, until 2020. If those accords were left alone today this is what would follow.

Dr. Locke looked at three revenue streams coming into the provincial treasury of Newfoundland and Labrador. Oil revenue was one, the accord payments or offsets was the other and equalization. The total number came to $18.53 billion in that period over the Atlantic accord. I congratulate some of my colleagues who made that happen, particularly the member for Halifax West.

Dr. Locke took the $18.53 billion and the three revenue streams and put them into the new formula under the old assumptions. He came out with $22.76 billion. Yes, , there were over $5 billion extra with this new formula. However, after talking to finance officials, Dr. Locke brought forward several questions and put them in his release. He asked them the following:

In calculating the accord under the new arrangement, it is my interpretation that the province is entitled to receive the accord [payments] so long as it qualifies for equalization before the cap is imposed, rather than after. Is that correct?

Just last week federal officials said that the legislation before the House proposes that under the new arrangement the test for determining whether Newfoundland and Labrador qualifies for the 2005 accord is whether or not it would receive equalization payments under the base O'Brien formula, that is 50% of inclusion plus the cap--it is bad--effectively the cap on our accords.

If it received equalization under that formula, then the next steps would be taken to determine how much, in this case the offsets would be determined before the cap was applied. The cap is applied when equalization is calculated. This is a pre-cap issue.

Lo and behold, there is a new twist. Instead of $22.76 billion, after clarifying with federal finance what this is all about, the provinces will actually receive $17.5 billion. That is $1 billion less than what we would have received under the Atlantic accord.

Let me remind the House what was said by the Minister of Finance during his budget speech. He said:

As we promised, every province will be better off under the new plan. Under the new plan, provinces will get the greater of--

However, the provinces were not. They are actually losing money under the new--

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

No, that is not true.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Do not say no. The member for Peterborough would like to say no but he does not understand it.

I would suggest that the member go to downtown Peterborough, talk to the people at Haaseltons Coffee & Sweets and find out just how the budget is not selling to the people of southern Ontario as well as Newfoundland and Labrador.

Every province is supposed to be better off and yet an independent assessment by Dr. Wade Locke proves that is not true.

It seems to me that in this run up right now we also had a quote from the Minister of Finance during his budget speech. He said that the era of bickering between provinces is now over.

I would not say that our premier, Danny Williams, is bickering or that he is troubled. He is downright angry. As I have just pointed out, he has every right to be angry. He was promised in two campaigns that there would be a total exclusion of non-renewable resources, no caps, nothing of that sort, no hindrances.

If he had followed through on his promise, he would have given the province of Newfoundland $11 billion more than what it was to receive under the accord.

Let me illustrate just how angry the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is in light of us now being in an era of no bickering. Danny Williams is not the only premier. He just happens to be mine.

In a recent release on April 13 entitled “Federal Government Misled Province on Impact of New Equalization Program”, the minister of finance, Tom Marshall, said:

We identified this problem more than a week ago and immediately wrote the federal government seeking clarification. We have yet to hear back from them.

It is funny because they seemed to be quite chatty back in 2004 and 2005.

The fact that they don’t bother to respond to us, but manage to find the time to speak with and offer clarification to independent economists, is insulting to the elected government and people of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Government of Canada has an obligation to explain themselves.

It tried to but it did not work out.

The federal budget legislation contradicts everything we have been told by Ottawa.

The minister said it is increasingly clear that the cost of the Prime Minister’s broken promise is significant. Dr. Locke’s numbers suggest that the shortfall from the Prime Minister’s commitment is now $11 billion. What’s more, it appears to be more financially advantageous for the province to opt to stay with the existing equalization program as it provides approximately $1 billion more than the new equalization program.

But for all, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has said unequivocally that Newfoundland and Labrador would not be worse off. As a matter of fact, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans put out a press release complimenting Dr. Locke on his findings before he ran those numbers again, before receiving all the information and clarification from the finance department of the Government of Canada. He was quite pleased that we were getting an additional $5 billion but yet not much has been said since we truly found out that we would be receiving $1 billion less.

Did the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans know or did he not know? Was he not properly briefed? It is a question for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians and certainly a question for his own riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl.

The press release goes on to state:

These numbers contradict everything the federal government and [the] Fisheries and Oceans Minister..., in particular, have said since budget day.

Mr. Marshall also states:

Despite assurances from the Federal Minister of Finance that the accords would be protected, fundamental amendments to the legislation implementation implementing the 2005 Atlantic Accord agreement had been proposed without any consultation with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. These amendments can be found in the 'consequential amendments' section of the 2007 Federal Budget Implementation Act. Consequential amendments are normally reserved for housekeeping items to fix technical issues. It is not a place to shroud fundamental changes of this magnitude.

In other words, the second half, up to 2020, is now in jeopardy and hidden somewhere in the back of Bill C-52, this so-called implementation act.

I would like to thank the people of Newfoundland and Labrador for standing behind us 100%.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to what was quite a technical speech by the member.

Several things keep coming back as being obvious such as, if the Atlantic accord is better, the budget allows the government of Newfoundland and Labrador to keep the Atlantic accord exactly the way it was and we will continue to honour that accord. It also instills some fairness in the equalization program. It is a principled equalization process. Thank God we got back to principles on equalization because it is a redistribution of federal tax dollars. These are not dollars that are taken from any given provincial government. These are federal revenues that are redistributed. Why should any province receive additional money over and above the fiscal capacity of Ontario, my home province? Why should federal tax dollars go to make one region wealthier than another region? It absolutely should not. The federal government has brought forward a principled approach on equalization, one which we can stand behind.

I believe the government of Newfoundland and Labrador should take whatever deal is best for it. If it is the Atlantic accord, wonderful. Take it 100% and we will gladly honour that accord, but we will also stand up for all Canadians in all other parts of the country who deserve a federal government which deals with equalization on the basis of principles.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I would like the attention of all members. We are having a question and comment period and I will recognize all members, but the rule of thumb should be that if I can hear the speaker, then everything is okay, but if I cannot hear the speaker, it is because too many people are speaking.

I recognize the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I would like to address this to two members in the House, to the member of Parliament for South Shore—St. Margaret's and to the member of Parliament for Avalon who are present here.

Did they hear what was just said? How dare we actually go beyond the level of prosperity of Ontario. Let us look at the situation we have here. The fiscal capacity cap which the Conservatives illustrated so eloquently during the campaign that this was not an issue and that they would never impose it, yet here we have it right in our laps.

I do not think the member really understands the true nature of the Atlantic accord and the whole nature of being principal beneficiaries of which his leader preached for years, not just Newfoundland and Labrador, not just Nova Scotia, but Saskatchewan as well and British Columbia and the whole country. Yet the Conservatives have created this fiscal imbalance that exists between provinces. That is what they are doing, juxtaposing one province against the other. This is not the way this federation is supposed to work, yet they turn it around.

I would suggest to the hon. member in this situation that the Atlantic accord is not protected. As my hon. colleague pointed out a few weeks back, he probably does not know the difference between the Atlantic accord and a Honda Accord for goodness' sake. He seems to think it is protected but the independent economists says it is not. And there are caps implied within it.

I suggest at this point that the hon. member touch base with his hon. colleagues from Atlantic Canada who do understand what this is about.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please. Before I recognize another member, I would like to point out to the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor page 522 of Marleau and Montpetit on mentioning the presence or absence of other members. I hope this is the last time I have to mention this.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure those comments from the member for Peterborough are going to cost a few votes for his colleagues from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.

I listened very carefully to the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor as he eloquently presented the statistics. He knows very well that when the Liberal government brought forward the Atlantic accord, the then opposition Conservative Party voted against it. Why did Premier Danny Williams not stand up and speak then? He knew he had an accord. How did he sell it to the voters of that region to vote against the Liberal government which said that it believed in fairness? Now the premier is saying that the Conservatives cannot be trusted and that they lied. What happened? Could the member elaborate? My constituents in Scarborough Centre are very confused and upset.

I am glad that he mentioned that Alberta and the provinces should have the right to build on their resources and build their economies. The Atlantic region should also have the opportunity to prosper and provide for its people, seniors and youth especially. Could the member elaborate on that for me?

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for reminding me of the rules. I would like to extend my apologies to all members in this House.

In response to my hon. colleague's question, indeed it has been a tumultuous event over the last three years to say the least. When the whole idea of being principal beneficiaries started, we talked about the fact that under the Atlantic accords we would be able to prosper much like Alberta did back in the 1950s and the 1960s and become an economic powerhouse. The Prime Minister pointed out, and as a matter of fact the current Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs pointed out the same facts and she was quite right. I would be disappointed if I lived in Saskatchewan which is next door to Alberta because Saskatchewan with its oil resources now faces the cap. It was not faced by Albertans way back when. There is a question of fairness to be resolved.

In the case of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, the deals were signed. The offsets were agreed to right up to 2020 which covers a substantial part of development certainly for the oil and gas sector off Newfoundland and Labrador. The second part of that also helped in the case of Nova Scotia, which would be particularly disconcerting for it given that it is now in jeopardy.

Buried within the details as the economists point out is the implementation of these accords which the government says it is protecting. In fact, even the Minister of Finance said in a CBC interview that after 2012 we are done and that is it. Whatever happened to 2020? As I pointed out, even if it goes to 2020 under the new formula, we are getting $1 billion less despite the fact that there were no caps, there were no hindrances whatsoever. We were 100% beneficiaries.

The government even said that the province would not be worse off, yet we are getting $1 billion less. One billion dollars sounds like quite a bit of money. I am sure my colleague from Cape Breton would agree.

[An hon. member]

It is a lot of money.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It is a lot of money, Mr. Speaker.

Nobody on that side would agree. We have to sell what we put out there, which is perhaps the politics of deception at its best.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, after the comments from the member for Peterborough I suppose I should meekly get up and say on behalf of Atlantic Canada that we are proud to be part of Canada. We are proud to be part of a Canada social transfer program, CST, that was developed in 1977, that transferred tax points to the provinces, and which has been very favourable to all provinces.

I wonder what my Newfoundland colleague thinks about keeping the Canada social transfer--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor has 30 seconds to respond.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, therein lies the crux of one of the problems, equalization and the fair principle of it. The Constitution talks about equal services provided across the country based on a needs basis. Certainly the measures taken in 1977 with tax points, or as those members called it, back door equalization, was not back door for us. It--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Argenteuil--Papineau--Mirabel.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007. For the benefit of the Quebeckers and Canadians who are watching, this is the budget implementation bill, which must be voted on and passed.

Obviously, once again, the Conservative Party needs the Bloc Québécois to see this bill pass, just as it needed the Bloc for the budget to pass. It always makes me smile when other members call into question the presence of the members of the Bloc Québécois, my colleagues here in this House. Once again, this only proves the importance of our presence today. If the Bloc Québécois had not supported this budget, there would be no debate regarding the budget implementation. Lastly, the most important reason for the Bloc's support of this budget has to do primarily with the partial correction of the fiscal imbalance.

If I may, I would like to go over a bit of history with the House. As we all know, Quebec's motto is “Je me souviens”—I remember. Quebeckers certainly remember the Conservatives' excessive spending of the 1980s, which is what drove Canada into debt. I am sure we all recall the cuts in transfer payments to the provinces that the Liberal Party was forced to make, cuts that jeopardized Quebec's entire fiscal balance. I was affected by those cuts—not as a privileged witness, but on the front lines.

My background is in municipal government, so I remember the first deep cuts very clearly because the Government of Quebec had to pass on some of the costs to the municipalities. Those with experience in municipal government will remember the first reform, known as the “Ryan reform”. The entire secondary road network was transferred from the Government of Quebec to the municipalities, which had to pay and are still paying the bill for Sûreté du Québec. Quebeckers are well aware of this when the time comes to pay their municipal taxes. There is a nice little “Sûreté du Québec” item on the tax bill for people in the regions who have to pay for the Quebec provincial police. Obviously, the big cities were already paying for their municipal police forces.

I would just like to remind my colleagues that the Atlantic Accord and the agreements the federal government signed with the provinces are all well and good, but that since the federal government cut provincial transfer payments in 1993-94, it has begun to reinvest.

Perhaps I will have an opportunity to explain to what extent. However, I would like to paint a picture for you with respect to the 2007-08 budget, which is before us today, and the federal government's provincial transfer payment increases. Since 1993-94, when deep cuts forced municipalities and school boards to shoulder many new responsibilities, Quebec has recuperated 55% of what it lost, while elsewhere in Canada, the other provinces have recuperated 66%.

Today in Quebec, despite the restoration of fiscal balance, the Liberals and the Conservatives are at each other's throats. Nonetheless, many agreements, including the Atlantic accord and other natural resource revenue agreements, have been signed with the other provinces. I hope that my colleagues in this House, whether Conservative, Liberal or New Democrat, will never forget that Quebec has always paid for one quarter of all investment in oil, but that the rest of Canada has never contributed to the development of hydroelectricity in Quebec, which is our trademark and which Quebeckers have paid for through their electricity bills.

We received nothing from the federal government. We developed our own energy with our own money even though we paid for 25% of the cost of developing the energy of other Canadian provinces. In addition, they share the resources and the profits from these energy sources that we do not have. Today, the blame is being placed on the resolution of the fiscal imbalance, which is considered acceptable for the 2008 budget. Once again, there is a long way to go, because Quebec wants its due.

With the drastic cuts of the 80's and 90's, and the accumulation of debt by the Conservatives, who put Canada in the poor house, the provinces were the ones to pay. Quebec made a major contribution to repayment of the federal deficit.

Today, Quebec is asking for what it is owed. There is a reason why the Bloc Québécois has always called for a solution to the fiscal imbalance. It was neither the current Conservative government and its Prime Minister nor the Liberals who invented it. It was Bernard Landry's Parti Québécois government that set up the commission. Those who followed the debate in Quebec will remember the Séguin commission that presented its report in 2001 and declared that there was a large fiscal imbalance in Canada. That is easy to figure out. Ottawa has too much money compared to the provinces.

We must realize that the federal government does not look after health, education and transportation. So what does it do? Health, education and transportation are a large part of a citizen's life. The rest—the water from taps, waste and so forth—are municipal responsibilities. The federal government looks after security.

Here again, when we look at the gaping holes in Canada's security, we see that the government has not always done its job. It is not meeting the real, everyday needs of Canadians. It is only natural that Quebec, which feels it has contributed too much in the past, should want to correct this imbalance and have most or all of the 52.8% of taxes that Quebeckers pay the federal government come back to them. We know that the government keeps a lot for itself, but a portion has to come back to Quebeckers, and not in formulas invented for Quebec. We are not asking for anything new.

What the Bloc Québécois asked for and what the federal government has done in part is to modify the equalization formula. It was clear that the equalization formulas had to take into account the revenue of all 10 Canadian provinces, which was not the case previously.

The balance had to be right, and the revenue of all the provinces had to be calculated so that equalization would be fair. That is part of Canada's constitution, the famous constitution that Quebec never ratified, whereby the have-not provinces are compensated by the others.

Quebec would like to be a province that contributes more and that gives rather than receives. That is our goal. Quebec would like to stop seeing the aluminum ingots produced in Quebec taken to make cars in Ontario.

The only automotive industry in Quebec was closed and all the jobs associated with it were eliminated. In addition, we often manufacture our products and offer competitive hydro rates paid for out of Quebeckers' pockets. Here again, nothing comes from the federal government. We make products that are then processed in the other Canadian provinces. The people in those provinces have the good jobs. They think it is only natural that they should have the good jobs.

We are seeing this again with the Boeing contracts. Between 55% and 60% of the aerospace industry is in Quebec. Boeing negotiated an agreement for 30%, while the federal government required that just 15% of the spinoffs go to Quebec. But 55% to 60% of the aerospace industry is in Quebec. As the member for Mirabel, I know what I am talking about. Part of the industry is located my riding and elsewhere in Quebec: in Longueuil, Montreal, and in the greater Montreal area.

Once again, when contracts are negotiated, the Conservative ministers from Quebec stand up and say that private companies have to fend for themselves. They are probably glad because the private sector does more than it is asked to do. They are glad to leave private companies to fend for themselves. The Conservatives wanted 15% of the economic spinoffs to go to Quebec, but Boeing wanted 30%.

I am dumbfounded that such things still go on. Quebec will be penalized and 70% of the industry will go elsewhere with the contracts for the C-17s and the Chinooks. Military investment in the aerospace industry will go to other Canadian provinces and will create jobs. It will also create an even bigger imbalance.

There will always be hon. members in this House who will stand up to say that Quebec is always at the mercy of the rest of Canada. That is why the members from the Bloc Québécois would one day like to leave this chamber and for Quebec to become a country so that it can take care of its own affairs and stop being told it is piggybacking on the others.

When we are gone, they will understand that they are the ones who were piggybacking on Quebec, with its natural resources, its raw materials and all they transform outside of Quebec and for which we pay a good part.

The budget now recognizes the fiscal imbalance the Bloc Québécois had estimated. Indeed, the Léonard committee produced a report ordered by the Bloc and it estimated the fiscal imbalance at $3.9 billion. Even the former Quebec Liberal finance minister agreed with that estimation. So nobody should be surprised by it. That was the amount we requested to resolve the fiscal imbalance and the amount the government is giving us. We gave the Prime Minister another chance after last year's budget. He had said that he needed one year to review, analyze and study the issue and that he would propose a solution to the fiscal imbalance this year. I will remind the House that he promised to hold a first ministers conference. Finally, that never happened because he was unable to do it.

We ended up with the $3.3 billion we now see in the budget to resolve the fiscal imbalance. We asked for $3.3 billion in three years. The Bloc has always been a fair player. It has always showed great openness by acknowledging that this was not easy to do and that there were difficult decisions to make. We gave ourselves a three year deadline to get that issue solved. We got $3.3 billion when we were asking for $3.9 billion in 2003 dollars. No need to say that indexation had not been included. We did not want to risk being accused of all sins in the world. But the fact is that we would have considered $3.9 billion a real solution to the fiscal imbalance. However, the proposed $3.3 billion remains a useful amount and that is why the Bloc Québécois has given its support to the budget.

This started at the time of Bernard Landry's Parti Québécois government with the Séguin commission, which was followed by the Léonard committee, set up here by the Bloc Québécois. The committee used the federal government's numbers. No other party wanted to do it, and none of the parties in Quebec were able to do it because it meant taking a close look at the federal administration's inner workings. The Léonard committee spent a year studying all of the data to justify that figure, which, as I said, has not been challenged yet. So that resolves the fiscal imbalance in part. Fixing the fiscal imbalance for Quebec fixes it for the other provinces. Fixing equalization for Quebec fixes it for the other provinces too.

Thanks to agreements signed by other prime ministers, including the former Liberal Prime Minister, other provinces have received additional revenue. Those provinces want to keep getting the same equalization payments as before in addition to new money. It is never-ending. That is why I am saying that because it is so complicated to understand how Canada works, Quebec would be better off as its own country, taking care of its own business. That would be the ideal solution. It would save the rest of Canada a lot of trouble, and it would save us the eternal frustration of constant recriminations. Quebec is always wrong, regardless of the fact that its natural resources are taken away to be processed in other Canadian provinces, which rake in the cash and refuse to give any of it back. This has to end sooner or later. One day, the other provinces will understand. When Quebec leaves, they will miss us a lot because they will finally understand to what extent our natural resources prop up their economies.

[An hon. member]

They can come visit us.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

They will be more than welcome.

That is why, when we feel progress is being made, the Bloc Québécois is always there to defend the interests of Quebeckers. Quebeckers have seen this once again. We do not hesitate to support measures that represent a step in the right direction, and one such measure was to correct part of the fiscal imbalance, to the tune of $3.3 billion.

We also fought for ecotrusts. Quebec demanded $328 million to meet the Kyoto protocol targets. Once again, this is not a simple matter, yet it is not complicated either. Quebec and Quebeckers are ready to meet the Kyoto targets. This should not be so difficult to understand. Why? Because we have invested the necessary money and effort in hydroelectricity and wind power. We are ready. Quebec is ready to go green, while the rest of Canada is mired in tar sands, oil, coal and nuclear power.

That is their problem. We have been investing in new energy sources for a long time, and it has not cost you a cent. That is the best part. Quebeckers have paid through their hydro bills and their taxes. I am not making this up. Zero minus zero equals zero. It is not hard to understand. The federal government has not invested a penny in developing hydroelectricity in Quebec. However, it has invested a few million dollars in wind power in recent years, because it was embarrassed to stand by and admit that it had never contributed anything. Quebec has provided 25% of the $600 billion invested in fossil fuels since 1990. We have paid our share. Today, we are ready. Quebec has reason to demand its fair share.

You are willing to spend money in order to reach the Kyoto targets. Quebec must receive its fair share. The Quebec government's demand was for $328 million. We fought to get it and now it is in the budget. We are pleased to see it. The Bloc Québécois supports this measure. Furthermore, the Bloc has always defended the interests of Quebeckers here in this House. This explains why this file was able to move forward and why this measure is in the budget. Your voices would never have been heard if we had not been here to say that Quebec is prepared to meet the Kyoto targets. Stop all this quarrelling. At least there is one Canadian province that is ready to act. Let it go ahead and act. Watch Quebec. It will lead the way, just as it did in the area of child care. We will also lead the way regarding Kyoto targets, as well as in other areas. We are ready to lead the way and the rest of Canada simply has to follow our lead. It is not hard. This is why we are calling for full control of our taxes and income tax dollars, in order to be able to develop as we see fit. We will be good neighbours and good friends. The only problem is that we are different. We are ready to meet the Kyoto targets, we speak French, we are proud and we remember. I repeat the motto: Je me souviens. We remember the drastic cuts that you made in transfer payments to the provinces. Those cuts were devastating to all municipal administrations and school boards, all health and education networks.

Today we remember that all the times we have asked you for something, to give us part of what we are owed, it is always a big deal, it is always complicated. The federal government always has to make an agreement with another province. It is simple. There are six Canadian provinces with fewer people than the former city of Montreal. It is no more complicated than that to understand. You are good people, we are good neighbours. The problem is that some provinces do not have enough people to provide service networks. I can understand that the provinces would want the federal government to handle child care and education. In Quebec, this has been sorted out for a long time. All we are asking is that when you create a program, that you give use back our money no questions asked, without making us accountable. We want the money. It is as simple as that.

In light of the fiscal imbalance, what we are asking for is fiscal autonomy. We do not want to have to account to anyone anymore. This means that tax fields have to be transferred. Sending transfer payments to the provinces is not enough; Quebec needs its own money. The federal government has to either transfer tax points or offload the GST on Quebec, which would then keep the money. In addition, the time has come to put an end to all the debates and for us to stop looking like beggars coming to you for money all the time, when parts of our economy keep being transferred to other Canadian provinces. That is what has happened in the aerospace sector. We are leaders in that sector, and you are chipping away at it. You want to get your hands on it because, for one reason or another, you are unhappy with the current state of affairs.

One day, you will understand that Quebec should be given free rein. With our natural resources and our own approach, we will grow and we will achieve the Kyoto objectives. We will become the finest francophone land in the Americas, the quickest to comply with the Kyoto objectives. That is the choice Quebeckers have made. It has always been their choice to keep a finger on the pulse of the planet, while the rest of Canada is more in tune with the pockets of multinational companies. That is your choice. One day, you will understand.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel said that he wanted Quebec to get its fair share. I think that is a very wonderful statement that he made.

My question is predicated by his statement. If he believes in that, does he not believe then that the rest of Canada, other Canadians living in Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, other Canadians living in Ontario, and other Canadians living in Saskatchewan should be treated fairly?

What I am referring to are the commitments that were made to my province of Ontario under the Canada-Ontario infrastructure program of $6.9 billion. Ontario got $1.4 billion. He said that Quebec asked for $3.9 billion and received $3.1 billion.

What happened to the Atlantic accord? What happened to the Kelowna accord? Does the member not believe that Canadians, wherever they live, whether in the beautiful province of Quebec, Ontario or Newfoundland should be treated fairly?

This budget, as we heard earlier heard from the member from Newfoundland and Labrador, was not fair to all Canadians. Does he believe in fairness right across the country? That is my question.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have absolutely nothing against the fact that the other Canadian provinces may find fairness where they think it lies. I have no problem with that. However, there is a problem when the Canadian Constitution provides that equalization is the way to deal with unfairness. Then, if we deal with equalization the way we should, that is by taking into consideration all the revenues of each of the ten provinces, the technicalities result in Quebec always being short-changed. If they have a problem with what is provided in the Constitution, then they can review it and amend it. I have no problem with that. The provincial premiers will simply have to sit down together and discuss the issue. In the meantime, we must play with the cards that we were dealt, the cards that were dealt to us under the Constitution.

We are asking whether it is possible to get a fair share through equalization and achieve a balance. Some gifts are given by prime ministers, some agreements were signed, some royalties on natural resources were paid to some provinces. I do not have a problem with that, not at all. We are not jealous, but Quebec is left with the transfers to the provinces. We just want the process to be fair.

Currently, the federal government is enjoying billions of dollars in surpluses, while Quebec is managing a deficit. That is what the fiscal imbalance is all about. There is too much money in Ottawa and not enough in the provinces. In the late eighties and early nineties, the federal government reduced transfers to the provinces in an attempt to pay down the national debt, the debt that was created by the Conservatives. That is the reality. Now, the federal government should give money back, but it does not want to. It is reluctant, it wants to keep that money, it wants to give presents or do something else. Quebec simply wants its share. It is that simple. So much the better if the others are also satisfied with the arrangement. We supported the Kelowna accord and a host of other agreements for the provinces. We just want what is owed to us. It is as simple as that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know that the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of the Conservative budget. When we look at this budget closely, we see that indeed, some money was given to Quebec as part of the transfers to the provinces. The hon. member says this is not enough and that more money should have been allocated to Quebec. This raises a few questions. Is the Bloc Québécois disappointed? Especially, as my colleague says, since Quebec has a deficit. As far as the problems at the hospitals are concerned, I know that the response will be that this is Quebec's jurisdiction and not the federal government's. However, money is transferred to a province so that it can offer programs that it can manage itself under the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the provinces are responsible for health and education. At the same time, we see that the Charest government is turning around and lowering taxes instead of investing the money in the programs that interest Quebeckers. Tax cuts of some $700 million have been proposed, even though Quebec's health care system is suffering, the same way health care is suffering across Canada and in New Brunswick. People who are hospitalized end up in hallways instead of hospital rooms. The issue of privatization has come up with the new opposition leader, Mario Dumont, who said there should be more privatization.

Do you not think the money should have been invested in those programs, in accordance with the Constitution, instead of voting for a budget that gives money for lower taxes rather than—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I caution the hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel that he has less than one minute to answer the question.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say that I do recognize that my colleague from the NDP has very centralizing views. When the health care system was established in 1960, the federal government was paying 50% of the costs. Had it continued to pay 50% of the costs, there would not be any problems in the health sector in the Canadian provinces. We are talking about a choice that Quebec made.

Not to pay its share, to siphon money from the provinces to pay the federal debt, to tell the provinces where to invest the money given back to them, that is a choice—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please.

I would just like to say that, when the House resumes debate on this bill, the hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel will have four minutes remaining.

The House resumed from April 16 consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, politicians are citizens that other citizens nominate and elect to represent them and their interests. As such, the bond between them is quite simple: it is called trust.

If and when that bond is broken, there can be no greater disconnect or breach or falling out or betrayal between them. The people are no longer represented. Instead, I would say, they are ruled.

Today we are debating the implementation of the 2007 federal budget, a document that affects the lives of millions of Canadians in thousands of different ways. Some are beneficial and some are not.

My remarks concern themselves today with just one aspect of this and that trust I mentioned between politicians and the people. It is at the very heart of what I wish to say.

In the last election campaign, the man who is now Prime Minister of Canada said over and over again from podiums from one end of this country to the next, including in my area, that a Conservative government would not tax income trusts.

He put it in writing in an op-ed article in the National Post. He directed that it be published in the party's platform, called “Stand up for Canada”.

In short, the man who is now Prime Minister could not have been clearer in his messaging to income trust investors, many of whom are seniors. He told them to relax, saying they would be safe if they voted for the Conservatives because, unlike the Liberals and the NDP, the Conservatives would never attack their income trusts.

Now we know that he lied. The government brought in a tax on income trusts on October 31 of last year, which tanked the stock market and erased $25 billion--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. The hon. member from Halton is not a rookie. He knows that he cannot accuse other members of lying and so I would ask him to withdraw the accusation against the Prime Minister.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I withdraw the accusation.

The Prime Minister said one thing and did another. This actually caused investors in this country to lose more than $25 billion in private savings. Most of those people were retired. They could not possibly and will not possibly be able to recoup these losses.

It is the biggest single erosion of private savings ever caused by a single government action.

With that one draconian and, as it turned out, stupid, costly and senseless action, the Conservative leader broke faith with the people. He breached it. He destroyed it. He threw it away.

He is no longer representing the income trust investors whom he asked to vote for him. Now he is ruling them. He is telling them that they must live with the gratuitous pain the government has caused. Now, with this bill, the government seeks to make this breach of faith the law of the land.

That is why I voted against the budget and why I cannot support this enabling legislation. Shame on those who wrote it and seek to impose it upon Canadians.

Today I am not going to add any more of my words to the debate. Instead, I will turn to those of average Canadian investors.

This week on my blog I mentioned that I would have the opportunity to stand here for a few minutes to speak about this issue. I asked individual Canadians if they would send me some messages they would like conveyed to the House. I was overwhelmed with the response.

I would like my hon. colleagues to listen for a couple of minutes to some of the messages.

Mr. Don Bool, of Courtenay, British Columbia, wrote:

For me it's not having the proof of tax leakage. The blacked out pages by the finance department pretty well says it all. I could live with changes to income trusts if it was proven they were not good for the Canadian economy. Just give me good reasons for changing income trust policy and I'll eat the loss. I didn't know much about the particulars of income trusts but when they presented blanked out pages I studied up on trusts and a simple person like me could see the fix was in. I have been taken for a schmuck.

Ron Murray said:

I am a senior citizen that dropped some $30,000 because of the [Minister of Finance's] complete misunderstanding dealing with income trusts. No discussion, no notice, lying to the public--

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I mean to say “saying one thing to the public and doing another”. Mr. Murray continues:

--refusing to give the background of his numbers on the 'tax loss'.

Mr. Murray said that he sent a letter and states:

I sent a copy to my local MP and was called by him. I went to his office and was muzzled with [the] party line...I am not sure he had a clue what an Income Trust was. The main reason according to [the member of Parliament opposite] was that we were the only country in the world that did not tax income trusts.

Mr. Murray says phooey.

Then we have Tom and Ethna Anderson, who said:

The current government broke its promise not to tax income trusts. These actions have seriously lessened our confidence in the government's ability to govern with honesty and integrity.

Donald Metcalfe of Hanover, Ontario, said:

My wife and I are devastated by the damage the decision of the government to tax income trusts has done to our investments and to our monthly income. We are both seniors and rely on this income...we are down more than $1,200 per month. This is robbery and has affected our living in a major way. I talked to our [Conservative member of Parliament] and he told me [the Prime Minister] would allow him and his fellow MPs no say so why do we elect MPs to represent us when [the Prime Minister] is a dictator.

Again, in sympathy, Mr. Speaker, I will not name the member.

Elmer Sather of Surrey, British Columbia, said:

I am speechless, and in shock over how fast these Income Trusts are being taken over by foreigners.

He said it is staggering.

The Martinson family said that the Prime Minister told people something and did something else, although they used a more descriptive term. They wrote:

The government has successfully made it sound like they get no tax money from businesses involved in the Income Trust structure and people seem to be buying this. I feel it is important that it be made clear to the Canadian public that Governments gets lots of tax money due to Income Trusts.

As of March 31, the Martinson family reminds us that the Canada pension plan had 80 individual income trust businesses in its portfolio. If it was such a bad idea for individual citizens to hold income trusts, as the government would suggest, how could our public pension plan have invested in 80 of them?

Bill Fischer says this in regard to the Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity) who had a town hall meeting in his riding the other day on income trusts. He said:

I attended and here's my comment:

“We worked hard to elect a Conservative government, and were rewarded with betrayal. [The Prime Minister] promised one thing and did another. A 35 billion dollar--

I will not use the word--

--action. Calling manure a rose doesn't change the smell”.

[The secretary of state] spoke a lot of “rose” at the meeting, but few were fooled. He and [the Prime Minister] need to listen to Ralph Klein and recant, repent, and reimburse investors and seniors. You can't reward...politicians by voting for them [when they do not tell the truth]. It encourages them to continue the practise.

I have another comment here:

I don't remember reading in the party's platform anywhere that you had decided to decimate the nest egg of hundreds of thousands of senior Canadians. This is despicable behaviour from a government that touts itself as being accountable. To whom?

Art Moss, another senior says,

My RRSP took a 25% haircut in the aftermath of the Halloween massacre. It has since recovered about 10%.

However, the real pain of this legislation will come in 5 years when I convert to a RRIF. If all goes according to plan...I was projecting distribution income of $2,000/month.

He goes on to say, “the Minister of Finance calls this tax fairness. There is nothing fair about it”.

Mr. Speaker, I have probably 400 comments here. Could I have a couple of hours? If I could get unanimous consent from the House to continue to table these comments from individual Canadians, I would be a very happy guy because I would be able to tell these Canadians that I came here and stood here today, and actually got their voices to the floor of the House of Commons. Could you ask for that consent, Mr. Speaker?

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

The hon. member has asked for the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, can I wrap up now?

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

No. Your time is up. Questions and comments, the hon. government whip.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Secretary of State and Chief Government Whip]

Mr. Speaker, I will not take all the time. I am sure there are other members who would like to question this particular member.

Throughout his intervention, he used some very strong language. He said “despicable” and implored the necessity to tell the truth, if I heard him correctly.

This particular member, as I recall, said that he would resign his seat before he would turn to another party. He said that there should be a process in place in the House that members should not be allowed to change political stripes during a Parliament. Yet, we find that he is still here. He is still sitting here.

I would ask, why? If he is so insistent that people tell the truth, what about himself? Why did he not tell the truth and resign his seat?

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Mike from Rodney says, “You personally promised that you would not let other parties get away with taxing income trusts. Silly for us to assume that you condemned other parties for a promise your party was not willing to do”.

Another comment states, “Mr. Harper, Mr. Flaherty and the remaining Conservative MPs: you placed our country in jeopardy with your policy regarding income trusts, changes in interest deductibility and withholding taxes for corporations. Something--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, order. There has to be some intimation of relevance and the member is perfectly in order, except he is not in order when he keeps using the names of ministers in the context of the letters.

So we will go to the hon. member for Burlington.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Halton has missed his calling. He treats this place as a theatre and does not take the issues seriously. He is obviously playing for the television.

Here is what I want to ask. First, on November 7 did he or did he not vote for the Conservative government's income trust motion?

Second, “my vote acknowledged that wholesale corporate conversions to trusts are unhealthy”. Is this true or not that these were his words on www.garth.ca on November 6, 2006?

Third, “reforming the income trust business and stemming the tide of conversions is necessary for the long term health of this economy”, again on his website and spoken by him. Is this true or not? Did he say it?

Fourth, “too many new conversions, lost tax revenues, unfairness in corporate tax treatment, money leaking to foreign investors, the threat of the banks morphing into trusts, the writing was on the wall--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. The hon. member has managed to get three and a half questions in and we have only got a little time left.

The hon. member for Halton.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Dwight from Chatham says:

The blackening-out of the purported rationale by the Finance Department during the FINA hearings was a shock to me. This was then coupled with the hiding of the bill inside the budget so that no discussion was possible. These actions appear to cover up the guilty knowledge that the true facts could not stand up to public scrutiny.

Harold says:

In view of the Prime Minister’s explicit election promise never to impose a tax on income trusts, and the fact that this promise undoubtedly gave existing and potential trust investors a high degree of comfort, why did the Minister of Finance not take one of the many routes available which would still have accomplished his aim without destroying massive amounts of--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. One last question by the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I admire the member's ability and effort to hear from constituents using the various technologies that are available today. He is probably in some ways way ahead of his time.

I was wondering if in his reaching out to his constituents and asking them to comment on the budget if he went beyond income trusts. Did he hear anything from seniors, for example, who are by the hundreds of thousands not getting their entitlements because the government has not acted on recommendations to change the way that information is disseminated, re-entitlements to seniors, and seniors themselves having to actually apply and then become automatically qualified for things like CPP, OAS and GIS?

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Actually, all the people I am quoting right now are seniors. For example, Dave Marshall and his wife in Cornwall, Ontario say--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Vancouver Island North.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks today by painting a picture for my hon. colleagues about how this budget fits into the overall course that Canada seems to be taking under this Conservative government. This course is guided by its not so obvious agenda and if members read between the lines, they will see that it is there.

This agenda is also driven by five priorities: one, help the rich get richer and pretend the prosperity gap does not exist; two, privatize at all costs, including municipalities and their infrastructure; three, treat first nations with disdain and ignore their advice; four, invest as little as possible in social programs, no matter how big the surplus; and five, ignore the crisis situation in the forestry sector.

This Conservative agenda masquerades behind what it likes to call the harmonization of inefficiencies. This language is often used by the right as a kind of code. To the rest of us, harmonization of inefficiencies loosely translated means the alteration of policies to the benefit of rich corporations and to the detriment of ordinary Canadians.

This policy change ignores the ever-increasing prosperity gap, environmental conditions, food safety concerns, health care services and the control of our natural resources. Furthermore, this budget offers deep integration with the U.S. at the cost of our sovereignty.

This agenda of privatization by stealth has been going on for many years. This path has seen the rich get richer and the rest of us get the leftovers.

This budget is nothing short of deceiving. While the Conservatives beat their chests about standing up for Canada, their actions suggest quite the opposite to hard-working families. While they talk about a stronger Canada, they intentionally attack our public institutions; thereby, eroding the foundation of an independent Canada.

Allow me to elaborate more clearly what I believe the government's real priorities are. Priority number one: ignore the widening gap between the super rich and ordinary Canadians.

Surplus after surplus of hard-working Canadians' taxes have gone to tax cuts for large corporations. These surpluses subsidize the development of the oil sands at a time when the industry is making record profits. It gets to continue to receive subsidies until 2015. That is six years before it even starts to see a phase-out. But no money from the federal budget went to the thousands of Canadians whose families are looking for affordable housing.

In fact, affordable housing was not even mentioned in this budget. So, how is it that a profitable corporation can continue to receive subsidies but ordinary families are ignored? The gap between the rich and the poor in this country is widening and this government has no plan to correct it.

Priority number two: use privatization as a mantra for change. How do we start the process of privatization? First, we need to set up shop.

On page 162 of the budget, it states this government will, “establish a new federal office to identify and implement opportunities for public-private partnerships in infrastructure”.

Step two, then we have to make it mandatory. On page 169 of the budget, it goes on to state that municipalities, “seeking funding...will also be required to demonstrate that the option of undertaking the project as a public-private partnership has been fully considered”. This is simply bad policy and a waste of Canadians' money.

We have seen the experience of public-private partnerships when companies take over a public project. The focus shifts away from the public interest and meeting community needs to ensuring profit for the company's shareholders. Maybe the Conservatives should have consulted with the Federation of Municipalities who believe that this government should not be forcing a one size fits all policy down their throats.

Mandatory P3s are not the only privatization at play. People in Vancouver Island North, in my riding, are very concerned that this government is trying to privatize one of the largest common property resources in the country: our fishery. While it may not be part of the budget, the fact that the bill was introduced with no consultation with fishermen, lodge owners, recreational and sport fishermen, first nations or anyone else is a huge concern in my riding.

Then there is the issue of our forests. We in the NDP have spoken at length about the softwood lumber sellout and now we are seeing the result of that bad deal: raw logs exported at an ever-increasing rate and the government not willing to take a stand and implement a made in Canada policy to protect jobs in our communities.

Priority number three is that the Conservatives went out of their way to exclude first nations from the budget. This is one of the most outstanding and offensive omissions I have ever seen.

I have been meeting with many of the chiefs in Vancouver Island North over the past couple of weeks to talk about the budget. We have also spoken about many other issues of concern to their communities. The level of frustration and anger they are feeling because of what is lacking in the budget is very high.

The government announced $300 million for a housing initiative that allows them to buy their own homes, but it is a reannouncement of old money, nothing new. What the chiefs want to know is when they use the $300 million for housing and there is no new money, what programs they are going to lose to have to pay for it.

There was nothing in the budget for land claims and treaty settlements. First nations are ready to settle. They want to move forward for their communities, for their economic well-being, but they cannot because the government says it does not have a mandate to settle. The government underlined that in the budget by not putting any money in it for land claims.

Priority number four is that no matter how big the surplus, no matter how well our economy is running, the Conservatives invest nothing in social programs. This particular priority hurts every community and quite often the most vulnerable in our society.

A reintroduction of the same money the Conservatives introduced last year for child care, $250 million, will not help build a national child care program. That program would be helping ordinary working families and parents with escalating child care costs and a lack of spaces.

There is nothing in the budget for the arts. There is no mention of culture. It is not even on the government's agenda. There is nothing for art programs for kids and communities, nothing for artists and sadly, nothing for museums. There is nothing for pharmacare, home care or long term care for seniors. There may be some old money to address wait times, but the government said that last year and wait times actually went up. These programs are what made Canada a great country; at least my Canada includes them.

Priority number five is to pretend that a crisis does not exist in the forest industry. On the contrary, the current state of the lumber industry is a perfect example of how Canada is losing on trade with the U.S. The steady creep toward free trade and further harmonization at any cost is hurting this country.

Our timber mills are closing. Over 5,000 jobs have been lost since the softwood lumber agreement was signed. Ask the mill workers in my riding who have seen their jobs and their logs get trucked over the border on a daily basis. “Did this government stand up for Canada?” they are asking. I say no. Instead, in a rush to placate their Conservative counterparts in the south, the Conservatives ignored five international trade rulings in favour of Canada. They signed a bad lumber agreement and managed to give away $1 billion in the process.

This whole mess was done in the name of harmonizing inefficiencies. What is so efficient about losing jobs? The Conservatives may have made harmony with the U.S., but they sure left a heck of a mess behind in their wake. And to add insult to injury, the budget provided no funds to help struggling communities when our mills are closing.

The government cannot just ignore these problems and hope they go away. It has to take action to help these communities. The government has to stop exporting raw logs from federally regulated lands. Then it needs to clean up its act by providing aid and a comprehensive plan to help these communities and stop mill closures. But there is no plan. There is no stabilization funding. It cannot be found in the budget. The government needs to start making decisions that actually help hard-working Canadians.

As a former labour representative, I understand the intent of these policies. Their point is to undermine local democracy and allow private corporations to benefit from government contracts. That is it. The result is there is a steady race to the bottom in the quality of work being completed while municipalities struggle to accommodate more and more needless bureaucracy.

While the government beats its chest about standing up for Canada, ordinary Canadians are beginning to recognize that the truth speaks louder than words. The truth is the prosperity gap is growing. The truth is our communities, infrastructure and natural resources are being privatized. The truth is first nations are being ignored. The truth is investment in social programming is abysmal. The truth is the forest sector is in crisis.

Canada's corporate CEOs are getting richer and richer. Ordinary hard-working Canadians are being left in the dust. They deserve better. They deserve fairness, and the budget does not deliver it. For those reasons, I cannot support the budget.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the intervention by my colleague from the New Democratic Party, but I do not agree with her at all. She talked about truth. What is important for Canadians is there needs to be some truth in what is said in the House.

I have the budget in front of me. I went through it a couple of times as a member of the finance committee. For example, we have introduced the WITB, which is a program to help people get over the welfare wall, to give the working poor in this country an advantage. If someone leaves social services and starts a job at $8.25 an hour, our program in the end will improve that person's quality of life and his or her disposable income by 25%. That is an important piece that we are providing for working families.

The member said that we are not doing anything to address the gap between those who have and those who do not. We are doing what we can. We have outlined a program in the budget that directly affects people's ability to move ahead as a family economically in this country.

The member also stated that there was no mention of culture in the budget. That is absolutely not true. If she would turn to page 98 of the budget, it talks about a program of $30 million over two years for local arts and heritage festivals; summer museum internships to help small museums across the country get the quality people they need to provide the services and programs that communities are demanding; and a Canadian heritage sports program to help sports that are important to the history of this country.

My question--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. The hon. member got two minutes out of the five and there are other people wanting to ask questions.

I will go to the member for Vancouver Island North.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind my hon. colleague of the many things in our communities that ordinary Canadians were calling for, such as money for housing. There is a huge crisis across this country when it comes to housing. Whether people have jobs or not, it does not matter; they are having a hard time finding places to live.

There are people in my community who are living in campers in the park waiting for rental houses to become available because the vacancy rate is so low. My community is a small one. In other communities in my riding there are people who are in the same sort of situation. I hear on a daily basis from my colleagues across the country about the housing issues in the inner cities and larger communities, cities and towns. There are people who cannot find places to live. That has so many other implications for families.

For the government to completely ignore housing in the budget is outrageous. It has been such a big issue. People are calling for a national housing strategy. That the government left it out of the budget is beyond words.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague and I agree with some of the points that she raised about this budget. She mentioned the absence of numerous social programs and policies. There is nothing for employment insurance. For many years now, we have been calling for improvements for people in need, and there is nothing about that. There is nothing either to help older workers, and nothing to support our industries. For example, Quebec has lost 100,000 manufacturing jobs since 2003. There is really nothing, no real measure to support that industry.

So there are shortcomings. We voted in favour of the budget because it marked a step forward in addressing the fiscal imbalance. I call it a step forward but the problem still has not been resolved.

In her remarks, my colleague barely mentioned the federal spending power. At present, large sums of money coming from the federal government are spent in areas that fall under provincial jurisdiction, such as health care or education. That leads to all kinds of duplication of services, infrastructure and bureaucracies. This waste of federal money directly prevents the public from receiving proper health care and education services.

I would like to hear my colleague's views on federal spending power and ways of limiting that power.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with my Bloc colleague's comments about federal spending.

There are a lot of programs that the federal government should be delivering across the country, such as a national child care program. Quebec has a wonderful program. The rest of Canada would like to have that too. It would go a long way toward helping working families and single parents, moms and dads, to alleviate some of the costs that they face in bringing up their children when they have to go to work.

There are a whole lot of other things that I did not get to talk about with regard to spending that the government has failed on, such as foreign aid. We have actually seen the commitment to foreign aid drop. It is an embarrassment on the world stage for Canada when we said we would live up to a commitment of 0.7% of the GNP for foreign aid and we have actually decreased our foreign aid spending. It is a sad thing for Canada.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak once more to the budget. I thought I would use my time to focus on two items in the budget, which have been the recent focus of attention, income trusts and the interest deductibility provisions. I also want to use part of my time to show the linkages between those two.

The first point to make, which has been made before but it is so fundamental that it cannot be said too often, is that the income trust tax was a massive broken promise. The Prime Minister said, in words that could not have been clearer, during the election that he would not tax income trusts. On the strength of that solemn declaration, hundreds of thousands of Canadians took the Prime Minister at his word, put their life savings into income trusts, knowing that there were market risks but confident that there were no political risks, because the Prime Minister of the land had committed himself in unequivocal fashion to not tax those income trusts.

On Halloween of last year, when he absolutely and totally broke that promise by imposing a draconian 31.5% tax, he cut all those people off at the knees, caused a $25 billion meltdown of the hard-earned savings of those Canadians, many of whom are seniors who depend on the proceeds of their savings to pay the bills. The error was not simply the broken promise, but it was the incompetence of the manner in which that promise was broken. This is the first parallel between the income trust decision and the deductibility decision.

The finance minister has a tendency to go nuclear. When he sees a problem that might be a little problem, his tendency is to drop a nuclear bomb on it. He does not consult, he just drops the bomb and then finds out afterward what happens. A far more sensible approach would be a surgical approach; look at the problem, isolate the problem, consult before acting and think before acting. He does not think it through, but drops a nuclear bomb, lets it explode and then deals with the consequences thereafter.

Just yesterday he said, on the subject of deductibility, that he would spend some time on it now, some weeks after the budget. Why did he not spend some time on it before he made that decision? Instead of destroying $25 billion of consumers wealth, why did he not spend some time on thinking it through before he took that ill-fated action last Halloween? It is a bit late to start to spend some time on it now.

My point about the surgical nature of the operation in the case of income trusts is that what he should have done, and he had the information at his disposal, was to follow the Liberal plan, which says not to impose a 31.5% tax. That is absolutely unnecessary, draconian and it causes a $25 billion meltdown in Canadian savings. What we would do, and what we will do if we come to power, is impose a 10% tax, not a 31.5% tax and our tax would be refundable to all Canadian residents except non-residents who would have to pay the tax to ensure that they would pay a reasonably full share of the tax burden.

There are three positive effects of this alternative Liberal policy. Some intelligent people in the finance department could have told the minister this. It is not rocket science. Had he done our much more moderate, surgical, non-nuclear approach first of all, some two-thirds of the $25 billion lost to ordinary hard-working Canadians would have been returned to them through the markets under this Liberal plan.

Second, seniors in particular, who have need of a high yield instrument in order to get a return from their savings to pay the bills, would not be deprived of this income trust instrument, which is what is in the process of happening under the government's budget.

Third, the energy trust sector, which was a vibrant sector contributing to the nation's productivity according to the governor of the central bank, would have been allowed to continue to thrive under the Liberal plan.

Before Halloween, the energy trust sector was repatriating foreign capital. It was a net acquirer of foreign assets. Right now, it is sitting on its back, at bargain basement prices, being gobbled up by U.S. companies that are still subject to the tax rules that our Canadian energy trust was subject to prior to Halloween.

This is hugely damaging to a vibrant, highly productive sector in Alberta and it is hugely counterproductive to thefinance minister's stated goal. The finance minister's stated goal was tax fairness, that ordinary Canadians should not pay more than their share of taxes.

Let us think through, logically, the consequences of his actions. It was imminently predictable at the time of his decision that these energy trusts in Alberta, and other income trusts, would be for sale at bargain basement prices and that foreign entities, notably private equity companies, would come in and buy them up.

What does that do to the necessity for ordinary Canadians to pay taxes? Logically, it means that ordinary Canadians will have to pay more tax, not less tax. Why? Because under the previous structure, income trust holders were paying a lot of personal tax. Now what has happened is these private equity foreign companies come in, buy the assets and structure those purchases in such a way that they pay no tax. How does that save tax money? It does not; it does the opposite. It is not rocket science.

Previously, income trust unit holders were paying a lot of tax. Now the foreign entities come in, buy out those income trust holders and pay no tax. The net effect is the income trust sector is paying way less tax, and in many cases no taxes, than they were before. The public at large is going to end up footing a larger tax bill, not a smaller tax bill. Therefore, the fundamental objective of the policy, as stated by the finance minister, the opposite is in fact what is going on today.

There is a second way in which this is not fair.

First, the ordinary Canadians pay more tax because of the policy. Second, in the good old days, the pre-Halloween days, ordinary Canadians had access to this relatively high flow of income arising from the energy trust sector. Now the government says, no, that ordinary Canadians can no longer go there, ordinary Canadians can no longer participate in this revenue stream that is so important for seniors. However, the people with deep pockets can. If we had enough money to buy an oil field, we could still get those same benefits. Large pension funds can acquire those assets. Large private equity enterprises from the United States can achieve those same income streams, without paying any tax at all. That is unfair.

It was a revenue stream that was available to all Canadians, some with modest incomes, some with less modest incomes, in a democratic way. Ordinary Canadians cannot go there any more. Only the entities with the deep pockets and the big wallets are allowed to go there.

I will now come to the important point about interest deductibility.

This is a very important parallel between these two policies. What the government is doing with the interest deductibility prohibition is it is tilting the playing field in favour of foreign companies and against Canadian companies. Whether we look at Europe, the United States or Japan, all those jurisdictions have equivalent policies. Their companies, when they go abroad, can deduct the interest on debt. Canada's companies can no longer do that. Our companies are weakened relative to companies from the U.S., Europe and Japan.

Why would the Minister of Finance and Prime Minister wish to tilt the playing field in favour of the foreign companies and against the Canadian companies? It is a totally erroneous policy. It is anti-competitive. It is exactly the same as what the government has done with the energy trusts. The U.S. equivalent of energy trusts have the same favourable tax treatment.

The government has tilted the playing field in favour of the U.S. companies both for energy trusts and in general. It has moved against Canadian companies. Canadian companies for competitiveness, for jobs, for prosperity need to expand abroad and the government has attacked that ability to the gain of foreign companies.

I do not have to remind the House of that great Progressive Conservative Peter Lougheed. He has spoken out against the dangers of the hollowing out of Canadian companies, a message that the government has totally ignored.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise and debate this with my colleague from the other side.

The Liberals voted against the ways and means motion. They are probably going to vote against the budget as it goes. I want to point out that the Liberals are voting against the new working income tax benefit the working poor, the new $2,000 child tax credit, the $16 billion in new infrastructure funding, the $1.5 billion for the provinces and the territories to help develop environmental measures, $600 million to reduce patient wait times, $300 million to combat cervical cancer, $1 billion in tax cuts for seniors, a 40% increase in post-secondary education transfers to the provinces and $20 million in establishment. There are a few more things I could go through.

He spent all that time on income trusts, but the member across was quoted as saying on Question Period on CTV, November 5, 2006, the following:

It was absolutely the right thing, and we had started on this track to protect the tax base, to ensure tax fairness and to work for the productivity of the nation.

Did he or did he not say that on national television on a Sunday morning on November 6?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives love that quote, but they always leave out the following six or seven words that I said, and that was they were wrong because they used a nuclear approach when the surgical was required. This is what I continue to say to this day. If they would look at the full transcript, they would see that.

Let me speak to one of the measures referred to by the member, the working income tax benefit. That is a really meanspirited working income tax benefit. It is very miserly. It has half the value only of the previous Liberal version.

My contention is the government really only wishes to appear to care about low income working Canadians. The measure that it has adopted is so miserly and ungenerous. It will only help a person get a few feet up the welfare wall. It will do nothing to help them get over it. This is what the Conservatives bring out at every opportunity to pretend they care about poor people, but they do not care about poor people at all because those are not the Conservative constituency.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for Markham—Unionville. I think some of what he has said is quite interesting with respect to the hollowing out of corporate Canada.

The new position of the Liberal Party to oppose foreign direct investment into Canada is very interesting to me. The way the member was talking in the debate, it sounded as though he actually opposed the idea of foreign direct investment of foreign capital coming into Canada, making investments into Canadian businesses and enterprises. This is something this government supports. Our government believes this has contributed greatly to our prosperity and productivity.

Is this a new position of the Liberal Party, that it will now oppose foreign direct investment into Canada? The Conservative Party believes this is very good for the Canadian economy.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member question is a far more sensible question than that of his predecessor. It is a good question, but it is not right.

The Liberal Party is not opposed to foreign direct investment. I agree with the hon. member that foreign direct investment brings many benefits. We are in favour of foreign direct investment by foreigners into Canada and by Canadians to other countries. That is a part of the world in which we live.

What we oppose is when government policy tilts the playing field to favour the foreigners at the expense of Canadians. This is what the interest deductibility thing does. We want Canadians to be able to compete with foreigners on an equal footing, on a level playing field. The minister's policy, by removing that privilege from Canadian companies, while companies of other countries retain it, has favoured those other countries at the expense of our companies.

He is creating not a Canadian advantage, about which he likes to talk. He is creating a Canadian disadvantage in favour of foreigners. That is our problem. Our problem is not foreign investment per se. Our problem is creating a playing field where the government, whether by error or by whatever reason, not thinking it through, has worked in favour of foreign companies and against Canadian companies.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this time to talk about the impact of the budget on the housing crisis in Canada and its impact in my riding of London—Fanshawe.

With the growing homeless crisis in this country and the cost of housing on the rise, there is a definite need for more investment in affordable housing. With over $9 billion in budgeted corporate tax cuts, we know that there is money available and that it should be available for the vulnerable of this country but, sadly, there is no new money for affordable housing or homelessness in the recent federal budget.

The budget made it very clear that the housing of our citizens is not a priority for the government. In fact, the number of times homelessness was mentioned in the budget was zero. This is shameless. With over 200,000 homeless people in this country, there is not a single mention of their plight. How can we begin to address the problem when it is clear that the government does not even acknowledge that there is one?

We should just imagine having no family support, no income and no place to call home. The bag containing all of our worldly possessions was stolen last night. We are too sick to get a job. We have been abused and rejected. Our last meal was a bowl of soup two days ago. We do not know where our next meal is coming from. We have not had a change of clothes or a warm bed for a week. The Conservative budget does nothing to help the most vulnerable. There is no money for housing.

In the current federal spending estimates, overall spending on housing and homelessness by Human Resources and Social Development will drop in 2007-08 by more than $44 million from the spending of 2006-07. In the federal spending estimates, funding for assisted housing will drop by $391 million. Again, in the same federal spending estimates, funding for affordable housing dropped from the $800 million budgeted last year and put in trust for the provinces, to $92.8 million this year.

There is no new money for northern housing or off reserve housing in the 2007-08 budget. The budget document only highlighted the $300 million for northern housing and the $300 million for off reserve aboriginal housing that the NDP secured in the 2006-07 budget.

New Democrats want a real, substantial investment in affordable housing and we need to see investment in our current housing stock. We can easily create more affordable housing by increasing federal support for co-op and non-profit housing that already exists in Canada. This investment will provide an opportunity for co-ops to offer more subsidized units, complete much needed maintenance for current units and to proceed with purchasing or building new affordable housing units.

In addition to the current spending, we also need a federal housing program with secure ongoing funding every year. This program can be funded in part or in whole by the surplus generated from the mortgage insurance collected by CMHC. What is needed to truly address our housing crisis is an investment of $2 billion in a federal program each year and the CMHC surplus can achieve this.

An investment in long term core funding would benefit communities across Canada. In my riding of London—Fanshawe, the need for core funding is critical. Over the past year I had to write letter after letter and request meetings with the minister to alert that minister to the fact that organizations that assist homeless people or those at risk of homelessness were closing down. After much pressure, the government started to approve programs.

As we neared the end of the year, organizations again started to scramble as the main funding program, SCPI, was about to end. After many more phone calls and letters, a new program was finally introduced and, with further pressure, SCPI was extended for another six months.

The problem now is that organizations and programs are facing closures. Federal dollars for homeless programs have been so poorly administered by the government and so lacking in long term commitment that local service providers and community members are forced into a cycle of crisis management.

Under the new program, there will be far less money for London area organizations. It is not clear what the new program will look like or if organizations that received SCPI in the past will qualify for the new program funding. As it stands, eight projects addressing homelessness and poverty in London may soon be closing and over 2,000 of our most vulnerable citizens will be put at risk yet again.

The worst has happened for some and the clock is ticking for others. This includes the following programs.

Street Outreach London East will no longer be picking up messages. As of March 31, 2007, it had to shut its door.

The London Housing Registry can sustain one full time staff person until September 30 and will not be able to provide the housing access services that it once was able to offer. Its operating budget has been affected by unstable funding.

The bridge funding and donations My Sister's Place has received will only hold the agency over until September 30. After that it will need to close its doors. It will continue to generate some revenue from donations but it is not enough support and no one can depend on it.

The money the AIDS Committee of London will receive will hold it over and its “closet for tears” program for three to four months. The program, which services at risk youth and those at risk of homelessness, will shut down at that time. Eliminating this program will put more vulnerable young people at risk of contracting AIDS.

The Youth Action Centre organization offered an outreach program for homeless youth and those at risk of homelessness. This program is due to shut down September 30 and the single staff position eliminated.

Because the funding took so long to come for Nokee Kwe during the 2006-07 fiscal year, it had to cut back two of its three staff. The organization is down to a single person and, with its current funding, can only hope to survive another six months. After that program shuts down entirely, the outreach, prevention and advocacy for homeless aboriginal people in London ends.

The bridge money for the London Community Resource Centre will only help sustain the program cultivating communities for another three months. This program sets up collective kitchens and community gardens, relying on student involvement from the community college to run the program as it has not been able to find money for a full time development position. This, of course, will make it very difficult to sustain the project on a long term basis.

All of those organizations run on a shoestring, with skeleton staff. In the past year they have been given the runaround and left in limbo. This adds unneeded stress on the staff and leaves less time for them to do the actual work of helping others in the community. How on earth are they supposed to be effective and efficient? How are they supposed to plan for the future? How are they supposed to help people when they are spending all their time worrying about an imminent shutdown?

We all know that a good business model has planning and efficiencies built in. It is the government funding formula that is preventing this good business practice. People are spending more time filling out forms for funding than doing the important work that they set out to do, the important work that alleviates suffering and strengthens our communities.

This budget clearly does not address any of the problems faced by these organizations. In London and in other communities across Canada, we face the same challenges. The government has not and does not put enough funding into securing adequate housing for Canadians, nor does it sufficiently fund homelessness prevention. Instead, the government makes what little money it makes available to address homelessness almost impossible for organizations to access and use efficiently and effectively.

The budget not only fails Canadians, it fails the homeless. It is time that the government remembered that it was elected to serve Canadians, not the bankers, not the corporations, not its well-heeled cronies, but the hard-working and deserving people of this country. I truly hope the Conservative government comes to realize this soon for the sake of constituents, for the sake of our communities and for the sake of all Canadians.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the speech by the member from the New Democratic Party and it was full of factual inaccuracies.

One of the things she stated was that housing was not mentioned in the budget. I have the budget document here, budget plan 2007, and on page 91, just one of our many initiatives, the section titled “Housing in First Nations Communities”, it reads, “Safe and affordable housing is a basic need for all Canadians”. It goes on to state, “To this end, $300 million will be dedicated to the development of a housing market in First Nations communities”. That is the first factually inaccurate statement she made in her debate.

The second inaccurate statement was that the budget was full of “corporate tax giveaways”. That too does not make any sense to me because here we have the Liberal opposition criticizing our budget for putting a tax on income trusts and removing the deductibility of money borrowed by Canadian corporations for their operations abroad. We are receiving criticism from the Liberal opposition for other tax measures, such as the elimination of the accelerated capital cost allowance for the oil sands. These things are, in fact, not tax giveaways but quite the opposite. They are good for the Canadian economy, which is why we have acted.

I want to address the main point of her speech which was housing. As she knows, coming from London, Ontario, much of the housing is driven by municipal governments, locally owned and run, whether cooperative or non-cooperative developments, and many of these programs are facilitated by provincial governments in terms of affordable housing programs. To that end, our government has invested $39 billion in transfers to this.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the member made reference to housing for first nations. That is old money. There is absolutely no mention of money for new housing initiatives. I stand by my statement. The government has no interest. It is trying to recycle money that was available because of the hard work of New Democrats.

In terms of income trusts, I am sorry but that was Halloween and I am talking about a budget that was delivered in February.

In terms of the government's cronies in the oil and gas sector, I am sorry but they made significant profits. It seems to me that last year they made $25 billion in profits. They do not need any welfare from the government. They do not need any more assistance. If the member does not know that, he should ask the hard-working men and women in London--Fanshawe who have written to me over and over again about how they are getting gouged at the gas pumps because the government does not know how to deal with the oil and gas sector.

Every community organization that I mentioned in my remarks are suffering. Their funding has been cut in half. They have no idea how they will manage. I am talking about vulnerable people like the people at My Sister's Place. Aboriginal youth have actually spent the winter sleeping outside because the government could not find the money to address homelessness in this country, in my community and in every community.

Shame on the Conservatives and shame on their corporate welfare. Shame on them in this House and shame on them from now and into the future.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member has actually painted a bit of a picture about this budget. It is a budget that does not seem to address the needs of Canadians who are in need. That is the difference. It helps high income seniors because it allows income splitting for people who have big pensions.

What does it do for the homeless? We do not even see anything in the budget for international aid, et cetera.

I want to give the member another opportunity simply to point out what is not in the budget, which is almost as important as what is in the budget.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the status of women committee and interestingly enough there was a discussion about income splitting and pension splitting. A group brought a rather fascinating chart to our attention. It showed the effects of income splitting on seniors. The interesting part was that for a senior couple making $21,000, there was absolutely no tax benefit, nothing, but a couple who made $121,000 a year received a tax benefit of nearly $9,000.

Where is the justice in that? How on earth does a couple, seniors who have given all of their lives to this country, who have built the community, manage on that kind of pittance? What kind of message is the government sending to those people when it behaves in this manner and makes sure that those who have continue to get, and those who do not have are completely forgotten?

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill. It is always a pleasure to speak on a budget because when a government tables a budget, it affects all Canadians, obviously, but it affects directly people in a member's own riding.

The first thing I would like to do is to dispel a few of the myths around the Conservative government. I know that the Conservatives have been going around talking to people and telling them what good money managers they are, how fiscally responsible they are. The reality is that it was the previous Liberal government that cleaned up Mulroney's mess and got this country back on a solid footing.

I know that we keep coming back to the $42 billion yearly deficit but that is a reality that we picked up in 1993, and it is a reality of which Canadians are aware. However, when we left 13 years later, and I know they keep talking about our 13 years in government, we left the government with a $13 billion surplus and we set the basis for a second solid surplus this year. Even the Conservatives seem to be ashamed of taking credit for it because they know that it will not work. They know that Canadians know that the basics were set up by the previous government.

Prior to the last two surpluses, when was the last time that a Conservative government had a surplus? This is really interesting. Mr. Mulroney was in government for nine years. One would think that in nine years with a solid majority government he would have had an opportunity to do what he had to do and basically come up with a surplus, but not at all.

Let us go back to 1958 and the Diefenbaker sweep. Mr. Diefenbaker swept the country. I am sure that he had an opportunity to get the House in order and have a surplus, but no, absolutely not. In fact, the last Conservative surplus was in 1912 under Sir Robert Borden, before the first world war.

The myth the Conservatives are trying to portray out there is that they are good fiscal managers, but I think that puts that to rest.

The Conservatives keep talking about the last 13 years of Liberal government. In the last 13 years of Liberal government we had seven consecutive surpluses. I could enumerate all the other amazing things that were done in that period to put Canada on a solid fiscal footing, which everybody in the country realizes.

The second myth is that they control spending, that they have really tight reins on spending. The Conservative Party has been spending like a drunken sailor. It is absolutely incredible what has been going on.

When the Conservatives were planning their budget they basically eliminated the $3 billion contingency that our party used to put in place when we were doing our budget planning. Old habits die hard. They are very close to incurring deficits. It looks like a return to the good old Mulroney days is just around the corner.

When it comes to announcements, and I think it is important to talk about them, I remember that a year and a half or two years ago, they were always saying how the previous government was making announcements and throwing money around. In the last little while in Manitoba it has been a whirlwind. People in the Conservative Party have been tripping over each other to make announcements. I have never seen in my five years here in Parliament so many announcements in so little time.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Signifying so little.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Signifying so little, exactly.

I was just wondering why the Conservatives continue to call themselves Canada's new government. It just bothers me. After a year and a half, why would they do that? I think I have come up with the answer. They want to distance themselves from the Mulroney government. They want absolutely nothing to do with those people, which is understandable.

The income trust fiasco is another issue. A lot of members have spoken about it today. In my riding it has been a huge issue. People in my riding, most of them seniors, have lost from $50,000 to $80,000. This will go down as the biggest scandal in Canadian history. People may not realize it right now but $25 billion lost in a matter of hours is something that had been absolutely unseen before. Down the road historians will say that it was an absolutely horrendous move.

The Minister of Finance had all kinds of options but the Conservatives were in such a hurry to make a move on this that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance did not look at the options. All they wanted was to achieve their majority and do whatever they had to do to achieve that. Who pays for that? It is the 1.5 million seniors who were affected by it and who lost huge sums of money after the Prime Minister broke his promise on this.

The hon. Liberal member before me spoke to the fact that a lot of the income trusts were severely weakened and are now takeover targets. Normally there would be Canadian companies purchasing companies overseas and in the U.S., and there would be the reverse happening as well, other companies buying here in Canada and there would usually be a balance. We are told that in the last little while the imbalance is actually $100 billion and it is not on the right side. It is on the side of foreigners purchasing our companies. The Conservatives' policies are certainly impacting our country negatively.

Often, budgets are criticized for the things they contain. Some things were not in the budget and, in my opinion, that is often just as important.

I would like to say a few words about the court challenges program. In Manitoba, we were able to obtain the management of our schools and our own school divisions because of that program. Mr. Speaker, you are from Manitoba, so you will know that is important. It was only 11 years ago. In the riding of the President of the Treasury Board, there are tens of thousand of Francophones, and he was not even aware that that program was used to defend the rights of Francophones and official language minorities in Manitoba. Ever since the vibrant French-speaking community in Manitoba has taken control of its own curriculum. That is an important step that should be highlighted.

There was nothing for literacy in the budget. Some $18.5 million was cut and those funds have not been restored. In Manitoba’s Francophone communities, 11 literacy centres were closed and organizations such as Manitoba Literacy Partners are in jeopardy today. I find it insulting that the Minister of the Environment would say we should not repair something that is broken. We are talking about people here, not cars. Some people have not had the chance to learn to read or write. We cannot talk about people in those terms. I find that very insensitive on his part.

I could also talk about women’s groups, as well as the $10 million for “Santé en français,” a program that was not renewed, even though it had produced absolutely extraordinary results. They added $30 million to the total budget for official language minority communities. That is ludicrous. There are nearly two million Francophones living outside Quebec. They are making a laughing stock of our communities.

I would also like to point out that there was a reference in the budget to an official languages action plan with $642 million over five years. However, the official languages action plan should receive $750 million over five years. I hope that was a typo and not a $100 million cut that they tried to slip through. I would very much like to hear the government clarify its position on that subject.

On the environment, the Conservatives until a few months ago did not believe the science of climate change, until they saw the polls of course. All of a sudden, there was an instant conversion. The new Minister of the Environment bought a green tie. He thought that would do it. He thought that was enough to convince people that he had totally made the conversion. He ran over to Europe to tell our friends overseas that the Conservatives had seen the light, that the environment was suddenly important to them. The Europeans did not buy it and Canadians did not buy it.

An example of the Conservatives' false commitment to the environment can be found in Manitoba where their budget sprinkled $6 million over two years to clean up Lake Winnipeg. We cannot rake the sand on Lake Winnipeg for $6 million. This is absolutely ridiculous. What we need to clean up Lake Winnipeg, we are told by experts, is $120 million, and the last government had projected that in the last platform. That is the kind of commitment that needs to be made. The Conservatives cannot just say they are going to invest $6 million when they know it is not going to do the job. It makes one wonder if the Conservatives had a majority government whether they would even bother to show this newly found commitment to the environment.

There was not a word on the aboriginals in the budget. There was not a word on the Kelowna accord.

The Conservatives did do some things well. I think allowing corporations to write off their equipment faster is a good idea. I support increasing the capital gains exemptions to $750,000.

The Conservatives' best initiatives are when they basically reannounce past Liberal programs: EnerGuide; reintroducing the same funds promised on the Red River floodway; reintroducing the funds on the Sydney tar ponds; reintroducing the Liberal homelessness initiative under a different name; reintroducing $755 million to grains and oilseeds producers.

Overall it is a very frustrating budget for Canadians. It is a budget targeting their support for a majority government but not in the best interest of Canadians.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the member from Saint Boniface and I have a couple of comments.

I heard a similar refrain in this debate by the member for Markham—Unionville. It seems that the Liberal Party may be changing its position on foreign direct investment into Canadian companies and enterprises.

I heard him say, in a castigating way, in a way that was negative, that there was an imbalance, that over $100 million in net money had been invested in Canadian enterprises and businesses in the last while and that this was somehow a bad thing.

The Investment Canada Act is the act that governs investments by foreign companies and by foreign individuals into Canadian enterprises and companies. It has allowed for a significant amount of capital inflows into our economy, allowing for investments into plant, capital and equipment, and has really driven the Canadian economy.

I am wondering if the Liberal Party is now opposing the idea of Canadians investing in enterprises abroad and the idea of foreign individuals and foreign corporations investing in Canadian enterprises and businesses.

The second thing I want to point out with regard to the member's speech is the environment.

When I was 18 years old, I moved to Toronto in 1990. In 1990 and well into the early nineties, 1993, we had no smog days, none. Today in 2007, smog days are, day in and day out, a huge concern, as they were in 2006 and in 2005. There are dozens of smog days. The deterioration in the quality of air in Toronto happened under the watch of the previous government. All the while, while I was in Toronto I never saw--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. The hon. member for Saint Boniface.

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry but I did not hear the second question.

With regard to the first question, no, we have not changed our position on this at all. We have always been in favour of companies purchasing Canadian companies and vice versa. What we do not want to do is handicap our Canadian companies in that process. When the government puts income trusts on their knees, when it devalues their worth and make them vulnerable to foreign takeovers, that is a totally different thing. That does not mean that we do not encourage purchases on either side.

I have a couple of quotes that are very telling from people who are very important. Allan Lanthier, retired senior partner of Ernst & Young and immediate past chairman of the Canadian Tax Foundation, said, “...the single most misguided policy I've seen out of Ottawa in 35 years”.

That is what we are against. We are not against the policy. We are against what the government has done to handicap our companies.

Mr. Claude Lamoureux, chief executive officer of the Ontario Teacher's Pension Fund, has indicated, “This is unbelievable. I don't know who in finance looked at this. I can't believe any sensible person would do this”.

Therefore, it looks like we are not the only ones who have a concern about this. We have put our companies on their knees. We can no longer compete fairly. Those are the things we are against. We are not against fair trade.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member, who has made a very fine speech with respect to income trusts and interest deductibility, would comment on the article in The Globe and Mail this morning which reads, “Foreign money snags 3 more trusts”. The article reads:

Three more income trusts were thrust onto Canada's endangered list in less than three hours yesterday, raising to 16 the total number of trusts set to disappear with a value of more than $9-billion since Oct. 31.

Can the hon. member, other than the interest deductibility clause issue, think of a more wrong-headed policy with respect to this particular issue?

[Raymond Simard, Liberal, Saint Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I can think of several companies in Winnipeg that are very successful because of the income trust format. Let me say that they are concerned right now. They are the pride of Winnipeg. Some of these companies needed the initial capital to get started. They have grown on their own because of their own initiatives and have grown very well.

If we would lose these, and I hope they are not part of the 16 that are now disappearing from the Canadian landscape, it would be sad. These are heroes. These are people who have worked hard to maintain their Canadian citizenship and Canadian ownership.

I think my colleague is absolutely right. It is wrong-headed. Canadians in the end will pay for this. More American firms will be here and more overseas firms will be buying Canadian businesses. It is a sad day for Canada.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to the budget.

I profoundly believe that government budgets should tell Canadians much more than just dollars and cents. Budgets should also articulate and echo a nation's vision and values. We should spend and save according to our priorities as a country and as a people.

I must say at the outset how profoundly disappointing this budget is as a document for stating the priorities for a Canada that was built on rights and opportunities for all.

The Conservative budget has actually reminded me why I am a New Democrat. New Democrats believe in an ethic of care, compassion and justice for all. The Conservative spin doctors said that their budget was a family budget for the kitchen table, not the boardroom table. They certainly were not talking about most families or kitchen tables I visited in Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma.

Both in the last Parliament and in this Parliament, it has been my privilege, first as my party's child care critic and now as social policy and poverty critic, to travel across Canada and listen to people. In this past year I travelled across Canada to conduct a series of poverty forums that shine a light on the growing prosperity gap that divides our society and our people.

On a positive note, I have been impressed in communities by the deep level of compassion and caring that exists. However, people are increasingly uneasy about the disparity they see around them and their own tenuous grip on some security for themselves and for their families. Too many hard-working people and their families find themselves only one or two paycheques away from poverty.

People tell me they remember a time when community mattered and government could and did make a difference. People are looking for a vision consistent with the Canadian story where we together wove a safety net of basic income, health care, education, unemployment insurance and pensions for all.

Frankly, we will need more from the government than its tinkering here and there to fix our problems. We need more than the budget's baby steps forward on a working tax benefit that will not offer one cent to people on minimum wage who work full time.

We in my party are calling for a national anti-poverty strategy. I want to speak today about what the elements are for such a strategy. It would require the challenge heard by the Newfoundland and Labrador government in its poverty reduction consultation, a challenge to produce money and guts from elected officials.

We will not have to reinvent the wheel here. Jurisdictions in the European Union and elsewhere are proposing national plans to combat poverty. They are doing this with noticeable early success. In Ireland, for example--and there was a wonderful article in the weekend Toronto Star--the rate of people experiencing consistent poverty dropped from 15.1% in 1994 to 5.2% in 2001. The United Kingdom has taken a million pensioners and 800,000 children out of relative poverty since 1999.

Here in Canada there are promising initiatives in Quebec's anti-poverty law with a goal to achieve one of the lowest levels of poverty among industrialized societies by the year 2013.

Newfoundland and Labrador's poverty reduction strategy has a goal to have the least number of people in poverty in the country. In Newfoundland, a recognition that a poverty reduction strategy included but meant much more than just creating jobs. They looked at three key outcome areas: general well-being, employment and economic security and community stability.

For well-being, we are looking at health status in a the family: adequate nutrition; economic security; safety; access to early childhood programs, services and schools; post-secondary education and education status; and literacy. They will look at the redesign of policies and programs deliveries. They will look at income support; drug cards and who gets them; disincentives to work; coordination with federal policies; discrimination facing specific groups: women, persons with disabilities, seniors, immigrants, youth and aboriginals; and poverty influenced by the broad policy framework of government, federal, provincial and municipal governments.

The current framework creates disconnects in the continuum of supports as well as an imbalance of effort directed toward fixing problems rather than focusing on poverty prevention.

In Newfoundland there will be a new commitment to review every new piece of legislation or policy from a poverty reduction strategy lens to identify what works; sustained, stable, multi-year funding; universal access to programming; policy changes that remove barriers to support; accountability frameworks in federal-provincial-territorial agreements so policy intent is achieved to take in development and sustainability of rural communities; and disability related supports.

Even the World Bank has articulated a poverty methodology. Its major components are to explore individual and community well-being, to give priority to the poor in policy, to include institutional analysis and to always include a gender analysis.

In Canada there is a new movement across the country called “the vibrant community initiative” which has undertaken a significant poverty reduction strategy to create and grow a movement of diverse leaders and communities from across Canada who are committed to exploring, challenging and testing ways to unleash the potential of communities to substantially reduce poverty and ensure a good quality of life for all citizens. It is engaging business, citizens, groups and governments to examine alternative approaches to conceiving poverty and poverty reduction in order to strengthen the capacity of communities to make choices about how best to frame, unfold, measure and communicate about local poverty reduction efforts.

We as New Democrats have been looking at this issue of an anti-poverty strategy for quite some time. In partnership with the work that I am doing crossing the country and talking to people, we have a number of my colleagues in caucus who have critic responsibility in areas of housing, employment insurance, child care, post-secondary education, seniors, and the list goes on. Each one of those individuals are working with their communities and within their communities of interest to devise strategies that we can bring forward to the House, and we do that on a regular basis.

A skeleton for a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy, according to our caucus and the New Democratic Party in Canada, is already well on the road toward this with some of the following initiatives that we have laid out here in the House. We introduced private member's bills to begin the discussion. I myself led the discussion here on an opposition day only a month ago talking about the need for a national anti-poverty strategy beginning with the raising of the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour.

We are talking about EI reform, something that my colleague from Bathurst has talked about so passionately since he came here in the late nineties. We are talking about income security and the federal minimum wage. We are talking about child and family poverty initiatives. We are talking about seniors and a caregivers campaign.

We are talking about affordable housing and confronting homelessness, a problem that is becoming more and more alarming across this country and in places we would never expect, places like Calgary and Victoria for example, where the economy is doing well, where business is booming. We have a growing underbelly of homelessness that is alarming and it is creating great difficulty and challenge for those communities as they try to tackle it with little or no help from the federal government.

We are talking about affordable post-secondary education. We are talking about gender equality. We are talking about helping our veterans and their families. We are talking about persons with disabilities and introducing initiatives that will be helpful to them.

We are talking about our first nations, a group of people who we must fundamentally right our relationship with if we are going to develop a vision for this country. We need to honour our obligations to the Métis and Inuit.

We are talking about immigrants and overcoming the low income gaps that exist in our country. In that speech that I made about a month ago, I asked the House to entertain and to drive the development of an anti-poverty strategy and that we need to work together on this.

Too many of our friends and neighbours, too many of our fellow citizens out there, are counting on us to give leadership and to drop some of the partisan wrangling that has been heard here this afternoon and that so often takes over this place. We must work in concert as a team, together, as a government, to eradicate once and for all this terrible blight on our society, the blight of poverty.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

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 Mississauga—Erindale, Foreign Credentials.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech of the member for Sault Ste. Marie. While I do not agree with a lot of it, I have to commend him for the well argued and articulate program that he has outlined.

In particular, I was interested in hearing his discussion about the initiatives that the government of Newfoundland and Labrador is undertaking with respect to poverty. Could he tell us a little more about that? Specifically, what moneys has that government allocated to this program and what timeframes does it have to roll out this program?

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question is indeed a good question. In fact, all of us should really take a close look at this. Newfoundland and Labrador has taken a very proactive and aggressive approach to the reduction of poverty in its jurisdiction. I must say to the member that I will have to get back to him with some of the details he has asked for, but I will be happy to do that.

All I know is that the government of Newfoundland and Labrador initially has taken on and put the money behind a very comprehensive consultation process to hear from people across the province. What the government is hearing is that people want guts and money. People want the politicians of Newfoundland and Labrador to have the guts to respond to the reality they hear and to put the money behind the initiatives that the people being consulted and the government decide to take on together to reduce poverty in that province.

I believe from what I have read that they want to do this now. They do not want to do it 10 or 20 years from now. They want to get it done. The government wants to hear from people, get this program on the road and get poverty reduced in that province.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member from Sault Ste. Marie for his discussion today, while, as my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills said, I do not agree with everything the member has said.

There is one thing I want to point out to the House and I am going to ask the member to comment on what his party's position is on it. I was very proud of the Conservative government and the budget in introducing a savings plan for those who have children with severe disabilities.

In my other life, I worked for Easter Seals, which provides services to children with physical disabilities.There are many challenges for parents who have children with a disability and for grandparents too.

This plan will allow them to invest in a program so that once parents are unable to care for their child because they have moved on, the disabled person will be able to access those funds and will be able to carry on with their living environment. I would appreciate knowing what the NDP's position is on that piece of legislation in this budget.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, because I have heard it twice now from the members who have just asked me questions, I want to ask what it was about my speech they did not agree with.

Do they not agree that there is poverty in the country? Do they not agree that we need a national anti-poverty strategy?

As for the specific question in this instance about what the NDP thinks of this new disability tax credit the government is rolling out, first of all, again it will be something that those who have money will be able to afford and those who do not have money will not.

What we actually need is billions of dollars across this country for the literally hundreds of thousands of disabled people in every province who right now are struggling to make ends meet. Disabled people make up one of the groups that live in poverty in this country, groups that just cannot find a way to pay the rent, feed themselves, look after their children and live a dignified life in their communities.

They are crying to us as government. No matter where I went across this country to talk about poverty, one of the groups that came forward and spoke with me very passionately and knowledgeably about the challenges that face people in poverty in this country was the disabled group.

So yes, on the one hand, I would say good for the government for a tax credit program to help disabled people once a family moves on. On the other hand, with the billions of dollars we have in the surplus, why as a government are we not doing more for the disabled people living in poverty right now in Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative budget is going to be remembered for a number of things.

Canadians are not going to forget the fact that the promise of large scale tax relief never materialized, amounting to a paltry $80 per taxpayer.

Canadians are not going to forget the government's failure to act on the environment by choosing to instead offer tax breaks and reductions in funding that will grow Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

Canadians are also not going to forget the fact that federal program spending will rise by nearly 14%, or $24 billion, over the first two fiscal years of the government.

Today I want to talk about how this budget is the worst in a generation for the province of British Columbia and my constituents of Newton--North Delta.

The Conservative government has broken its promise and short-changed the Pacific gateway project by $44 million.

It has failed aboriginals by offering an insulting $21 million in new spending for the serious problems of poverty, substance abuse and widespread unemployment.

However, the action that is going to severely penalize British Columbia's exceptional growth is the new equalization formula for the provinces.

As a result of the budget, B.C.'s skyrocketing property values are now going to be included in the equalization calculations. My riding of Newton--North Delta, which is part of one of the fastest growing municipalities in Canada, is witnessing the trends that are going to make this single change punish B.C. for many decades to come.

In the recently released assessments of British Columbia property values, the city of Surrey's total assessment roll increased from about $50 billion in 2006 to $64 billion in 2007, a whopping 28% increase. In Delta, the total assessment roll rose by 21%.

British Columbia is experiencing a golden decade, and in the lead-up to hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics the province has become an engine that, along with provinces like Alberta, is helping to drive the Canadian economy.

However, as we all know, growth cannot continue forever, and there will be times in British Columbia's future when the prospect of an economic downturn becomes the new reality. Economies move in cycles and no province or territory is immune to these fluctuations.

In fact, this is precisely why the equalization payments exist: so provinces can be assured that regardless of the differences in annual tax revenues, program costs or economic slumps, every Canadian can expect a comparable quality of life.

Because British Columbia now has its property values working against it, that guarantee of equality is essentially over. Why? Because property values are continuing to rise at such an exponential rate, irrespective of the rate of growth in the province.

What this means is that B.C. will now surpass Ontario on the equalization ladder and will likely not be eligible for equalization payments ever again, not even in the worst of times.

British Columbia is being punished for its success by the Conservative government. It is clear that those on the other side of the House have absolutely no concern for this detail as long as they can achieve the political gain they seek so desperately by using the taxpayers' dollars.

But at what cost is this being accomplished? The Conservative government has carved this country up like a chessboard, picking winners and losers based on what will get it the most votes.

The fact is that the provinces are being pitted against each other as combatants. The fact is that inequality is being entrenched into the program that is supposed to ensure opportunity for all.

The fact is that this country is becoming a loosely constructed group of regional interests.

The fact is that this government just does not care.

In the budget speech, the finance minister made the following statement, saying that “the long, tiring, unproductive era of bickering between the provincial and federal governments is over”.

I am here to tell him that British Columbians wish this statement were true. Unfortunately, however, the short-sightedness of a government concerned with maintaining power at all costs has made that dream impossible.

The Conservative era of inequality and regional competition has just begun.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think this is a great budget for British Columbia. I do not understand why the member for Newton—North Delta would portray it as being anything but that.

We have made record investments in British Columbia, especially in the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative. The budget brings the total investment for the Government of Canada to $1 billion for this very important initiative.

This money is being and will be used to upgrade roads, highways, road grade separations, rail grade separations, the Deltaport connector, the Mary Hill interchange, and the Pitt River bridge. There is $1 billion in the coming years, by 2014, for this investment so that Vancouver can be a true gateway to the Asia-Pacific. Also, we have invested $550 million into the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Paralympic Games.

Those investments alone total over $1.5 billion between now and 2014 for the Vancouver mainland, which is great news for British Columbia and for everybody living in that beautiful province.

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

Mr. Speaker, while I thank the member for Wellington—Halton Hills for his contribution to this debate, I would like to remind him that the Pacific gateway project was the creation of the former Liberal government, and now, when we look at the numbers, we see that we are $44 million short of the Liberal commitment to the Pacific gateway project.

If the hon. member does not believe me, he can talk to the Sunbury Neighbourhood Association in my riding of Newton—North Delta. Its members have come to me and every single minister, whether it is the provincial minister of transportation or the federal transport minister. In fact, we are not getting enough there.

If I have to talk about this generally, I could talk about B.C. on equalization. Seven hundred million dollars has gone to Quebec. I am not against Quebec, but my region is one of the fastest growing regions in the country. If we had been going through an election process, which Quebec just went through, maybe we would have received more in British Columbia. This is where I see that the Prime Minister is playing with taxpayers' dollars for electioneering and votes.

I would suggest that the hon. member speak to the Minister of Transport to see if we can deal with the situation in my riding of Newton—North Delta, where the quality of life and the heritage of our neighbours living in Delta for many years are going to be affected by this shortfall in Pacific gateway dollars.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the hon. member would be prepared to comment on an article that appeared this morning in the Financial Post, entitled “Talks over U.S. lumber complaints”. Apparently there was a deal, but now it seems to have slid off. I know that this deal was extremely important to British Columbia. The article states:

The lumber agreement, which was implemented last October, refunds US $4.3-billion to Canada in U.S. lumber duties. It requires the United States to halt import duties....

I wonder if the hon. member would be prepared to comment on how that would affect British Columbia.

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

Mr. Speaker, the lumber deal British Columbians have will affect smaller towns. In fact, I already have seen many families leave those small towns to go to bigger towns. The literacy cuts made by the government will indirectly affect the families that move because of the bad deal the government made with the U.S. to make Mr. Bush a happy camper.

I suggest the member fight along with me to restore those literacy cuts so families affected by these programs can secure employment in the future.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the budget today.

During the last election campaign, the Conservatives released a document in my province of British Columbia on December 17, 2005. They said that it was designed for the province of British Columbia. They called it “Stand up for B.C.” It looks like we may be on the brink of another federal election and today we can measure the Conservative Party's words in that document against its actions as government.

When we look at the track record, “Stand up for B.C.” was not a campaign promise. It was a warning that we would have to fight to convince the Conservatives in the House of Commons to do the right thing for the people of British Columbia. It was a warning that under a Conservative government we would have to fight to win fair treatment for working people and middle class families in British Columbia.

The Conservatives said that they would stand up for B.C., but instead we have been stood up and taken for granted. The so-called commitments in their document of December 17 to B.C. voters have a been a cruel hoax.

The Conservative government has failed to show leadership on the pine beetle crisis. The mountain pine beetle is destroying vast areas of forests in British Columbia, threatening communities, increasing runoff, increasing flood risks in the province and potentially harming salmon habitat.

The Prime Minister and the government made many promises and they have only really resulted in cuts. They cut $11 million from the mountain pine beetle mitigation program. The Conservatives have failed to support people who work in the forest industry in British Columbia. The special needs of B.C.'s forest industry and forest dependent communities were ignored in the budget, despite the deepening crisis and the high cost to working families when the Prime Minister caved in to Bush on the softwood lumber deal. There have been $.5 billion taken out of B.C. communities. Mills are closing, jobs are being lost and the government has done nothing to help.

It failed us in British Columbia on climate change. For too long the government and the Conservatives have followed the position of George Bush, with a head in the sand approach to climate change, ignoring the mounting scientific evidence. The Conservatives are actually more worried about appeasing the big polluters than protecting our children's futures and our environment.

The Conservative government has refused to support the communities that are hosting the World Police & Fire Games in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. When these games were held in Quebec City in 2005, the federal government contributed $1.6 million to support this major event, but for the Lower Mainland communities, which are hosting the World Police & Fire Games in 2009, the Prime Minister says that there will be nothing for the British Columbia games, no funding, no help.

Events are taking place in my community at Mundy Park in Coquitlam and Queen's Park in New Westminster. These games bring emergency services personnel and their families from all across the world to Canada. They are a big income generator for the communities of the Lower Mainland. Once again, the government is failing the people of British Columbia.

It has failed to provide home care and long term care for seniors in this budget. The budget ignored the need to invest in home care to help seniors live in dignity in their own homes and the need to invest in long term care. If it had implemented those kinds of policies, it would reduce the pressure on expensive acute care beds in our hospitals.

The Prime Minister has failed to cut wait times for B.C. patients. The Conservatives promised a wait times guarantee, but it has not delivered much of a guarantee. It only covers one procedure per province and only guarantees that people will not have to wait much longer than they do already. It fails completely to shorten the wait lists.

The government has decided to support corporate concentration and not B.C. fishermen. It has introduced a new fisheries act that will weaken the already weak protection of the salmon runs and increase corporate concentration at the expense of ordinary fishers.

The Prime Minister has failed to respect the opinions of B.C. voters. The Conservative government made ringing declarations of accountability and respect for the opinion of voters, yet it has condoned and even encouraged floor crossing. There has been totally unaccountable floor crossing by members of Parliament, such as the member for Vancouver Kingsway who arrogantly superceded the voters' choice on election day and did it within hours after the last election.

The government has failed the people of B.C. by not replacing search and rescue aircraft in British Columbia. What do we have? We have 40 year old Buffalo aircraft. They are totally inadequate for our environment of the mountains, the ocean and for the people of British Columbia and the people who visit there. What does the government advocate? Stop gap measures to keep these old planes flying without the right kind of technology, the up to date technology. This is another failure for British Columbia.

The Conservative government has ignored the huge debt loads facing B.C. students. The budget ignored the need for improved access to education. Students from average families, if they can afford post-secondary education at all, must carry huge debt loads for years to repay the skyrocketing tuition fees. In fact, they mortgage their future.

The government has failed to act on representation and proportional representation. The Prime Minister promised a more equitable representation in the House of Commons to recognize B.C.'s growing population. He said that he would increase the number of B.C. seats from 36 to 40. He has failed to act on that promise too. He is stalling the NDP's proposal to bring in proportional representation so that every vote in British Columbia would count. This is another failure for British Columbia.

The Prime Minister has handed huge tax giveaways to profitable corporations. At a time of record profits by large banks and the big oil companies, the government shows what side it is really on by providing almost $9 billion in tax giveaways to large corporations, while working people and ordinary families are gouged at the ATM machines and the gas pump.

The government has poured billions into other provinces and failed to recognize the legitimate needs of British Columbia. The budget ended the nation of Canada at the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, cutting B.C. right out of Canada. Then the government changed the equalization plans. There are millions of dollars less for British Columbia and hundreds of millions for other provinces. The farther provinces are from Ontario and Quebec the less they matter to those Conservatives.

The government has also undermined child care for working families. The wait just got longer for working families that are already on long waits for child care. We need more accessible, affordable, high-quality child care spaces. The government has cut $1 billion from what was previously planned for child care.

The Conservatives have failed also to address the serious threat of massive flooding on the Fraser River this year. Snowpacks are away above normal in British Columbia, 50% in some cases above normal. There is concern that the runoff will be much faster from the forests killed by the pine beetle. First nations and local governments have expressed great concern about the state of the dikes, yet the government is doing nothing to reduce the threat of the worst flooding since 1948 in the Fraser Valley.

The government has backtracked on its promise to help leaky condo owners in British Columbia. The government has failed to understand the pressures in British Columbia of housing costs. We have the highest real estate prices and they are skyrocketing still in British Columbia. The government has done nothing to make housing more affordable for young people, for seniors or for working families. It has done nothing to help solve the growing problem of homelessness, which is a crisis in British Columbia.

The annual budget is one of the more carefully proofread documents presented by any government. It is a document where every government does its utmost to avoid errors or oversights. For that reason, the geographic error in the last budget truly underlines how far the people in British Columbia had fallen off the radar screen of the Conservative government.

Despite the claims in this budget, Canada does not end at the peaks of the Rocky Mountains and the Conservatives do not stand up for working families in British Columbia. Instead, they are focused on central Canada, where they hope to win seats by buying votes with this cynical budget. They have adopted a style of government that puts their own political interests ahead of the best interests of working families and communities across the country.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam. It is disappointing when members in this federal Parliament, the Parliament of Canada, take a very regional perspective and pit one region against another. I think that is what the member has done in her speech. She has suggested that our government is only interested in Ontario and Quebec. I take great umbrage at that because that is not the case. We in this Parliament must act in the interests of all Canadians regardless of the regions, the provinces or the territories in which they live. That is our responsibility in this House, so I fundamentally disagree with her statement.

This is a great budget for the province of British Columbia and for Canadians living in British Columbia. It is a beautiful province, one of the most stunning vistas in the country. The budget is good news for British Columbia. It commits over $500 million to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics, something that will put Vancouver and Canada on the world stage in 2010.

The budget commits more money for the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative and $1 billion will flow to the Vancouver lower mainland, to communities in the lower mainland. That will assist in making Vancouver the gateway for the world, a gateway of trade for container cargo traffic, a gateway for business and a gateway for the entire region. This is good news.

These two investments amount to over $1.5 billion for Vancouver and the lower mainland for the Olympics and Paralympics and for the gateway initiative.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member has a different perspective than I do and that is fair enough; this is a place of democratic debate.

However, I must remind him that there is no money in the federal budget for public transportation in British Columbia. There is no money dedicated to the 2009 World Police & Fire Games when previously the federal government gave money for that event when it took place in another city.

The Conservatives are not standing up for British Columbia. They are doing no work on dike maintenance along the Fraser River. We are under threat of floods in British Columbia. In other regions of the country the federal government does put money into dike maintenance or levee controls. There has been none in British Columbia for a number of years, not just by the current government, but by the people who were in government before.

In every measure that we can take, even rhetorically, British Columbia was left out of the budget. In reality, the budget does not take a position that brings fairness to the people of British Columbia at all.

There is nothing in the budget for public transportation. There is nothing in the budget for housing, for homelessness, for flood control, for the pine beetle problem in British Columbia. There is nothing for search and rescue aircraft. The budget is a failure to the people of British Columbia.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague's speech and share many of her concerns, although she represents a quite different part of the country.

There is a commonality though in that my community of Hamilton Mountain has felt the absence of any kind of manufacturing sector strategy. Of course, the budget is silent as well on any kind of forestry sector strategy. The two are related, both the reasons for it and also certainly in terms of the community impact.

In my riding we have lost 4,300 steel jobs in the last five years alone, with hundreds more on the way. They have already been discussed at length in our local newspapers.

I know that the softwood sellout has had an equally devastating impact on my colleague's riding and that communities are being hard hit by what has been happening to that sector. I wonder whether she could comment at greater length on the impact of the absence of a forestry sector strategy on her community.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, my community of New Westminster was once one of the engines of the economy in British Columbia. We had a large number of forestry mills along the banks of the Fraser River. We had a very strong and vibrant fishing community also along the banks of the Fraser River.

Today in my riding there is only one mill left operating, one out of a countless number. I really should do the research and find out how many mills there were even five years ago and how many good family supporting jobs were contained at those lumber mills.

In fact, since the government decided to sign that softwood sellout with the U.S., another mill has gone down in New Westminster. We have also lost the aircraft maintenance jobs from Air Canada in British Columbia. There is a real concern about where families will get--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about how the government has turned advantage Canada into disadvantage Canada. There are three policies that are so plainly wrong-headed and stupid as to make us wonder whether there is any adult supervision in the government.

The first one is the GST reduction. The Conservatives raised the taxes in order to be able to make the GST reduction. Is there anything more plainly stupid that one could think of? The second is the income trust policy. First of all, the Conservatives did not tell the truth about it during the election and then they went about it in such an incompetent manner as to blow away $35 billion of Canadians' savings. That is both stupid and dishonest. The third policy is the issue of interest deductibility for foreign acquisitions by Canadian companies. That is a stupid and deceitful policy. These three policies taken by themselves turn advantage Canada into disadvantage Canada.

Much has been said about the advisability of emphasizing consumption taxes in preference to income or capital taxes. Taxes are a fact of life. If we want the services we had better be prepared to be taxed; that is just the way it is and Canadians understand that. What they do not or cannot understand is why one would reduce a tax that does not improve productivity and increase living standards while simultaneously raising income tax which kills improvements in productivity and living standards.

The nation seems to understand this, but the government does not. The rationale is simple. When Canadians get income or tax reductions and capital, they invest or pay down debt. That in turn leads to reduced borrowing costs, which goes directly to the purchase of machinery and equipment, which enhances productivity and improves living standards. It is not much more complicated than that.

A consumption tax reduction, however, does none of that. It is just plain stupid. It is wrong-headed and it is against all the advice of all the best economists in the world, with one exception, the third rate economist who currently sits in the Prime Minister's chair. So much for advantage Canada.

It gets worse. Advantage Canada gets whacked again. The income trust deceit perpetrated upon thousands of Canadian investors was generating good returns for Canadians, huge revenues for the government and repatriating economic sovereignty. Millions of Canadians saw this as a good investment vehicle, until the sector was destroyed by the finance minister and the Prime Minister.

Not only were Canadians' savings destroyed, as predicted, these trusts became takeover targets. Sixteen have left the country already, representing $9 billion in capitalization since October 31, and more are under review. In fact in today's Globe and Mail there is an article which reads:

Foreign money snags three more trusts

Pace of deals unlikely to ease

Three more income trusts were thrust onto Canada's endangered list in less than three hours yesterday, raising to 16 the total number of trusts set to disappear with a value of more than $9 billion since Oct. 31.... Analysts and investors believe the furious pace of takeover activity is not about to ease. And the blame, they insist, rests with Ottawa's decision to clamp down on trusts.

Tell me how that is good for Canada. The minister argues, somewhat naively, that Canadians are acquiring assets at an equivalent pace while selling off Canadian assets, but this is where he is just so naive as to be almost dangerous. Having put a huge for sale sign on Canadian assets at bargain prices, he turns around and handicaps Canadians acquiring foreign assets. He must have been joking when he said advantage Canada. This is disadvantage Canada.

Now the minister prevents Canadians from deducting the interest costs of foreign acquisitions. Is this just plain lunacy? Canadian company X wishes to acquire foreign company Y and so also do a number of other foreign companies. The only company that is handicapped is the Canadian one, which effectively means the Canadian company is out of the running.

How do financial service companies acquire abroad any more? Why try to become an international company with a head office in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver or Calgary? All the good jobs and all that go with it and all the collateral services in law, finance, accounting and technology services will no longer be needed. Either they acquire or they are acquired. Either they buy or they are bought. Either they eat or they will be eaten.

No other country in the world hobbles its business community the way the Conservative government does. Whenever the finance minister starts talking about tax fairness, it is advisable to head for the hills, especially if he is saying it during a budget speech or making an election promise.

The folks from the income trust debacle have learned to their great chagrin to never trust Conservatives during an election. After specifically and repeatedly saying they would not tax trusts, they shocked Canadians by imposing a draconian tax on trusts and destroying $25 billion to $35 billion worth of value.

People were so staggered by this betrayal that they have been putting full page ads in national newspapers saying that the Prime Minister's word is worthless. Now he is talking tax fairness again on interest deductibility. Fair share is code language. He used it with income trusts, he did it to the premiers and now he wants to destroy businesses in Canada who want to invest abroad.

Listen to what others say. Ernst & Young retired chairman Allan Lanthier said that this is “the single most misguided policy I've seen out of Ottawa in 35 years”. Claude Lamoureux said, “This is unbelievable. I don't know who in finance looked at this. I can't believe any sensible person would do this”.

Tom d'Aquino, hardly a friend of the Liberal Party, wrote:

--we are worried that the change announced in the budget may seriously undermine the competitiveness of Canada's homegrown champions -- the companies that are most active and most successful in building global businesses from head offices in Canadian communities. It may also damage Canada's--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order. The hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood will have to wait until the next time this bill comes to the floor.

The House resumed from April 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

When we last considered this bill, the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood still had three minutes left.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about Bill C-52 which is the budget implementation bill. Contained therein is a provision with respect to interest deductibility. Interest deductibility is probably a bit of an arcane issue for most Canadians. It allows Canadian companies to deduct interest when they in fact are competing to acquire a business abroad.

These Canadian businesses of course are competing worldwide. They compete with Japanese companies. They compete with American companies. They compete with European companies and yet this provision now would effectively handicap the ability of a Canadian company to acquire companies elsewhere. This is a very significant issue.

It is a significant issue in many ways, but let me bring it down to how it is significant for those of us who are concerned about economic issues and those of us who are concerned with the prosperity of Canada.

When a Canadian business acquires a foreign based business, it generally does so with the advice of lawyers, accountants and financial services people, et cetera. All of those people get jobs by virtue of these acquisitions.

In addition, once the acquisition is completed, then all of those collateral services are then engaged to complete the acquisition, along with a whole array of technical people to make sure that the integration of the companies proceeds smoothly.

Let me give a personal example of that. My son works for a large Canadian bank and his job is to make sure that the computer services of that bank are integrated with the acquired banks or financial services companies that that bank acquires. For instance, if it acquires a bank in nation X, then it is my son's job to go down, along with an array of others, to facilitate that integration.

A consequence of that is that this is a Canadian job. It is a very good Canadian job and he is multiplied dozens and hundreds and thousands of times over. Those are the kinds of very jobs that we in Canada want to secure. We want to acquire those kinds of technology jobs which will be the way of the future.

Yet, this budget provision does exactly the opposite. That, along with the income trust decision, we could not imagine two more wrong-headed decisions.

I see that my time it up. It is quite regrettable because these are wrong for Canada and that is why this party will be voting against the budget.

The House resumed from April 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-52, the government's bill to implement its budget.

I had the privilege of speaking to the budget itself when it was first tabled in the House and was pleased to represent the concerns of people in my riding of Hamilton Mountain during that debate.

Unfortunately, there was little time to explore any one issue in greater detail so I am pleased to use this opportunity today to focus on just one specific area, and that is the budget's appalling silence on the decline of Canada's manufacturing sector and its failure to create either a steel or an auto sector strategy.

With the government's fiscal capacity, the budget was a huge opportunity to invest and yet the government chose instead to squander this important opportunity. It is no wonder that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

Workers are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet as the prosperity gap in the country grows. While we are seeing stagnating wages for average workers, folks at the high end are doing better and better. The top 100 CEOs in this country make in a few hours what the average Canadian worker makes in an entire year. The earnings of the richest 10% of Canadian families now stand at 82 times of those of the poorest 10%.

The rich are making more while working families are working harder and longer, 200 hours longer on average, just to make ends meet. At the same time, we are experiencing a crisis in the manufacturing sector. Over the last five years we have lost 4,300 jobs in the steel sector in Hamilton alone with another 300 jobs in jeopardy once Stelco's hot strip mill is closed. Some of the losses were from bankruptcies and plant closures while others are the result of continuous downsizing where there are still more losses to come as the nature of the industrial marketplace changes in the global economy.

The job losses did not begin and end with the steel industry. We lost Studebaker, International Harvester, Westinghouse, Proctor & Gamble, J.I. Case, Firestone and hundreds of smaller plants. Those are just some of the big names from Hamilton's past, and the list of losses continues to grow.

More recent ones that pop to mind, again from just the past five years, are Siemens Westinghouse with 332 layoffs and Camco where 716 lost their jobs when the plant closed and 284 more workers ended up on temporary layoff. The Tiercon plant closure saw another 700 jobs lost. There were bankruptcies and plant closures at Rheem, Philip Environmental, Hercules, Mak Steel, Frost Fence, Dominion Castings, Cold Metal Products and ACI Automotives. New permanent layoffs are happening every month in the industrial manufacturing sector in Hamilton and there is no end in sight.

Across Canada, a quarter of a million manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2002; more than one in ten jobs due to layoffs, plant closures and the non-replacement of retiring workers.

I have seen the impacts of these job losses first-hand. In Hamilton I have been meeting regularly with the workers and retirees at Hamilton Specialty Bar who are once again uncertain about their futures and pensions because the company that runs the plant is under bankruptcy protection for a second time. The first time the Hamilton Specialty Bar plant went into bankruptcy protection it was the United Steelworkers, not the government, that did the work to find a new buyer for the plant to save both jobs and the pension plan.

This time the Steelworkers are working just as hard but there is no investor or buyer in sight. Once again, the government is doing nothing to help them. If no buyer is found the plant will shut down for good in May, which means that 380 workers will be out of jobs and 500 retirees will lose up to 20% of their pensions.

These are good jobs we are losing. Manufacturing jobs pay 28% higher wages than the national average. More often they come with decent pension and benefit packages.

Some analysts and politicians will tell us that there is no reason to worry, that these jobs are being replaced by jobs in other sectors. However, all jobs are not created equal.

Statistics Canada recently found that workers displaced by firm closures and mass layoffs who find other jobs suffer an average decline of 25% in annual earnings. That is a loss of $10,000 for a typical manufacturing worker. That is devastating for ordinary workers and their families but it also has a huge impact on our communities.

With a loss of one-quarter of a million manufacturing jobs, the total loss of Canadian earnings is estimated at around $2.5 billion annually. Just think of what that means in terms of spending and revenues for other sectors of our economy.

Workers are losing their jobs but the government's budget is doing nothing to address the growing crisis in the manufacturing sector. Workers are finding it harder and harder to get by but the budget is doing nothing to close the growing prosperity gap.

How did we get here? First, through downloading, funding cuts and trade deals the Liberals and the Conservatives have drastically reduced the capacity for the federal government to play a positive and helpful role in ensuring that the fundamentals are in place so that economic and social assistance can adjust, innovate and change at the same time as ensure a cushion for the blows of the unchecked market.

Second, with the limited capacity they do have, successive governments in Canada have had no vision and no plan to get right those things that we as a society expect from our federal government.

In their recent budget, the Conservatives simply stuck to the same old tried and failed path. Rather than working to close the prosperity gap with their budget, the Conservatives actually widened it. They maintained over $8 billion in corporate tax cuts, tax cuts brought in by the Liberals.

The budget provided no money for the things that would make life more fair and affordable for everyday Canadians, things like child care, pharmacare, transit, housing and student debt. Of course, the Conservatives, like the Liberals, have not put forward a plan to deal with the loss of manufacturing jobs.

New Democrats, on the other hand, have consistently fought for justice for all workers in their workplace. For too long workers have been left behind while Conservative and Liberal governments give handouts to their corporate friends.

It is time for fairness. I would urge the government to amend its budget bill to include initiatives that will make life more fair and more affordable for workers and their families. At a minimum these should include: secure pensions, by putting workers' pensions at the front of the line when employers go bankrupt; adequate employment insurance, by overhauling the EI system which denies two-thirds of workers any benefits; a reliable safety net, by reforming the social assistance programs that have become an ineffective, unaccountable patchwork since the Liberals abolished the Canada assistance plan; the protection of workers' rights, by protecting collective bargaining rights with progressive measures like outlawing replacement workers that prolong labour disputes; and a fair trade policy, by making workers and the environment a priority.

We in the NDP have a different vision of the kind of economy that we should be creating in the 21st century. I believe that the economy ultimately must be judged on how well it meets the needs and aspirations of the people it serves.

I believe that in a market economy the federal government has an obligation to ensure that the social and physical infrastructures are in place to ensure individual goals and collective needs are met. That is why we are working to strengthen the public service and health care and why we are working to get results on climate change, on labour rights and on real equality. Getting results on these issues will make life more secure and affordable for ordinary Canadians but they will also create a competitive advantage for our economy.

The budget exhorted Canadians to “aspire”. All Canadians had hoped for in the budget was a little bit of fairness. Their hopes were dashed when the finance minister rose to read the budget.

Canadians deserve more. They deserve better. They deserve the fairness they have been asking for.

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

Mr. Speaker, I often speak with seniors in my riding and they tell me that their hydro bills, their Roger's cable bills, their heating bills and their property taxes, et cetera, have increased and yet for 10 to 15 years their guaranteed income supplement has not caught up. They recently received a tiny increase.

Some of the seniors in my riding are desperate. They are asking the government what it plans to do to increase the guaranteed income supplement for seniors.

Since this increase in the guaranteed income supplement is not in the budget that is in front of us, what is the NDP's plan to ensure that ordinary Canadians, especially seniors, can live their lives with dignity and have some money to pay the rent and buy food?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague hits the nail right on the head. Seniors in our community are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. They have worked hard all their lives. They have played by the rules. In fact, they have built the very system that they hoped would be there for them in their retirement years, but unfortunately that system is crumbling around them.

My colleague was addressing income supports only. She is absolutely right. There was no mention in the government's budget of substantial increases to the GIS, the OAS or the CPP, all of which are critical components of most seniors' retirement incomes.

Worse than that, though, the government is not even willing to live up to its legislated mandate, which would mean that the cost of living increases must be paid to seniors on those retirement income supports. We know there has been an error in Statistics Canada's calculation that has underestimated the cost of living increase. As a result, seniors are actually owed money from 2001 until 2006, when that mistake was fixed.

However, the government has refused to fix it retroactively, and we are talking about some of the poorest, neediest people in our communities. Seniors need their incomes. They need their incomes, and not for luxuries, as they are not buying plasma TVs and iPods; they are just trying to get buy. They are trying to pay for their heat, hydro, rent and food, the basic necessities of life. The government has not been there for them. Worse yet, it has not even lived up to the obligation it has to index their incomes as a result of the cost of living increases.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's statement. It seems pretty clear that she has some concerns with respect to seniors and seniors' incomes. That is shared by the government. That is why the government has moved to change taxation for seniors in such a dramatic fashion.

We have increased the age credit and the pension allowance. We took 655,000 taxpayers completely off the tax rolls in budget 2006 and over 200,000 in budget 2007, the overwhelming majority of those being low income seniors.

This government cares about seniors. It cares about looking after them. We are putting money into health care. We are reducing their burden. These are seniors' priorities. This government listens and we are getting it done. I would like to know why the member does not support that.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to share with the member why I do not support that, and I thank him for giving me the opportunity.

Yes, the budget created a tax credit for pensionable income, but that is not the income support that most seniors rely on. That credit is purely on private pensions. Seniors who actually rely on public income supports like the GIS, the OAS and the CPP do not benefit from that change at all.

Worse yet, what the government also did, and what the member forgot to remind our colleagues about, is that it raised the lowest tax rate. The Liberals reduced it from 15.5% to 15% and the member's government raised it back up to 15.5%. The very poorest seniors in our country are now paying half a per cent more in income taxes than they were before the member's government took over.

Seniors deserve more than lip service from the government. I would encourage the member and his government in the next budget to realize that opportunity and to stand up for seniors and give them more than empty rhetoric.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak about Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007.

In this House, the Bloc Québécois has decided to vote in favour of this budget. This budget is important to the Bloc Québécois, as my colleague from Joliette has explained in detail. Still, I would like to go a bit farther and explain the Bloc Québécois' position on this budget.

We have always said that the Bloc Québécois is in Ottawa to defend the interests of Quebec until Quebeckers decide, by a majority vote in a referendum, to create their own country. Needless to say, I hope this happens as soon as possible. In the meantime, the Bloc is in Ottawa to defend Quebec's interests. Implementing this budget will serve Quebec's interests.

The bill we are studying today contains five categories of important tax measures that were announced on March 19: a tax fairness plan, some tax relief, continued GST refunds for conferences and tours—something the Bloc Québécois called for—changes to the rules for RRSPs and RESPs, and a surtax on inefficient vehicles.

Implementation of this budget will have very important benefits for the Bloc Québécois. First and foremost, $3.3 billion will be paid to address the fiscal imbalance. Despite what the Minister of Finance says, it is not true that the fiscal imbalance has been corrected.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Far from it.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Far from it, as my colleague from Saint-Lambert says. The fiscal imbalance is a long way from being corrected completely, but we have taken a step in the right direction. That is why we are supporting this bill.

If it were not for the Bloc Québécois we would not even be talking about the fiscal imbalance. If it were not for the numerous interventions by the Bloc Québécois, stemming from the Séguin report in 2001, we would not be talking about correcting the fiscal imbalance. Our colleagues in the Liberal Party still have a hard time saying the words “fiscal” and “imbalance”. The leader of the Liberal Party, the Leader of the Opposition, does not even want to say it. Imagine what this would be like if the Liberals were in power.

The current government listened to the arguments and is implementing a policy that will allow Quebec to recover $3.3 billion during the third year. Furthermore, this year Quebec will receive more than $2 billion, which will be extremely useful in meeting the needs of Quebec.

In order for those who are watching us to understand, the fiscal imbalance is not complicated. They try to make it complicated, but it is not. The needs are in the provinces and the money is in Ottawa. That is the fiscal imbalance.

The Bloc is calling on the federal government to stop spending and to start giving the provinces, and Quebec in particular, the money they need for education, health, implementing its cultural program, etc. The federal government has to stop trying to interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions. That is what we mean by correcting the fiscal imbalance. If it were not for the repeated interventions of the Bloc Québécois in Ottawa and the unanimity at the National Assembly of Quebec, we would not even be talking about this here today.

We would still be seeing a huge gulf forming between the federal government and the provinces, in that all the money goes to Ottawa and none goes back to the provinces. We are told that we in Quebec are whiners, but people need to realize that if the government stopped spending in provincial jurisdictions and started transferring money to the provinces, including Quebec, we would not have to beg for our money. It is indeed our money.

For the information of those who are watching us, there are currently 16 strictly provincial jurisdictions, of which 13 have been invaded by the federal government. The federal government has no business being there. It needs to withdraw and transfer money instead. When it comes to child care, the environment, education, health, culture and sports, I sincerely think that the Government of Quebec knows what it has to do for the welfare of Quebeckers.

At least one step has been taken toward correcting the fiscal imbalance. However, we must point out in this House that it is far from being resolved. The Bloc Québécois will continue to ask for this issue to be resolved.

If the government really wanted to correct the fiscal imbalance, it would transfer tax fields. Forget about equalization; it has become rather complex. Our plan would transfer tax points to promote development in Quebec and the other provinces.

Unfortunately, that is not the government's plan. I know that work will be done, and the Bloc Québécois will keep a close eye on the government in the Standing Committee on Finance so that someday—so long as Quebeckers are not sovereign—the fiscal imbalance will be resolved.

Another important envelope to be allocated when this budget is implemented is the $328 million ecotrust funding that Quebec is to receive. This money will support Quebec's plan to fight climate change.

It is quite simple, really. The government has to understand that it must stop messing around and invest in protecting the environment. We know that the Minister of the Environment has been unable to give a straight answer about whether or not it is important to comply with the Kyoto protocol.

In Quebec, there is no such ambiguity: the parties in the National Assembly are unanimous, as is civil society. We want the Kyoto protocol to be implemented because it is extremely important for protecting our environment.

The minister should stop scaring us by saying that if Kyoto is implemented, it could cost us a fortune and there could be a recession. Has the minister forgotten that Quebec has already begun implementing the Kyoto protocol? Hydroelectricity is our main source of power. Research is being done in this field, on developing hydroelectric and wind power—in which the federal government has not invested one red cent.

I do not have much time left, but I would like to touch on another file that is very important to the Bloc Québécois: the GST refund for foreign visitors. We asked for this; in fact, it was one of the main things we asked for.

In closing, I would like to say that this budget is inadequate. More must be done. Federal transfers in this budget are not quite enough to eliminate the financial pressures that Quebec is now feeling. The current government did not keep its promise to eliminate the fiscal imbalance entirely.

There is still a lot of work to do, and the Bloc Québécois will be paying close attention to the implementation of this budget over the coming months.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

He says that he will support and vote for the 2007-08 budget because the main advantage for Quebec is our plan to restore the fiscal balance.

I agree. We have a very good plan for restoring the fiscal balance. There is a lot of money for all the provinces and for Quebec.

However, I do not agree with the member when he says that the fiscal imbalance has not been corrected. I know it has been because the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Charest, has more money and he plans to lower taxes by $700 million. Therefore I know that the fiscal imbalance has been corrected in the province of Quebec.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect for my colleague, I would invite him to listen to more than just the Premier of Quebec because the fiscal imbalance has not been corrected.

The Premier was in an election campaign. He said that he intended to invest the money received from Ottawa in tax reductions.

The government has to take into account that the elections were held on March 26. We shall see what the Government of Quebec will do with the budget to be tabled in early May. No one, not a single person in Quebec, from any party in the National Assembly, has said that the fiscal imbalance was resolved when the current government tabled its budget on March 19. Absolutely no one.

What was said is that it was a step in the right direction. The groundwork has been laid and we have to continue. But we must go further because the imbalance consists of at least $3.3 billion per year for Quebec. The government is not giving Quebec that amount this year. It is giving $2.2 billion.

The fiscal imbalance can be calculated any way you want. We all have the figures. I do not wish those listening to become lost in speculation. However, the fiscal imbalance definitely has not been resolved. There continues to be financial pressure on the Government of Quebec.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for his excellent speech.

I would like to add another point that concerns the fiscal imbalance and that is not talked about as much, but whose effect is extremely difficult for Quebeckers to accept. I am thinking of the fisheries. The federal government has not taken any action in the shrimp fishery crisis. Yet fisheries fall under federal jurisdiction. During a crisis, someone should step in and do something.

Just recently, the Quebec government, as it did last year, had to announce measures amounting to $8.5 million.

We know the imbalance is far from being corrected, since in seven years we will be in the same situation we are in today. Money is not guaranteed from one year to the next.

I must also add that there are imbalances when it comes to action in certain areas. Fisheries is unfortunately a good example of such an area.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine. If there is one thing he knows well, it is fisheries. I must say that I am less familiar with them, because I come from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

I also know that if the federal government stopped spending money in provincial areas of jurisdiction, particularly in Quebec, and started giving Quebec the money to take care of its own affairs, there would be fewer problems. If the government stuck to its own affairs, that would be a big step in the right direction. The fisheries are a good example, as is Parks Canada, whose buildings are falling apart in some areas.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on Bill C-52, the budget implementation act. My time today will give me an opportunity to address some of the points I did not have time to cover in my response to the budget.

Again, my main objection to this budget is that it accomplishes so little with so much.

The Conservatives managed to spend more money in this budget than in any one that preceded it and yet they have managed to help truly no one. I compare this Conservative budget to taking an entire crate of oranges and squeezing only one glass of juice from it.

In order to help solve the many problems facing our country, the previous Liberal government had created a number of social and economic programs, including the Canada millennium scholarship foundation, the summer career placement program intended for students and not-profit groups, as well as the CANtex program for the textile industry. We recognized the needs and came up with solutions. In some cases, the solutions found did not solve all the problems, but constituted an improvement nonetheless. We, the Liberals, showed Canadians that the federal government supported them and implemented action plans.

What do Canadians see from this government?

They do not see new programs. They do not see new initiatives. They do not see a government standing beside them.

They see a government that is obsessed with cutting programs and that uses smoke and mirrors to fool people into a sense of trust and confidence by spending more money than any other previous government in Canadian history.

Canadians can see that the current government does not support them and is interested only in slashing programs.

This is not a claim that the Conservative government's budget does not include any positive news. Nevertheless, the few good measures included in this budget are not enough to properly address the needs of this country.

I can use many examples to illustrate my point, but I will begin with perhaps the Conservatives' biggest failure: child care.

The Liberal government had signed deals with every province in the country to create new child care spaces. The Conservatives had no right to cancel these agreements. No new child care spaces have been created since their time in office, and paying a monthly allowance of $100 to parents for each child under six does not make Canadians forget about their broken promise.

Child care advocates and experts have stated that if the government is identifying child care as one of its priorities and then turning around and giving money to the provinces, it is an admission of the failure of their original so-called child care plan. One advocate even said the Conservatives have conceded that the former government had the right plan and it is following in those footsteps, with the huge exception of having 80% less of the funds that were available.

In terms of social policy, the previous Liberal government had an overall plan for Canada when it concluded child care agreements with the provinces. While respecting provincial jurisdictions, the agreements were modelled after the Quebec child care system.

The Liberals had a vision for Canada that took into account the needs of the modern family and also took into account a vision for the country that looked decades down the road. The Conservative answer is cheap vote buying that might look good in the short term but guarantees nothing for our future.

The poor platform in this budget does not stop at child care. The Conservative government has been abandoning Canadian businesses, especially the small and medium sized businesses that are the job creators in this country. The government expects that with a few piecemeal announcements Canadians will not see the effect of the numerous slashed federal programs.

I have received countless letters from business owners and their employees about the negative effect the government's actions will have on their businesses and jobs. One of these actions was the cancellation of the visitors rebate program. As vice-chair of the finance committee, I heard from various industry stakeholders about the terrible impact this cancellation will have on their industry.

The government did not give a satisfactory answer as to why this program was cut. As a result, the finance minister admitted his mistake by establishing a federal foreign convention and tour incentive program, but this solves only a small part of the problem the government created, as it does not address any tourism initiatives for individuals visiting the country. American tourism is on the decline in this country and the Conservative government seems intent on doing nothing to change that.

The budget also shows serious deficiencies when it comes to adult literacy. The Department of Finance announced funding for literacy programs, but this gesture appears somewhat hypocritical after the drastic cuts made to adult literacy programs last fall. The Conservatives must know that giving with one hand while taking away with the other is a hypocritical and deceitful way to govern.

One of the most dishonest showcases of the government is that of the environment. The announcements contained in the budget and those being debated today are positive ones, but some of these are simply a reintroduction of the previous, proven Liberal environmental programs.

Canadians do not believe the government's sudden about-face on environmental issues and Canadians still do not trust the Conservatives on this issue. This distrust is with good reason. In the recent budget, the Conservatives cut back Canada's commitment to renewable energy to 4,000 megawatts from 5,500 megawatts of support for clean and sustainable production.

The budget also keeps tax breaks for new oil sands expansion in place until 2015 to help with their plan for explosive growth. It slows our planned cleanup of lakes and waterways. It replaces rewards for those who make energy savings changes with gimmicks that cost thousands of dollars for every tonne reduced. It reduces funding to our provincial partners by half. There is no plan to make sure polluters pay for using the atmosphere as a free garbage dump.

It is obvious that the government has no plan for the environment. The public cannot be fooled into thinking that a few announcements or a rebate on a dozen cars constitute a vision for Canada's environment and for combating climate change.

In my presentation today, one focus has been on how the budget has failed Canada's business community, which helps Canadians by providing jobs, goods and services. During the budget debate, I spoke about how just the fact that the government refuses to lower the income tax rate to the Liberals' rate of 15% is reason enough that I cannot support the budget, in that it does not treat all Canadians fairly.

I have already discussed the failure of the Conservatives on the tourism front, but I would like to pay attention to some specific initiatives that were being promoted by business groups during the finance committee prebudget consultations and have been ignored by the government.

Canada is not keeping up the pace as it should be in the global economy. Not many people dispute the fact that one of the most important challenges before us as a country is lagging productivity, but the budget has the country standing still on this issue.

Other countries are moving forward. The changes for accelerated capital cost allowances are definitely a good measure, but it is not enough for industries, especially those in the manufacturing sector that have previously invested in capital and equipment either last year or even this year prior to the budget. They get no help.

The problem is also there with regard to industries that do not require capital investment but rely heavily on human resource investment. These industries also need help to keep Canada at the forefront of global competition and they have been shown nothing in the budget.

Money has been invested in universities to ensure that tomorrow's workforce is on the cutting edge, but the paltry sum allocated to the Canada foundation for innovation is barely enough to ensure its survival.

Although there are investments for Canada's 4,000 post-graduates, how about the hundreds of thousands of undergraduates who are being left out in the cold?

Although the changes to the sustainable technology development fund will help bridge the financing gap between ideas and commercialization, there is much work to be done to make our tax rates internationally competitive as well as expand access to Canadian goods in overseas markets.

The Liberal government had solid plans and programs in place to deal with the challenges facing our industries.

In 2005 we put forward the CAN-Trade strategy, which provided $485 million over five years to help Canadian businesses succeed in emerging markets. The Conservatives scrapped this initiative and have now replaced it with $60 million over the next two years.

The Conservative budget also cuts $970 million from the indirect costs of research program, which provides support to Canada's universities.

These are only a few examples of this government's catastrophic lack of vision. Some of the measures announced in the budget and debated here today constitute a few steps in the right direction but those steps are too little and too late.

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

Mr. Speaker, in my other life I happened to be involved in the tourism industry. The hon. member mentions the government's position on the former GST visitor rebate program. I know, having dealt with that program first-hand, there were a lot of problems with it.

He talks about the fact that small business was not being listened to, but let me quote Mr. Tony Pollard, who happens to be the president of the Hotel Association of Canada. In its release he says:

The Hotel Association of Canada (HAC) has congratulated [the] Finance Minister...and [the Prime MInister]...for their recognition of the importance of hotels in the new federal budget.

We applaud [the] Minister [of Finance] for maintaining the convention and tour component of the GST/HST Visitor Rebate Program...The Minister has always told us that he greatly values the economic development contribution of hotels across Canada. He listened to us.

This is what we hear from the industry.

I know the hon. member sat on the finance committee. Now that the government has recognized and fixed the program, which did have a lot of problems and which I know first-hand from my involvement in my private business, could the hon. member tell us why he thinks the government was not listening when in fact the industry leaders are telling us that the government did listen?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of issues. I have no problem with the hotel and convention industry getting their GST back, but I think part of the problem was that the program was not made better. It was cancelled and then reintroduced only for the foreign convention and tour aspect. Meanwhile, visitors who come here and rely on getting a GST rebate back are not going to get it.

We are in a competitive world. We are competing for tourism dollars. One of the attractions that Canada offers is this GST rebate, whether we believe it or not. In his previous business maybe he found this not to be a profitable type of business, or nobody obliged him. However, the witnesses we heard before the finance committee felt this business was not only profitable for them, it was also profitable for the tourism industry in Canada and it was able to attract additional visitors to Canada.

We should be listening to those people and finding a way to make the program work so Canadians benefit from the tourism dollars that come into the country.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of serving on the finance committee in which we saw the absolute horror of the financial damage done to thousands of seniors with the income trust debacle, the pure lie of the Conservative government of promising not to make any changes in income trusts and then coming in with a huge change wiping out $25 billion of savings from seniors from the market capitalization.

We heard that this was done on the basis of tax leakage by the government. Experts told us that this was not the reason. The governor of the bank told us there were business sectors in there that were perfectly legitimate and in which it was perfectly useful to have.

Could the member tell me if it would have been possible in this budget to repair some of those damages? Does he see anything in the budget that should restore confidence in the voters of Canada in the ability of the current government to manage our economy?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are different ways in which the whole income trust issue could have been addressed. It is not for me to say, but the Liberal suggestion is the one that I would have chosen.

The government's solution was to hit the seniors with a $25 billion to $30 billion hit and then give them an extra $1,000 on income splitting if they made $50,000 to $60,000 on their pension incomes. I am not sure that is a solution. I would rather have seen more of a delicate approach toward the income trust aspect announcement so Canadians in general would not have been hit with a $25 billion to $30 billion market devaluation overnight.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak about a missed opportunity in the federal budget, and that is, one of investing in a national children's food initiative to make safe and healthy food available to all of Canada's children.

The children's health and nutrition initiative calls for universal nutritious food programs to make breakfasts, snacks or lunches available to any child in Canada under the age of 18 in venues most appropriate, as decided by each local community. This would be based on a flexible, made in Canada community development model. This initiative would be delivered through existing programs, local organizations and communities and parents groups, based on community models that are proven. We know they work.

Any non-profit organization, parent council, principal or local government could start such a program, but the food would have to nutritious, with an emphasis on locally grown food. The federal government would provide $25 million to get this under way. The federal government would also set national standards to ensure we achieved healthy nutrition in every part of Canada.

This initiative would mean that no Canadian child would go to school hungry and would help working families address real concerns relating to childhood obesity and malnutrition.

Overweight and obesity doubled among the six to seventeen year olds between 1979 and 2000 and obesity tripled among Canadian teenagers. Many children's diets are poor and diet-related outcomes, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol are rising among Canadian children. Poor nutrition has been linked to low academic performance, classroom behaviour problems, low self-esteem, as well as long term health risks. More than seven out of ten children do not eat the recommended daily minimum of five servings of vegetables and fruit as recommended by Canada's food guide. Even more alarming is that a quarter of grade 4 students and almost half of grade 8 girls do not eat breakfast every day.

Health Canada estimates that diet related cases of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancer among adults rob the national economy of $6.6 billion annually due to health care costs and lost productivity.

The sad truth is Canada is one of the few developed countries without a nationally funded child nutrition program. Child nutrition programs already operate in some parts of the country, but not all Canadian children have access to these programs and the continuation of these efforts usually is subject to fundraising and volunteer time.

Dramatic changes have been made recently in other jurisdictions. For example, the British government is spending an extra £240 million, that is $520 million Canadian, to subsidize healthy ingredients for children's school meals. However, we do not have that in Canada.

In the U.S., 29 million children participate in the national school lunch program through more than 98,000 schools and child care institutions. On a typical day, 59% of these kids receive free or reduced price lunches. About 9.6 million children also participate in the school breakfast program. The total federal funding for these programs was $8.8 billion U.S. in 2005. However, we do not have that in Canada.

In Italy 68% of school meals use organic products and many municipalities are emphasizing local and traditional food. The 140,000 meals serve every school day to children in Rome must include a healthy and organic snack and a warm meal based on traditional recipes. The government offers rebates to public sector caterers that purchase local and organic products.

The incentives help increase the production of quality foods, lower environmental impacts, because they do not have to fly food from different places, provide more sustainable local employment and support better child nutrition and health. However, we have nothing like that in Canada.

Today and tomorrow, children and youth advocates across Canada are gathered in Ottawa for a National Learning Summit on Middle Childhood. Breakfast for Learning, a national organization, will be presenting a paper on child nutrition, and children's health is very much on the agenda at this conference.

The benefits are clear, For children. It means better health and a better opportunity for learning. I saw that first-hand as a school trustee 20 years ago. If children are hungry, they do not learn. This is not just about hunger, or poverty, or undernourishment. It is about bad nutrition, about junk food, about obesity. If children are obese, they cannot participate in all school activities and they also have trouble learning.

We can think of the human toll on children and their families, but let us also think about the toll on society and on the health care system. Total health care spending was $4,548 per person in 2006, with more than two-thirds of direct health care costs being expended on chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain forms of cancer. These kinds of disease rob the national economy of $6.6 billion annually due to health costs and lower productivity.

If we do not do something about children's health today, it will get worse. It is already really poor. Bad eating habits can last a lifetime and can be passed on to the next generation. Therefore, this initiative is also good for the economy.

Having healthy children means better learning, better academic performance, reduced medicare costs and higher productivity for Canada. Also by emphasizing local and sustainable food sources, the initiative will support production of quality food, strengthening the local farm communities and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The need for this is very clear and so is the support from leaders in this children's healthy nutrition initiative.

We have a list of a broad range of groups that support this program, such as food writer, Natalie MacLean of Ottawa, James Chatto, Sasha Chapman, Liz Feltham and award winning chef Susur Lee, Sash Simpson, Chris MacDonald, Chris Wood, Winlai Wong, Ian Sorbie, Chris Klugman, Anthony Walsh and so on.

Therefore, food writers and chefs are all in support of this program. It is time for Canada to show leadership in children's health with a practical children's healthy nutrition initiative.

Good nutrition is vital to the health of children in Canada. Unfortunately, the Conservative budget has massive corporate tax cuts, but nothing to ensure that safe and healthy food is available to all Canadian kids.

It is not fair and it is a complete missed opportunity.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Trinity—Spadina represents a beautiful riding in downtown Toronto. I have many fond memories of it, having lived there for many years on Brunswick Avenue and on St. George Street.

Nevertheless, I listened to her debate on the budget. While I disagree with her about her arguments with respect to agriculture, because I think the government has done a lot for Canadian agriculture and for our food supply in the last year or year and a half, it is work that is much needed, and we are moving in the right direction in Canadian agriculture.

I am particularly interested in her comments about sourcing local food supplies. We all know in the House that chicken, eggs, milk, milk products, like butter and cheese, and turkeys are all locally sourced. They are produced through supply management and therefore they are Canadian produced and Canadian consumed.

However, with respect to other commodities like beef, wheat and products like that, which are not in the supply managed chain, how does she propose to ensure that locally grown products are locally consumed? Is it through some sort of marketing identification program like Foodland Ontario, or is it through some other measures?

I would be interested to hear the views of the member Trinity—Spadina on this.

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

Mr. Speaker, many things can be done to ensure locally produced food is available, whether it is local markets or community markets. For example, in June in my riding there will be a new community market for local farmers to bring food into the communities and sell it directly to people who want to shop locally.

Also there is a proposal in Toronto right now to establish a processing centre so that the foods that are being produced in southern Ontario can be processed in a place in Toronto, for example, and then can be kept. It can be an incubator to help some of the ethnic communities, for example, that want to create or process their food. It will create a lot of jobs and it will help local farmers. It will also be able to be sold back to a lot of the citizens, not just in downtown Toronto but across southern Ontario where there is a very large population.

Instead of bringing food from different places, such as Chile, Mexico, China or many other places, we can eat local food. It is good for the economy, for the farmers, for our kids' health and for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

If there were a national food program, whether it is in schools or community centres all across the city and in different parts of Canada, we could do bulk purchasing.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for emphasizing food for schools. I also congratulate the thousands of volunteers across the country who work in that area. I have always been very supportive of this. It is absolutely fundamental. I have arranged a room so its members can lobby on the Hill. I cannot imagine any member of Parliament who would not support food for learning. It almost should be a human right that when a child goes to school they do not need to go hungry. How can they even concentrate when such a basic need is missing?

Along the same theme, would the member support another initiative I am trying to push, which is to increase the subsidy for fresh foods in the far and remote north? It is a different situation in the north. The food is so expensive that even middle income people might not be able to afford the food for their children, certainly not expensive food. Dried junk food might be cheaper because the freight rates are not so high.

Would the member support increasing the subsidies so that high quality fresh foods and vegetables and nutritious foods can be sent to the children of the north?

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

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. In some of the northern communities right now it is cheaper to buy a bottle of Coke than fresh milk or apples. It is a desperate situation especially in some of the aboriginal communities. We have worked together with them through breakfast for learning. All the volunteer sectors across Canada are saying that we need to invest in food, especially in remote communities, which is why this model we are talking about is a made in Canada, very locally driven initiative.

Some of the food will be more expensive in other locations, which is why the Canadian government must invest in this. We are only talking about $25 million. It is not a very expensive program. I hope one day that all Canadian children will have access to nutritious and healthy food.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the budget. It would be impossible to not have a few good things in a budget of this nature. This is the biggest spending budget in the history of the country. What is disappointing is the missed opportunity to assist Canadians and to build a nation.

The government, obviously, was trying to find pockets of potential support, people who would be more apt to change their vote to them in a federal election and stuff their pockets, so it wanted to do a few things for them, but there was no consideration to building a nation.

I believe that the way to build a nation is by helping those who are most in need achieve their potential. We cannot make everybody rich nor can we make everybody equal but we can assist people to achieve their potential. However, we do not see that in the budget and we do not see any attempt at it. We do not see any real investment in education or any real investment in assisting the people who are struggling the most.

What is worse, when I look down the line, I see more budgets like this. I see transfers of some $37 billion to the provinces, not on the basis of need but on the basis of demographics, where the potential is to win an election.

I even see areas of high need, like Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Saskatchewan where a promise has been broken. In the case of Nova Scotia, the Atlantic accord has been completely shattered. When the Conservatives were in opposition they were screaming out for the accord. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were to get the benefits of the accord independent of any other programs, independent of any future changes in the equalization program, another part of the cost shared program.

What do we have now? The premiers must decide whether to take the new equalization formula instead of the Atlantic accord. All of a sudden, the premiers are forced to play a game of roulette. The provinces can take the instant money now and forego any future benefits of the non-renewable energy and non-renewable resources and the investments that could happen in their provinces.

Now we hear rumours that the government is negotiating in order to save the suggestion of the member for Central Nova and Premier MacDonald. It is trying to find some little deal that would permit the Premier of Nova Scotia to say that he supports the federal Conservative government. The Conservatives have him over a barrel. He is coming up to an election and he is in a minority situation. The popularity of his provincial government is not very high. He will need to come up with some agreement. He will need to settle.

That was not the intent of the Atlantic accord. The intent of the accord was to give stability to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Here we have, exactly as we had in the income trust question, a bald-faced lie with a broken promise. The Prime Minister promises one thing but at the end of the day does something completely different.

The other thing that scares me for the future is the fact that the Conservatives have committed to another GST cut. They keep putting it back because they are running out of room. They are spending money very fast. They are making these transfers to the provinces but they are limiting their ability for revenue in the future. The real risk here is that in a few years, if trends continue and there is some decline in the economy, we could be in Mulroney-type deficits again, which is very scary.

The Conservatives say that they want to cut the GST by another percentage point in a few years. That is $6 billion. If they put $6 billion toward the child tax credit, that money would take one million kids in this country above the poverty line. That is not rich and it is not out of poverty but it is above the statistical measure that we call the poverty line. It is, in my opinion, the absolute least that someone needs to survive in this country. One million kids could be brought above the poverty line. There is some potential to do it but that is not the intent. According to the government, it is not here to build a nation, it is here to worry about the next election.

I was pleased to see pension income sharing for seniors in the budget, which is a good thing, but there is a whole segment of seniors who I see every day in rural Nova Scotia who are suffering and having a hard time and there is nothing in the budget for them. The budget increases taxes for them by 0.5% but they have received no assistance. I am talking about single seniors.

If a senior couple live in old stock housing, as they typically do in rural areas, and they both receive the senior benefits and the guaranteed income supplement, they can get by. However, when one goes, the other is left with the same expenses and a lot less revenue. It is often the wife who is left behind and often some of the work and the repairs that could be done by the spouse cannot be done any more. The costs are more but the government has nothing in the budget to assist these people.

We have the small craft harbours in Atlantic Canada and the Minister of Fisheries did not receive a penny. He was not able to get any assistance from the federal government. When he was a member of the fisheries committee he was asking for more money for small craft harbours. Along with my colleagues, I was able to get $100 million over five years for small craft harbours but that expires this year. The $20 million a year will not be replaced and the total amount was reduced. The Conservatives voted for a motion put forward by the member from Prince Edward Island to increase and put back the $50 million. They voted for it but they did not do it. They then cut that $100 million over five years, which means $20 million less work is being done to support these communities.

While in opposition, the Conservatives screamed that the port of Digby had to be taken care of and yet there is not a penny and not a word, not taking it back as it should be.

It is not their fault that the problem is there. I was not elected at the time but the Liberals were in government when it was done. It was a bad contract negotiated by Transport Canada. For 16 months the government has had the report indicating that it is the federal government's fault, a bad contract, and yet it has done nothing. They have not taken that port back but they screamed about it forever.

We see huge investments in the Coast Guard. The Conservatives re-announced the money that we had already announced. The government has changed the tact of the Coast Guard. I always understood that the Coast Guard was there providing for the security of mariners. However, apparently the Coast Guard is now out there to save ministers. Two vessels were taken from Halifax and moved to two different ridings in Newfoundland, with no logic to it other than to try to save a couple of ridings because the government knows the political problems it is having in Newfoundland.

A fisheries research vessel was moved from the Maritimes to Newfoundland because the Minister of Fisheries was worried about his own election success. He is not worried or concerned about the future of the fisheries, as I mentioned earlier.

When we were examining the main estimates in the House, the Minister of National Defence was before us. I asked him about a contribution to the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre operating out of Cornwallis Park. He said that absolutely the funding would be there, that there would be funding from external affairs, from CIDA and that he at national defence would do his share. It has been operating internationally out of that area for seven years and creating very good jobs and doing good work around the world. Now we hear that the government will cut the funding. That is the rumour and usually those rumours are true when they are heard.

There is no mention of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre in the budget, not anywhere. It will not be found on any line, although the minister promised and said it in the House.

The minister also said that Greenwood would be very pleased with the investments at the Greenwood base. What do we hear now? We hear that the work on the upgrade of the Aurora aircraft will stop and that the fleet will be cut by half at the Greenwood base. That is the rumour that we are hearing. Apparently the minister was to announce it a few years ago but he is having so much trouble in his public acceptance that he backed off. We hear that it will be announced after the election. That is absolutely unacceptable.

We also know about the income trusts and now we hear of the foreign investment income trust polices being cancelled. As a great saviour for tax fairness, we hear that a bunch of Canadian companies are being sold offshore. This is a hollowing out of our corporate sector. This is the same as the government did with income trusts, the other bald-faced lie.

Finally, I would like to talk about education. Nova Scotia has more seats in its universities per capita than any other province in this country but is that reflected in the transfers for education? No. It is completely per capita, by the individual number of people living in each province. Once again, we see that Quebec and Ontario get the gold mine and Nova Scotia gets the shaft.

This budget is absolutely unfair to the people who need the support the most, the people who want to develop their potential and build this country, not just a meaningless Conservative majority.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's speech and he seemed to drift from one side to the other on the budget. I am not exactly sure what he was getting at.

I would point a couple of things out in his speech. He spoke a little bit about post-secondary education. I am very proud of what the government has done on post-secondary education with a 40% increase in post-secondary funding.

I am very proud of the investments that the government is making in infrastructure. The member forgot about infrastructure which was a major failing of the previous government. The Liberals allowed infrastructure to decline to the extent that they did, a $60 billion deficit nation-wide. I never heard anything about that in the member's speech.

I would also like to know why he alluded a couple of times to income trusts and so forth. I am very proud of the actions the government has taken. I would like to know why he supports his government's position for a corporate tax holiday? Why does he think corporations should not pay tax? I would really like to know that because what people in my riding of Peterborough do not like hearing is that they must pay taxes while others do not.

We believe in tax fairness on this side of the House. I would love to know why the Liberals do not.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, everybody in the House who clearly understands it believes in tax fairness. The problem is that the member does not understand it. He believes the buzzwords of a Harris flunky on tax fairness. As we heard the critic for finance say, every time the Minister of Finance talks about tax fairness, taxpayers have to reach into their pockets to give more.

Tax fairness does not include a system of taxation for investments that puts external companies ahead of Canadian companies and reduces the competitiveness of Canadian companies. In order to grow, often companies have to grow internationally. If our companies cannot invest internationally, they are going to be sold internationally and that is the absolute truth.

I believe in tax fairness. We need a good tax regime. We cut taxes on this side after we eliminated the deficit. We cut taxes by over $100 million, I think $130 million and some, to make ourselves more competitive. We made investments in education, research and development, and infrastructure.

There is still a lot to be done, but what did we see? We saw the Conservatives inherit the best financial and fiscal situation of any government ever and they cut the infrastructure program with provinces and municipalities. They made a straight transfer of less money to the provinces and ruined the partnerships that had been created with municipalities, communities, and provincial governments just to get their quick sound bite. I do not think a fashion consultant is going to be able to fix the incompetence of this government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech and address one of the points he raised toward the end on a matter that in my view is essential and very important to our communities, and that is the matter of small craft harbours.

The situation is beyond catastrophic. As we know full well, a solution had been implemented by the previous government, the Liberal government, but unfortunately the Conservative government is up to its old tricks. At least the Liberals made an effort for small craft harbours. Nonetheless, the budget far from addresses the situation.

The solution that was introduced, when a wharf was dilapidated or causing problems, was to install a gate rather than repair what should have been repaired over the years. The simple excuse was that this was in the interest of safety for those who use the wharf.

Instead of repairs being made, the situation was allowed to deteriorate to the point that the safety of the fishers from the various communities was jeopardized.

I can only support the hon. member's initiative in this matter. However, I would like to point out that the port administrations in these communities are being run by volunteers. Recently, during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, these people told us they were exhausted. In my opinion, it is high time the federal government stepped in.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his speech. He is quite right. When I was elected in 2000, the annual budget allocated to the small craft harbours program was approximately $100 million. That was nowhere near sufficient.

The quality of our small craft harbours has consistently diminished. The size of the boats was increasing and the harbours were getting bigger. Modern harbours were needed. Old harbours could not even be maintained. Funding was increased by $20 million per year for five years. It was still insufficient, but it was an improvement. It was a great leap forward.

In our election platform, we promised to increase this amount by another $150 million a year. That is what is needed. Some $250 million a year is needed for five years to restore and maintain our harbours, and some $150 million a year will be needed to prepare for the future. At present, there is a decrease of approximately $35 million a year.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to enter into the debate at the final stages of the implementation of the budget put forward by the Conservative government.

I represent the riding of Winnipeg Centre which has the highest aboriginal population of any riding in Canada. There are roughly 16,000 people who self-identified themselves in the last census as being either first nation, Métis or Inuit. I point out that this would be by far the largest aboriginal reserve, were my riding considered a reserve. On the face of it, the city of Winnipeg, and more often than not the inner city of Winnipeg, the city centre I represent, is becoming increasingly the area where first nations people leave the desperation of their reserves to seek opportunity.

Let me say by way of introduction that the social condition of Canada's first nations, Métis and Inuit people is Canada's greatest failure and perhaps Canada's greatest shame. Fully 46% of all the families in the riding of Winnipeg Centre live below the poverty line. I say that with no pride, believe me, and 52% of all the children in the riding of Winnipeg Centre live below the poverty line. These are staggering statistics.

It ties in with my first point that overwhelmingly the face of poverty in my riding is Indian, if I can use that term. People are not finding opportunity as they flock to the inner city. They are living on the margins. They are living on the edge. I point this out only to make the point that when we do not deal with social conditions, we run the risk of social unrest.

I want to recognize and pay tribute again, by way of introduction, to the aboriginal leadership within my riding and on first nations reserves, among the elders, the chief and council, for keeping a lid on social unrest that is just at the verge of boiling over at any point in time.

Let us not kid ourselves. We are living in some kind of a vacuum in the House of Commons if we do not recognize and acknowledge that there is an underclass in Canada, and it is native. That underclass will not remain peaceful when it loses hope.

We lived through the Oka crisis. This is a cautionary tale I am speaking of here, but we lived through the Oka crisis and we were virtually on the edge of civil unrest at that time. The Oka crisis was not isolated to that area of the outskirts of Montreal. In fact, there were rumblings of discontent right across the land. The leadership in other areas kept a lid on that social unrest and discontent, watching what would be the outcome of Oka.

Fortunately, we got through that with a minimum of violence, a minimum of social unrest on the condition that we gave some promise and some hope. That was the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, a five year, $500 million comprehensive royal commission on the state of the social conditions of first nations, Métis and aboriginal people. That was hope. There was hope generated. There was optimism in the land that finally Canada would decide once and for all that society does not move forward unless we all move forward together. There is an enlightened self-interest associated with not having a permanent underclass.

That was the optimism around the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. That hope, that optimism, has been dwindling ever since the tabling of the royal commission, which I believe was in 1995. Since then it has been gathering dust. There was a summary report on the implementation of the recommendations of the royal commission. It was called “Gathering Strength” and the joke in Indian country was that it was gathering dust because not a single one of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples had been implemented, not one.

To this day, the hope and the goodwill that was generated by the recognition of the social conditions that first nations people face has been dissipating and dwindling to the point where we are back at this crisis point, where I do not know if the leadership of first nations, Métis and Inuit communities can hold their dissidents back. I do not know when that is going to boil over into social unrest.

We have seen the riots in L.A. We have seen in the civil rights movement, the major American cities boiling over and then blowing up. It was burn, baby, burn as people were lashing out in their frustration and the inequity of living in the richest and most powerful civilization in the history of the world, and we cannot even provide for the basic needs of a family to survive if they are Indian and living in the inner city of Winnipeg.

There might be 1,000 reasons for it, and I am not making excuses here, but believe me the reason is not that people are not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, as some critics would have us believe to be the case. There are inequities that have not been addressed. There are legal obligations that have not been addressed and not budgeted for in this budget, to stay on point and to stay relevant.

My colleague, the Minister of Indian Affairs, says that we are spending more money than ever on the aboriginal peoples, up to $10 billion, but he is being disingenuous in a sense because some of that $10 billion is in fact just meeting legal obligations in court cases that we have lost over land issues or land claims. That is not part of the social spending that we believe is necessary to elevate the standards of living conditions of aboriginal people to the mean average that Canadians enjoy.

I say this with the greatest respect. We have failed in our mission by ignoring the greatest social crisis in our midst. I have spoken to first nations leadership and I will be speaking to them this Wednesday at a rally in Winnipeg specifically about this budget. They feel that their legitimate claims and concerns have been ignored by a government that would rather see them simply get on with it, solve their own problems and move on.

There is nothing more unfair than treating unequal people equally. There is an equality issue we have to deal with here. A lot of people say that aboriginal people have the same opportunities as any other person in Canada. I read an appalling paper written by a Professor Tom Flanagan, who was an adviser to this government, I understand, called Why Don’t Indians Drive Taxis? Why do they not just get on with it? Other immigrants come to this country and they drive taxis, and their children go to university, and within a generation they are middle class. He just does not get it. If that is the type of logic that is informing the policies of this government, then we are on the road to conflict.

I do not know how much longer the aboriginal leadership can hold their people back because they deserve a medal for patience so far and for the restraint that they have shown in seeking an essentially Gandhi-like commitment to peaceful negotiation and demonstrations. That will not last forever.

I caution this government and all members of Parliament that we cannot have our heads in the sand about the inequities that are inherent in our current paternalistic relationship with first nations. Unless we address a meaningful transfer of control of land and resources, no amount of social welfare is going to change the status of aboriginal people.

We are embarrassed internationally by the third world conditions. Some of the only successes aboriginal leaders have seem to be when they block a railroad or a highway, or when they go to the United Nations and show the rest of the world this glaring social crisis that we have in this country, where a significant number of Canadians are being left behind.

Living in the richest and most prosperous civilization the world has ever known, there is no excuse to have a permanent underclass. We are not trying hard enough if we are not bringing aboriginal people along with us in the prosperity of this great nation.

I felt it was my duty to use these few minutes to remind the House of Commons of our obligation to live up to the legal obligations, our commitments to aboriginal people, whether it is in the implementation of treaties or the implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

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

Mr. Speaker, just as the member thought it was his duty to remind us of how important aboriginals are, I too think it is our duty to remind people that we found it was important to address aboriginals with a strategy. Therefore, we did commit to aboriginal Canadians, provinces and territories to find a workable, innovative solution.

For example, in budget 2006, we provided $300 million for off reserve aboriginal housing and $300 million in affordable housing, and also $300 million starting in 2007-08 for aboriginal communities in the priority areas of education, women, children, families, water and housing.

In 2007, we had initiatives such as $14.5 million over two years to expand the aboriginal justice strategy. As the member said, is not always about money. It is about addressing some of the social issues too. The $300 million to give first nation members the opportunity to own their own homes is a very good start. I know that in our riding and in Saskatchewan one of the issues was that many of the aboriginal women said they would appreciate being able to own their own homes and to have property and matrimonial rights. I could go on, but I think the member can see it for himself.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the total commitment to first nations, Métis and Inuit issues in this budget is $14 per head. That does not even scratch the surface in the appalling need that is illustrated out there. It is not lost on aboriginal leadership that we seem to be able to find billions of dollars at any time at the drop of a hat to buy more tanks or to buy submarines that do not even float, or sink, or whatever they are supposed to do.

However, if we try to raise the point of the appalling social conditions of first nations people and the incidence of poverty and neglect and the wasted opportunity of another generation of children not taking part fully in all that our society has to offer, people scream bloody murder that we are giving money away to the Indians again. This is an appalling contradiction.

I should remind my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, that the $300 million in the 2006 budget is money that the NDP negotiated and it was wrestled out of the Liberals in Bill C-48 to be spent on aboriginal housing. It was like pulling teeth.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre and, since I sit on the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, I am rather concerned.

I do not know what the recommendation will be, since we are divided on the matter at this time. First nations are facing a serious problem. To pursue what my hon. colleague was saying, certain communities are located in very isolated regions, while others are near municipalities, whether large or small. Furthermore, some aboriginals are leaving their isolated communities to settle in larger centres such as Winnipeg, Regina or Prince Albert.

I do wonder, however—and I know how important this debate is—does my hon. colleague believe that we will solve the problems facing aboriginal communities simply by pumping in more and more money? There are two types of problems, since aboriginals who live near large centres face different problems than those who live in isolated regions.

Does the hon. member believe that pumping in more money will solve these problems?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, when we look at the reality and divide the total allocation of the department, whether it is $9 billion or $10 billion--people differ on it--it is roughly $9,000 or $10,000 per person to pay for everything from housing to infrastructure to education to health care to welfare.

We spend $9,000 per person for high school alone in the province of Manitoba. The whole system is chronically underfunded. I see a former minister of Indian affairs nodding his head. Some problems cannot be solved by throwing money at them. For other problems, that is exactly what is required.

We can find $14 billion a year to keep 50,000 soldiers going. We have $10 billion a year to meet our legal obligations to a million first nations people. We are falling short by a factor of 10.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Yukon, Northern strategy; the hon. member for Windsor West, Automobile industry; the hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, Manufacturing industry.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Mount Royal.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, March 19, 2007, the government presented its budget to the House of Commons. Today, we are debating the budget implementation act. What I would like to do now is address the budget in light of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, whose 25th anniversary we are now commemorating and indeed celebrating.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is, in effect, a veritable people's charter of rights and freedoms because it has had a transformative impact not only on our laws, but on our lives. In particular, it has had a transformative impact on the most vulnerable amongst us, be they the aboriginal people, the disabled, women and the like.

If we go around the country and ask people, as I did when I was the minister of justice and since then, if they are better off now than they were before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted, the answer is invariably yes. When we speak to the vulnerable among us, we see that it is particularly true. This is especially important because the test of a just society is how it protects those who are the most vulnerable.

Regrettably, the budget not only fails to meet the needs of all Canadians, particularly those of the vulnerable, but it dismantles the very institutions and instruments that were created to protect the most vulnerable and to defend their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In particular, the budget, among other things, ignores the need for a comprehensive and sustainable legal aid system, dismantles the Law Commission of Canada, and the court challenges program, fails to meet the needs of our aboriginal people, and does a disservice to women and students. Let me look at these particular areas in turn.

Number one, on the matter of legal aid, one of the last initiatives in which I engaged as the minister of justice was to preside over a meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of justice in this country. At that meeting, the ministers there assembled unanimously recommended the need for a comprehensive and sustainable legal aid system for Canada.

The ministers understood then, and it is important to reaffirm now, that, for example, section 10(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms confers upon an arrested person the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay; that article 14(3)(d) of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights confers upon an accused person the right to legal assistance and goes on to stipulate that this legal assistance is to be provided by the government if the accused cannot pay for it; that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is to provide as much protection in our domestic law as international human rights laws provide, as exemplified by the international covenant. For example, international law imposes upon Canada an obligation to provide legal aid to indigent people and to protect the rights of indigent accused; therefore, section 10(b) of the charter can be said to constitutionalize our international obligations in this regard.

Moreover, this constitutional responsibility, as we have taken note of late, is particularly compelling now as there are more and more indigents before the courts without legal assistance, and therefore, in the absence of such legal assistance, for which we have a constitutional responsibility to provide. We are arguably in the face of people being denied the right to a fair trial.

What is true with respect to the need for comprehensive criminal legal aid is no less true with respect to the need for civil legal aid, because here the absence of civil legal aid impacts disproportionately on the most vulnerable amongst us. We only have to look at child custody proceedings to see the impact with respect to the absence of civil legal aid or where claimants are seeking to exercise their rights, particularly the elderly with respect to social assistance or with respect to aboriginal people, and I can go on.

The absence of civil legal aid, together with the absence of criminal legal aid, speaks to the importance of a comprehensive responsibility that we now have to in fact bring into play. I am delighted that the leader of our party has spoken about it and has said that if this party were to form the government we would both increase criminal legal aid and make provision for civil legal aid.

Indeed, this would reflect and represent the open federalism that the new government, as it calls itself, speaks about but does not implement, because this open federalism, if the Conservatives were to implement it, would act upon the unanimous recommendations of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of justice to in fact have a comprehensive and sustainable legal aid program.

That brings me to the second area, and that is the dismantling of the Law Commission of Canada. Here I can speak from my own experience and involvement as a minister of justice, and before that as a law professor and human rights lawyer. This is a Law Commission of Canada that was dismantled even though it played an indispensable role in the lives of Canadians, in bridging the disparities between what might be law on the books and law in action, providing to me as minister indispensable research and advice with respect to matters that come before a minister, and which also provided through the minister independent research advice and related policy options to the Parliament of Canada, to whom the minister reports.

This engaged Canadians in an ongoing conversation about their rights, about the disparities, and sometimes about what is law on the books and the exercise of that law in action, particularly in terms of partnerships that the Law Commission of Canada formed with the youth of Canada, the elderly of Canada and the aboriginal people of Canada. Therefore, it is not surprising that the occasion of the dismantling of the Law Commission of Canada was regarded as a blemish not only on Canada but on our international reputation.

I can tell members that wherever I travelled internationally, whether it be in Argentina or Europe, I was asked how we could go ahead and dismantle the Law Commission of Canada which, apart from the value that it certainly had for us as Canadians, had value for others internationally in terms of the independent quality of expertise, research, advice and counsel. It was acting as a kind of international counsel to the world community, particularly with respect to how it would protect, among other things, the rights of the vulnerable.

That is why I am delighted as well that the leader of our party has announced that not only would he restore the Law Commission of Canada but he would protect it in law because the Law Commission of Canada is a creature of Parliament. Being a creature of Parliament and answerable to Parliament, it should be protected by Parliament as well. Therefore, the Liberals would reinstitute a Law Commission of Canada and protect it in such a manner that it could not be dismantled by administrative whim or fiat in opposition to the needs of the people of Canada.

This brings me now to the third area and that is the court challenges program. The court challenges program is not as it has sometimes been spoken of by members of the new government, as they call themselves, who should look more to our experience with it and see that it has not been the vestige of the special interests as they have claimed; rather, it has been there for the people of Canada to promote and protect equality rights and to promote and protect the rights of the most vulnerable.

The court challenges program was there to promote universal access to the exercise of the rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to promote and protect the equality rights provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In its principles and precedents, in a manner in which it found expression before the courts, the court challenges program became responsible for articulating those arguments before the courts that ended up in the elucidation of those principles and precedents, which provided the protection for the most vulnerable among us as it protected the fundamental rights and freedoms under the charter.

That brings me now to the question of the aboriginal peoples and the disregard by the government with respect to the Kelowna accords. The disregard for the $5 billion set aside for aboriginal needs meant also the disregarding of the seven Rs of aboriginal justice that we sought to put in place.

When I speak about the seven Rs, I am referring to: the recognition of the aboriginal peoples, the original inhabitants of this country; the respect for their specific and distinguishable constitutional status under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and under the Constitution; the redress by the government for past wrongs; the redressing of the over-representation of aboriginal people in the criminal justice system; the under-representation of aboriginal people in the justice system of judges, lawyers and prosecutors and the like; and the importance of bringing about the kind of responsiveness that our constitutional framework requires in our relationship with aboriginal people.

I will conclude--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina.

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

Mr. Speaker, currently there are 27,000 first nations children in the care of child welfare agencies across Canada. The main reason for taking children into care is physical neglect due to poverty.

The member talked about the vulnerable. We know that most of the aboriginals who live in big urban centres are single parents.

Right now under the Conservative budget a single mother on welfare does not get the $310 per child tax credit. She does not get the worker's tax credit because she probably cannot go to work without affordable child care and there are not enough spaces. Her national child tax benefit is also being clawed back from the provincial government.

Is it fair that for single parents this budget offers absolutely no relief, especially for single parents who may be from first nations and who are living in urban centres?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased about the question. Not only does it touch the fundamental issue with respect to the protection of the vulnerable, but it addresses the question of poverty that is inextricably bound up with all the issues that I addressed, among others the need for a comprehensive system of civil and criminal legal aid. In fact, single mothers are among the groups that remain unprotected or are disproportionately impacted upon in the absence of a civil legal aid system.

When we look at the budget, clearly, it fails to help working families. In 2006 the Conservatives promised 125,000 new child care spaces over five years. Some 15 months into the government's mandate, Canadian families realize that there has been absolutely no implementation with respect to that particular obligation.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we all acknowledge that the federal government has a responsibility for the provision of legal aid within its responsibility for criminal law. However, a big part of the legal aid system in this country is the provincial legal aid system, a system of legal aid run by the various provinces under their responsibility for property, for civil affairs and for the administration of justice.

The budget significantly increases the transfers to the provinces by $39 billion over the next seven years, one of the biggest increases to provincial transfers in recent memory. It is money that the provinces will be able to use for a variety of purposes, including enhancing their legal aid programs.

Before the hon. member answers my question, I would point out that this is a very significant transfer that is going to enhance the access to legal services for Canadians, especially those who cannot afford it.

I would add that after the former minister of finance under the Liberal government slashed the transfers to the provinces in 1995, the following year in 1996-97 the Ontario legal aid assistance program issued 75,000 certificates, a drop of 150,000 certificates from previous years.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to remind the hon. member that as I said, when we held a meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers of justice and we discussed their civil legal aid as well as criminal legal aid, it was because we appreciated that we had a joint responsibility in this regard. We worked out foundational principles with respect to a comprehensive civil legal aid system as well as a criminal legal aid system, which would protect provincial jurisdiction and the administration and delivery of services.

We are talking about the fundamental need to have these services delivered to begin with. I did not see a word about that in the budget. The words “civil legal aid” are not mentioned. The words “criminal legal aid” are not mentioned.

A kind of abstract reference to a transfer speaks nothing to those who need the particularities of the delivery of legal services, legal aid program developments, comprehensive and sustainable developments set forth in a budget. We do not see any of that anywhere in that budget.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, because this is the budget implementation bill, I tried to look at my riding of Surrey North in terms of what the budget's implementation will mean for the constituency I represent. On average, it is a constituency of fairly low income per family as it relates to the rest of Surrey, although it is mixed.

We have people who do not have homes to go to. We have people who suffer from very serious challenges in their lives, health challenges, drug and alcohol challenges, a variety of challenges. I tried to look at what the budget's implementation will mean for this group. Also, my riding is full of people who want to have hope that there is something in their future that they can hold onto. Every single one of us needs something we can hold onto if not for ourselves, then for our children, our friends or our neighbours.

What does the budget do for Surrey North? I looked at it from a prosperity gap perspective. Does it make the gap wider or narrower between those who have and those who have not? That seemed to be a simple measurement.

One of the things the budget implements is a reduction in services for women who are victims of violence. What does that do? That widens the prosperity gap. Women who are victims of violence have very few financial choices, sometimes no choices. The support services on which they depend for counselling are gone. The women's service organizations that have done some very fine research and projects funded by the federal government are gone. When I look at what it implements for women who are victims of violence, and their children who witness that violence, I see a much broader gap than there was before.

It implements also a feeling of discouragement and disappointment for young people who will not be able to go on to post-secondary education. Nowhere in the budget was there a reduction in tuition fees or a new system for repaying fees in a way that is workable for students when they graduate which is what we called for.

What does that mean? Those bright, excited young people see those who have, the ones at the other end of the prosperity gap, going on to post-secondary education, but the people at the other end of that widening prosperity gap, those who have not, cannot afford post-secondary education. It is not that there are not more seats. There are more seats in many different programs, but if the young people cannot afford to go onto post-secondary education, it does not really matter very much if there are more seats. The gap between those bright young people who can access post-secondary education and those who cannot is growing in Surrey North.

This budget also implements a loss of job opportunities. It expands the gap between people who are able to go into the workforce because they need to, never mind those who choose to, and those who either choose to or do not need to. There are many lone parent families or two parent families where the parents need to have wage jobs just to put food on the table probably about 27 days a month, not even the whole month.

There is a lack of opportunity and a growing gap in opportunity, particularly for women because there is no affordable national child care program, which was promised. People were counting on that. They were excited about it. They saw doors opening for them in the future because there would be safe, affordable child care and they would not have to worry whether their children were all right, because some children are not old enough to talk and to tell their parents.

There will be more women who will not be able to get into the workforce. The gap between those who can afford child care and those who have absolutely no ability to access any kind of safe affordable care continues to grow. The prosperity gap between those who have and those who have not continues to grow in that area.

I have an interesting constituency. I do not get the thousands of phone calls every day that other members say they get. Every once in a while I do get a spate of phone calls about an issue, and the job protection issue is one of them. The CAW layoffs, the layoffs in the forest industry affect Surrey North very much. A lot of people are mill workers. There are the layoffs at the airport as well. These are the issues about which I have had phone calls in my office every single day.

What is there in the budget to help people who have lost their jobs? Nothing. And so the gap grows in my riding, and probably more in my riding than in any other Surrey riding, between those who have jobs and those who do not, or those who have help to get into another job and those who do not.

Nobody is standing up for what has indeed, if we count the forest industry, been thousands of lost jobs, and there will be more because there is no money for the pine beetle infestation. What happens? The gap continues to grow between those who have jobs and those who do not. We will see more people who do not have jobs than those who do.

In Surrey North there is a wonderful organization called Kla-how-eya Aboriginal Centre, which is urban aboriginal people doing extraordinary things. There has not been one bit of support in the federal budget for those people, because they do not happen to live on reserve currently. The access to education, access to the sorts of supports they need to be successful and that the organization needs to be successful are not there. Just as we thought we were starting to close that gap for aboriginal people, the gap will actually grow wider in Surrey.

There is a health gap too in Surrey North, which also relates to a prosperity gap. Many seniors live in Surrey North. Those seniors often require home support in order to stay in their homes, which actually costs the health care system less in the end. Those seniors call an MLA's office, an MP's office, a union office or a seniors adviser and say, “I have two prescriptions here and I cannot fill them both, so which one do I fill?”

The gap between those people who can and cannot afford the medication they need to treat an illness and to stay healthy is growing. We do not have a national strategy or any kind of standard for catastrophic drug coverage across the country. British Columbia is probably better off than many other provinces, but I still see the gap growing in this area. Members should think about what they would do if their grandmothers and grandfathers called them to ask which drug to take because they could not afford to fill both prescriptions.

In terms of how the budget's implementation will impact on the lives of seniors in Surrey North, they will again be part of the growing gap of people who cannot afford the very basic necessities to keep them safe and healthy.

There is a health gap as it relates to the environment. We are right by a freeway. The South Fraser Perimeter Road, a four lane highway, goes right through a small part of Surrey called Bridgeview. The effect on the environment and on people's health will be tragic. That is federal money that has gone--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Wellington--Halton Hills.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member of the New Democrats and she touched on two issues in particular on which I want to focus. One was on tuition and the other was on prescription drug costs.

In both cases our government has significantly increased transfers to the provinces in this budget. We have provided $39 billion in new money over the next seven years to provinces throughout Canada so they can better deliver the services for which they are responsibler.

Tuition, as well as prescription drug costs, is a matter of provincial responsibility. In fact, tuition rates are not set by the Government of Canada. They are set by individual provinces. Quebec sets rates at a certain level. The province of Ontario sets rates at another level. The province of British Columbia sets them at even a different level.

The same goes for provincial drug formularies. Those are set by the provincial governments. They determine what drugs are to be on the formulary and what the cost should be. They determine who is eligible for government assistance.

In both cases these are provincial areas of jurisdiction. Our government has significantly increased transfers to the provinces so they could better deliver services in these two areas of responsibility.

What are the hon. member comments on this, in light of our government's action and in light of the fact that these are provincial areas of responsibility.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government transfers money to the provinces, but the federal government also has a responsibility for leadership. Surely, it does not pass out money with no accountability attached to it. It brings together health ministers, education ministers on post-secondary education or whomever from across the country. It knows the issues across the country. Surely, it does not put out money where there is no accountability as to whether it is spent on the areas that have been identified. Home care, drugs, tuition costs have been identified as serious issues that impede the progress of people in the provinces.

In this day and age I do not think any business, including government, should put out money with no accountability as to how it is spent or no indication of how it should be spent.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, does the member agree with the previous speaker who said that the budget was a failure in relation to human rights.

Just to emphasize the point, I do not know if the member saw the disturbing article on Friday in CP about a simple human right involving a young girl who wears a hijab. When cabinet ministers like the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism, the Secretary of State for Sport and the Minister of Transport were asked, they went fleeing. Finally, a government member said the real reason was, “an order not to comment came directly from the Prime Minister’s Office”. If the Prime Minister's Office is so adamant that it is of so little importance that his MPs are not even allowed to speak about human rights, then the budget is a reflection of that.

Did she agree with the previous speaker on that?

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot imagine not taking an opportunity to answer that kind of question because it is so clear it is a human right.

I am very blessed. I come from Surrey, British Columbia, where young women have been wearing hijabs in any sport they like. Young Sikh men wear turbans or head coverings to play whatever sport they like and have been for a very long time. The first RCMP officer ever to wear a turban comes from Surrey, British Columbia.

I would welcome the chance to say the country stands up for the human rights of individuals. In point of fact, these are religious rights. These are symbols of people's religion. We do not deny that in our country to anybody. I would have rushed for the opportunity to answer.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the budget implementation bill.

It seems to me that in January of 2006, in the election of last year, when the public gave its decision in the election, it gave the Conservative Party a minority. It did not say, “Here is a majority”. It said, “Here is a minority. Now all of you go make it work”.

What concerns me, among other things, is that it appears that many times the Conservative Party thinks it can behave as if it has a majority, which it does not have. We have seen many instances of that. At the same time, since it does not have a majority, we have a Prime Minister who clearly wants a majority and wants to have an election. He has already unveiled his fear factory in the southern part of Ottawa somewhere. It is clear that the government will say or do just about anything to get that majority.

Therefore, we saw a budget that I would describe as a divide and conquer budget, a budget that is aimed at certain key target groups that might help get that 40% or 41%, to get majority that the government is after. It is divide and conquer.

It is not surprising though, in many ways. What kind of government is it? What kind of government has it been? What kind of Prime Minister have we seen over the past 15 months or so?

We have seen a Prime Minister who cancels child care spaces. A child care program, which would provide thousands of spaces, was cancelled. In its place, what do Canadians get? They get a monthly amount of $100 which is taxable, which is taxed back, so they will lose most of it anyway. In addition, it provides no spaces whatsoever. To me, that is deliberate, it is deceitful and it is despicable.

We had the promise in the last election that the Conservatives, if elected to government, would never tax income trusts. They could not have been any clearer about their intention. They must have known the risk that other companies in the future might turn into income trusts, but they decided to take the chance, to be reckless and made the promise anyway. What did they do? They broke their word and wiped out the savings of thousands of savers, of seniors who relied upon their word.

What kind of a Prime Minister is that? What kind of a government is that? It was deliberate, deceitful and despicable.

We have a Prime Minister who pledges, in writing, to uphold the Atlantic accord, the accords with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Then he rips them both up and throws them in the faces of the people of those two provinces.

There is an old Gaelic proverb that some of my colleagues may have heard by now, because it was in a brochure that was sent out by Conservative MPs in those two provinces during the negotiation of the accord. The old Gaelic proverb is, “There is no greater fraud than a promise not kept”. Those are not my words. That proverb is from a brochure sent out by Conservatives during the negotiation of the offshore accords, so they should be familiar with that because it was part of their propaganda strategy.

It is ironic that we see a time now when their own words come back to haunt them in the wake of what can only be described, and what has been described by the Premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia and by the minister of finance of Nova Scotia, as a betrayal. Even the Conservative candidate in the riding of Halifax is recognizing this is a betrayal, and she cannot accept this part of the budget. It is deliberate, deceitful and despicable. That is the description of the government.

What did Danny Williams say about this government, its nature and the way it has been behaving on a variety of matters? He said:

This is the same prime minister who basically reneged on money for women , for literacy groups, for volunteers, students, minority rights, has not lived up to the Kyoto accord, for aboriginal people.

It is deliberate, deceitful and despicable. That is what the Conservative government is all about, as we have seen in so many examples. The Prime Minister broke his clear promises in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I know the accord pretty well. I was part of the negotiations. The words in it in fact say that the accord applies to the equalization program as it exists at the time. Therefore, no matter how the program changes, the provisions of the accord and the benefits that flow from it still apply. They still flow.

It cannot be said, as the Minister of Finance tries to do, that the province can still have the accord, but it can only be applied to the old equalization, that the province cannot have the new equalization and the accord. This is not the deal that was signed. This is not the deal that we made. This is not the deal that Conservative MPs from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia argued for so vehemently for in the House two years or so ago. This is deliberate, deceitful and despicable.

Nova Scotia's finance minister, Michael Baker, a Progressive Conservative, in his budget speech not long ago, Friday, March 23, said:

The new federal equalization formula essentially forces Nova Scotia to give up a portion of potential future revenues that were guaranteed under the Offshore Accord.

One of the ways the media described it was “last week's hatchet job on the offshore accord”.

This again proves that unfortunately Canadians cannot trust the Prime Minister to keep his word or even to honour a signed contract. It is phenomenal. Who would have thunk it? It is disappointing, deceitful and deliberate.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Disingenuous.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Yes, it is disingenuous for the government to say that it will not tax income trusts and then to do it, or to say it will respect the offshore accords, knowing what they contain, and then not do it. That is absolutely disingenuous.

I believe Canadians across the country, certainly in my province and in Newfoundland and Labrador, will hold Conservative MPs to account for the promises they break.

Back in 2004, my hon. colleague, the member of Parliament for South Shore—St. Margaret's, said:

This is about fairness and the future of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. This is about honesty and about keeping promises.

What is he saying now? He says now that if Nova Scotia has to give up the accord, it would not be so bad. What a change. What happened? How did he become suddenly a changed person? How did he go from a Conservative MP and a Nova Scotia member of Parliament to a harpercrit? It is a decision that he has made.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Halifax West knows that I have been very attentive to his speech. He also knows that I have been respectful of his experience in the House and that experience is sufficient for him to know not to identify by name any member of the House.

He may want to go on with his train of thought, but not get me up again.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your attentiveness. I will certainly take your advice, as always.

Let me just say that the decision by my hon. colleague for South Shore—St. Margaret's was a deliberate decision. It was disappointing and it was deceitful.

Here is what the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley said in 2004.

I call on the government to... just get down to the point and say, “We made a promise. Now we are going to keep it”.

Now he has changed his mind. He decided to say that the important thing was Nova Scotia could choose. I have already explained what this choice is about. It is not the deal we made. This choosing nonsense is not the deal that he and his colleagues insisted that our province deserved. That was disappointing, deceitful and deliberate.

In March of last year, the new finance minister, although after 15 months we can hardly call him new, said that equalization had been made a mess because of these deals with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The Conservative members of Parliament from those two provinces made the decision, the deliberate decision to say nothing then. This is plain disappointing.

What is the part time ACOA minister saying today? The poor member for Central Nova is so despondent about this betrayal that there are unsubstantiated reports that he spent the weekend after the budget planting potatoes, but he got over it because when Nova Scotians said it was a betrayal—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Questions and comments.

The hon. member for Peterborough.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure where to start with that speech. It lacked any basis in fact whatsoever and rambled from one area to the next. But one thing I would like to ask, since the member brought it up, I would love to know why the member stands up for corporate tax holidays.

In fact, I mentioned a little while ago that I read an article in the Toronto Star today, a paper that generally is quite favourable to the member's party. Following this line of thought that the Liberals happen to be following, which is supporting a corporate tax holiday, corporations not paying their fair share tax, that is not going to ring very well in the homes of Canadian voters. I would like to know what the member's own constituents in the province of Nova Scotia think about his stance in supporting corporate tax holidays. I would love to hear that.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague knows, my comments have an entire basis in fact.

The first question I would have for him when he poses this kind of comment, is how is it that he did not make those same complaints about a policy of not allowing income trusts when his party promised it during the election? Why did he not object then? Where were his objections? Where were these strong and vehement opposition comments in relation to this issue when his own party was promising it would not tax income trusts?

Suddenly, he has a totally different point of view. However, I am glad he brought it up because it gives me the chance to remind members that when Nova Scotians talked about what happened in our province as a betrayal, the minister for the province said to get over it and “We'll see you in court”. What kind of an attitude is that? It is a shameful response.

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

Mr. Speaker, ordinary Canadians are paying more and more for drugs. Last year the average increase was 9%; actually every year since 2000. It costs about $20 billion for Canadians to buy drugs. The amount spent on prescription drugs has doubled since 1999. We also know that at least four million people in Canada have no access to public or private insurance plans for drugs. It is really time for a public pharmacare program.

The Liberals did not deliver it even though it was promised and the Conservatives, in this budget, have no pharmacare program. What is the member planning to do about that?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Trinity--Spadina raises an important issue. It certainly was not one that I had a chance to address in my comments, but she is entitled to raise it.

All of us are concerned, I think, about the rising cost of prescription drugs and the need to provide for that. My hon. colleague seems to forget, when she talks about the 12 years and two months that the Liberals were in government, that when we arrived in government there was a $42 billion deficit.

I know that never was an issue of concern to the NDP members and that they never supported any of the measures taken to deal with that deficit, get it under control, and put our country and its economy on a much better basis, on a basis that provided thousands and millions of jobs across this country.

We can recall the 1993 election when Kim Campbell, then leader of the of the Conservatives and then prime minister, said there would be no jobs created until the year 2000. As it turned out, under a Liberal government between 1993 and 2000, there were two million jobs created because the economy was put in a better position. The economy reduced poverty, it allowed us to put money into health care, and it allowed us to do all kinds of good things. There were not many of those that the NDP members supported but there were one or two of those they actually supported, but never any of the efforts to get us in the place to do it.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague, who I thought gave an inspired speech, a very simple question. The Conservative government raised taxes on the poor. Does he think that the Conservative government violated one of the basic principles of a government, that is, to care for that group which is most needy in our society, and does he not think the right thing to do would be to drop the taxes on the lowest income earners in this country?

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, obviously in the budget a year ago the Conservatives raised income taxes on people in the lowest income bracket. It was an outrageous thing and I have no excuse for it.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today with an opportunity to speak to the budget implementation bill, especially from the perspective of residents of east Vancouver.

A budget is a test and measure for any government. To me a budget is about who gains and who loses. When we look at the Conservative budget that was brought out a couple of months ago, it was very clear that many Canadians felt they had lost. When we look at a riding like east Vancouver and see some of the pressing issues that people are dealing with on a daily basis, there was really nothing in the budget that helped people.

It strikes me as a massive contradiction that on the one hand we can spend billions of dollars in Afghanistan, I think more than $4 billion to date, on a war that is simply unwinnable, a mission that is totally wrong for Canada, yet we can ignore pressing issues in our own country, such as homelessness or lack of affordable housing.

British Columbia is getting ready for the Olympics in 2010. There is certainly a lot of pride and activity taking place, but there is also a lot of concern that as we approach the Olympics things are going to get very expensive, that we do not have the right kind of investment in our social infrastructure and that a lot of people are going to get left behind.

One of the recent initiatives that took place was a remarkable process that brought together representatives of government, the city, NGOs, local community groups and business. It was the 2010 B.C. in the city housing table that looked at issues around the Olympics, with particular focus on housing.

It was remarkable that this diverse group of organizations and different interests came together and agreed that for the 2010 Olympics we needed to build a minimum of 3,200 units of social and affordable housing in the city of Vancouver. If it is not done, then we are going to see a real tragedy take place. Already homelessness has doubled in Vancouver in the GVRD over the last few years.

I raise this because to me housing is a very basic human right. Housing is a very basic issue that affects Canadians. If there is no adequate, safe, affordable, secure housing, then pretty well everything else in one's life is going to go wrong. It is a basic thing that needs to be there.

When we look at the fact that homelessness has actually doubled and there are many more tens of thousands of people who are threatened to be or are on the verge of being homeless, then to me it is simply astounding that in the last federal budget put forward by the Conservative government there was no new money for an affordable housing strategy. There was no new money for even a housing strategy that would have focused on the so-called marketplace, nevermind co-op or social housing, which I know the Conservatives generally are ideologically opposed to.

This is a very glaring omission in the Conservative budget and it is something that concerns us greatly, not only in my own community of east Vancouver but in British Columbia generally. Even the B.C. Liberal government has woken up to the reality to some extent on the housing crisis in British Columbia. It recently announced a number of initiatives that would begin to at least take some initial steps to deal with the housing crisis that is going to loom greater and greater as we approach the 2010 Olympics.

The large question that people have is this. Where is the federal government? Why is the federal government not at the table providing a strategy and the funding complement to ensure that people are not sleeping on the street, that people are not paying 40%, 50% and 60% of their incomes on housing, and that people have the right access to secure, safe and affordable housing?

That is one very severe problem with this budget. On the one hand it is spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan, continuing with $8 billion corporate tax cuts, and yet it is not focusing any money to a basic need such as housing.

Let us be very clear; it is not a lack of fiscal capacity. The federal government is rolling in cash. We have seen a $13 billion surplus last year. We have seen a $5 billion surplus this year. The last two Conservative budgets are very ideologically driven. They are driven in terms of offering a few tax incentives. They are driven in terms of providing a few individual incentives, but they do nothing to eliminate the growing inequities that we see in our society where the gap between poverty and wealth is getting bigger and bigger.

A budget is an opportunity for any government, but particularly the federal government, to look at that big picture, to look at that macro picture, to look at the fact that we have lost 250,000 manufacturing jobs since 2002, to look at the fact that we have a housing crisis, to look at the fact that most women in this country find it harder to keep pace, and most families find it harder to keep pace because they cannot find child care and if they do, they cannot afford it.

Those are some of the measures and it is very disappointing, which is an understatement, to see that this federal budget did not address any of those questions. Most of the groups that I know and work with in my riding have been struggling even to keep going. Many of them faced a lot of difficulties in even knowing if they would receive the limited funds to continue in the new fiscal year, whether it was arts groups, housing groups who rely on emergency housing programs, or women's programs.

Even at that very basic front line service delivery level, many organizations have been thrown into near crisis because they could not get a clear answer as to whether or not their very small operating funds were actually going to come through under the Conservative government. That is a pretty sad state of affairs.

In the aboriginal community there are many organizations that are really struggling to make ends meet. The demands that they face in terms of providing emergency programs, shelter programs, training programs are enormous. The need out there in the community is simply enormous. In the 10 years that I have been an MP, whether under the Liberal government and now under the Conservative government, we have seen these demands get bigger and bigger. What has happened in this country is that the social safety net that people used to be very proud of, not only does it have holes in it but it is really now non-existent.

There are many artists in east Vancouver. There is nothing in this budget, even a simple thing like tax averaging that would give artists a little bit of a break.

Within the NDP we voted against the budget because we thought it was a dismal failure. It was not placing priorities where they needed to be. It is a budget that is clearly directed toward corporate elites in this country. It is not a budget that is directed toward meeting the needs that people have on a daily basis, whether it is health care, drug costs, housing, child care, support for aboriginal people, dealing with children's programs, and the list goes on and on, not to mention students.

How long have we stood in the House and talked about the terrible situation that students face where their debt load has increased and tuition has tripled in the last 15 years. Again this would have been an opportunity for the federal government to take some real concrete steps in saying that if we believe in our future generation, we are going to make sure that post-secondary education is accessible. Unfortunately, it is becoming less and less accessible because the federal government has moved away from supporting post-secondary education.

I have to say that from the point of view of my local community, from the point of view of a national perspective and even our international obligations, this budget gets a failing grade and that is why we are opposing it.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly heard a lot of ideology from the member. However, we are trying to speak to the pragmatic part of what Canadians are looking for.

I heard a lot of ideology preached today but I did not hear a lot of facts. The member spoke specifically about social housing and said that it was not in the budget. I was astounded to hear the member say that because incorporated within the context of the budget is $800 million for social housing that were allocated in the 2006 budget to be carried over two years. All of those funds, every last cent, were put into a third party trust account to ensure that it would be spent in the way it was supposed to be.

Why did the member not support that part of affordable housing, which obviously was to be invested across this country: $312 million in Ontario, for example, and millions in British Columbia?

I do not know whether the Liberal government in British Columbia has yet determined whether they should or should not be spending that money but those funds, for the last two budgets, have been allocated directly into that fund.

In terms of tax fairness, we can talk about a lot. In fact, there were measures within the budget that she and her party said they supported but are now voting against. However, speaking specifically to the point that she made about affordable housing, which is factually incorrect, it was in the 2006 budget and she can rest assured that it is there in 2007.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, all I can say is thank God for the NDP that we were here to get at least that amount of money in a previous government budget and then to force the Conservatives to carry it over. I pointed out correctly that there was no new money in the federal budget to deal with the housing crisis across the country. I would correct the member on that point.

One of the things that slipped through in the budget that was of a lot of concern is that the Conservatives have fundamentally changed Canada's drug strategy. I am not talking about prescription drugs, but illicit drugs. They have basically changed the so-called four pillar approach, law enforcement, prevention, treatment and harm reduction, and have dropped harm reduction. It was buried in the budget. This should be a very alarming signal to a lot of the organizations across the country that have worked very hard on harm reduction: things like needle exchanges and the safe injection site in my riding in the downtown east side.

This brings me back to my point that this was very much an ideologically driven budget. The Conservatives have ignored real evidence that is out there in terms of what works. Whether it is on a drug strategy, on a housing investment or on public transit, they have ignored the evidence out there and have basically produced a budget that is at the very core of their political and ideological agenda.

That is why we need to get up and tell the government that its budget is a failure, that it does not work for most of the people I represent. It might contain the odd thing here and there but overall the major points in people's lives, whether it is housing, child care, jobs, EI, dealing with the drug strategy or support for women, none of those things are in the budget.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech of the member for Vancouver East. She mentioned various groups that have been, in my phrasing, left behind as a result of the budget. She mentioned students, artists, aboriginals and a few others but she made no mention of single seniors.

All that I get from the budget is a provision for pension splitting among senior couples but nothing whatsoever in the budget which provides for single seniors. I am wondering if the member opposite agrees with that and what her thought is about that.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I concur that the issue of seniors, particularly single seniors and particularly women who live below the poverty rate--I forget what the percentage rate is but it is very high--are another part of our community who were completely overlooked in the budget.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak in the House to what I think ordinary Canadians want to see in a budget and juxtapose that with what we actually get from the government.

The budget is the foundation. It is a critical social contract that any government has with its citizens. What we have seen in this budget is a contract that seems to have been broken.

I listened carefully to one of the government members who asked about supporting the budget because of affordable housing. I am glad my colleague from Vancouver set the record straight. If we had not been here in this place to ensure corporate tax cuts were not put at the front of the line ahead of affordable housing, many of our citizens would not have any supports at all for affordable housing.

When Conservatives say that we should have supported the budget, the last budget or this budget, because of the money for affordable housing, it would be laughable if it were not so serious. The fact is that the government has no interest in investing public dollars in things like affordable housing.

We need to recall that in the last budget at the last hour the government put money into trusts for things like affordable housing for aboriginal peoples and first nations. The government wanted to get a deal from us to support it on the budget if it would commit to keeping the money that was already committed and put it into the next year's budget. Of course we said no because the money was already there. It then put it ahead into the budget.

That is the real story on the government and affordable housing. It is just taking money from Bill C-48 and putting it in place and saying that it has actually done something. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is abandoning people on the issue of affordable housing and that affects all of us.

If we look at what is missing in the budget, it is long term care and home care for seniors. I have spent the last couple of months going door to door in seniors' residences in the downtown area here. It is appalling. We have seniors who are abandoned. They are not getting the care they need when they need it. They get one level of government giving a pittance of support and another level of government taking it away. They are tired of that. They are tired of government not being there for them.

Families are being squeezed. I had a gentleman come into my office just two weeks ago. He is feeling the squeeze on his income as he tries to help his mother. He needs to be there for her because no one else is. He does not begrudge supporting her but he is wondering where his government is, the government to which he pays taxes. He wants the services for the taxes that he pays. I want to be very clear. He does not want another tax cut. What he has been saying to me is that before we start into more tax cuts he wants to see home care, pharmaceutical care and support for his mother. He would like a nurse to see his mother, not for any luxurious kind of visit but for basic primary care. He is not getting that from his government and we are not getting it from the budget, which is why we cannot support it.

When we look at how the government is treating seniors, it is not good enough to say that they have a deduction here and a deduction there when the core services that they need in their community are not there for them now.

With all due respect to the government, before it comes to this place and passes out another tax cut, it should take an inventory of what is going on in the communities. Before it proposes another tax cut, it should take a look at the waiting lists for housing, the waiting lists for long term care and the waiting list for home care and tell my constituents, tell the seniors in my community that it is good enough that they get up to an hour a week. It also should not fob it off on the provinces because that is the politics of shame when it does that.

When we look at what is in it for seniors, the budget fails. When we look at housing, it fails. When we look at students, it is interesting. We need to look at the bookends of our society, those who helped build this country and now need our support. They were there for us when they helped put this country together and built our communities.

Let us look at the other bookend, the students. I paid $1,200 for my tuition. If we were to ask the students in my constituency who are attending Carleton University or the University of Ottawa how much they are paying for tuition, it would blow us away. Tuition is from $5,000 to $6,000.

What are we doing for young people to get post-secondary education, or training for jobs, or just a hand up to help them move along in terms of the next step in their lives, which is education? We are failing them. The budget contains nothing of any substance for them and that is not good enough for them. It is also not good enough for their parents who are being squeezed.

As we have mentioned in our party, the prosperity gap is ever widening. We are talking about people who are on the margins, who are falling off the table, and not only them. What is stunning is that we are seeing our middle class being squeezed so that they are now having to make very difficult choices and often, as members will appreciate in this so-called sandwich generation, are making choices on who to help, their senior parents or their sons or daughters who are trying to make it in university or post-secondary education. That is not right.

When we had a $13 billion surplus without a debate about where that money would go, it was absolutely wrong. We could do better. We should do better and this budget does not do better.

I recall the former government and that party at the time asking where the debate was on where the surplus would go. They were high and they were mighty but where are those words now? They are gone. They have evaporated at the cost of those who are most vulnerable in our society. We can do better.

When we sit around the kitchen table and talk about what is important in our families, do we look at the hole in the roof of our home and say that we should go build a white picket fence? No. We deal with what is important. We deal with the hole in the roof. We have a hole in our roof and it is called the prosperity gap and that hole is getting ever bigger and wider. The government seems to think it is fine so it will put a toll on the road outside, hand us a nickel and say that it is fine. Well it is not fine. It is not good economics and it is not sound investment. It is very poor policy.

I will now turn to where this budget fails, not just for seniors and young people, but on the infrastructure of this country, I will just turn to our cities. It is very clear, from mayors of small towns, big towns and big cities that our government needs to do more. It needs to do more to build the infrastructure to make our cities livable and make them environmentally more sustainable.

We should not have to wait for a health advisory before we send our children out to play but that is what is happening. My colleague from Windsor told me horrific stories about kids not being able to go outside on some days because of the quality of the air. We could have done something about that. We could have had a transportation policy that would have helped all our kids and all our citizens in the long term but hat is not in this budget.

Quite frankly, the fact that people can write off their bus passes, which we had to ensure the government fixed because it messed that up too, is not good enough because these buses are not going far enough. This city does not have a train because the government would not support our the light rail plan.

We need to see more substantive commitments and better commitments, which is why our party cannot support the government's budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised when the member says we have not done anything for education. Our party has spent more on education than any government has. Just this year we have proposed to increase the Canada social transfer by $800 million per year beginning in 2008-09 to ensure that the provinces have the resources they need to maintain and strengthen Canada's colleges and universities, including better access. We also raised the minimum amount of the Canada education savings grant, which goes directly to help poorer families.

Another initiative of the government that certainly helps a lot of people is our national anti-drug strategy. As the member knows, drugs cause many problems among poorer families and many families in my province and on the streets. In fact, it is his party which suggests that is why there is so much homelessness: because we do have some huge problems with crystal meth and other illicit drugs. We have taken that under our control with an anti-drug strategy.

Some of the things that party has asked us for we have implemented in our budget, but we have done it with a strategy and a focus so that we are going to help the real people, the real people who will benefit the most from it. The money will not go just to governments, for example, just like our universal child care benefit goes directly to the child.

The government is addressing education and the drug strategy. I think the member has become carried away with rhetoric when he speaks about what we are not doing.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I was carried away with rhetoric when I talked about how much I paid in tuition. I am not sure what the member paid in tuition. Maybe she would have an opportunity to tell us and compare it with what students are paying right now. Did she pay more than $1,200 a year? Perhaps, but the reality is that right now students are paying $6,000 a year for tuition. That is a fact. That is not rhetoric. The member can ask any student.

The other issue the member brought up was the fact of passing this money on to people, “real people”, as she called them. I am not sure what she meant by that, perhaps to distinguish them from other people, I suppose. As for the money that is being passed on for child care, my colleague from Toronto has pointed out that it is not real child care. In fact, what many people are waking up to now is that this money that was supposed to be there for child care is actually being taxed back.

Finally, if she wants to talk about a drug strategy, let us talk about why people turn to drugs. They do not turn to drugs because everything is going well in their lives. We have to take a look at the social determinants of health. These people do not have a job. They do not have a place to live. They may not have the supports within their community. That is one of the indicators of health. That is one of the ways to fight drug abuse.

How about having some nurses and public health officials, real people, if I may quote her, to be there for them when they need that help? They are not in our communities. They are not in our schools. We need those public health nurses there. That requires real commitment from the government and that is not in this budget.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member for Ottawa Centre and I have similar ridings in that we both have large immigrant populations. He will know that Statistics Canada recently reported that the prosperity gap for immigrants is increasing in Canada. It is now over three times as likely that an immigrant will live in poverty in Canada.

One of the things this budget does is promise more money around the issue of international credential recognition, but what it does is put forward some money toward a referral agency. I find that a little insulting to the people who are struggling to have their credentials recognized and work at the professions that they were called to and have been trained for and have experience in. They have knocked on every door in this country to try to find work in their field and have been denied at every step along the way. They do not need a referral agency. They need some real help. I wonder if the member could comment on that issue.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have failed in this regard. We understood there was going to be a strategy that would be comprehensive. Sadly, as the member has pointed out, it is a referral service. The men and women who need this help need more than--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this budget of 700 pages should have said a lot, but what it does not say also speaks volumes.

I am going to address some remarks today to regional economic expansion, particularly for Ontario with regard to the FedNor program.

When I was mayor of the city of Thunder Bay and also president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association during particularly difficult times in the 1990s, regional economic expansion programs such as FedNor were essentially in many cases the only economic activity for many communities during those difficult years and certainly the only source of support.

Recently, the province of Ontario, and I recognize the province for coming through, has allocated more resources through a program known as the heritage fund. Nonetheless, when we try to compare what that means province by province, territory by territory and regional program by regional program, we find that regional economic expansion is not mentioned in the budget. We can compare Ontario's $60 million from its heritage fund versus a $36 million funding program from FedNor, which has been reduced by $5 million from what it was the year previously.

We know that these programs are essentially the catalyst for economic diversification and growth in many areas. Let us talk about what not restoring the budget cut means. Most of Ontario's municipalities are eligible for FedNor. There is a total of 446 municipalities in Ontario, of which roughly 420 would have populations of less than 250,000, so we are talking about a huge number of municipalities that are simply going to have to compete for relatively small amounts of money. With decision making now left in the minister's hands, it really emphasizes the need for a full time minister for this particular portfolio.

When people read that budget of close to 700 pages and do not see any mention of this whatsoever, they get a little nervous. We cannot blame anybody for feeling that way because people who understand regional economics know that underutilization of a resource is as bad as the underfunding that accompanies it.

FedNor itself is what one could describe as under-resourced. An appropriate response in the past budget would have been to restore the money that was cut and indeed ensure that there was more local authority so that we could see some of these larger projects in the half a million dollar range. This really is the time in the regions and the small communities of Canada for the government to not only get more involved but to restore the confidence and commitment that it used to have.

This of course is not a complaint about the field staff. We have excellent field staff across northern Ontario. Indeed, the federal definition of northern Ontario extends into the southern Ontario Muskokas, whereas provincially it is at the French River.

I am not complaining about the fact that as an MP I do not get invited to or notified of the announcements. It is the business community that is coming to me and saying that businesses cannot wait for 15 months or 18 months for notification of whether they have been successful or not or whether it is going ahead or not. These time delays have now become unconscionable. The budget should have addressed this.

No decisions means that business and non-governmental organizations are wallowing in an era of not knowing and that is very difficult. If there is one thing that I can impress on the government side today it is that the Conservatives must realize that in small communities a little actually goes a very long way, and that kind of support would be very helpful.

As I have been touring northern Ontario and talking to people, the business community says it does not need any more worries and uncertainty. With the budget not mentioning the regions, it means that these communities need to be reassured. It is time for us in government to recognize the needs of regions and to recognize that governments really should not be excluding these major parts of our country.

Diversification is talked about throughout the budget, but if the tools are not there for small communities to utilize, how is government going to help these communities get through that transition?

When I was president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, I was part of the team that lobbied the federal government and the provincial government to ensure that gas taxes were utilized for communities large and small. In Ontario, we were successful in having the government allocate 2¢ per litre for public transit, a very significant contribution. Each municipality using it is very grateful for it.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities lobbied for a share of the gas tax to go into infrastructure or into those projects deemed worthwhile by communities. The second component of that was the GST rebate. The third part, of course, was infrastructure funding, and one of the concerns is that we do not see this in the budget.

Although there is reference to some continuation of this funding, what municipalities need and have been asking for is that it be permanent so they can plan long range knowing this funding is not going to end in three or four years. They have to be able to plan further ahead because many of their projects, such as their water systems and the revamping of waste treatment plants, are very capital intensive. These become very large commitments and are very demanding in terms of time.

My riding of Thunder Bay--Rainy River extends from Lake Superior to the Manitoba boarder, which means driving 7.5 hours over two time zones. We have 27 communities. When people in my riding see that the previous allocation of $298 million over three years had to address somewhere in the vicinity of 420 municipalities, we can see that there was a vast concern that there would not be enough to warrant supporting the municipalities with infrastructure deficits.

Let us address it in that way. The cost of applying for even that limited amount of money means that small communities that do not have the resources to pay for engineers and designers in the first place are essentially saying that if they had money they would do it but they do not have the money, and now they have been reduced to what is essentially a lottery system.

People who are applying want the federal government to apply a fair funding formula. There was a gap. I believe that almost all members here, whether they represent an urban or rural area, or a hybrid of those, understand that municipalities are applying because they have determined needs. They are not applying just for the fun of it. This means that we have to eliminate the lottery system and get into some sort of priority system, because for a municipality that applies in year one for funding and does not get it and still does not get it in year three, that does not help it repair the bridge it wants repaired. I am asking the minister to reconsider that.

Just as important for pockets of the country, although many of the urban people may have a difficult time understanding this, high speed broadband is something that all Canadians deserve in much the same way as we expect effective telephone service. We have now come into an era where it is almost indispensable for business, for health and for education. That need also is a glaring gap in the budget.

For all the good things in a surplus budget, there are some things that still need to be addressed. I ask the government to reconsider them.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent speech by my hon. colleague. I have a fairly simple question for him.

When the Conservative government came to power it made what I think was a massive financial blunder. It actually dropped the GST, a consumption tax, then raised the lowest tax and also lowered the basic personal exemption. Most economists would say that reducing a consumption tax is one of the most inefficient ways of stimulating the economy. A much better idea is to keep money in people's pockets.

Does my colleague not think a much more intelligent idea that the government should have adopted would have been to reduce the lowest tax rate from 15.5% to 15%, which is what we did, or lower it further and raise the basic personal exemption, rather than the blunder of decreasing the GST, which is a very costly and inefficient way of attempting to stimulate the economy?

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one thing about the value added taxes around the world is that their goal is essentially to assist the lowest income levels. By reducing them so they do not actually help, or say a person who buys a Mercedes for $100,000 ends up paying less tax than someone who buys a lower priced vehicle, then we are defeating the whole purpose of value added taxes such as the GST.

A number of people have come to my office and said that they thought the taxes had been lowered but theirs had gone up. The fact that taxes went up from 15% to 15.5% really shocked many people. Those are the people who walk to my office and probably do not even take a bus. They certainly do not drive there. They can see the difference quite tangibly.

For someone who has a lower income .5%, it is a great deal of money. We have to understand that these people really budget their money accordingly. For them, it is very difficult to try to understand what the effect of a large scale GST cut will mean when it affects them directly in a very personal way.

From an environmental standpoint, I also believe value added taxes such as the GST kept at its previous level would have been more helpful in addressing many of the concerns we have.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one aspect of the budget that concerns me greatly is the facilitation of the entry of temporary foreign workers into Canada. The government has sunk a lot of money in the budget into expediting that process, making it easier for temporary foreign workers to come to Canada to work, but there is no guarantee that Canadians will get first crack at the jobs available in Canada.

There is nothing, for instance, that ensures the mobility of Canadian workers to travel across the country to take up a job in another part of Canada. There is the whole problem of flawed labour market studies, which do not estimate the availability of Canadian workers properly and overinflate the need for foreign workers.

There is also the problem of temporary foreign workers often being some of the most exploited workers in our country. We have a long history of that. Employment and workplace standards are not well policed for temporary foreign workers. There is nothing in the budget to ensure that with increased numbers of foreign workers coming here those standards are going to be maintained.

I do not think anybody wants to see projects not being completed because there are no workers to do the job, but should Canadians not get first crack at those jobs and should there not be something in the budget to ensure that happens?

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the question is valid because over the course of time in meeting with representatives from national Canadian unions and labour groups trying to move skilled workers from province to province, they are finding different standards and having difficulties getting them transferred.

The question in terms of unskilled workers is as valid because there are probably enough people in the country who would willingly move to other places for employment should they get the type of assistance that should be addressed in the budget. By that I mean some kind of mobility allowance, retraining and assistance. If there is an obvious need and we have to go to the length of advertising in other countries when we know we have unemployment rates of 6% and 7% and sometimes higher in some of the regions, it is the regions that suffer—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Windsor West.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the budget. It is very important for Canadians to look at the budget in a holistic sense. At the same time, with only 10 minutes, I will focus my comments around manufacturing and, in particular, the auto industry.

It is important for me to acknowledge that not everything is bad in the budget, but there are so many problems with it that it is not worthy of support and it is not what Canadians expected. We did not expect to see a government so quickly adopt its predecessor's tactics of withdrawing from any type of vision of what Canada can be and where we will go in the next century.

It is important to note on the manufacturing side that plenty of warning signs have been out there. Since November 2002, approximately 250,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in Canada. This is billions of dollars of annual tax revenue, not only from the companies, but also the workers. When workers lose their job in the manufacturing sector, the Canadian Labour Congress, was apt to point this out, they usually lose about 25% of their income when they try to find another job.

I know the government members have been attempting to concoct a type of strategy around the environment, one that placates some people and one that they feel they can sell to Canadians, but it is not working. The most recent was the Minister of the Environment who put out a doomsday scenario that manufacturing would lose. At the same time he has been a wilful part of the government not addressing the manufacturing sector.

It is important that I not only criticize, but that I offer solutions as well. That is what happened with the industry, science and technology committee. Committee members took a full year to study the issues under manufacturing. We understood that the industry was hemorrhaging losses, that workers were feeling more discontent with their future. They felt there was an opportunity that would be lost, and we witnessed job after job loss.

We expected the budget to reflect some of the recommendations that we unanimously supported. That meant we all had to compromise. It takes a lot of will, a lot of effort, but it shows the gravity of the seriousness in the manufacturing sector when all political parties, despite their ideologies, their backgrounds and their political manoeuvring, decide to come together and bring forward a unanimous report with over 22 recommendations.

Those recommendations were put forth to the government to act upon and not a one of them was recommended, not one, despite the unanimous support of the committee that tabled the document in a minority Parliament. What type of totalitarian government do we have that will not even listen to the democratic will of members of Parliament as opposed to lobbyists?

It is unfortunate. There was one half measure and it was a capital cost reduction allowance. It is a very good thing and it needs to be done, but it is for two years. I put in a specific amendment for five years, which would be reviewed for a potential further five years. What did the Conservatives do? They did not act on it. I do not understand that we have all the evidence in front of us and they only provided it for two years.

In particular, the auto industry is suffering quite significantly right now. In Windsor, Ontario my constituents go home every single night with a more uncertain future. DaimlerChrysler is looking to spin off the Chrysler division. Ford is not making renewed investment when the timetable shows that it should. General Motors, because of the budget and because of the government's decision to continue to pursue a deal with South Korea that will put the auto industry on the auction block, has put its investments on hold.

That is what has happened. It is unfortunate because good things are happening in our plants. Good workers are in those plants. Value added jobs are in our plants. Conservatives have ignored that. They have gone with the ideological point that it will give general corporate tax reductions, but that is not what is necessary.

We have seen incentives to some of these plants to try to keep them here, but ironically sometimes those incentives result in less jobs because there is no strategy. The most recent, the most egregious one was the fee bates that were introduced in the budget.

I will go through 10 reasons why these fee bates are very curious and problematic. We all want a greener community. We all want a greener economy. We have been pushing for a green auto strategy for years now, one done with the CAW and other vested partner groups, including the automotive manufacturers. They have looked at our information. These issues are very important.

These are the fee bate policy flaws.

The first is it damages domestic automakers. There would be $67 million of levies on domestic vehicles, which is 80% of all levies collected, and it would transfer $47 million in benefits to Toyota, with 75% of the rebates to Toyota, almost half of all the fee bates go to the Yaris.

Almost all the fee bates we have right now will go to one particular model of a car made overseas. I do not know why any Canadian sitting at the dinner table right now wants to see their taxpaying money going to Seoul, Beijing and Korea. I do not know anybody who wants that, but that is what will happen. The Yaris, in particular, will really benefit. Happy to be Toyota, too bad to be anybody else.

The second is it damages the Canadian subcompact market. A thousand dollars per Yaris makes up almost half of all rebates. It undermines the ability of other dealers and manufacturers to sell equally beneficial subcompacts competitively.

What that means is, with a low-end vehicle like the Yaris and other subcompacts, there is little or less margin for profit, so the $1,000 is a bigger economic incentive than if the vehicle is a higher price. We are actually putting some of our Canadian vehicles in a wider gap of problems to compete with that vehicle because it has the $1,000 rebate. It is significant. They cannot make it up. In fact, I think Volvo is looking at disabling some of its safety equipment so it can get a little more fuel efficiency and qualify for the fee bate. That is not right. That is done without public policy. Why are we forcing people to choose between safety and fuel efficiency? Why not have a public policy that does both?

The third is it is a disincentive to Canadian green technology. The policy levies a $1,000 to $2,000 tax on Canadian made advanced technology engines, cylinder deactivation, yet it offers a $1,000 rebate for an imported conventional gasoline Yaris vehicle without any significant advanced technology.

That is important because cylinder deactivation, which is a Canadian innovation, is something that reduces more greenhouse gas emissions because it gets to some of the higher polluter vehicles. Therefore, we are getting to the lower end hanging fruit, which we can get right away, and punishing Canadian technology. I do not understand that.

The fourth is it hurts suburban families. Levies of up to $4,000 per vehicle are passed on to suburban/rural families purchasing these larger vehicles, which offer needed utility. We know there is a disincentive, for example, for those families that require those larger vehicles for their personal and other businesses as opposed to moving for a greener technology that would fix this.

The fifth is it will not impact segment choices. In terms of the market, the fee bates will not shift the actual public policy to producing and purchasing smaller vehicles.

The March report for vehicle production, manufacturing and selling is out today. Interestingly enough, after the introduction of the fee bate program, luxury SUVs are up 15.1% and large SUVs are up 8.6%. We have a policy that has not even moved in the direction it is supposed to move. There are all kinds of issues. I know the list has been interesting in terms of monitoring. Cars go up on the list on the website then they go off. It is unacceptable.

The New Democrats, and it is important that I conclude with a couple of points about this, have been asking for a green auto strategy, one that looks at procuring the jobs in our own communities. Investment is important and it can be value added. This is why we supported the capital cost reduction allowance for machinery and equipment for five years instead of the two years. Right now those companies have pretty well decided upon the two year window.

The fact is the oil and gas sector gets 100% for another eight years. Manufacturing, which is being obliterated by a high dollar and bad trade policies that the government is pursuing, only gets 50% for two years. The oil and gas sector is booming. Then the other manufacturing sectors, aerospace, textiles, get 100%. We are asking for good sound public policy, public policy that looks at trade issues, manufacturing issues and ensures that if we give incentives, they get to the workers' floor so our workers can compete fairly. They are only asking for that.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the incentives for vehicles. There was a story about an incentive for a vehicle that would not even have access to the proper fuel to take advantage of that.

Because the member comes from an auto constituency, could he comment on that?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the interesting thing about the ethanol pursuit is there are only two stations where we can get E-85 to actually put into vehicles. It is amazing that we do not have the infrastructure to provide the facilities to get cleaner fuel.

Interestingly enough, the government has also let the oil and gas sector off the hook on standards. Canada does not have any standards. There are standards in the United States. On top of that, the U.S. is investing in the infrastructure, the fuelling stations, to get the cleaner technology and fuels. That is being done through a series of incentives. The U.S. is also making the oil and gas industry come to the table.

When we did our manufacturing study it was interesting. Canada's oil and gas sector in terms of its profits puts back less than 1% into research and development. That is less than 1% for research and development from our most profitable industry. It is unacceptable. Canadians deserve better than that.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I was amazed to hear the member's opening comments, because I had the pleasure of attending numerous meetings across the country with the member during our manufacturing study.

As the member mentioned correctly, recommendations were put forth by the committee to the Minister of Finance. Where the member is incorrect is that the Minister of Finance has actually taken the recommendations of the unanimous report that the member supported and out of the 22 recommendations, he has addressed most of them in the new budget.

I want to ask the member if he actually read the budget and took the time to look at the recommendations. It is unprecedented that a Minister of Finance has listened to a committee and virtually implemented most of the recommendations in a unanimous report.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would differ with my colleague on the industry committee. If we look at the recommendations and compare them to the budget, we would find rhetoric around some of those issues, and there is no doubt about that.

Implementing some of those measures did not happen. I did not see anything about the South Korea trade deal. I did not see a whole series of things for which we advocated. The most obvious one is the capital cost reduction allowance. Why would the Conservatives move that from a five year recommendation to a two year recommendation? I do not understand that.

I do not understand how the oil and gas industry continues to get the best all the time, not just once, twice or three times, but all the time, while in manufacturing we are hemorrhaging job losses right now. We are not telling manufacturers that they can come forward with a plan for two, three, four, five years, protect the workers, protect the sector, protect the jobs now and we will be there with them.

It is more than just automotive. Tool and die, for example, is another group that requires some type of support system now because of unfair trade practices. The government did not touch that.

The most important thing we have to get our heads around is that we can do things in our country if we want to, but most important, we have to stop undermining ourselves by subscribing to international obligations which hurt our workers directly. The first thing we have to do is protect ourselves from injurious trade deals that have cost us so much already.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has done a lot of work to protect the jobs in his community. I would like him to talk about what we need to do in order to produce value added jobs and to protect the jobs that we have.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have to simply understand that this nation is more about taking our natural resources and handing them over to somebody else to get the value added jobs.

Whether it be softwood, oil, manufacturing through auto, aerospace and textile, there is something more in Canada than just shipping out our stuff for somebody else to do something with it. We can do it here. We have the people, the skills, the technology and the will. That is where the real jobs are. The prosperity gap will diminish if we have value added jobs.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca has 10 minutes of which three minutes are today and seven minutes are in the bank for next time.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to this bill, and since I only have three minutes, I am going to get to the point.

The government introduced a budget that is an orgy of spending, three times the rate of inflation. The government is sprinkling little goodies here and there with one purpose which obviously is to win the next election.

In a time of surplus, there are great opportunities. I am going to offer the government some ideas that I hope it will consider adopting to improve our country and our citizens' well-being dramatically.

I would propose that the government adopt my private member's bill on the Canadian low income supplement. It would give $2,000 to those Canadians who make less than $20,000 a year. That would put real money in the hands of the most underprivileged in our society.

The budget failed to deal with the real fiscal imbalance, and that is the imbalance between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots. That was utterly ignored in the budget and was a huge blunder on the government's part.

The government has to decrease the lowest income tax rate on those who are the poorest.

The government has to increase investments in research and development and technology. When we were in government, Canada went from being 19th in the world in Rx and D to third in the world in research and development.

The government should introduce further tax credits, something called tax shifting. If we used tax shifting we would be able to shift the taxes in such a way that would convince Canadians and industry to use green technologies and thereby improve our environment.

The government needs to deal with the crisis in affordable housing. The way to do that is to use public-private partnerships. No single segment in society is going to be able to deal with this challenge that is coast to coast. P3s would work. Canadians are looking to the government for leadership and the federal government has a responsibility to act. So far it has failed.

The government needs to provide strategic investments in health care. Health care is truly the number one issue in the lives of Canadians and the government has failed to deal with this. It should open up a centre for best practices under the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

The government needs to exert a leadership role with other partners on a national workforce strategy for health care workers. As we are getting older, so too are caregivers. This is a massive crisis that will not be resolved overnight.

The government needs to do a better job of investing in local infrastructure. It should reduce the federal taxes on gas prices.

These and other solutions that my colleagues have would dramatically improve the welfare of Canadians. I hope the government does the right thing and listens to us.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I interrupt the hon. member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca. When we return to the study of Bill C-52, there will be seven minutes left in his speaking time.

The House resumed from April 23 consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-52, the budget implementation act.

As I stand here today to represent the concerns of my constituents of Mississauga—Brampton South with respect to the 2007 federal budget, my comments and remarks will focus on three areas: economic competitiveness; social issues and the lack of social investment; and how the budget has damaged our reputation abroad.

I am glad to hear today that the Minister of Finance has withdrawn a major part of a controversial budget measure. I believe it is widely accepted that this has been the worst policy to come out of Ottawa in over 35 years. He understands now that he should allow interest deductibility to ensure Canadian companies can be more competitive abroad. The Minister of Finance also mentioned in his remarks this morning that he would put forth a panel of experts to review Canada's international tax system. More work needs to be done in this area and he has a great deal of explaining to do.

As I indicated, my remarks on the budget will focus on the economic aspect of the budget. It is so important at the federal level that the government show leadership with respect to how to improve competitiveness in our country.

One area, as I have indicated, is the reversal of the Finance Minister on interest deductibility. I will outline the concerns we had raised in the past and why this decision was made by the Minister of Finance. It was through the hard work of our finance critic and our leader of the official opposition that really put forth a clear cut message to the Canadian public of how poorly thought out and poorly conceived this measure was.

The proposal in the 2007 budget eliminated deductibility of interest accrued to finance foreign assets. The Conservatives are forcing Canadian companies to compete with one hand tied behind their backs. Competing businesses in the U.S., Japan and Europe all have this tool at their disposal. The Conservative government at least was planning to take this away.

Companies in the U.S. Japan and Europe are all able to write off interest on loans taken out to finance foreign assets. Canadian firms have also been able to that for more than 30 years. This is a very important tool to promote competitiveness.

At a time when the entire world is headed forward, the Conservative government is making it increasingly difficult for Canadian companies to compete globally.

I raise this question in the House because I do not understand why the Finance Minister has difficulty with foreign companies acquiring Canadian companies, but he does seem to have a fundamental problem with the ability of Canadian companies to compete abroad. Removal of the interest deductibility would compromise the competitiveness. Again, I am thrilled the minister has made this reversal. There are probably many measures that I will discuss, which I hope he gets to re-evaluate and reconsider and maybe change the direction of the budget.

Not only is it something about which the Liberals and many Canadians have expressed concerns, but also in the business community as well. The president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said this with respect to the budget:

We don't see any broad-based tax relief either for taxpayers or businesses.

The government promised in November that they were going to make Canada more competitive and control spending and I think they broke that promise today.

I will also highlight a theme of broken promises in the budget as well. One area where I believe the Conservative government really misled Canadians was with respect to tax fairness, as it stated. The Conservatives cut the GST, but they increased personal income taxes.

We all know that to improve productivity, it is absolutely vital we have more disposable income for our Canadian public. To improve disposable incomes and to help build greater productivity, the first target for a tax reduction should always be income taxes, not consumption taxes.

In the previous government we lowered the tax rates for low and middle income Canadians in order for them to make greater investment in the economy and save more money. The Liberal government brought forth a comprehensive package to eliminate billions of dollars in taxes for low and middle income Canadians. When the government cut the GST rather than implement our personal income tax, the Finance Minister really constrained his government's fiscal capacity.

A study released on March 29, 2006, by the independent non-partisan research institution, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, found that the 5% of families earning over $150,000 a year would receive nearly 30% of the benefits of the Conservatives tax cuts, an average of $2,000 roughly savings in each year. Therefore, 5% would receive 30% of the benefit of the tax cut. However, almost over half of Canadians families earning less than $40,000 would only receive 20% of the benefits of the Conservative tax cuts, an average of $163. Their tax fairness policy is about broken promises and appeasing the more affluent in society.

Another issue that again highlights the government's inability to improve productivity and competitiveness and focuses on its trend of broken promises is income trusts. The income trusts reversal hurt Canadian investors, particularly seniors. The decision to cut income trusts wiped out more than $25 billion in savings overnight and reversed a key Conservative campaign promise, a promise on which many people relied. They took their hard-earned savings and invested it in income trusts. Seniors whom I have met at the town hall meetings I have had over the past month have clearly shown their frustration with the government. They are completely appalled with the government for breaking such an important promise and they do not understand the rationale behind it. The government swiped billions of dollars from seniors through income trusts savings as well.

We have already seen not only in income trusts a broken promise, but now we are beginning to see a trend in foreign acquisitions. We have already seen great Canadian companies such as Inco, Molson's, Defasco and Hudson's Bay Company taken over by foreign entities, and Alcoa may be next.

The Conservatives took this initiative with the income trusts by crippling it and using the non-refundable 31.5% instead of the Liberal plan. We put a plan forth of a 10% tax rate which would be refundable to all Canadians, creating an opportunity for Canadians who have invested in income trusts.

Tom d'Aquino, president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, has said that the decision with respect to income trusts:

—may seriously undermine the competitiveness of Canada's homegrown champions—the companies that are most active and most successful in building global businesses from head offices in Canadian communities.

It is clear, if we look at the government's agenda when it comes to economic policy, it has crippled our ability to remain productive and has hurt our competitiveness. It has shown the government has continuously broken promises that it made to the Canadian public.

However, it does not end there. Another area in which my constituents have expressed a great deal of concern is with respect to social justice issues and social policy. There was absolutely no mention in the budget of homelessness or affordable housing, an issue that resonates in my constituency, across Ontario and across the country as well.

Constituents of Mississauga—Brampton South understand how important this is. The government has cut money from Status of Women, youth programs and the list goes on and on, and again, no investment in these initiatives.

My last is with respect to international trade. This is an area where I believe the government truly had an opportunity to put Canada on the map. It had an opportunity to showcase Canada to the world.

When we were in power, as the Liberal government, we put forth the Can-trade $485 million initiative, which invested in branding Canada. The Conservatives completely wiped that out to replace it with a measly $60 million over two years. It has closed consulate offices and cut funding. The Auditor General's report clearly demonstrates a lack of strategic planning, low morale and the department as well. Therefore, the government has a lot of explaining to do when it comes to the budget.

I am very fortunate that I represent a constituency which is very diverse and has a population of about 130,000 people. It is a hub of economic activity. I have an airport there, looking to the government to show leadership in reducing airport rents. I have major highways and we are looking for funding for infrastructure. Many head offices are looking to expand their businesses abroad and build strong Canadian brands outside of Canada. My residents want to enjoy a high quality of life, but they are very disappointed with the government's poor economic policies, a lack of compassion in investment in the most vulnerable in our society. The government is hurting our reputation abroad.

We are taking steps backwards and we need to provide good public policy, not bad public policy. I think the Canadian public is very impressed that through its hard work and sound management we are in a strong position to create a better and prosperous future for our children. Canadians looked forward to the government to continue to reverse some of its policies. In the meantime, I and the Liberal Party will not support the budget.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member forgot to mention a couple of other promises the government has broken.

Members may or may not know, but Ottawa was recently blessed with the visit of over 70 war brides from Ontario and the Maritimes. They came to Ottawa to have a terrific weekend, to be together and to enjoy their stories. Many of them are widowed.

One of the things they talked about, when I met them for breakfast this morning, was the veterans independence program. Some of the women get it; others do not. However, they were unanimous in their approach that all widows of all veterans should receive the VIP.

In fact, the Prime Minister also believed that when he was in opposition. He went so far to believe it that he wrote a letter saying that all widows and all widowers and all veterans would receive the VIP immediately upon forming government. He is now government. Sixteen months later, these widows, most of them in their late eighties, are asking, where is it?

I want to give my hon. colleague an opportunity to respond on behalf of the veterans and widows of his riding. What does he think the Prime Minister should do? It is quite a simple answer in that regard: extend the program immediately, as he promised so that these widows and their veterans can get on with their lives.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the passion illustrated by my colleague shows the frustration with the government's consistent pattern of breaking promises.

The VIP should be extended. This is an issue that speaks to the government's style as put forth by the Conservative Party. It is a style that pits province against province, the wealthy against the poor. It is about gimmicks. It is about writing cheques. It is not about building a strong and united country. It is not a way of building good public policy going forward.

Therefore, I understand those frustrations. There are many broken promises. I think the Canadian public is beginning to understand the Conservative government's style in the way it has implemented the budget.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has waxed poetic about this notion of fairness and how he is essentially what appears to be opposed to it.

He mentioned income tax, for example. He suggested that income tax reductions would be the fairest approach to extending tax savings to Canadians. However, how would he ever get tax savings into the hands of the 30% of Canadians who do not even pay income tax? Would he answer that question?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we brought forth a very comprehensive tax policy when we were in government, a tax policy that looked at the lowest-earning income segment of society, ensuring we got people off the rolls so they did not have to pay taxes. We reduced personal income tax amounts for the lowest threshold as well. This was all done by the previous Liberal government, but it was reversed by the current Conservative government.

This policy was widely accepted and promoted by economists, by people who understand the economy. They accept that this was the best means to help the people in the lowest income bracket and that a consumption tax really helped the most wealthy. I provided statistics and information to that effect, when I said that the wealthiest 5% of the people benefited from this consumption tax. That study was done by a non-partisan organization.

Again, I think the government does not understand tax fairness, hence why the Minister of Finance today had to reverse his decision on a very poorly conceived policy, the worst in 35 years coming out of Ottawa.

I hope the government begins to learn that this should be one of many reversals it should undertake with respect to its budget.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that I only have 10 minutes to address Bill C-52 because I could take far longer to talk about what has been omitted and the poor budgetary policy contained within this budget.

However, after a year of the government, it is quite obvious that it has taken all its lessons from the former Liberal government. We have seen in the past year the softwood sellout, which was started by the Liberals and continued by the Conservative government. I will come back to that in a moment. We have seen the continued push on SPP, deep integration, started by the Liberals and continued by the Conservatives.

What we see in the budget is the continued push for corporate tax cuts rather than actually dealing with real issues that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are experiencing. There are $9 billion in corporate tax cuts that are being continued. The Conservatives are continuing the Liberal practice of shoveling corporate tax cuts off the back of a truck. What we see here is just a continuation of the failed Liberal policies we saw over 13 years, by the Conservatives.

What is the context of this budget? What should have been addressed? As Statistics Canada told us just this week, and after study after study has proven, is that we are experiencing in Canada a clear and growing prosperity gap. In fact, “gap” is perhaps too innocent a term. It is indeed a prosperity gulf.

As Statistics Canada reported as recently as last week. but as its studies over the past decade have shown, since 1989 the real income for most Canadian families has actually gone down. It is a reality that the Conservatives have not grasped and the Liberals did not grasp before that.

If we look at the figures since 1989, since the signing of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the poorest 20% of Canadians have seen their incomes collapse. They have lost a month of income in real terms. It is no wonder we are seeing burgeoning numbers of homeless Canadians across the country when the poorest Canadians are actually living on a month's less income than they were in 1989.

It continues with the lower middle class. They have lost two weeks of salary in real terms. Even the upper middle class has seen stagnation. They have not gained a dime more since 1989. They are living on the same income they were living on in 1989.

Who has profited by the failed Liberal economic policies continued by the Conservatives? We all know that it is the wealthiest of Canadians. The wealthiest 5% of Canadians have seen their incomes skyrocket. Corporate CEOs and corporate lawyers in the boardrooms of Canada are doing better than ever before. In fact, coming from Vancouver on the red-eye last night, I read another article about CEOs giving themselves multi-million dollar pension incomes. While the corporate sector has been pushing to cut back on services that working Canadian families need desperately, they are giving themselves unprecedented awards, even for mediocrity.

That is the context of this budget. Eighty per cent of Canadian families are earning less now than they were in 1989. It is a prosperity gap. It is an income crisis that must be addressed.

What do we see in the budget? In the midst of that income crisis; in the midst of a homelessness crisis that we have not seen since the 1930s where 300,000 Canadians will be sleeping out in the parks and on the sidewalks of our nation tonight; in the midst of a fall in real income for 80% of families; a gutting of our manufacturing sector; and the giveaway of our resources, raw logs from British Columbia and oil and gas resources from Alberta, at fire sale prices, which only profits corporate CEOs and corporate lawyers, we have a budget that addresses more corporate tax cuts and continues subsidies paid by Canadian taxpayers to the profitable oil and gas sector.

I come from British Columbia and when I left on the red-eye yesterday to get back to Ottawa, gas prices were at $1.30 a litre. A study that came out last week clearly showed that there was no justification for gas prices being more than 97¢ or 98¢ a litre right now given the current international price for a barrel of crude oil. We have this gouging by the big oil and gas companies, a favourite of the Conservative government, but in addition to that, as these companies reap record profits, the Conservatives shovel more money at them, taxpayer money.

The Conservatives do not deal with homelessness or with the crisis in the health care sector. They shovel hundreds of millions of hard-earned Canadian taxpayer dollars at the oil and gas sector. It is absolutely appalling.

What is in the budget? There is no national housing strategy and no national transit strategy. There is nothing on employment insurance. It contains nothing on establishing a $10 minimum wage, which is something the NDP has been calling for now for some time. Obviously, if we were to take a look at the poorest of Canadians, we would see that 20% of Canadians have lost a month's salary over the past 18 years. That needed to be addressed by the government but, since it only listens to the boardrooms of the nation, it did nothing to deal with this crisis of income and nothing to establish a $10 minimum wage.

The budget has no poverty reduction strategy and no plan to end student debt that is now at record levels. The budget has no cancellation of the corporate tax cuts started by the Liberals. In fact, the Conservatives just continue to shovel that money at the corporate CEOs and corporate lawyers.

The budget has nothing for pharmacare, home care, long term care in the health care sector; nothing for improved access to health care for aboriginal peoples; nothing about coordinated training of medical professionals; and nothing about catastrophic drugs. The budget has no significant new money for aboriginal Canadians who, along with Canadians with disabilities, are the poorest of the poor of Canadians.

The budget says nothing about autism. There is no ban on bulk water exports, which is an issue that was started by the Liberals and being continued by the Conservatives. We see nothing for seniors and no increase in the old age supplement as my colleague, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, just mentioned. We see nothing about providing the kinds of benefits that veterans and their widows and spouses deserve. We see no action following the NDPs' promotion of the veterans first motion that was adopted by this Parliament. The government talks the talk but it does not walk the walk and, therefore, nothing for veterans.

What we see across the country is absolutely no effort by the government to change track after 13 years of Liberal obsession with corporate tax cuts at the expense of everything else. We see nothing to deal with that income crisis.

I will now talk about British Columbia because that is the most egregious part of this budget. The Minister of Finance rose in the House and said in his budget speech:

From the majestic peaks of the Rocky Mountains [in Alberta] to the rugged shores of Newfoundland and Labrador, many of the most beautiful places on earth are in Canada.

This budget completely neglected British Columbia. We see that on the equalization formula that was adopted. We see absolutely no action at all in any of the key areas that British Columbians have been crying out for and pushing the Conservative government to take action on.

What have we seen from the government on the pine beetle which has devastated the interior of British Columbia? The government actually withdrew the funding last year that had been allocated to the pine beetle, even though it was far below what was needed. This year it has allocated pennies on the dollar. We have seen a lot of photo ops and press conferences but very little action has been taken.

The Conservatives promised to take action on leaky condos but no action has been taken.

It is no surprise to me that the poll which came out this weekend shows the Conservatives third in British Columbia now. The NDP are at 30% , the Liberals at 29% and the Conservatives at 23%. Quite frankly, they do not deserve British Columbians' support because this budget does not include British Columbia.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Burnaby--New Westminster has worked a lot on the trade deal with regard to the softwood lumber sellout where jobs have been disappearing across this country. The same thing has been happening in the auto sector where we have witnessed the loss of thousands of jobs across Ontario and Quebec. Recent statistics show that since January, 52,000 jobs have been lost in manufacturing alone. This has been catastrophic to families across this country who depend on the auto sector and the manufacturing sector in general to pay their bills and save for the future.

The budget has a lack of vision with regard to manufacturing. One specific thing I would like to touch on is the feebate that was introduced arbitrarily by the Conservative government. Canadian taxpayer dollars will be going to Beijing, Seoul and other places outside of Canada as these incentives will go predominantly to non-domestic auto manufacturers as opposed to a made in Canada strategy that we have been proposing. We literally will be stripping millions of dollars from this country. The Yaris, for example, will receive an injection of cash of about $34 million that will be used against our own domestic producers.

I would like to ask my colleague about a plan for manufacturing and industrial development, especially based upon his work on the softwood lumber file. Even in Windsor West, believe it or not, a very successful furniture making factory in post-end production disappeared in recent weeks because of the softwood lumber sellout.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Windsor West has done a terrific job, along with his colleague from Windsor--Tecumseh, in fighting back on the appalling poor strategy of the government in terms of auto jobs.

The reality is that the present government is just bad news for working families right across the country. We saw this with the softwood sellout. The former Liberal minister of trade took an agreement with him when he crossed the floor to the Conservatives. We knew, after hearings last summer, that the agreement would result in a catastrophic loss of jobs. The Minister of International Trade knew that and he signed it just the same because he wanted to be in the good books of the Bush administration. He gave away $1 billion. I guess that gift was expected to provide some quid pro quo.

It turned out exactly as the NDP said it would. Five thousand jobs have been lost and $1 billion has been given away since that egregiously bad softwood agreement was signed. Now the Bush administration is saying that Canada should stop all future forestry programs at the federal and provincial levels and stop all support to softwood communities. What a bad deal. What a pathetic government to sign an egregiously bad sellout of this country.

The government has continued it now in the auto sector, as my colleague from Windsor West just pointed out. It has now set up an environmental plan that actually supports the auto sector in other countries, not the Canadian auto sector.

We need to wonder where the Conservatives are coming from. Without questioning the impact, they are taking all the bad Liberal policies that have led to this income crisis in the country where most Canadian families are now earning less than they were 18 years ago, and they are going further. They are rushing forward with a whole series of concessions to sign a trade agreement with South Korea that we know will devastate our auto sector even more.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

The shipbuilding sector too.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

The shipbuilding sector as well, as my colleague from Sackville--Eastern Shore points out.

The government has been a disaster for working families.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is with some eagerness and reluctance at the same time that I rise to speak on the budget. Reluctance in the sense of having to look through a document again to realize its shortcomings for the people of my region in northwestern British Columbia and eagerness to be able to point out to my colleagues in the House and Canadians across the country what bad government looks like when the balance of views and opinions across the country are misaligned and put out of context.

The result is a budget that was presented to Canadians some weeks ago and supported by the Bloc, which it seems is in some disarray this morning having had a leader, not having a leader, maybe having a leader again and perhaps not having a leader by the end of the day.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Now it does not have members of Parliament.

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

Now it does not have members of Parliament. I have often questioned what the actual role of the Bloc is in the House. That question is now put front and centre for all the world to see. It is a bit embarrassing and unfortunate. I think the people of Quebec will make different decisions in the next election than ones made in the past. However, that is not why I am speaking today.

It is important to finally recognize that Quebeckers do not share the Bloc's point of view. That is clear, particularly when it comes to the budget. This budget contains an extreme measure that will affect the economy, as well as the future of our country and the provinces.

The Bloc supported the Conservatives' budget, but it is impossible to understand why unless we look at it from the Bloc's perspective on the next election. That is why the Bloc supported the budget: to try to get a few more seats here supporting its point of view in the next election.

I need to talk about the northwest for a moment. I need to talk about the people of Skeena—Bulkley Valley and in general the rural residents and the people who live in the true country of Canada.

There is much talk in this House and discussion in the general media in this country about the urbanization of Canada. Yet the foundation of our country, the foundation certainly of our economy rests still in the rural sector. This budget steps away from support of rural communities in a most desperate way.

We have seen programs cut for young people seeking employment. This disproportionately affects those young people looking to stay and maintain a vibrant community, looking to eventually raise their own children and contribute to the community. Often times these summer employment programs were a stepping stone allowing young people to stay in their communities and form those communities and bring something strong for our future.

We talk about our future. My colleague from Burnaby mentioned how we watched the devastation of the pine beetle grow in my region of the northwest and the central interior of British Columbia. We watched the previous government attempt to put its head in the sand and ignore it. The previous government did not allow any funding whatsoever to come through for what is now being seen as the greatest ecological disaster our country has ever faced.

We have seen this new government come forward and make promises of money. Then we do not find in 478 pages of this budget document a single line or space to talk about the pine beetle devastation.

How is it that this government, that claims to be letting the west in and all that triumphalism of the last election that finally there was some interest coming from the west, has butted up against the Rockies and stopped there. The interests and views of the people of British Columbia have been taken somehow for granted.

People in British Columbia know that in the previous two elections time and time again Conservative incumbents put themselves forward in B.C. and it was New Democrats that were removing them from office because they were not reflecting the views and the grassroots of what people are most interested in.

The west can lose an entire sector of our economy, namely the forestry sector, and watch it decline in a rapid rate and yet there is not even a whisper of interest. The government spent $11 million on an airport. That is hardly going to turn around one of the greatest sectors of our economy that has held British Columbia and the entire country together for many decades and centuries.

Let me turn now to first nations. Thirty percent of my region in Skeena is made up of first nations people. I think Chief Phil Fontaine came out almost immediately and cited that this budget was almost in a sense a declaration of war. He said it was a declaration of conflict, looking to conflict directly with the first nations people of our country. Why this has happened is simply beyond me.

It is not as if first nations people are enjoying a quality of life superior to any other sector. It is far worse. I would take any member of Parliament in this place through Skeena. I would show them both the pride and the deep conviction of community that is in those reserves and villages. I would also show people the desperate living conditions that people continue to live in.

It has been said too many times in this place that it is a national disgrace to have a budget come forward, the single most important document that a government produces on a yearly basis, and absolutely wipe out any slight progress that had been made by previous governments. It is a shame. It continues the shame, as does the lack of reform for our employment insurance program.

The government has this kitty or free bank that is directly off the back of employers and employees across this country. There has been committee report after committee report that has come forward and said that the EI reforms need to be front and centre, particularly for transitional economies like Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and for my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst, where we know there are times when communities need support. It is basic Keynesian economics that there are ups and downs.

We know that when things are good they are good and we put a little money aside for when things are bad. That is what the employment insurance program, being insurance, is meant to do. This is an insurance program that just does not pay out. It simply collects money and moves it into a slush fund and the government spends it on its little pet projects rather than helping out communities and families.

Child care has been growing in concern across my region. There are families that are desperate for basic, simple, ordinary child care services and they cannot find it. There are single mothers looking to enter back into the workforce and they cannot find child care spaces. People simply cannot find a way back to the workforce to contribute to the economy for lack of child care funding.

The provincial government in British Columbia has had a few enormous embarrassments. There has not been any type of opposition to the government stripping out hundreds of millions of dollars for child care which has been an incredible shame.

There was not a whimper out of Victoria from the B.C. Liberals as these Conservatives, and they are both of the same ideological brush, simply removed the funding from child care spaces in B.C. and not a single space has been created as a result. That is true in Skeena. It is true in Vancouver, Victoria and right across British Columbia.

The people of Skeena are hard-working people. They are settlers. They are people who have made the land possible. They are first nations that have lived there for thousands of years.

Last year, I asked for a study to be done by the Library of Parliament to describe the tax balance; how much tax money the people in my riding are paying out to the federal government and how much is coming back in terms of services over the last 10 years, as an example.

Year on year, the devastating number that came back to us was 10 to 1. For every $10 that was sent out of Skeena in tax dollars, in revenue for the federal government to spend across this country, there was $1.00 coming back.

People talk about fiscal imbalance from the provincial level. I have fiscal imbalance coming out of every which way in Skeena. When we look for some sort of level of basic fairness, from the forestry sector that contributes hundreds of millions of dollars, the mining sector, the fishing industry that has done so over decades, and we ask for a simple balancing of the equation, we do not receive even 1 to 1. When we ask for something a little more reasonable, we are told to go away. However, the oil sands is able to pull out a little over $1 billion a year in tax subsidies every year for an industry that is making more money than it knows what to do with right now.

Canadians are looking for a little fairness. People of Skeena are looking for a little fairness. This budget simply did not deliver.

It was with great conviction and some certain sense of sorrow that we chose to vote against this budget because we are looking for some sort of decency and balance, particularly in a minority Parliament because this is the House that Canadians constructed for us.

On the environment, we have regression after regression. We thought things were bad with the Liberals when it came to climate change. We had no idea how bad it could get. The deniers moved to delayers, and now to outright spin doctors. The Conservatives paid a little too close attention to the Liberals' ability to spin rather than hold up on substance.

The budget is unsupportable. We will continue to resist efforts of this government to bring it to fruition.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct. There is great disappointment in this budget because in many ways it divides Canadians but does not unite them.

I would also like to give the member the opportunity to explain to Canadians, especially people in his riding, what democracy means. Democracy means when the Prime Minister, who was then in opposition, said that when a motion passes the House this is what government should adhere to.

A motion did pass this House last November. It was called the veterans first motion. In that motion, we asked that the SISIP program be redone. Two DND ombudsmen also said the same thing. It is unfair to disabled soldiers when their insurance money gets clawed back. It is a sin. We have the fiscal capacity to fix it. We waited for the budget; it was not there.

Then there is the VIP extension for widows and widowers. That was in the motion passed by the House. It was a promise by the Prime Minister, but it was not in the budget.

Then there was the elimination of the gold-digger clause when soldiers and RCMP officers married after the age of 60. That was in the motion passed by the House. Two Conservatives had private members' bill on it. Yet the Conservatives voted against it.

There are many other things that we would like to see done. In the brevity of time, those are the three main elements.

Why does this member think the government so callously in opposition supported these endeavours but once in government voted against them even when it has the fiscal capacity to help the widows, and our injured soldiers and veterans?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore for his lengthy and tireless work on behalf of veterans. Year after year the member has stood in the House with great passion and conviction. I recall that even a few weeks ago in question period all members congratulated him for his support for veterans.

It seems there is a certain democratic deficit being displayed by the current regime and the Prime Minister. While in opposition the Prime Minister often spoke of the need to have the will of the House expressed and then supported by the government of the day. Yet suddenly and quickly, as quickly as a member can cross the floor or someone can be appointed to the Senate, those convictions and principles, if we can call them that, changed.

A principle is not a principle when it is tested and found wanting. That is political opportunism. It is unfortunate that the Prime Minister did this, because my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore is talking about our veterans. It seems to me the government seems more excited and fixated by votes on the Afghan mission, declaring triumphalism and supporting the George Bush style of tactics, than by actually supporting our veterans when they return home.

The veterans first charter that passed through the House is the most glaring example of this. That charter was supported by the House, including the Conservatives, but then the basic elements in the veterans first charter were ignored by the government. There was the program for the widows, the VIP, and there were others that my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore mentioned.

When the fixation and focus seem to go in that direction, with chest thumping, getting all excited and slamming their desks, the Conservatives are there, but they are not there when it is time to support our veterans, to put money on the table, to make sure that when they come back money is not stripped away from their disability programs and the other options we give them. It is a contract, such that when the Government of Canada asks soldiers to serve, they will be supported, both in the field of operations and upon their return home.

We have seen this in living conditions in regard to the lack of support when veterans return to their communities. The government has failed them and their families. It is truly a tragedy that the government continues to pretend to be a supporter of the military yet when the time comes for true support, when the mission is finished and our veterans' term of duty has been served, and when the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore brings this motion forward and is supported by all members of the House, the government still ignores the will of Parliament, to the detriment of not only our democracy but in particular our veterans.

[An hon. member]

It's a shame.

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

That is a true shame.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that this vote be deferred to the end of government orders tomorrow.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Pursuant to the request by the chief opposition whip, the vote on Bill C-52 will be held at the expiry of the time provided for government orders tomorrow.

The House resumed from May 14 consideration of the motion that Bill C-52, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the second reading stage of Bill C-52.

The hon. chief government whip is rising on a point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think were you to seek it, you would find unanimous consent to apply the results of the vote just previously taken to the motion currently before the House, with Conservative members present this evening voting yea.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this way?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Liberal members will be voting no.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of this motion.

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

Mr. Speaker, the members of the NDP will vote against this motion.

[Louise Thibault, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will vote in favour of this motion.

[Joe Comuzzi, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will vote against this motion.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #186

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

The next question is on the main motion.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

In my opinion, the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #187

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Before I put the next question, I would like to remind hon. members of a rule that apparently has been forgotten.

Standing Order 16(1) of the House states:

When the Speaker is putting a question, no Member shall enter, walk out of or across the House, or make any noise or disturbance.