Bill C-28 (Historical)

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007

Part 1 implements goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2007, which received Royal Assent on June 22, 2007. Specifically, the Excise Tax Act is amended to
(a) increase the percentage of available input tax credits for GST/HST paid on meal expenses of truck drivers from 50% to 80% over five years beginning with expenses incurred on or after March 19, 2007;
(b) increase the GST/HST annual filing threshold from $500,000 in taxable supplies to $1,500,000 and the annual remittance threshold from $1,500 to $3,000, both effective for fiscal years that begin after 2007;
(c) increase the GST/HST 48-hour travellers’ exemption from $200 to $400 effective in respect of travellers returning to Canada on or after March 20, 2007; and
(d) implement changes to the rules governing self-assessment under Division IV of Part IX of the Excise Tax Act to ensure that GST/HST applies appropriately in respect of intangible personal property acquired on a zero-rated basis and consumed in furthering domestic activities, applicable to supplies made after March 19, 2007.
Part 2 amends the non-GST portion of the Excise Tax Act to implement measures announced in the March 19, 2007 Budget. Specifically, the excise tax exemptions for renewable fuels, including ethanol and bio-diesel, are repealed, effective April 1, 2008.
Part 3 implements income tax measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2007, which received Royal Assent on June 22, 2007. In particular, it
(a) introduces a new Working Income Tax Benefit;
(b) eliminates income tax on elementary and secondary school scholarships;
(c) eliminates capital gains tax on donations of publicly-listed securities to private foundations;
(d) enhances the child fitness tax credit;
(e) expands the scope of the public transit tax credit;
(f) increases the lifetime capital gains exemption to $750,000;
(g) increases the deductible percentage of meal expenses for long-haul truck drivers;
(h) provides tax relief in respect of the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games;
(i) allows for phased-retirement options for pension plans;
(j) extends the mineral exploration tax credit;
(k) enhances tax benefits for donations of medicine to the developing world;
(l) streamlines the process for prescribed stock exchanges;
(m) introduces an investment tax credit for child care spaces;
(n) introduces a new withholding tax exemption with respect to certain cross-border interest payments;
(o) prevents double deductions of interest expense on borrowed money used to finance foreign affiliates (the Anti-Tax-Haven Initiative);
(p) eases tax remittance and filing requirements for small business;
(q) introduces a mechanism to accommodate functional currency reporting;
(r) provides certain tobacco processors that do not manufacture tobacco products with relief from the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Surtax; and
(s) provides authority for regulations requiring the disclosure by publicly traded trusts and partnerships of information enabling investment managers to prepare the tax information slips that they are required to issue to investors on a timely basis.
Part 4 implements the disability savings measures proposed in the March 19, 2007 Budget. The measures are intended to support long-term savings through registered disability savings plans to provide for the financial security of persons with severe and prolonged impairments in physical or mental functions. Part 4 contains amendments to the Income Tax Act to allow for the creation of registered disability savings plans. It also enacts the Canada Disability Savings Act. That Act provides for the payment of Canada Disability Savings Grants in relation to contributions made to those plans. The amount of grant is increased for persons of lower and middle income. It also provides for the payment of Canada Disability Savings Bonds in respect of persons of low income.
Part 5 implements measures that provide for payments to be made to provinces as a financial incentive for them to eliminate taxes on capital under certain circumstances.
Part 6 enacts the Bank for International Settlements (Immunity) Act.
Part 7 amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 to permit phased retirement arrangements in federally regulated pension plans by allowing an employer to simultaneously pay a partial pension to an employee and provide further pension benefit accruals to the employee. These amendments are consistent with amendments to the Income Tax Regulations to permit phased retirement.
Part 8 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of Canada’s contribution to the Advance Market Commitment.
Part 9 amends the Canada Oil and Gas Operations Act to authorize the National Energy Board to regulate traffic, tolls and tariffs in relation to oil and gas pipelines regulated under that Act.
Part 10 amends the Farm Income Protection Act to allow financial institutions to hold contributions under a net income stabilization account program.
Part 11 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to provide for an additional fiscal equalization payment that may be paid to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. This Part also specifies the time and manner in which the calculation of fiscal equalization payments will be made and it amends that Act’s regulation-making authority. In addition, this Part makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 12 amends the Canada Education Savings Act to clarify the authority of the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development to collect, on behalf of the Canada Revenue Agency, any information that the Canada Revenue Agency requires for purposes of administering the registered education savings plan tax provisions.
Part 13 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to an entity, designated by the Minister of Finance, to facilitate public-private partnership projects.
Part 14 implements tax measures proposed in the October 30, 2007 Economic Statement. With respect to income tax measures, it
(a) reduces the general corporate income tax rate;
(b) accelerates the tax reduction for small businesses;
(c) reduces the lowest personal income tax rate, which automatically reduces the rate used to calculate non-refundable tax credits and the alternative minimum tax; and
(d) increases the basic personal amount and the amount upon which the spouse or common-law partner and wholly dependent relative credits are calculated.
Part 14 also amends the Excise Tax Act to implement, effective January 1, 2008, the reduction in the goods and services tax (GST) and the federal component of the harmonized sales tax (HST) from 6% to 5%. That Act is amended to provide transitional rules for determining the GST/HST rate applicable to transactions that straddle the January 1, 2008, implementation date, including transitional rebates in respect of the sale of residential complexes where transfer of ownership and possession both take place on or after January 1, 2008, pursuant to a written agreement entered into on or before October 30, 2007. The Excise Act, 2001 is also amended to increase excise duties on tobacco products to offset the impact of the GST/HST rate reduction. The Air Travellers Security Charge Act is also amended to ensure that rates for domestic and transborder air travel reflect the impact of the GST/HST rate reduction. Those amendments generally apply as of January 1, 2008.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-28, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

With respect to Bill C-28, I would like to inform the House that there is one motion in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-28. Motion No. 1 will be debated and voted upon.

Motions in Amendment

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-28 be amended by deleting Clause 181.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to speak to the amendment that I put have forward. I want to begin by thanking my colleague from Hamilton for seconding the motion.

In fact, it is a very short amendment to Bill C-28. It asks that we delete clause 181. I say that because Bill C-28 is quite a document. It is in fact a document that is hundreds of pages long and this one particular amendment to delete clause 181 would do something extremely important. It would delete the corporate tax cuts that are in this package.

Notwithstanding the brevity of the amendment, the impacts I think would be substantive and positive.

We have seen in this country unprecedented growth. We have seen prosperity for some, but not spread out and achieved by all.

It is my belief that when we are dealing with tax policy, it is important to look at the many and not just the few. In this case, clause 181 looks at the few; in other words, those who would benefit from corporate tax cuts.

Some would say that is well and good, that it actually would be a good tax policy because it would increase investment in the country.

It sounds good, in theory. However, we have to strike a balance in this country. When we have Canadians sitting around their kitchen tables, as we speak, looking at how they are going to make ends meet, they would not see the same benefits in Bill C-28 that are proposed for corporations. They would see less benefits, if we were to do a cost benefit analysis.

In fact, in the last number of years, we have seen a widening prosperity gap, and our party has been very clear on this issue. In fact, the affordability of things is increasing for many Canadians, such as health care, which I know, Mr. Speaker, has been a concern of yours in the past and remains a concern of yours.

In 1980, 80% of our health care system was publicly financed. We are at the level now where 70% of our health care system is publicly financed which means that 30% is financed through the private sector.

I say that because many Canadians cannot afford the drugs they need. Many Canadians are on waiting lists and are having to seek other forms of help in terms of getting health care when they need it.

There is nothing in this package that would help them. There is no affordable drug plan in this package. There is nothing that would help everyday Canadians who need affordable education. There is nothing in this package that would deal with the housing crisis. There is nothing in this package that would give hope to people who need help right now.

This amendment would eliminate the corporate tax giveaway. In fact, David Lewis once famously said it is corporate welfare.

I see it as corporate welfare because the party in power right now never ever campaigned on this corporate tax cut. Members will remember the Conservatives famously ran on five things. I can guarantee that corporate tax cuts was not in those five issues. They talked about the GST, certainly, but they did not talk about corporate tax cuts.

So, this is about holding the government to account. It is about equity. It is about the importance of investing to make our country more productive. In fact, a representative who spoke to committee on another bill recently said:

Investors will keep investing in Canada. Why? Because we have an educated, efficient workforce. We're marvellously endowed in resources. We have a good, though perhaps somewhat neglected, infrastructure.

He went on to say that corporate cuts are not what brings an educated and efficient workforce, it is not what protects our environment and natural resources, and it does not rebuild and strengthen our neglected infrastructure.

The point that we are endowed with resources and have a good, though perhaps somewhat neglected, infrastructure is key because when we look at the way these corporate tax cuts will be handed over, it is basically like throwing money into the wind and hoping it lands in the right place.

By the way, the person who I am quoting was actually a representative from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. From my perspective certainly not someone who the government would usually ignore. However, in doing this act, in providing these kinds of corporate tax cuts, in fact it is.

I want to take a moment to speak to the opposition parties, both the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party. Recently, the leader of the Liberal Party spoke to his party's vision on economics and fair taxes. He said that the previous Liberal government reduced the federal corporate tax rate to 19% from 28% and that the Conservatives will reduce it to 18.5% by 2011. He said that he would go deeper than that and then went on to tell us why.

I would plead with the Liberal Party to take a look at where our corporate taxes are. The fact is that it gave the green light to this government with this speech in saying that it should go further. Indeed, it did.

Many have said that once the Conservatives heard that the Liberals were going to go deeper in corporate tax cuts, they raced to 15% when they were going to stay at 17%. I hope the Liberal Party takes a look at who benefits from these corporate tax cuts, particularly in the way they are ascribed.

I do not believe that at this point in our economy, when students have record debt, when we have an infrastructure deficit of $123 billion, and when people cannot afford the medicines they need, that we need to give corporations welfare.

This is a very simple, sanguine, smart amendment to a policy that is wrong. Further corporate tax cuts were never debated during the election. I have quoted spokespersons from the Chamber of Commerce who have said that the key thing to invest in is infrastructure.

There is absolutely no guarantee, when corporate tax cuts and gifts are handed over to corporations, that they will invest. We hope they would, but where is the guarantee? Indeed, where is the accountability?

It is interesting to note that we see on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen today that the government was able to forgive huge tax bills for a select few Canadians, 35 of them, that had been burned during the boom and bust of the high tech industry. It is sad for those people and I guess terrific for those few who are going to benefit, but where is the tax fairness for other Canadians?

Where is the fairness in this bill? This amendment would actually balance things off. It says now is not the time for deeper tax cuts for corporations. Now is the time for key strategic investments in people. That is what has been missing from the government. Where is the human face in its economic plan?

It throws out the idea that there is a GST cut. When we compare that to the deep cuts in corporate taxes and the minuscule crumbs that are being handed over to everyday people, there is a balance problem.

When we take a look at certain people being rewarded because of successfully lobbying the government for investments they made and were burned on in the case of JDS Uniphase, we have to wonder who the government is listening to.

The government is not listening to seniors. Recently, my colleague from Hamilton pointed out that seniors have been burned. Their pensions were not properly indexed. Is the government helping them out? No.

In summary, I hope that my friends from the Liberal Party will support this measure, will not stay with this corporate tax cut craze, and that my friends from the Bloc will support this amendment.

Indeed, I urge the government to look at this as a progressive thing that will help people and their communities. It will allow us to invest in people, our communities, our infrastructure, and cut off the corporate welfare that seems to exist today.

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

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but think back to an argument which I have made frequently since my days on the finance committee and a statement which I hear so often from the NDP members, one that I think I need to challenge. That is, when they use the phrase “tax cuts”, are they talking about the reduction of the tax rates or are they talking about the amount of money in absolute value that is collected?

In economics there is a thing called the Laffer curve, which I have read about, named after the Professor Laffer who discovered it. That is, there is a relationship, and I wish we could use graphs and props here, such that if one's tax rate is zero, one's income will be zero. If one's tax rate is 100%, one's income will be zero, because everybody is either going to do nothing or go to some other country to do it. Somewhere in between, there is a place where one can maximize the income.

In regard to a reduction of corporate taxes, the fact of the matter is, and I am convinced of it, that if we reduce the rate of taxation, if we add in all of the economic activity that it generates, the total amount of revenue gained by the government actually increases at a certain stage. The question is, of course, where is that particular point?

I believe that our tax rates in Canada are eminently fair for the most part, but in the case of tax cuts, when we talk about reducing the rates for businesses in this country, I think that we actually gain at the present level. In regard to reducing them from 21% to 19% to 17%, in that range a reduction of tax rates actually increases the total amount of revenue, which would of course give the government more money to spend on government programs and social programs, which I think the NDP and I would agree with. They are necessary things to do.

I would like the member's comment on what I have just said.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know of the Laffer curve, but we also have to keep in mind, and I think the member said it, that he believes the tax rate right now is more or less fair. I agree with that. Now is not the time for a further decrease. I call it a cut and the member may call it an adjustment, but at the end of the day there is less money required for corporations to pay in terms of the rate, the percentage.

I understand what the member is saying about the work that has been done on the Laffer curve. It is the idea that perhaps by reducing the amount of tax required, we actually will increase more investment, and therefore there will be more money in the coffers. I fully understand that.

There is also the law of diminishing returns. That is, if we lower the rate and money is not reinvested, if we do not attract more investment, we potentially will have less money in revenues as well. In other words, if we do not see reinvestment and if we do not attract more investment, then we will have less money in the treasury to redistribute or invest. I do not think there has been enough work done on this and certainly there has not been enough debate to suggest that we should go ahead with it at this point.

In fact, I remember what TD economist Don Drummond said back in 2005 when we got the then Liberal government to change the budget's $4.5 billion in corporate tax cuts. He said those corporate tax cuts would not go into reinvestment but in fact into excess profit. Now, the Laffer curve would deal with that as well and would say that if the money is going to go into excess profits then we should not make these kinds of reductions or what I call tax cuts.

I think it is a valid point. That is why I think this should be debated. That is why I think the clause should be deleted until we have the evidence and proof, which we have not had. All we have seen is a widening prosperity gap.

As I have mentioned, the investments we need to make right now are investments in people, in things such as an affordable drug plan and affordable education and, for goodness' sake, reinvesting in the infrastructure of the country before we hand over tax cuts in the way that is being proposed in the bill.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Minister of National Revenue]

Mr. Speaker, in the 2007 economic statement, the government announced broad-based tax relief that will help provide Canada with a tax system that rewards Canadians for realizing their full potential, encourages investment in Canada, fuels growth in the economy, creates more and better jobs, and improves standards of living.

Our bold, broad-based business tax reductions are a key part of this plan and will give Canada the most competitive business tax regime in the G-7. Internationally competitive business taxes are crucial to attracting investment to Canada, and many other countries are recognizing the value of lower tax rates.

A lower tax rate on business income encourages investment and entrepreneurship by both domestic and foreign firms. This investment in new capital increases productivity and economic growth, creates jobs, increases incomes and raises living standards.

Even the Liberal leader has admitted that our Conservative government is right for cutting corporate taxes, stating:

A low corporate tax rate is not a right wing policy or a left wing policy. It is a sound policy.

It is especially important during these times of economic uncertainty to reinforce the Canadian business environment. Adapting to changes in the global economy and dealing with the weakness of the U.S. economy are significant challenges for Canadian business.

The strong fiscal position of the Government of Canada provides an opportunity to put in place broad-based tax reductions that few other countries can afford. At this time of economic uncertainty, we are putting in place tax measures that bolster confidence, encourage investment and support job creation.

In the 2007 economic statement, we introduced a bold new tax reduction initiative that will lower federal corporate income tax rates to 15% by 2012. With this initiative, the federal corporate income tax rate in 2012 will be a remarkable 14 percentage points lower than its level in 2000. These broad-based tax reductions build on the measures announced in the 2006 and the 2007 budgets to strengthen Canada's tax advantage.

As a result of these tax reductions, businesses in Canada will meet the Advantage Canada goal of achieving the lowest tax rate on new business investment in the G-7 by 2011. Further, by 2012 we will have the lowest statutory corporate income tax rate in the G-7.

The tax reduction actions our government took in the 2007 economic statement are sustainable and durable. They make Canada a country of choice for investment, not just today but in the years to come. This will provide Canadians with more and better jobs and a higher standard of living.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's statement on this amendment. I am curious about what the minister said in regard to what attracts corporations to invest in this country.

I would say that right now corporations are attracted to investing in this country for our great resource base, one that is accelerating in value. Around the world, resources are at a premium. Many corporations are investing in energy in this country, once again because the energy is here.

Let us talk about the manufacturing sector. One of the largest incentives for manufacturing investment in Canada is our public health care system, which gives us a tremendous advantage over the United States and its private insurance system for employees of large companies.

What we see in Canada is that we have incentives for corporations that are built into, first, what we sell, our raw resources, which are in high demand, and, second, the services we provide to corporations. How are these tax cuts going to improve that situation? How are they going to make that any better?

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

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the recent budgets addressed not only a reduction of corporate tax rates but a whole lot of other issues, such as infrastructure, transfers to the provinces, health care and all these other requirements of our society. The budgets of 2006 and 2007 and the update do not address only corporate tax cuts.

Yes, when investors decide to invest in Canada, they take into consideration a lot of those factors: our well-educated population, our health care, our infrastructure, our energy resources, et cetera. However, they also look at the tax rates. It is in our interest to reduce the tax rates for corporations to as low as possible to encourage investment, because it is corporations that provide most of the jobs. Other than the public services such as government, schools or hospitals, the rest of the economy is a corporate economy, which requires tax rates that are as low as possible.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, recently the Conservative government announced a bold new infrastructure program that is a $33 billion investment in infrastructure projects across Canada. This is following the disastrous infrastructure deficit that the Liberals left us over the last 13 years.

I have a question for the minister. What exactly does this $33 billion investment mean to municipalities, to seaports and to Canadians as a whole?

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

Mr. Speaker, through the building Canada plan, our government is making the largest investment in infrastructure in modern history, with $33 billion over the next seven years. This is new money to build roads and improve public transit, to rehabilitate bridges and water systems, and to upgrade our international gateways, ports and airports.

We believe that we are going to be able to leverage this $33 billion into $100 billion through cooperation with the provinces and with private investment. I think that as our plan is implemented over the next seven years, members are going to find substantial improvements in infrastructure that had been allowed to lie and decay in the last 13 years of the Liberal regime.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I speak today to Bill C-28, the budget implementation bill.

First, good governments make good, long term choices. They do not focus their policies on short term polls or on next week's polls. In fact, they focus on the challenges and opportunities in the coming century, which is why the Conservative government has made such a remarkable mistake in moving forward and cutting a consumption tax, the GST.

Cutting 1% on the GST represents a $6.5 billion loss to the federal treasury per year, and 2%, of course, is $13 billion per year, which is a lot of fiscal capacity that could have been used to invest in the priorities of Canadians, to invest in the social infrastructure of Canadians and to address the infrastructure deficit that is so critical in Canada today. It is also a lot of money that could have been used to reduce personal income taxes and help Canadians keep more of their hard-earned money, to reduce business taxes, to build a more competitive corporate tax environment and, ultimately, to build a richer, fairer and greener Canada.

Except for perhaps the Prime Minister, I do not think there is an economist in Canada who believes that cutting the GST is a good idea. In fact, if economists were a licensed body, the Prime Minister would probably lose his licence over the decision to cut the GST because it is such a bad economic policy.

Just 1% of the GST, that $6.5 billion per year, in terms of needed infrastructure, would mean approximately $20 million in every federal riding in Canada. Let us consider what that could mean in terms of green infrastructure, water and sewage treatment and recreational infrastructure across Canada, whether we are talking about arenas, pools or libraries, a great infrastructure deficit is going on.

When we look at it, there were two waves of federal government investment in infrastructure. One was the memorial infrastructure with memorial community centres across Canada, built, I believe, after the second world war. Further to that, there were the centennial projects after the great year of 1967, which was the year I was born. My mother was at Expo 67. I was there but I had not been born yet.

Beyond that, the fact that the government has made no investment in those kinds of infrastructure in a significant way ignores the facts. The facts are that Canadians need to live in healthy communities with up to date water and sewage treatment. They need investments in public transit, in green transit infrastructure. We recognize now the imperative of green investment in infrastructure. Canadians also need to live healthier lives and they cannot do that if they do not have recreational infrastructure for their children.

I will give some examples from my own riding of the kinds of infrastructure I am speaking of. The East Hants Sportsplex in Lantz, Hants county, which was built decades ago, has served the community well during its time. However, Lantz and Elmsdale, that whole area of East Hants, has doubled in population over the last 10 years. Its recreational infrastructures are strained and require significant investment.

When our government was in power, the Liberal government, those were the kinds of investment we made. In my riding, we invested in indoor soccer facilities, libraries, pools and community infrastructure, which can make a difference. Those kinds of infrastructures can make the lives of families better and can ensure we have healthier Canadians. In the long term, it would reduce the cost to the taxpayer by reducing the costs to the health care system over the long term.

We invested in transportation infrastructure, whether we are talking about the twinning of Highway 101 in my riding to the Annapolis Valley or we are talking about investments being made in conjunction with the provincial government at the time.

We invested in infrastructure on a community basis because we were part of a government that recognized the important role that municipal leaders have in building their communities. The fact is that municipal leaders have limited capacity to raise money. They have property taxes, which is a very blunt instrument.

The government of Jean Chrétien and the government of Paul Martin were the first Governments of Canada to recognize--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. The hon. member knows that the immediately former prime minister is still a member of this House and, therefore, should be referred to as the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I regret the error, Mr. Speaker. The member for LaSalle—Émard's government was, for the first time in the history of Canada, a federal government that recognized the important role that municipal leaders have and the important need for them to have the kind of funding to address those needs.

I want to speak to the whole issue of the Atlantic accord because a large part of this legislation supposedly deals with the Atlantic accord. When we had a briefing session on this, a public servant told me that this new amendment would ensure that the budget respects the Atlantic accord. I read those same words in the budget just a few months ago.

However, if the original budget respected the Atlantic accord, why did the premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, principled members of parliament from Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, have to fight the federal Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister over the last several months to actually get a new amendment that would respect the accord?

If the original budget respected the accord, why did the federal government commit months of work in the Department of Finance to finding a new way to respect the accord? It is not credible. In fact, if we could not trust the Conservatives in the budget when they said that the budget respected the Atlantic accord, why should we trust them now when they say that this document respects the Atlantic accord?

It was only a few years ago when the Prime Minister referred to Atlantic Canada as “having a culture of defeat”. The only culture of defeat that will exist in the next federal election will be in Conservative campaign headquarters across Atlantic Canada, because Atlantic Canadians do not like being misled.

Atlantic Canadians know that if they cannot trust a government to honour a written accord, they cannot trust a prime minister on his verbal commitments. Atlantic Canadians want a fair deal to ensure that we have the opportunity as Atlantic Canadians to build our economy, to diversify our economy and to move forward.

Furthermore, the province of Nova Scotia's own figures show that Nova Scotia will lose $42 million next year and $306 million over the next four years as a result of the government's ripping up the Atlantic accord.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the hon. member for Mississauga—Brampton South.

The government, on a wide range of issues, from failing to honour the Atlantic accord, to a misguided tax policy that will actually build a less competitive, less fair and a less green Canadian economy, is moving in multiple directions and in a way that Canadians do not share in terms of values or of sound economic policy.

Furthermore, the manufacturing sector, the forestry sector and agriculture are facing multiple crises in key sectors across our economy. The government has done nothing to address competitiveness and has done nothing to address the manufacturing sector crisis. For instance, the accelerated capital cost allowance should be offered on a permanent basis to Canadian manufacturers to allow them the time they need to invest in productivity enhancement.

The forestry sector is key to our economy. The government is doing nothing to invest--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. I am sorry but the hon. member's time has expired. I would remind members that we are into 10 minute speeches and 10 minute speeches do not get split into 5 minute speeches, especially after you have spoken for 9 minutes.

The hon. member for Ottawa Centre.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member's comments on the amendment that I put forward but I did not quite grasp where his party was or where he was on the amendment, notwithstanding some of his comments.

I mentioned in my comments that the Liberal Party supports deep corporate tax cuts. Indeed, I quoted from his leader who said that his party would go further and he encouraged the government to go further, giving it the green light to go to the level that his party had gone.

Notwithstanding the member's comments, will he be supporting these deep corporate tax cuts or will he support our amendment, because if he supports the deep corporate tax cuts, all of the things he mentioned will not happen? These are not strategic investments. These are right across the board tax cuts. We throw the money up in the air and hope it lands in the right place. We know that does not happen. They need to be strategic and this document does not provide that, which is why we asked for an amendment.

I know the Liberals did not want to vote on this but would you please tell us where you stand on it?

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I would remind the hon. member for Ottawa Centre not to use the second person unless he wants the Speaker to answer the question instead of the hon. member for Kings--Hants.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we would all like to hear from the Speaker, the best member of Parliament in Canada.

Innovative, forward-thinking governments globally have proven that we can build a competitive economy with dramatic reductions to corporate taxes while investing in social policy.

We only need to look at the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland. Australia and New Zealand have reduced corporate taxes dramatically. They have reformed their tax system to make their economies magnets for capital and talent and, at the same time, have invested significantly in social policy.

The Scandinavian example is particularly important to help guide us because Scandinavian countries value investments in social policy, in child care, in early learning and in good health care policy, and, at the same time, they saw the need to reduce their corporate tax levels to some of the lowest corporate taxes in the world.

The old globaphobic, socialist, Luddite nonsense that somehow innovative and forward-thinking economic policy is contrary to good social policy is wrong. In fact, we need good, economic policy to afford sound, social investment.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I love Fridays because we hear some of the most outlandish statements on Fridays.

The member for Kings—Hants, now get this folks, says that the GST is a great tax and that Canadians do not deserve to have tax relief on the GST. Somehow it is a bad thing to give Canadians tax relief that they can see every time they go to the till, every time they go shopping for something. If they are going to buy a car, even a used one, they can see that tax relief, but the member for Kings—Hants thinks this is a bad thing.

The leader of the opposition party said a short time ago that the Liberals, God forbid if they ever get to power again, would raise the GST.

Here is what we can expect in the next federal election. The Liberals will be campaigning all across this country, probably led by the member for Kings—Hants, telling Canadians to elect the Liberals and make them government and they promise they will raise the GST back to 7%.

Mr. Speaker, do you not just love Fridays? I just love it. I thank the member for Kings—Hants for making our next election campaign just a little easier.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should reflect on whether the GST is payable on cash transactions of $300,000 to former prime ministers.

Beyond that, we are committed to reducing taxes. We are committed to a fairer approach to reducing, in a broad base way, personal income taxes to actually help Canadian families. With his approach to cutting the GST, a 1% GST cut will give someone buying an $80,000 Cadillac Escalade a great savings of about $800 or so--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. It seems like an appropriate time to resume debate.

The hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the NDP's amendment to Bill C-28, which is about the Conservative government's economic statement.

At the outset, I would like to make it clear to my NDP colleagues that the Bloc Québécois opposed Bill C-28 and the economic statement. We will also oppose the NDP's amendment for one simple, good reason. The reason we are opposed to the economic statement is that it does nothing to address the most serious crisis currently facing Quebec's regions: the crises in the forestry and manufacturing sectors. Once again, the NDP must be seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses, because it has not put forward anything to solve the real problem: the crises in the manufacturing and forestry sectors.

My colleagues here in the House will confirm what I am saying. The member from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord will tell you that the Saguenay region has been hit hard by the forestry crisis, and my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé will tell you that Mauricie has been feeling the pinch because of the crises in the forestry and manufacturing industries. The time for looking at what the Conservative government could do through rose-coloured glasses has passed. Once again, it is time to see things as they really are.

It is clear that the Conservative Party has decided not to do anything about the forestry and manufacturing crises in its economic statement. The party's philosophy is to let businesses die, to let the free market do what it wants, to believe that big companies will survive and should be allowed to destroy small companies every day. Right now, the problem in the manufacturing and forestry sectors is that the big companies are destroying each other. Even they cannot survive. That is the reality of the situation.

The government is offering tax cuts to businesses, and that is fine for businesses that are making a profit. But right now, Quebec's forestry sector and much of its manufacturing sector are having problems. The softwood lumber crisis was never resolved. Businesses were never given the help they needed. Then the Canadian dollar rose to dizzying heights. Even in the economic statement, the picture painted by the Minister of Finance is one of economic recession in the manufacturing sector. Oil companies will not be affected.

Obviously, in granting tax reductions, the Conservative Party wanted mainly to please its friends, the oil companies. That was the purpose of the economic statement and that is the problem I have today with the NDP motion. Once again, it does not address the real problem. The idea behind the motion is to remove tax credits, which is fine, but the NDP is not addressing and does not want to address the real problem, which is the crisis in forestry and manufacturing. The NDP, with its rose-coloured glasses, is as bad as the Conservative Party, except that the two parties are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

I am glad to be a member of the Bloc Québécois. It is the only party in this House that is in touch with the grassroots, close to the people, and that can clearly say what impact the higher Canadian dollar and the softwood lumber crisis, which the Conservative government never solved, are having today. Jobs are being lost in most regions of Quebec.

Companies are closing on the other side of the river in Gatineau. Everyone will say that it is a large city, but Domtar has closed and Bowater has shut down one machine. Once again, the forestry crisis is affecting the cities in Quebec. Imagine the impact it is having in the regions. That is the hard reality and the impact of the Conservatives' free-market approach.

In the manufacturing and forestry sectors, the government should look at its own data, its own figures, which clearly show that there have been successive job losses since 2005, totalling 125,000, including 65,000 jobs lost in Quebec since the Conservatives came to power. The economic statement solves nothing, absolutely nothing. The member from Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean and the Minister of Labour are telling us to wait for the next budget. That means there is nothing in the economic statement, absolutely nothing.

That is why, once again, we will vote against Bill C-28 and against the NDP amendment. It was a flawed economic statement, a flawed bill for the forestry and manufacturing industries. We will take a stand for Quebeckers in the regions and in the urban centres who are being hard hit.

Shawinigan was hit hard last week and so was the City of Gatineau and insecurity reigns. Large companies such as Bowater and Abitibi-Consolidated have merged. That was the first phase of a shutdown that will be followed by a second phase. The companies, the industry and the owners are no longer hiding the fact that there will be a second phase.

The Conservative government is being consistent in its Conservative philosophy. It will wait as long as possible until as many businesses have closed as possible. In the end it will come to the rescue of one company that has only half its labour force left.

On one hand we have the Minister of Labour's attitude and on the other hand we have the Economic Development Agency of Canada, which is trying to revive the regions through diversification. At worst, we will end up with the Minister of Labour's approach. In my opinion, the member for Jonquière—Alma is an embarrassment to his region. He is saying that many jobs are being created in Alberta and that 55 year old unemployed workers should go there for work. That is his message. It is terrible coming from a minister from Quebec, especially from Jonquière—Alma, a region that has worked hard to build the Quebec of today and part of Canada.

Finally, if it were not for the primary resources sector, the forestry and mining sectors, Quebec and Canada would not be what they are today. The people in those sectors are living day to day.

The Conservatives think that since the oil industry is doing well we should all fall all over ourselves and make oil. Society is more complex than that. We realize every day that the Conservatives want nothing to do with Quebec's problems. The Conservatives say so and prove it every day. In any event, they have shown it in Bill C-28, in their economic statement. The New Democratic Party is doing the same thing by showing its flagrant lack of interest in the problems Quebeckers in the regions are experiencing in the forestry and manufacturing crisis. They must be able to sense that in the rest of Canada, but with their rose coloured glasses, instead of making amendments and proposing things that would solve the industry's problems, they want to lower corporate taxes.

The Quebec association of manufacturers and exporters is in favour of the tax cuts. In fact, the day these industries start making money, they will be happy to have more competitive taxation. But they are saying that this is not enough, because the crisis in the forestry and manufacturing industries must be addressed now. It is serious and will take some serious money. We must find a way to revive these sectors and implement everything the Bloc Québécois has called for in this House. We are telling the government that cuts and credits alone are not enough, that tax credits must be made refundable. This means that if a company is not making money, instead of it being deducted from profits, the company will receive a cheque, because it did not in fact turn a profit in a given year. With that money, the company would be able to purchase new machines and upgrade.

We are trying to make them understand that the solution is simple, and they know it. The problem is that they do not want to do it. Once again, the Conservative free market philosophy is that things should fix themselves. But things will not fix themselves in the forestry and manufacturing sectors for the simple reason that the Canadian dollar will not stop rising.

Obviously, the brilliant Conservatives had not counted on the dollar rising. Now this is happening and jobs are lost every week across Quebec. The Bloc Québécois will never accept this situation and will never stop rising in this House to speak out against what the Conservatives are doing and what the NDP is in the process of doing: ignoring the real problems, which leads to massive job losses in the forestry and manufacturing sectors.

These Quebeckers who have worked hard their entire lives to support this society deserve to be taken care of now. They deserve a good chunk of the $11.6 billion surplus to revive the forestry and manufacturing industries and not to create something new. That is what they deserve.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to my hon. colleague's statements. I find it somewhat incomprehensible that a member of a party elected by many progressive voters in Quebec would come out with a statement like that on a very serious topic: the complete movement by the government toward reducing corporate taxes, as supported by the Liberals. This is a direction from which we cannot return.

The member has provided many ideas and direction on the need to carefully select areas in the economy for which to provide incentives. We cannot do it if we do not have the revenue base.

By going against the motion, he has set up a future in which the federal government will not have the ability to make the kinds of investments that need to be made to improve industries in his province.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my NDP colleague has a problem. His party has never changed. It has always been against corporate tax reductions.

There is a problem. The forestry industry and the manufacturing sector are facing an unprecedented crisis. They are in an economic recession, which is what I have been saying since the beginning of my speech. The question today is not about attacking tax cuts, but rather about helping forestry and manufacturing businesses.

If he had decided to propose an amendment to convert or transform tax credits into refundable tax credits in order to be able to help businesses, we probably would have supported it. The problem is that the New Democrat philosophy does not change. They do not see the problems and always regurgitate the same line: we are lowering corporate taxes, and so on.

The crisis is more significant than that. Now is no longer the time to put on the NDP's rose coloured glasses. It is time to solve the real problems.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague on his fine speech.

I would like him to expand on something. Since 2002, 135,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector, affecting one in five workers. As my colleague mentioned, the Quebec furniture industry is a very important economic sector. In 2007, it employs 24,000 workers, although in 2000, it employed 30,500 people. The net job losses in this sector are a result of the government's failure to act. It has been slow to react and support our industries.

I would like my hon. colleague to tell us why the Conservative government refuses to act, from a budgetary point of view, to support our industries?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to thank my colleague for Berthier—Maskinongé who is working very hard to try to stop job losses in his region.

He asks me what I think of the Conservatives.This is the worst possible government in terms of its ability to solve the crisis in the manufacturing and forestry sectors. It is totally insensitive. The Conservative philosophy is to give the market free rein.

As I was explaining earlier, there is a problem in the forestry industry. It is one thing, when times are good, for big companies to gobble up little ones. However, right now, the big companies are cannibalizing one another and when they emerge they are no longer able to cope with the situation. That is the reality.

The Conservative philosophy does have an end.The writing is on the wall for the forestry and manufacturing sectors, and it says “The End”. We have to get rid of the Conservatives and put in place real programs to help the men and women who worked very hard to establish the society in which we live. The forestry sector sustained the economies of Quebec and Canada for dozens of years. It is now time for us to help these workers and no longer just stand by and watch, as is the case with the Conservative laissez-faire policy.

The forestry sector is finished. The writing is on the wall. We must stop this from happening and solve the problems. The Conservatives have $11.6 billion in reasons to solve them so let them do it.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to address a couple of points my friend from the Bloc made.

He said that we viewed things through rose coloured glasses. I have to challenge him on that. I think he is looking through revisionist glasses. Members of that party propped up the government on its budgets. When it comes to the government and its policies, which he criticizes, I predict his party will support the government yet again because his party is on life-support right now.

How can the member say that the proposal to amend tax cuts is not a progressive policy when he decries the Conservative approach of the invisible hand? Does the member not understand that we need to have key investments and that corporate tax cuts or giveaways are nothing more than corporate welfare? Social democrats—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. We need to give the hon. member a few seconds to respond.

The hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I repeat and I will continue repeating that he must take off his rose coloured glasses. He is like the Conservatives, who show no sensitivity. The member would have us believe that Bill C-28 would be fine if the tax reductions were removed. Bill C-28 is a bad bill all around. The economic statement is not good. Furthermore, how the NDP views this is not good, either. We must resolve the crisis.

With respect to tax reductions, I am very happy for any businesses that are turning a profit, but the Conservatives should have been able to support refundable tax credits to help the industry directly.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-28, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents of Mississauga—Brampton South, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-28.

I do have some fundamental problems and concerns with the bill because it revolves around the economic policies and concerns that I have with the Conservative government.

When I recollect last year during the budget discussion, I was reminded by many of my constituents, who I know very closely watched the debate, of how shocked they were to hear one of the worst tax policies to come out of Ottawa in 35 years, which was the interest deductibility measure. That is just one example.

I want to speak to two key themes today regarding the bill. One is that it is a reflection of the government's lack of understanding of creating a plan, of setting forth an agenda that looks at promoting prosperity and productivity. The government's ideas, strategies and policies are driven by polls and, as we have seen, it has spent a lot of money on polls.

The second issue I will be discussing is missed opportunities and what this particular bill misses and the opportunity on which it could have capitalized.

First, before I get into the specifics, if we look at where we are today as a country and look at our fiscal capacity at the federal level, it is a reflection of sound Liberal management over the course of many years, as they recite, over 13 years of hard work to turn around this country's fiscal position. We were in huge deficits, which created huge debts and put a tremendous burden on our future generations.

However, through sound Liberal management, sound government policy and the hard work of many Canadians, we were able to eliminate the deficit and ultimately start to reduce our debt.

Today we have surpluses, as we have had for many years now, and that is a reflection of hard work and good management. It is so important that we recognize how we want to spend this money.

It is unfortunate for the government, for example, when it comes to two particular issues in the bill.

First, I want to thank the Conservatives for reinstating the personal income tax reduction that we put in place when we were in government and that they reversed. I also want to applaud them for their efforts of copying our corporate tax policy. Those are two specific examples that stand out.

However, if we look at the bill we see that it pits province against province. We have seen what the Conservatives have done with the Atlantic accord. Just recently, if we take into account what they have done with respect to Bill C-22, they attacked the Premier of Ontario by calling him the small man of Confederation. They insulted not only premiers and put provinces against one another, but they also attacked mayors. We do not run a country by calling our mayors grumpy.

My mayor has served proudly for many years and is one of the most well respected mayors, not only in Canada, but across the world. She has received numerous awards for achievements, hard work, fiscal management and running a good city.

The bill also reminds us of a legacy of a government of broken promises. The one that stands out, which was mentioned in a petition just a few minutes ago, is the income trusts.

Many hard-working Canadians, many seniors who have worked really hard, invested their money in income trusts because they were led to believe by the current government, in a commitment it made in its platform, that it would not change the rules to income trusts. What did the Conservatives do when they came to power? They broke that promise. That cost seniors and many other Canadians millions, if not billions, of dollars of investment opportunities and it has really hurt their fiscal and financial situation.

As I said before, I do have concerns with regard to the prosperity and productivity agenda laid out by the government. The GST example is a clear indication of where it is driven by polls and by gimmicks as opposed to trying to promote this prosperity and productivity agenda.

If we look, for example, at my constituency of Mississauga—Brampton South, it has many manufacturing jobs. We have the Pearson International Airport, which has become a hub of economic activity, but we need to ensure we remain competitive and, in order to do that, we need the government to show leadership and put in place a regime, an environment and policies that will ensure we are not only competitive in Canada, but we can also compete with the world. That is something this particular bill lacks.

I want to speak to missed opportunities, which is something I can speak to from my personal experience of living in my constituency of Mississauga—Brampton South. My constituency has a $123 billion infrastructure deficit, which is a substantial amount. The mayors and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have mentioned this on numerous occasions. They had a protest here and mentioned that their deficits needed to be addressed.

What bothers me is that in March, the Prime Minister and his entourage came to the GTA and made an announcement about rapid transit funding for not only my constituency, but for surrounding regions as well. The announcement was made in March and yet we have not received the cheque. The province has put forward the money and the mayor and our councillors have the money there, but the federal government has not written a cheque.

That is something that is profoundly disturbing because these announcements are made and it is a missed opportunity. The longer the delay in this funding, the more gridlock continues to grow in that region.

I was very fortunate to become the father of a baby girl about eight weeks ago and I understand now, as a new father, the importance of spending time with one's family. However, if individuals are driving to and from work and are spending an additional 20, 30, 40 or 50 minutes in traffic because of gridlock, that is less time with their families.

If the government professes to care about families, why is it not giving us a cheque for our city? Why is it not helping us with our huge deficit? It is not the fact that it is not contributing more money. It is the money that was committed in the past that it is not honouring.

As I indicated, it was a missed opportunity, not only when it comes to the cities agenda, but manufacturing is a key area for the constituents of my riding, for my province of Ontario and for my neighbouring provinces. This is the economic hub that drives our country's economic wealth. It is unfortunate that high value jobs are being lost.

I can cite a quick example from a question I was asking in question period with regard to the forestry sector. The jobs in the forestry sector in northern Ontario and even the spin-off jobs in my riding are directly impacted by the fact that the government cannot do anything because it signed a flawed softwood lumber agreement that prevents it from actually playing a role with industry. I am talking about provincial governments because, in the absence of federal leadership, the provincial governments had to play a role. However, any time the federal or provincial governments play a role, they will be sued by the United States because of the flawed softwood lumber agreement signed by the federal Conservative government.

That is an example of how there is not only a lack of initial investments when it comes to this bill that has prevented assistance for manufacturing, but it further compounds it by preventing other levels of government to play a meaningful role.

We saw the latest census a few days ago and it showed a tremendous amount of immigration to this country in the past five or six years. Immigration is another key area where we need to find a way of integrating new Canadians and allow them to utilize their skills to ensure they are able to perform and reach their potential that not only benefits them, but it benefits our communities and our economies. Again, the government has made no substantive investment there, which is another missed opportunity.

The leader of the Liberal Party has demonstrated our position on poverty. When we look at the poisonous debate on reasonable accommodation in Quebec, it is a reflection of the fact that people's fears are perpetuated by fear and ignorance and they assume that certain ghettos are created. Those ghettos or those concentrations of people is a reflection of communities being segregated because of lack of opportunity, low income earners and people who lack opportunity. We need a strong poverty agenda to ensure all Canadians have equal opportunities to succeed and we need to stop segregating people based on income.

Another concern in my riding is health wait times. We could have invested much more money in this area. We could have invested money to reduce wait times. Every day I hear of instances in waiting rooms and the problems it is causing.

Going back to the first point I made on prosperity and productivity, education is another lost opportunity. If we want to build a productive society and a society that is prosperous, we need to invest in education.

I have fundamental problems with the government's economic policies. These are lost opportunities, wasted opportunities and missed opportunities. With such a large surplus, the Conservatives could have done so much more.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising a number of important issues, one being the forestry sector crisis. My riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan is a forestry riding and we are seeing a number of our sawmills close. One of the pulp and paper mills is now in bankruptcy protection. The Conservatives in their economic statement acknowledged the fact that our manufacturing and forestry sectors were in difficulty and yet did nothing to address the issue in the economic statement.

A couple of weeks back, the Bloc proposed a motion that, if all members of the House had supported it, would have seen support going to the manufacturing and forestry sectors. I wonder if the member could comment on the fact that the Liberals chose not to support that important motion that would have seen some money going into our forestry communities, if he thinks forestry is an important industry in this country.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the concern raised by the member opposite. It is an important issue. In my role and capacity as international trade critic, I have had the opportunity to meet with many people in the industry and to listen firsthand to the crisis that is currently looming with the job losses and the tremendous pressures they are facing just trying to maintain their operations.

When we were in government, we put forth a very comprehensive $1.5 billion forestry industry competitive plan that was announced in November 2005. This plan included funding and support for our transformative technologies, incentives for bioenergy expansion, assistance to respond to innovation opportunities, support for market expansion and a national forest community adjustment fund.

Those initiatives were all part of that $1.5 billion package to create a partnership with our industry in recognition of the fact that jobs and communities were important and that Canadian families needed the federal government to play a substantive role.

Instead, unfortunately, the Conservative government came into power and not only did it not follow through with this $1.5 billion commitment, but it signed a flawed softwood lumber agreement that effectively placed quotas in the system, that effectively raised tariffs and that effectively prevented the government from providing any type of incentive or initiative or any type of ability to work with the forestry sector.

What we see today is an absence of federal leadership on that front. The provincial governments are now forced to play a role and, unfortunately, any time they take any action they will be sued by the United States because of this flawed softwood lumber agreement.

We understand the concern and we were the ones who put forth a $1.5 billion initiative in November 2005.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the amendment proposed by the member for Ottawa Centre to delete a portion of part 17 specifically dealing with corporate taxes.

In the recent economic statement and the throne speech, and in view of the substantial surpluses it has, the Conservative government had an opportunity to correct the direction it has been taking. Instead, it has continued in the wrong direction. It has continued to ignore the very serious prosperity gap that is growing in Canada for many of our working and middle class families. The government has failed to target tax relief to people that it would help the most.

The Canadian Labour Congress made a submission to the House of Commons finance committee during its prebudget consultations. The paper is dated August 2007 and contains an analysis on corporate income tax. It talks about the fact that despite increasing cuts to corporate income tax, what we have seen is an unprecedented lack of investment in companies, in the bricks and mortar, in training and re-education within companies, things that would actually make a difference to working and middle class families. The following is a quote from that paper:

Pre-tax profits have soared to record heights and after-tax profits have grown even faster. There has been no comparable increase in corporate investment. Simply adding $15 billion to the 2000 investment level would have increased total investment to nearly 13% of GDP in 2006.

Further on it states:

Business leaders are using this huge surplus to become net lenders to households, stockpile liquid assets, acquire other enterprises, and buy back stock. While these actions may be viable business strategies, it is not clear why the public should subsidize them through further corporate-tax cuts.

That is a very good analysis in terms of why we would support business decisions on where they are going to put their profits.

I mentioned in a question to a Liberal member that in the economic statement the Conservative government acknowledged the difficult times that manufacturing and forestry are in for a number of reasons, yet it simply failed to follow up on what it acknowledged is a very serious problem.

In the riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan, sawmills are laying off shifts of workers. A pulp and paper mill has filed for bankruptcy protection. There simply is not the national leadership around the forestry sector.

I have argued in this House previously and I will reiterate that forestry in British Columbia is not a sunset industry. It is a viable part of who we are as a province. We have the resources. We need to demonstrate national leadership around reinvestment in the industry, retooling where necessary and providing education and training for workers who need to transition into other jobs within the forestry sector.

The government had an opportunity in the economic statement and Bill C-28 to demonstrate that, but the government failed to do it.

There is a crisis in British Columbia caused by pine beetles. Although some money has been allocated, where is the long term, strategic planning for what will happen to those communities in five to ten years when all of the dead wood has been cut? Those communities are facing serious transitions and yet the government is failing to demonstrate the leadership that is required to make sure that those communities maintain their viability.

In addition to the challenges in our forestry and manufacturing sectors, we also are seeing the growing prosperity gap. Working and middle class families continue to struggle to make ends meet.

Many of us have been activists in our communities for a number of years. When food banks opened well over 20 years ago, many of us thought they were a temporary measure and that as our economy recovered, the food banks would close because they would no longer be needed. It is a very sad fact that there are more food banks rather than fewer.

In “HungerCount 2007” put out by the Canadian Association of Food Banks, there are a couple of startling figures. It says that the number of people assisted by a food bank in March 2007 was 720,231. There have been changes in food bank use. There is 91% more usage of food banks since 1989. There are 673 food banks in Canada with 2,867 affiliated agencies. The number of provinces and territories without a food bank is zero. It has been 26 years since Canada's first food bank opened in Edmonton. Seventy-three per cent of Canadians believe that hunger is a problem in Canada. Fifty-seven per cent believe that the government should take responsibility for solving the problems.

There are some very stark figures in that report which speak to the fact that there are men, women and children in this country who simply do not have enough to eat. I want to end the part on the food banks by saying that of the food bank clients, 38.7% are children. The percentage of households containing at least one child was 50.6% . It has been 18 years since the federal government promised to eliminate child poverty.

That leads me to the Campaign 2000 report that just came out entitled, “It Takes a Nation to Raise a Generation: Time for a National Poverty Reduction Strategy”. In 1989 the House unanimously passed Ed Broadbent's motion to end child poverty by the year 2000. Here we are in 2007 and it has not happened. Still there are children and their families, because of course there are no poor children without poor families, who continue to be the poorest of the poor in this country. The child poverty rate of 11.7% is exactly the same as it was in 1989. Forty-one per cent of children living in poverty live in families with at least one income earner working full time all year.

In my own province, despite a growing economy, British Columbia continues to report the highest provincial child poverty rate, which is 15.2%. In aboriginal and immigrant communities, the story is even worse. In aboriginal communities one in four children is poor, which means their families are poor. Aboriginal children and their families are living in substandard housing unable to access adequate drinking water, unable to access adequate medical care.

I recently put forward a private member's bill called Jordan's principle which talks about putting children first. It is a very good example that children on reserve often do not have access to adequate medical care. In Jordan's case his family had to surrender him to the province, put him in foster care in order for him to get the care he needed. Consequently, the federal and provincial governments fought over which one should pay for his care. The child ended up in hospital for four years. In the last two years of his life he could have been in a special foster home, but neither the federal government nor the provincial government would step up to the plate and pay for his care. He died in hospital instead of going to a foster home. That is a stain on Canada's reputation as being a caring and compassionate country.

Lest we only talk about problems, I want to talk about solutions because there are solutions. The winter 2007 report of the National Council of Welfare states that there are some real things that can be done. The report talks about childhood development care, access to education and training for adults so that they can better participate in the labour market, better jobs, income, social security for people who are not in the labour force, access to health care and other services, and affordable housing. The report states that in the absence of any leadership from the Conservative government on a national anti-poverty strategy, some of the provinces are taking some leadership around that, notably Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec. Those provinces are developing action plans. In Newfoundland and Labrador there is a cross-ministry initiative to develop an action plan with some real meaningful targets.

In this wealthy country of ours, the surplus was an opportunity to invest in Canadians. People talk about the rising tide lifting all boats, but it is not happening. We should have taken this opportunity to invest in child education, housing and other initiatives that would make a difference to families and which would close the very serious prosperity gap.

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to point out during the debate on Bill C-28 some of the failings of the budget, failings that were not corrected in the fall financial update. Given the tone of the throne speech, I do not see that there is much intention to correct those failings going forward.

Ultimately, the general overarching problem that I have with the direction of the government in this regard is that, having been given the opportunity to significantly affect a variety of areas and challenges that face Canada, it has chosen instead to basically withdraw. The government is talking about withdrawing in its relationship with provincial governments, withdrawing in its relationship with municipalities.

Given the magnitude of the surplus, the opportunity was presented to the government to deal with universities. The reality is that since 1993 as soon as the fiscal situation was improved, the first thing the former Liberal government did as a national government was to invest heavily in research. The research chairs program, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the indirect costs program, all of these things were investments by the Government of Canada in Canada, in Canadians to generate prosperity, because prosperity going forward is going to find its way where there is investment in knowledge.

That is just one example of the opportunity that was squandered by the Conservative government as it has chosen rather to simply make itself smaller, driven by an ideological agenda that simply does not believe that government can be an instrument for good. I do not hold that view.

Having said that, I also wish to say that I was very disappointed in the spring and most recently that the government still has not honoured the vote that it cast in favour of a motion calling for a national autism strategy, including a financial component. The government had the opportunity to do that and it did not.

Today what I would like to bring to the attention of the House and to Canadians is the nature of the change in the formula as it relates to transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education, social services and health.

In the 1960s and early 1970s the provinces were lobbying the national government, quite justifiably I think, for the government to adjust the taxation system because the provinces were carrying much of the costs of the most recent cost drivers, such as, education, health and social services. The tax system reflected an earlier time when most of these costs were federal.

In 1977 the Government of Canada responded to that request by offering the provinces 13.5% of personal income tax and 1% of corporate tax. It was attempting to do the right thing, but the problem with that remedy is that 1% of personal income tax per capita is not the same across the provinces. The problem is that in a rich province 1% of personal income tax per capita is worth significantly more than 1% of personal income tax per capita in a poorer province.

In an effort at the time by the Government of Canada to mitigate the fact that it was about to make a decision that would bring less equity to the country, which certainly was not in anyone's interest, it included a cash component in the transfer, which was worth at the time $2.7 billion. Last year it was worth $20.5 billion, so it is no small amount of money.

At the time the federal government then introduced a cash component that it would transfer to the provinces. Inside the cash component was an equity seeking provision which allowed that there would be mitigation for the damage that was done to the equilibrium in the country when it used taxes as a way of giving more money to the provinces. In other words, if the tax changes benefited Alberta significantly more than Newfoundland and Labrador, which they did, then the amount that would go to cash would reflect that and Newfoundland and Labrador would get more.

That was the way the decision was taken in 1977. This remedy, to a structural problem in Canada, which everybody recognized, would not hurt the smaller, poorer provinces. In one fell swoop, with that 1977 decision to mitigate the inequality, perpetrated on Canada by the Government of Canada, was eliminated.

As a result, from this year to next, the post-secondary education and social services transfer will increase in Alberta by $102 a person, in Ontario by $40 a person and in my province of New Brunswick by $7 a person. That will have incredible impacts on the provinces receiving equalization. I think it was a decision that was taken by the government without a clear understanding. The way it was referenced was equalization through the back door. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is it was not done to equalize Canada. It was done to ensure that the tax point transfer did not make Canada less equal. That was the purpose. It was recognized as such. Members can go back to Hansard and read the debates in the seventies and eighties around this.

The truth is the effect of this decision has impacted the smaller provinces in the areas of post-secondary education and social services, areas where we are struggling constantly to keep up. I accept that we receive equalization in our provinces. However, if we do not invest in universities, in knowledge and in research, and the provincial governments will have a hard time doing this given how much less money the small provinces have relative to the rich provinces as a result of this decision, then consequently the future holds more equalization.

In our province Premier Graham has boldly set out on self-sufficiency agenda so we will not find ourselves at the whim of these kinds of decisions. I have not decided whether I think that this was done deliberately or just unknowingly, but the bottom line is this. Try to explain to me and to Canadians where the justice is in increasing the amount of money available to the province of Alberta for post-secondary education and social services by $102 a person and the amount of money available in Newfoundland and Labrador or New Brunswick to $7 a person. How can that be just?

If that is not bad enough, by 2014, when the health accord expires because it is a 10 year agreement that was reached in September 2004, they will apply exactly the same forward to that. All the transfers that come to our provinces, the provinces that would suffer from this decision, all those provinces will be in a lesser position to provide those fundamental services in the area of health, in this case, and social services, but also the kinds of investments that would allow us to be more self-sufficient, to use Premier Graham's term. It will make it very difficult. It makes it all the more imperative to do this.

At the end of the day it is obvious, when we are as dependent on these transfers as we are, that we are at the whim of political decisions, whether taken out of malice or simply lack of forethought, and the effect on our province and our entire region will be disastrous.

It has not had a lot of attention. Members can check. It is on page 369 in the budget document and it is very clear. The increase in Alberta will be $102 a person. The increase in New Brunswick will be $7 a person. How can that be fair? How can that be just? How can we expect to build the Atlantic region when we are treated in a way that simply will not allow us to make the same kinds of investments that are made in provinces that have more of their own resources to invest?

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member opposite. I know he has done a lot of work and supported disability issues in the past. He says that he cannot support Bill C-28.

I want to ensure that the member is aware of the registered disability savings plan in Bill C-28. It is a new plan. It will allow funds to be invested tax free until withdrawal. It is intended to help parents and others to save for the long term financial security of a child with a disability.

The plan's structure is similar to a registered education savings plan. Contributions to it will be eligible for the new Canada disability savings grant and there is also a new Canada disability savings bond for individuals with lower family net incomes.

There are all these things for the disability plan, but we have also had some very positive quotes from people who work in the industry. The Canadian Association for Community Living:

—congratulates the Government of Canada on introducing a Registered Disability Savings Plan...to provide families greater opportunity to save for the future financial security of a child with a severe disability.

The Vancouver Province in an editorial said:

—the [finance] minister is to be congratulated for adopting a plan that is comparatively uncomplicated and...accessible at all income levels....the great good it will do is beyond calculation in mere dollars and cents.

Given the fact that the member opposite has done so much great work in the past on this issue, how can he not support Bill C-28?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her acknowledgement of the work I have done on disabilities. I am very familiar with the programs she mentioned. I helped draft them and that is why they were in our platform in the last election.

The budget and the update are large documents and they contain a large number of things. There are many worthy things in the documents and that would be one of them. I commend the government for that.

At the same time, the damage that will be done to my province as a result of the changes in the transfer on social services will do so much more damage to those very programs that the province has to deliver around social services. In no way could there be compensation in those things that are positive.

If the government had not changed the social transfer, it would be a different story, but it has. As a consequence, my province will be unable to deliver programs in my community. It has nothing to do with equalization. Nor has it anything to do with the structural inequality. This is an inequality that was created by a decision of the national government in 1977. It protected itself against a cash transfer that had an equalization element inside it to simply mitigate the inequality that was in the tax transfer. It has been eliminated and the results for the smaller provinces are disastrous.

Consequently, with all due respect to the good pieces of this legislation, it cannot trump the damage that will be done by this one single decision.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Maritimes for his comments. I have a very quick question for him.

The amendment I put forward is an amendment around clause 1(a)(1), which has to do with corporate taxes. Where does he stand on this amendment and where does his party stand ultimately on this bill? Are they for or against the it?

[Andy Scott, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member would have more credibility if he went after all the tax measures. We have mentioned them. We had the courage to mention them. The NDP members have not. They are cherry-picking in terms of those which they can politically play better.

The reality is there is no credibility at that end of the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, an interesting occurrence happened about an hour ago. I made a call to a friend in Hamilton and he asked me why my party was literally hammering the Conservatives on this budget update. He had not been watching the headlines closely, but he had seen from time to time various members of the NDP caucus on their feet, particularly from Hamilton and today from Ottawa, who talked about our major concerns with the economic update.

Simply put, and as I expressed to my friend, the update is taking us in the wrong direction. It is not balanced. We have an unprecedented opportunity to make some changes for the good of our country.

As we know, we have a manufacturing crisis. More people are living in poverty than ever before. As a result of that, looking at the update statement, Bill C-28, it is abundantly clear that there is nothing for ordinary, hard-working Canadians, nothing at all.

The Conservatives have been following a well set pattern, a pattern set by the Liberal Party, of corporate welfare giveaways. We all know that in 2005 the leader of the NDP Party, the member for Toronto—Danforth, was able to get the Liberal Party to set aside some corporate tax cuts, but we are still in a position where there is almost a fond reverence for offering tax cuts to corporations by both sides in this place. These breaks will reduce our budget by over $12 billion, and those are moneys crucial to Canada.

In fact, I want to thank the member for Ottawa Centre for the amendment he has proposed today, which would completely remove clause 181 from the agreement. We hear from Canadians across our country. They are very concerned with the loss of fiscal capacity contained in the budgets brought forward with huge corporate tax breaks in quick succession.

Different members in the House have on many occasions expressed there concerns about the huge infrastructure problems facing Canada. Representatives of the Canadian Federation of Municipalities were in town recently. The report they released, which has been referred to repeatedly here, and justifiably so, tells us there is a shortfall of $123 billion, putting our fiscal capacity at risk. They have said that those moneys need to be invested now and if they are not, then the situation will clearly worsen.

Within that document, there were $40 billion for communities and recreation. Being the sports critic, I have a particular awareness of that part of the report. Communities like Hamilton, where I am from and am pleased to represent, have been forced year after year to turn to the province of Ontario for assistance with their municipal budgets. They usually face a shortfall in the area of $20 million and that is just to contend with day to day operations.

A lot of that came about in the 1990s when the Liberal government of the day started offloading responsibilities to the provinces, along with tax collection. Under Mike Harris, the who does what committee, if I recall the name appropriately, said that his government should keep social services and leave education funding within the mandate of municipalities. What did it do? It reversed that.

Education is predictable and allows us to plan ahead. We know how many children are born and when they are born. When it comes to social concerns and downturns, we do not know how many people will lose their jobs. In fact, 11,000 jobs were lost last year in Hamilton. Everyone will hear me say that later. Because of that unpredictability, it made those moves to protect itself at the provincial level.

There was another more insidious thing at work, which was offloading from income, where people could afford to pay property taxes and many on fixed incomes could not afford the adjustments necessary to deal with such things. The province of Ontario has also made it clear to Hamilton that it cannot sustain the $20 million transfer and it will have to go back to the province regularly.

I also expect, from what I am hearing, that many major cities across the country have significant infrastructure problems similar to Hamilton.

Hamilton has to renew its sewer system soon. This is one of the older cities in Canada and every year a significant number of water mains break and other failures of infrastructure are very evident. We have unique challenges in Hamilton.

As the House knows new immigrants who come to this country travel to Vancouver first, or Toronto or Montreal. They find, after being there a short period of time, that they are unable to afford the cost of living. Many of them choose Hamilton as their second destination, but federal dollars go to those first communities where the immigrants arrive. So, there is a particular burden that befalls our city and I am sure other ones across Canada as well as a result of the fact that federal dollars are not spread as evenly as they could be.

Clearly, much could have been done by the Conservative government in its update before cutting taxes. I spoke in the House about the fact that Canadians are a people with a lot of common sense. I have also advised the House of the significant concerns I am hearing back in my riding of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

My constituents are quick to point out to me their surprise that a government with the massive surplus in the tens of billions of dollars does not seem, in their eyes anyway, to be approaching its fiscal management with the same common sense that ordinary Canadians apply in their day to day living.

Canadians are quick to say that they know when one is doing well, it is time to invest. They will invest their money in repairs and upgrades to their homes. Canada needs to repair its home, its infrastructure.

Canadians will also put a little money aside for an eventual downturn which we well know follows in quick succession. I would argue that is happening at the present time and if we have surplus monies this is the time to address those needs.

Also, when ordinary Canadians do have good times, they do not head off to the bank to pay off their mortgage. They would not do that because they understand that keeping a reasonable debt is fiscally responsible in order to sustain their cashflow.

Canadians know that if their house foundation is rotten, that soon that house will fall. The foundations of Canadian cities are literally rotting across this country.

The other evening when I spoke about this fiscal update, I pointed to the fact that in conversations with my constituents at our local Timmy's, and that is our gathering point, there is a lot of sage advice given in those places.

I also found in the last couple of visits that the seniors who were there were very angry. They have come to know that due to an error by the federal government that they were underpaid some $500 a year in their old age security. They are patiently waiting for the taxman to send them their money. I should add their patience is wearing thin.

I strongly advise the Conservative government to get on with the job and send Canadians the monies that they are owed.

The seniors are busily swapping opinions on the matter and most are quick to point to their personal experience. They have had experiences with the taxman over the years where they have owed some money and guess what, the letter comes with the demand for money or at times there might even be someone knocking on their door.

The House has heard from Hamilton members over and over of the terrible situation in our manufacturing sector. That is another area where we have to have a strategic plan. We have to invest. It is not just corporate taxes and not just a trickle down that is going to fix that problem.

The House has heard from the Hamilton members as well as the rest of our caucus that Hamilton is one of the hardest hit in the manufacturing crisis that is happening. I use that word “crisis” very clearly.

As I have said before repeatedly, 11,000 of my friends and neighbours have lost their jobs in Hamilton in the last year. Those taxpayers who have lost their jobs should rightfully expect changes to EI to help them adjust to their loss.

Turning to a damaged EI system, gutted by the former Liberal government, is not going to be that helpful when in fact the national average for accessing EI is only 40% and in urban areas 22% to 30%, which would include Hamilton.

In the eyes of many Canadians the EI fund, instead of being an insurance against job layoffs, has become nothing but a pool for the government. I would say to the government that it should choose Canadians over corporate Canada. It has chosen corporate Canada over Canadians in crisis. That is something that we all regret.

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of my friend from Hamilton who certainly gave a great dissertation about the philosophies of his party. I have here quotes from a couple of former NDP MPs who stated some things drastically different.

One stated that the NDP priorities are to direct tax relief measures to those most in need. A reduction in the overall GST rate by two points would promote job creation and give hard-pressed consumers a break. That is what Nelson Riis said when he was here as an NDP member.

Lorne Nystrom, when he was here also as an NDP MP, said that the NDP had been saying all along to roll back the GST. He kept asking when the finance minister would finally catch up with the Canadian people and roll back the GST, the most regressive tax in the history of the country?

I am not certain I am hearing the NDP talk about how great the roll-back in the GST is, which is part of this bill also.

I might ask him, has the NDP changed direction? Does it wish to continue to carry on with the most regressive tax ever or to hold on to a tax that if removed would help promote job creation? Has his party changed its mind?

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

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting to hear the member going back into the past and drawing on the comments of previous NDP members. I guess maybe I should go back and draw on a few from Brian Mulroney and see where we end up with that one.

The reality is that this party opposed the implementation of the GST in the first place because a consumer tax hurts the poorest people in our country the worst. The reality is that those with disposable income have the opportunity to have a lot more money to set aside once they have paid their GST.

Now, as far as policies are concerned, our policy is quite direct. It calls for targeted tax reduction, and by “targeted”, we certainly do not mean corporate welfare.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Hamilton for bringing some common sense to this debate.

The amendment I have brought forward would essentially put the human face back on government policy. We do not see right now any problem in attracting investment to this country, but there is a problem in terms of where the investments are being made. It seems to me that what my friend from Hamilton is saying is not only logical but it is what is needed; that is, to invest in our seniors and our human resources.

The fact of the matter is that clause 181 is simply a gift to corporate welfare, to those who may invest in Canada but might not; it might go to excess profits.

I would like my colleague from Hamilton to tell me what should happen in his community in terms of the investment in human infrastructure, in other words, the services that are required for everyday people because clause 181 clearly gives the nod to corporate Canada.

I heard comments, from the government bench earlier in this debate, to the effect that corporations are the ones that create jobs. Last time I checked, I thought it was people and small businesses. I would like the member's comments on that.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek has one minute to respond.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the things we hear repeatedly in this House is about 13 years of mismanagement. I am going to start using the term 15 years of mismanagement because it is still happening today. There are people in my community who are in desperate straits.

However, as the member for Ottawa Centre just said, if we are going to target tax reduction, there are a lot of small and medium businesses that need it far more than corporate Canada, and that is part of what we talk about. We have sustaining programs for new immigrants and for seniors that need to be funded. I spoke in this House about the National Anti-Racism Council that needs funding as well.

There are a number of areas if we had the opportunity, but one minute does not allow that.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate and I want to first of all say that government members often like to say that in 13 years the Liberals did not do this and did not do that which of course is utter nonsense, but the one thing that the government never says is that in 13 years we left them the strongest economic policies of any government in the history of Canada.

We inherited a $42.5 billion deficit in 1993. One-third of all of the money spent at that time by the Government of Canada was borrowed money. It was the strong economic policies of the Liberal government that created jobs that translated into an economic performance which was the wonder of the world.

I remember in 1995 it was suggested in the Economist that we were going to be the sort of basket case of the G-8 and that we might even have to go out and get a loan from the international development bank.

What happened? The Liberals came in. We re-organized and did the kind of things that needed to be done in those 13 years. When the election occurred and the current government came in, it inherited so much money it did not know what to do with it. So, it just spent it, but it has not invested it.

Look at its policies, the ones dealing with the GST. Any economists worth their salt would tell us the GST, which in this amendment I notice is missing and the NDP seems to cherry pick when it comes to dealing only with corporate taxes, costs the national treasury $5 billion to $6 billion a year. Think of the kind of money that we could be investing in terms of social programs and post-secondary education. The Conservatives are silent on that.

The fact is that they simply see the role of government being one of shrinking itself. It is not to be an agent of positive change in supporting people or giving them a hand up, not a handout as some of our friends in the corner might do.

The Liberal Party has a strong fiscal record. Let us look at the record of the current government. When it comes to universities, we have massive, growing debt for university students who come out after four years. We need to have a national conference and look at getting the provinces, the federal government and university organizations together, and look at how we can really tackle the issue of debt and investing.

When it came to the millennium, instead of building some monument, we decided on this side of the House to invest in the millennium scholarships. That was and continues to be one of the most positive programs for students across the country. We invested and created 500 chairs of excellence in universities across the country.

We kept and we brought back the best and the brightest. We do not hear those kinds of visions from the government across the aisle. That is a shame because we need to make sure that our students have the right equipment, that they are ready to compete not only at home but abroad.

In the area of corporate taxes, we were the government that reduced them from 28% to 19% and the Conservatives took a bold step of reducing them to 18.5% from 19% by 2011.

Our leader made it very clear that we need to continue to deal with the issue of corporate taxes because lower costs obviously help Canadian companies invest. We think that is very important, particularly now when the economy is starting to show some bumps on the road. We still have not heard about a national manufacturing strategy or forestry strategy from across the aisle. We certainly need to see that.

We see that unemployment is back up to 5.9% which is the latest statistic. We never hear government members talking about investing in our cities. I certainly have talked about that over the past. They say what a wonderful job they have done on cities. I guess FCM said that it was extremely unhappy about the fact that the government was recycling half of the so-called $33 billion from the building Canada fund and that in reality the mayors and councillors should be happy. We know that because the government told them to stop whining.

The federal government said it does not deal with potholes. I have not heard that kind of comment in over a decade. As a former councillor and former president of the FCM, I thought this was back to the future. I could not believe that we were hearing that kind of rhetoric.

Obviously, cities need to be vibrant. We need to invest in roads, bridges and sewers and deal with waste management and those kinds of things, but we also need to invest in those post-secondary institutions in our major cities. We need to make sure that we have an innovation agenda. Under the previous government, we had a very strong innovation agenda. We do not hear innovation from across the aisle.

We have an amendment before the House that deals with only one aspect of taxes. We know about dealing with taxes because we brought in the largest tax cut in Canadian history in 2000, the five-year $100 million tax cut.

There is no question that we need to attract investment in this country. We need to have a vision and say to the world that we are open for business and prepared to welcome those companies that are on the leading edge. That is why corporate taxes are important.

I certainly believe in foreign investment. There is a difference, of course, between foreign investment and foreign ownership.

Sometimes across the aisle the Conservatives talk about the GST, the terrible tax. The reality is that consumption taxes, as any economist will tell them, are not the way to go. Even the Fraser Institute told them that. The CAW told them that, but they know better. When my constituents are buying a pair of blue jeans, I am sure they are delighted to get a 1% reduction, but not too many people are buying yachts or luxury vehicles, which is where they would actually save money.

Again, the government talks about economic vision. We have a Minister of Finance who brought Ontario to its knees with a $6 billion deficit when he was the minister of finance there. It is not surprising that we do not have the kind of vision that we really need when it comes to dealing with the economy and with real issues.

We have heard before about health care. We have heard about the lack of progress on wait times. Again, there is a failure to lead. The Conservatives talk about 13 years, but in the almost two years that they have been in office there has been a failure to lead and a failure to provide a vision to Canadians.

The Conservatives said that we would have peace in our time with the provinces, but now what do we have? They had more provinces angry with them after the budget than they did when they went in. Clearly, they do not understand.

It is a small government. It is a government that believes in reducing the role of the national government instead of saying that we can be leaders, not only at home but abroad, and work with our partners. The provinces are out there are saying they need to deal with these issues in a collaborative way, but for them it is the highway or no way. That seems to be what the Conservatives like to put forward.

The Conservatives spend all this money and yet they fail to invest. Canadians are not bribed: they know that these people do not have the ability to deal with crumbling infrastructure, nor do they have the ability to deal with the issues on innovation. Therefore, this is of grave concern.

When the next election occurs, whenever that occurs, we are going to see a very pronounced difference between this side of the House and that side of the House when it comes to leadership, when it comes to investment, and when it comes to understanding our cities, our communities and our rural areas. Again, there is a failure to lead.

Immigration is another issue. More and more of our workers will come from abroad, yet again there is a failure to lead on that issue. There is a failure to create that kind of collaborative role with provinces and municipal governments in order to integrate foreign workers. Again, it is a failure.

One simple example of just not being prepared is the passport issue. We saw tremendous lineups. Why? Because the government failed to prepare. The Conservatives knew they would need to have extra people to be online and to support the thousands of applications, yet again it was a failure to lead.

I get tired of hearing that side of the House saying that we did not do this or that. The reality is that we did a heck of a lot. The Conservatives need to look in the mirror. They need to look at what they have not done and at what they have not delivered. They continue to talk about the past. They are in government. They need to start leading, but maybe that is too much to ask of a government which really believes that we should be smaller and less involved in trying to promote this country, both at home and abroad.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am curious about how the Liberals keep changing their position on the GST over time. Now they are talking about what a great tax it was. In 1993 they promised to get rid of it. One of their leadership candidates, who is now their critic for foreign affairs, said things like this: that he would just as soon that the Liberals “got rid of the GST”. He said, “I have not given up on” the Liberals keeping their promise and “getting rid of the GST”.

Does the member support what Mr. Rae has to say about getting rid of the GST? I realize that one month the Liberals support it and the next month they do not, but what is their position today?

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member had checked the record, he would know that we talked about harmonizing the GST with provincial sales taxes. By the way, the government just tried to do that recently with the province of Ontario, but because of bad faith, unfortunately, it did not go ahead.

We talked about harmonizing the tax, not eliminating the tax. As for what would happen with harmonization, if the member were to read the record very carefully, he would know that this was and continues to be the position of the Liberal Party, and that when it comes to dealing with tax cuts, again, income tax cuts are the way to go. That party talks about wanting to reduce taxes, but the best way to go is obviously to reduce income tax and put more money in people's pockets.

Again, on the GST, $5 billion to $6 billion a year in the national treasury does not have that effect. The Conservatives should know that. They should see what other countries have done and which way they have gone. Clearly, it has not been by way of the elimination of a consumption tax.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not noted in this place for giving a lot of credit to Liberals, but in this case I am very impressed with the member's speech. He talked about the fact that there is a need for a manufacturing strategy. As for the way he spoke on investment, I found that very interesting too.

I have a question for the member. For reinvestment and for the income tax cuts he is talking about, we have an opportunity today with the motion to amend to get rid of clause 181, which will end these corporate tax giveaways. Will the Liberal Party be supporting that amendment today?

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments. The simple answer is no. The answer is no because, again, we believe in the kinds of corporate taxes that create jobs. I know the member is very concerned about jobs in his community and in fact across the country. We on this side of the House think it is very important that these companies reinvest. In dealing with taxes, there has to be an overall tax management approach. We cannot just simply deal with one aspect, in this case the one in clause 181.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know that our colleague is a former president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Certainly, Canadian cities have been crying out for the government to take serious action and deal with the infrastructure needs of our communities and cities, yet the government has failed.

Could my hon. colleague comment on some of the concerns he has heard from his colleagues and from municipalities?

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with an infrastructure deficit of $123 billion, the member is absolutely correct. When the Conservatives were in office from 1984 to 1993, they had the opportunity to take the FCM program on infrastructure at that time and adopt it. They did not, so they have no credibility on infrastructure.

There is no question about it. We are seeing bridges collapse. We are seeing road problems. What the FCM has announced is just to deal with existing infrastructure issues. It does not even look at the future.

I think it is an important issue. This is why we are the party that understands urban Canada in particular and of course rural Canada because of our caucus members. We certainly want to work on this with people across the aisle, but they have to get it. They do not get it on this issue.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to stand today to speak to the amendment that my party has proposed on the economic update statement delivered by the government. Of course, our amendment speaks directly to one aspect of the bill, not all aspects. It speaks to the aspect of the bill that we find most troubling.

We are only being consistent. We were only being consistent in 2005. At that time, we saved the Liberal government from imminent defeat by forcing it to retract a corporate tax cut it was proposing. We had the money reinvested in many programs, some of which are programs that the Conservative Party has taken much credit for over the last while in regard to the few things it has thrown out to people in Canada in terms of housing and post-secondary education.

Our position is very consistent. It has carried forward over the years. It has carried through different governments. Why is it like that? One reason, quite clearly, is that it is different from that of the other two parties that sit here.

The other two parties that sit here represent corporate interests. In their desire to represent those corporate interests, they have been bidding down the tax system in this country over many years. They have been bidding it down in order to hold the respect and the support of the corporate system in their efforts to get re-elected and hold on to power in this country.

Recently, the leader of the Liberal Party said the Liberals would be moving to the left with a platform that would include measures to aid students in paying for post-secondary tuition, to combat poverty and to support seniors. In order to do that, we need revenue. As a person who came up through the municipal side, and having been a mayor for many years, I know that collecting revenue is the only way that we can institute programs to provide services to people.

The cuts proposed by the Conservatives in their last budget and in this budget update are massive. They stand next to the ones that we just heard about from my Liberal colleague from Richmond Hill, who spoke of the $100 billion that the Liberals gave up to tax cuts in the early part of this decade.

These tax cuts are in the order of $190 billion over the next five years. Of that $190 billion, where is it coming from? Our numbers show that with full implementation of the corporate tax cuts proposed by the government, by 2012 this figure would amount to $12 billion a year. Let us compare it to the GST cuts. The GST cuts now cost about $5 billion a year per percentage reduction, so we are going to see a $10 billion reduction through the GST cuts. On personal tax cuts, the estimate is that they will amount to only $8.4 billion over a six year period, so they are really not the issue that is of key importance here in terms of raising revenue for the government to deliver the services that Canadians require.

Therefore, when we stand up and say we do not support corporate tax cuts, we do that for a very good reason. Let us look at the profit in the Canadian corporate system, where one-half of the corporate pre-tax profits come from the financial sector and the booming oil, gas and mining sector. Half of the money that we are giving up here comes from two sectors in our economy that are not likely to leave. They are not likely to relocate to some other jurisdiction. They are essentially part of the Canadian economy. The rest of the corporate interests right across this country, from small businesses to large, make up the other percentage.

What we in the NDP say when it comes to providing incentives in the economy is that we need to send those incentives in the directions that are required. We do not need blanket corporate tax cuts that do nothing to answer the questions that our colleague from the Bloc raised earlier about the forest industry and the manufacturing sector. Corporate tax cuts do not do it. We are saying no to these cuts and we are hoping that others in the House will see the logic of that and join us in this effort.

Over the last six months, I took the time to look at the mining industry in the Northwest Territories because I felt it was very important to understand its impact. I also did it because the federal government has the final say on all mineral development in the north and makes the decisions about royalties and the direction of investments that may occur as a result of that.

Right now the diamond industry does not need tax cuts. It needs directed investment in infrastructure that can deliver more profit and royalties and can make a better deal for Canadians out of the resource being extracted in that region. Tax cuts will not accomplish that. Tax cuts will not build electrical transmission lines to the Slave Geological Province so we can reduce the costs of the fossil fuels burned to provide energy for the mines. Tax cuts will not build the highways required to get supplies to those areas. None of those will be accomplished through tax cuts. Those things will be accomplished through government investment in infrastructure that is required to produce more profit for government through increased royalties and taxation.

There is a role in this country for directed investment and I see it quite clearly in my area. When we looked at the opportunity for profits and to expand the diamond mining industry, we saw that there was a role for the federal government in establishing a national diamond strategy. The diamond industry needs a national diamond strategy. Diamond mines are being opened in Ontario and Nunavut. Opportunities also exist in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Mining diamonds represents about 10% to 15% of the value of this resource. The way things are going in Canada, we are letting the rest of the value in this very large sector escape the country. This is because the Liberals have a laissez-faire or marketplace attitude toward investment and the Conservatives have the same ideology going on. They are not allowing us as a country to maximize the return from our resources and allowing us to say that we have an interest in making that happen.

Corporate tax cuts will not do that for us. That is not directed investment. That is not what we need right now. Let us get serious. Let us forget the ideology that drives those two larger parties, which may not be so large after the next election, to continue the way they are going.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources and for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to a couple of things that the member said. He talked about ideologically driven parties. I think there is none more so than the NDP and particularly its unbalanced fiscal policies.

We have seen what happens when the NDP comes to power. We have seen what happened in Ontario. We have a former NDP premier who virtually destroyed his province and then wanted to be the federal leader of the Liberal Party. We had an example in British Columbia where the NDP came to power and left that province struggling for years.

There is no better example than my home province of Saskatchewan. The question is often asked as to whether the NDP's fiscal policies have permanently damaged the province's ability to be what it should be.

Those of us in the federal Conservative Party take a much different approach and a much more positive approach than our NDP friends in the House here.

I believe the member was mentioning some of the tax cuts. I want to talk about some of the legislation that we have brought in and get his response.

We are all familiar with the income tax cuts that we brought in and the fact that those cuts will make a difference for every taxpaying Canadian. Everyone knows that we kept our promise on the GST by reducing it by 2%. We have reduced corporate taxes, which the NDP opposed. We have brought in the child tax benefit to benefit children across this country. We brought in a tax credit for working folks, which gives them an opportunity to benefit from the changes we have made. We have brought in capital gains exemptions. We have brought in an accelerated depreciation, which benefits our manufacturing sector.

Rather than the very narrow and limited financial ideology that the NDP has, we have one that actually reaches out to all Canadians. It reaches across the board and gives everyone a break from the overtaxation that was previously in place because of the Liberal government.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, there was not much of a question there but there was a lot of historical inaccuracies.

We have to look at what happened when the New Democratic Party took over in Saskatchewan from the most corrupt government that Saskatchewan ever had, a Conservative government that ran it into the ground, that is its record.

We can go back in history to look at the kinds of things that have gone on in government. However, what we are saying here is that the government will be taking $12 billion out of the system by 2012. That needs better emphasis. The government is taking that money, throwing it in the air and allowing it to fall anywhere.

We need to have directed incentives in this economy to help the industries that need help and to move the country forward with infrastructure that can build industry and support industry, rather than this laissez-faire market approach that has driven this country for 20 years. It has driven our energy industry to the point where by 2020 we will be importing natural gas to heat our homes. What kind of a strategy was that? What kind of effort was that? I think the shame of that should stand in front of this Parliament.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River should know that in one minute I will cut him off.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, some of us can say in one minute what many other members may take fifteen minutes to say.

A few minutes ago in question period I asked the government a question about what plans it had to address the issues in the beleaguered forest industry. Much to the chagrin of the House, the question was not answered. The hon. member read from perhaps some campaign literature or something extolling the virtues of all the good things that are happening, and, in spite of the fact that I was very specific about the mill closures in northwestern Ontario and throughout Canada, my question was not answered.

The government clearly does not have a plan for forestry. If we are going to get anywhere, the government must understand that when 1,100 families are without work this Christmas that is just this month's bad news.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I really cannot respond to questions unless I understand the direction that is being taken.

I appreciate the member's concern about the forest industry. I think we need a massive strategy in the forest industry to drive new investment.

Last night I met with the manager of Tembec. We had a very good conversation about how we could actually work within the industry.

The House resumed from December 7 consideration of Bill C-28, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

Budget Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in talking to the budget implementation bill, I will focus my remarks particularly on the aspects of the forest industry and what may be done and what should be done to the bill to improve it so it can address this.

I will take us back to November 2005, when a $1.5 billion forest industry competitive plan was announced by the minister of industry at that time. That plan included funding support for what we would call transformative technologies, incentives for bioenergy expansion, assistance to respond to innovative opportunities, support for market expansion and a national forest community adjustment fund.

As I continue on through my speech, let us understand that the forest industry in Canada, the capacity for us to sell to the rest of the world, remains as vibrant as it ever was. We know our fibre is the best in the world. The product we have to sell and the pent-up demand that continues is something that should afford us tremendous opportunities. Let us keep this market expansion in mind as we discuss all other aspects that affect the industry and its dramatic downturn that we face right now.

These supports were developed in collaboration with forest industry leaders, union, labour and management, suppliers, to help slow the loss of jobs in forest companies across the country. Therefore, there had been a great deal of concentration and input. Indeed, the hon. member for Kenora, who established a forestry caucus, and caucuses are voluntary organizations, took great pains to ensure that representation from coast to coast to coast, covering most provinces and territories, was involved in the drafting of this and the pushing of it, not only through the Liberal caucus but through the cabinet itself.

We know what happened in January 2006. After that, the Prime Minister decided to cancel this plan, in the 2006 budget. From that date to the present, we have yet to see any tangible assistance to replace the supports that were put in place in November 2005, over two years ago.

As news happens daily in the forest industry, very rarely does it offer much good news. On November 16, 800 more jobs were lost in northwestern Ontario. On November 20, the announcement of a permanent closure of AbitibiBowater Fort William mill meant the loss of another 300 people, this time, with a full closure.

When we talk about a budget being designed to help the country give a leg up to industries that at various times could use the help, it is very clear the budget does nothing to help the forest sector through its own period of restructure.

Let us be certain we understand that. We know there will be some casualties. Anything else is a dramatic lack of awareness of what is happening in the industry. However, my contention is that thousands of jobs would have been saved by continuing to keep the forest competitiveness plan in operation.

The lack of response or the inaction by the government has not been due to a lack of effort by, again, labour or industry. Almost a year ago, on January 22, the CEP Union asked the Prime Minister to call a national summit on the future of the forest industry and to do that as soon as possible. It has repeatedly expressed its concern over the past 11 months.

In April of this year the opposition leader pledged, in response directly to the CEP, to hold that national summit on the future of the forest industry upon taking office as prime minister.

Just a few days ago, on November 30, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union again announced that it would do its best to organize a national summit on its own, since the government would not do it.

On December 5, the Forest Products Association of Canada called for Parliament to study the forestry challenges and develop a market based action plan that would set the groundwork for a vibrant forest industry.

Before I became the critic for FedNor, I was the associate critic for Natural Resources. The departmental briefing made it very clear that the demand for Canadian forest products, whether it be wood, pulp or paper, compared to the rest of the world meant that with some adjustments we could provide market share and grow our market share in many of those components. Whether it is higher end, higher quality product, we know we can find our niches.

After all is said and done, Canadian fibre is the best fibre in the world. The way we process it in terms of our environmental standards, the way we harvest it, meeting exceptional environmental safeguards, the way we produce it, by cleaning the plant operations, means that on all those fronts the industry has shown a dramatic interest from the time I was a young boy, when I saw mercury pollution and smokestacks emitting all kinds of pollutants into the air. The Canadian forest industry can stand head and shoulders in the world with the effort it has made in terms of capitalizing.

Just recently in Thunder Bay, Bowater, before it became AbitibiBowater, put $180 million of environmental improvements into its operation. In these days, in a very competitive environment, it is something that should be applauded and recognized.

In the budget of last February was a capital cost allowance. As I read the budget, this is the only assistance that has been offered. While the measure is a small step forward, it is far less than what is needed. The best way to describe it is this way. A company has to have money and it has to make money in order to invest in new equipment, which is logical. It also needs to show a profit to benefit from the measure. Therefore, on two counts, while laudable as a concept, the reality of what the industry faces right now makes it very difficult for a company to take advantage of this. Indeed, to take advantage of something, it is a two year window. I am offering right now my advice that it be improved.

In question period last week I asked the government what it was doing to help. It said that it was getting it done. However, for the workers, the families and suppliers, there has been marginal assistance. I insist once more, let the budget include measures to help the forest industry, the workers, the communities and, directly, the suppliers. It is not just northwestern Ontario, it is the entire province of Ontario and, indeed, the whole country.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for his excellent speech. I must also say that he has been a very passionate leader of the rural caucus and he fights for the rural people of Ontario and Canada.

It is in that light that I would like to ask the member a question related to the budget. Does he fully support reinstating the exhibition transportation service?

I have had numerous calls from desperate people who have heard that this program is going to be cancelled on March 31, 2008. This is a special fleet of vehicles used by the Canadian government to transport Canadian heritage exhibits across the country.

This program has been in place since 1972 in the Department of Canadian Heritage. If the program is cancelled it will dramatically reduce access by Canadians to their heritage and the works of Canadian artists. It will have a serious effect on non-profit museums and galleries in rural Canada which exhibit the work of Canadian artists.

Museums and galleries across Canada have used this program for years to transport important travelling exhibitions. The program brings high calibre art to remote communities generating a sense of national cohesion. I know Yukon is expecting an exhibit about Inuit and Sami art. This is a very important program. I hope the member will support keeping this program alive.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, as an example, with the recent sad passing of the phenomenal Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery, which has been one host of many of his works, and places such as the Thunder Bay Historical Museum and the Fort Frances Museum and Cultural Centre, may not be able to share great works of art with other communities of that size because they could not afford the transportation costs.

When we think of what is involved for these smaller museums and art galleries, without that federal government assistance, smaller communities all over the country simply could not financially afford to do it.

We always talk about the arts themselves as being an economic generator. We know that art galleries depend on a turnover and a change to be able to attract new patrons to come and visit specific works of art. Without that program I am deeply concerned, as the hon. member has mentioned, that many people will not be able to see the national treasures that we have and which should be shared with everyone.

When I talk about Fort Frances and Thunder Bay, it is the places even smaller than those communities that really want to try and build up their tourism by having displays and attracting people. It comes down also to the quality of life. The cost becomes prohibitive for some of the touring exhibits of these medium sized museums and art galleries to reach outlying regions.

The hon. member for Yukon has really addressed a very specific point. I hope that by mentioning that tangible example of what happens in the field, and in reality the smaller places and their ability to share our national treasures, that I have answered his question.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what is before us today is not just Bill C-28, but specifically, a motion to amend Bill C-28 and to delete clause 181, the enormous tax giveaways to large corporations in this country. We are attempting to put some rationality into our budgetary process.

This year, as last year and so many years before, because of poor planning and because of the abandonment of our responsibility to a number of sectors of our society, there are substantial surpluses in the budget. If people are on the right wing ideological bent, they would think that Canadians are being over-taxed because of all the money left over at the end of the year. That was a constant complaint from the Conservatives when they were the official opposition.

In spite of their rhetoric, when they became government, they showed substantial surpluses for two years in a row. They have also done the same things as the Liberals and over-taxed Canadians. From our perspective, it is a question of not properly allocating the revenues that are derived from taxpayers across this country and from other revenue in the form of fees and services.

We are looking this year again at a very substantial surplus primarily because of how well the resource industry is doing and even more specifically, how well the oil and gas industry is doing in exporting its product, mainly to the United States but generally around the globe.

We have a very large surplus which reflects, on a smaller scale, very large profit levels in a number of sectors of the economy, primarily in the financial services sector and the oil and gas sector, and to a lesser degree in the mining and natural resources sector as well.

Clause 181 in the present legislation substantially lowers the corporate tax rate. In fact, a double lowering because in the budget earlier in 2007, the corporate tax rate would be lowered from 22% to 18% by 2011. In clause 181 of this piece of legislation, the corporate tax rate would be lowered even more to 15% by 2012. In both cases, these tax breaks would provide a substantial benefit to large corporations, particularly the banking sector, the finance sector in general, and the oil and gas sector.

These sectors were given a substantial break earlier this year with the budget and now that break is coupling with an even more substantial tax break. Something in the range of 50% or 60% of these tax breaks will end up in the pockets of large banks, large financial corporations, and the oil and gas industry.

Does this make sense? Is this a good budgeting process? Is this good public policy? The NDP says it is not. What would the alternative be if we did not have this? The surplus would be larger if this tax break were not given. That surplus could be used to simply pay down our national debt. The tax breaks in clause 181, if Bill C-28 is passed in the House, could be used in this year's budget for any number of social programs. I would argue today that in fact it should be used in the sector of the economy that is in crisis and that is the manufacturing sector.

I come from Windsor, Ontario. The unemployment rates came out on Friday. In spite of the fact that the unemployment rate went down marginally in Windsor, we continue to lead the country with the highest unemployment rate of any substantial city of our size, which is over 50,000 people. That is because my community, both the city and the county that surrounds it, is primarily based on the automotive sector as the engine that drives our share of the economy and to a great extent drives the economy across the country, particularly in Ontario and Quebec.

Therefore, we continue to have the highest unemployment rate. As an aside, because I did a lot of work on this over my career in trying to help deal with unemployment circumstances during the major recessions we had back in the early eighties and again a minor one in the early nineties. On each occasion, and it has happened again now, the unemployment rate calculation substantially underestimates the real unemployment rate.

Because of the methodology that StatsCan uses to calculate the unemployment rate, the real unemployment rate in Windsor is probably approaching 15% at this point. The trauma that families and individuals are going through reflects that reality.

We have heard that these corporate tax rates are going to benefit the economy. As I have said earlier, that is true only to the extent of parts of the economy, in particular the financial sector, the oil and gas sector and natural resources sector.

These corporate tax breaks will do absolutely nothing to assist the manufacturing sector. There are all sorts of manufacturers, not just in the auto sector but in any number of other sectors, that have no profit. In fact, they are in a situation where they are suffering losses. They are suffering deficits on their balance sheets this year and in a number of cases for several years before that.

To give them a corporate tax break is absolutely useless in terms of it having any impact on helping them deal with the crisis that we are faced with in the manufacturing sector.

If the government were really serious about aiding that sector of the economy, it would be looking at other programs. In particular, we have seen both the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec step forward to provide direct assistance to not just the auto but the manufacturing sector generally.

They both established large fairly substantial funds, pools of money, to provide a methodology where the manufacturers who need to update their equipment, update technological endeavours within their sector, would have the ability to tap into these pools of funds from the governments and make them more competitive. Hopefully, as they are doing that, we would see unemployment rates begin to drop and people get back to work in that sector. Both of those two provinces have provide those pools of funds.

They have also called on the federal government to play its part, to get involved, and to establish a similar pool. If we were to actually do the calculations on the tax break for just those two sectors, finance and natural resources, oil and gas in particular, if the government were to not grant that tax break in this bill and made enough funds available to establish that pool of money, it would cost anywhere from $.5 billion to $1 billion which is what is needed for our manufacturing sector to get back on its feet.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's speech. I acknowledge that the member wants to assist the manufacturing industry. Obviously this is an industry that our government is working with, and we are working to create a strong future for all companies in Canada. I acknowledge that the hon. member has an interest in that, but we have a broader interest.

I get concerned when members of the NDP rail against tax cuts for corporations. Certainly in the finance committee we hear time and time again about how Canada is not competing and is becoming a high tax jurisdiction. That is why we see companies deciding that maybe they should manufacture elsewhere and do business elsewhere and that maybe Canada is not where they should employ people.

That is obviously a concern for the government. We want Canada to be where companies want to set up, do business and employ Canadians, because ultimately our society is better off. Canadians are better off when they can find well-paid jobs.

The best way to do that is to attract foreign investment dollars and foreign corporations and to also assist in bolstering Canadian corporations. It is not just about helping companies in trouble. It is about strengthening companies that can employ even more Canadians.

While I acknowledge the hon. member's statements, I just cannot agree with him. In addition, I would like to ask the hon. member if he understands that in assisting companies in becoming stronger, it has been proven time and time again that those tax savings are often passed on to employees in the form of higher wages. Has he considered that?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the member for Peterborough was not paying much attention to my speech because there are no savings to be passed on in the manufacturing sector by the current policy or by the tax benefit that we are granting to large corporations. If we are not making--

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

You're assuming they're all losing money.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

It is really simple. I would think that even the Conservatives could understand this. If a company does not make any profit, it does not get a tax break because it is not paying any taxes to get a tax break on. It is really very simple. That is the reality in the auto sector and it is the reality in the manufacturing sector.

The member speaks of job creation, but let us look at both the previous Liberal government and the Conservative government and we will see that the policies of the previous Liberal government are almost identical to the Conservative government's policies. In the last two to two and a half years, we have lost almost 300,000 jobs in this country's manufacturing sector.

It is not a question of getting a rise in wages, as he suggests. The reality is that there are no jobs. We are losing them. That pattern is continuing. Practically every day another plant announces indefinite layoffs or plants close.

These policies are absolutely useless in terms of dealing with this. The province of Ontario has recognized it and the province of Quebec has recognized it: they need more direct assistance.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have a short question on the museums assistance program, MAP. One museum suggests that the program has been cut 25% and it is one of the most underfunded institutions in Canada. I assume the member would be against cutting the museums assistance program and would help me to fight for the restoration of that money.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. In my community, we realize the impact that cut is going to have, particularly on the smaller museums, which are barely making it now. With a further reduction in government assistance, a number of them are probably going to go out of business.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this discussion of Bill C-28, which implements the budget tabled on March 19 by the finance minister. It also implements the provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, which is what we refer to as a mini-budget.

We know that Bill C-28 is a confidence bill and that if it is defeated we will be into a general election in Canada. I am sure that Canadians do not want to have a general election right now. We do not need one. I certainly do not want one either.

Having said that, I think that this bill, in implementing these measures of the budget and the mini-budget, falls far short of what Canadians deserve. I would like to cite a few examples, first of all on reducing the GST from 6% to 5%. We all know, as economists worldwide and certainly in Canada have commented, that this is bad economic policy. It is better to reduce income taxes or invest in programs and services that Canadians need. Reducing the GST is not a very good economic measure.

I know that the Conservatives committed to this in their platform, wrongly I think, as they realize now, but there is a better use for that money, that $5.5 billion which reducing the GST from 6% to 5% is going to cost annually in perpetuity. We have already lost roughly $5.5 billion per year by reducing the GST from 7% to 6%, so cumulatively this is $11 billion taken out of the federal treasury from now until forever. It is not a very good use of taxpayers' money.

I would rather see an investment in our national infrastructure. Let us take that $5.5 billion and, instead of reducing the GST from 6% to 5%, collaborate with the provinces and the municipalities and start dealing with our national infrastructure deficit. Some have estimated that the infrastructure deficit is in the range of $120 billion to $130 billion, but whatever the number is we know it is significant, and we know anecdotally about some of the pressures on our infrastructure. All we have to do is look at the bridge that collapsed in Montreal. There are many other examples.

If we do not deal with our infrastructure, we will create a number of problems. We are creating safety issues for Canadians. We are also becoming less competitive as a nation. If our roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and harbours are not up to snuff, we are not going to be competitive as a nation, especially in this global economy.

I, for one, would support not cutting the GST from 6% to 5%. I would support taking that $5.5 billion, working with the provinces, leveraging some provincial money, leveraging some municipal money, and starting an infrastructure program, initially a five year to ten year program, maybe, and extending it from there. We would start to make a very big dent in our infrastructure deficit.

There are mayors such as Hazel McCallion, a very respected and reasonable mayor of the City of Mississauga, who is saying that the federal government is being hugely negligent by not investing in infrastructure and, because of that, the municipality of Mississauga is going to have to increase its property taxes. If we had this infrastructure program, I am sure that mayors such as Hazel McCallion would not implement this property tax increase and would use the money to invest in infrastructure. That is just one example.

The budget and the mini-budget are deficient in a number of other ways, particularly in regard to their lack of emphasis on innovation and research and development. Our Liberal government started to reinvest in research and innovation after we started to deal with the deficit and paying down federal debt. We made large investments in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, in the Canada Foundation for Innovation, in establishing research chairs across Canada, and in putting money forward for research overheads, which are needed to implement these research programs.

As a result, what we have seen in Canada is the brain gain. We had been losing a lot of researchers and scientists who were leaving Canada because of the poor research environment. Because of the measures of our government, we created the brain gain. In fact, I met some of them at the University of Toronto recently. They are U.S. researchers who had come up to Canada as research chairs and spoke very positively about how our government had dealt with this positive research environment.

However, this is now in jeopardy. It is in jeopardy because the Conservative government is not making those investments in the Canadian Institutes of Health Research or the Canada Foundation for Innovation and also has very cumbersome and unwieldy processes.

A lot of those researchers were saying that while the environment is still not bad, it is on a decline. I think it would be a horrible thing to happen to Canada if we reverted to the brain drain, because we had undertaken so much effort to create this very positive research environment.

What does that research environment do? It allows us to be competitive in the global economy. It allows us to develop products and services that add value and that create high value jobs in this country. All we have to do is look around and we can see the impact of our global economy. There is a lot of material to read. I would recommend The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century as a starter.

Recently I have been doing some work on the diamond industry. It is well acknowledged that Canada is now the third largest diamond producer in the world, and we have more diamond production coming in from northern Ontario, but guess what? Ninety-nine per cent of the diamonds leave this country in an uncut, unpolished and no value added form.

I have been working with various stakeholders to see what we can do to deal with this. We could perhaps establish a diamond bourse or a diamond exchange here in Canada. From there, the value added activities, the cutting and polishing and other jewellery businesses, would grow. That is the experience worldwide. In fact, we know that it cannot all be done up in the Northwest Territories and in Yukon. We have to centre some of it in some of the major metropolitan centres. Of course, as a member of Parliament from the Toronto area, I am trying to centre some of that activity in Toronto.

We have a great opportunity with retail diamonds in Canada. They can be and are being differentiated in the marketplace and are a great attraction, but one of the bottlenecks I am running into is that the cutting and polishing of diamonds is increasingly happening in India and China.

We could repeat that scenario over many different sectors. We cannot fight that. It is the new reality, but if we are going to compete in this world economy, we have to seek the higher value added initiatives. We have to be innovative. We have to invest in research and in adding value to our products.

I could go on in regard to the manufacturing sector. Another colleague commented about it. Our businesses need to invest in new technologies now to increase our productivity. That is why the accelerated capital cost allowance measures that the Conservative government brought in need to be extended, but we need to give business a longer planning horizon. Businesses do not make decisions like these over two years. They need to have the accelerated capital cost allowances extended for five to 10 years.

We have job shortages looming. What was in the budget about that?

What was in the budget about investing in carbon capture and sequestration and in technologies that will help us recycle water in areas like the oil sands?

What was in the budget about dealing with intellectual property rights or fighting counterfeit goods? I did not see a thing.

What was in the budget about protecting small investors? What was in there about the brokers who are using investors' money and churning their accounts? There is no accountability. There is no responsibility. The integrated market enforcement teams, which are supposed to deal with this type of fraud, are not effective. They are ineffectual. What was in the budget to deal with that?

What was in the budget to deal with backlogs in immigration processing?

What was in the budget for literacy or for women's programs?

I could go on, but I am going to end here. I will probably vote for this because I do not want an election, like most people in this House, but I think this is seriously flawed.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Etobicoke North says that we should spend more money on infrastructure. He references Mississauga mayor, Hazel McCallion, but I would point out that we will be spending a record $33 billion in the next couple of years on infrastructure. It is a record amount for the federal government to be spending on infrastructure across Canada.

I find it interesting that when Toronto has fiscal challenges, it is blamed on the city of Toronto. However, when Mississauga has fiscal challenges, it suddenly becomes the federal government's problem and it is to blame. I think that is quite inconsistent.

Some of the problems we have had in infrastructure in Canada over the last number of decades is possibly related to the way we have built our communities and how they have sprawled out. I note that statisticians call it MTV; Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver have population densities of between some 4,000 and 5,000 persons per square kilometre and yet a city like Mississauga has a population density of 2,300 persons per square kilometre.

Should some of the blame for the challenges around the infrastructure deficit not also be placed on the way in which communities like Mississauga have been built?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unlike the Conservatives across the way, we do not look for blame, we look for solutions. We look for opportunities to deal with things.

On the question of urban sprawl, I do agree with the member that part of the problem that we have created in Toronto is urban sprawl. I was glad to see the Liberal government at Queen's Park announce the formation of a green space.

However, the reality is that we need to get the density of populations up to rationalize or justify more use of public transit, which is why I am glad our government invested in public transit. Unfortunately, we need to do a lot more because public transit is good for the environment, good for people living in cities and it is a positive thing to do.

Mayor McCallion is very credible. I think most Canadians would say that if she cannot find it in her budget it is probably not there. I know the mayor of Toronto, David Miller, has been saying the same thing. I think that he does a very credible job as well, but the reality is that the federal government needs to take responsibility for investing in infrastructure.

Our government did it over many years with our cost shared programs. They worked very well. If we look at the United States, its government is making huge investments in infrastructure. It is not worried or concerned about it. Our federal government needs to take a very strong position on infrastructure and leverage other investments but take a lead role.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member referenced a couple of things and said that he did not see them in the budget. There was no budget. We had an economic and fiscal update because we recognized the fact that there was too much money in Ottawa and that Canadians were paying too much tax.

The hon. member said a couple of times that Ottawa had lost $11 billion. I would like the member to understand that Ottawa has not lost $11 billion. The fact is that Canadians are in possession of that money. It is in their pockets. In my riding it is $40 million a year that stays in my riding, that can be reinvested in businesses and that people can spend or save.

The member seems to be under the idea that there is such a good thing as a good tax. There are no good taxes. There are just taxes and unjust taxes. Does the member understand the difference?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Peterborough does not get it. I think the Conservative Party is misreading the mood of Canadians. I think Canadians would tell us that we should start investing in infrastructure. It is because of the work our Liberal government did over 13 years in dealing with the deficit and getting our fiscal house in order that the current government is now seized with a large surplus. Yes, we need to reduce taxes but we also need to invest in those critical areas like infrastructure.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on the amendment to delete clause 181.

When I look at the economic update, I see that corporate taxes will be cut by 7% in the next four years. Members of the official opposition have applauded this because they say that it was actually their idea in the first place and that they should have credit for it.

Let us be very clear that when the government puts this forward and the official opposition applauds it, they are applauding and celebrating the fact that yes, in some resource industries, oil, gas, mining, we do have increased revenues, but it is not taking into consideration other natural resource industries in which communities are devastated.

I speak of the natural resource of forestry, which is also a manufacturing industry. In British Columbia, forestry will not in any way benefit by these tax cuts. There is actually not a lot of forestry to be benefited at all. We have no mills left on the Fraser River in British Columbia because they have all closed. The forests have been devastated by pine beetle and towns and communities have closed. It has not only affected the workers. It has affected their families and their children, who are then uprooted to go somewhere else for a job that their prime wage earner may or may not find, and retraining that they may or may not find, because with the corporate tax cuts, I do not see a major focus on retraining for these workers.

It is another example of the lack of balance pursued by the government. To rate the economy, what steps can be taken? A number of steps were entirely overlooked in this economic update.

What about apprenticeship support? Surely apprenticeship support aids our economy in major ways. In British Columbia, we have jobs we cannot fill. I realize it is hard to say that after listening to the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, whose town is devastated, but we have well paying jobs in British Columbia that we cannot fill because we do not have the skilled workers. We do not have apprenticeship programs for people to learn those skills.

With the coming of the Olympics and all of the development that comes with it: the housing that develops in the communities where the Olympics will take place; all of the creation of the Olympics; the facilities; and simply the visitors that it brings and the facilities they will need, aids the economy enormously.

However, without apprenticeship support, without support for people in trades and technology, those jobs that support our economy will go unfilled or they will be filled by people who do not really have the skills to do the job. In five years time, as we have all seen happen in B.C., we will back in repairing the work because the work originally done was not necessarily done by people who knew precisely what they should be doing.

My constituents in Surrey North cannot afford the private colleges that offer trades and technology. They do not have the dollars for themselves or for their sons and daughters to pay the high tuition fees. This was a superb opportunity to provide support to those young people and those adults who were looking and wanting to have training.

How do we attract investment? I heard people talking about attracting investment to Canada. If companies are asked what attracts them to a country, they will say that they want to move their company or their manufacturing plant to a country that has skilled workers, strong research and development, has a commitment to assisting companies to renew machinery and equipment and is supportive of green companies.

I cannot open my paper from British Columbia without seeing the housing development embracing the building of a home using the green components that we have learned about. Businesses are looking at that as well. What a wonderful opportunity this would have been to invest in green companies.

My colleague from Etobicoke North, who spoke a moment ago, talked about our national infrastructure deficit. I live in Surrey, a city of 400,000 people, and it has for years been one of the most rapidly growing cities in the country.

If the federal government had worked with the provinces and the municipalities, there could have been a vibrant partnership to renew the infrastructure that is virtually crumbling across this country. One part of the Fraser Highway in Surrey needs about $20 million to upgrade but our city does not have that kind of money.

People move to Surrey because there is affordable housing but they often work in Vancouver, Coquitlam or Langley. We need a massive expansion of buses or light rapid transit along King George Highway or the Fraser Highway but it would cost $800 million to TransLink, which is our overall transit organization and we do not have that kind of money.

All those people who want to live in Surrey but work outside Surrey cannot because there is no viable transportation for them. This is because we have a huge national infrastructure deficit and we are ignoring it and we are ignoring it at the plight of all the people who live in our communities and, in this case, in Surrey and in my riding of Surrey North.

The other problem is our investment in human resources. The first investment in human resources that any of us can make is in child care. If there are people who are able to choose and they choose to be home while their children are small, then that is their choice and I support that choice. However, not everyone can do that. The government gives $1,200 a year for infant care. I do not know how much a person would need to make in order to even enter into the workforce to support their family.

What the NDP looked for in this budget was an investment in people and their communities, targeted tax relief and closing the gap between those who have and those who do not, between working women and men who do not have those opportunities and those who do. How do cuts to corporate taxes help those entrepreneurs and small home businesses that actually support our economy? They do not.

From the position of someone living in Surrey and representing the riding of Surrey North, I support the amendment to delete clause 181.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interested to the comments made by my hon. colleague from the NDP. She went on quite a bit about trades. There is absolutely no question that there is a significant trade shortage in the country today which is why in our previous budgets we put in support for the trades, reductions for the tools of the trades, and things of that nature.

However, I would like to ask the hon. member, how does she believe that business is going to continue to hire, continue to grow, and continue to provide those opportunities for those tradespeople unless we have a very competitive tax environment? Otherwise, those trades are going to go somewhere else and I am afraid they will not go to Canadian companies.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, those trades will not go anywhere else in British Columbia because people do not have the skills to take the trades anywhere else. What they are looking for is an opportunity to learn the trades.

There are many companies looking to hire. Absolutely. But there are not the people with the skills to provide those jobs. That is what we are looking for, the opportunities that are affordable for people to gain those skills. And so, the trades will not be going anywhere else because they are not existing to go somewhere.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak about the proposed amendment—to delete clause 181—to Bill C-28, on the budget.

We listen to the Conservatives as they try to tell us that the only way for a business to survive is for it to receive a tax cut, failing which it will go bankrupt.

I wonder where the governments were in the last five years, during the softwood lumber crisis, for example. What causes these companies to go bankrupt? It is a lack of support from the governments—and that applies as much to the previous Liberal government—during the softwood lumber crisis—as to the current government. The industry needed help in the form of money and programs then, and not now, when the businesses in that sector have shut down.

It is all well and good to say that there will be a tax cut, but who benefits? The companies that are already successful and that are friends with the Conservatives, such as the big oil companies. They are the ones who benefit from tax cuts.

What has the government done for companies that have recently shut down? Did it make an effort to look for some way to help keep these businesses open?

I can provide examples. The UPM Miramichi mill shut down for nine to twelve months. All the people of Miramichi were scared that the mill would not reopen.

The Smurfit-Stone plant in Bathurst closed two years ago, after the arrival of this U.S. company. What is the government doing ahead of time to determine whether these companies should be allowed to set up here? That U.S. company comes here, buys a Canadian company, Consolidated-Bathurst, and then all of a sudden it turns around and closes its doors. This is a paper plant and its owners plan to sell it only to a non-competitor. Now there is no chance of this plant reopening in Bathurst, in northeastern New Brunswick, after being bought by just any old buyer. That plant was a major employer.

Two weeks ago, AbitibiBowater announced it was closing its pulp and paper mill in Restigouche, which employed 450 people. Those were well paying jobs that created many indirect jobs. That plant is closing its doors and the government has not said a word about it.

The government announced a $14 billion tax reduction for the rich oil companies or large companies that are making money. Those who are not making money should get a deductible. They are not benefiting from this tax reduction because they are not paying taxes.

Almost a month ago, the Fils Fins Atlantique Inc. plants in Atholville and Pokemouche, which employed some 300 people, closed their doors.

The government is saying that jobs in Canada have reached a record number and that there are a ton of jobs. However, often—I think many people can identify with this—people have to take on two or three jobs just to get by.

Instead of giving this $14 billion to big companies that are already making money—since, as I was saying, those who are not making money will not benefit from the tax reduction since they are not paying taxes—why not invest this money in municipal infrastructure? The municipalities are struggling with a deficit caused by federal government cuts. Those cuts started at the federal level and trickled down through the provinces to the municipalities.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities was here two weeks ago asking the federal government to invest in infrastructure. The government says that it will invest some money. It is all well and good to establish programs where the federal and provincial governments invest one third of the money each; however, if the municipality does not have money, it cannot participate in the program. Municipalities need money for water and sewer systems. In some regions, they need an airport to ensure economic development.

There is the issue of public transit, which is so important today to cities for environmental reasons. Rather than investing money in this area, they decided to give it to their Bay Street friends. Things will be better now because almost all the action will be on Bay Street given that the Toronto Stock Exchange has now combined with the Montreal Stock Exchange. They will give money to their friends to ensure they are happy when they go to the bank at night.

In 2006 and 2007, the employment insurance fund had a surplus of $3.3 or $3.6 billion. It is not true that the Conservative government said that it would put money into improving the employment insurance system for needy regions where many seasonal jobs were lost in the fishery and in blueberry or Christmas tree operations. The Conservatives said they would give money to these people. However, what they said was not true. These people are not important to them, they are just voters. They only vote and put them in power. They are not important. The Conservatives prefer to give money to the big oil companies. Why? We are still wondering about that. The Conservatives do not respect taxpayers and the voters who pay every day and who work to build this country.

When it comes to money that could be invested in infrastructure, roads are also an issue. In past years, people started talking about a two-tier hospital system. We have a pretty mixed-up system now because someone wants a service, that individual has to pay for it. Sooner or later, they will say that because they did not invest in highway infrastructure, individual citizens will have to pay for roads. They will set up toll roads. People will keep paying and paying. They cut taxes for big business and then they fool citizens into believing that they are paying less tax and have more money in their pockets. Then, when they go to the hospital, they will have to pay for care themselves. When they want to use the roads, they will have to pay. The citizens will pay, but the government will keep saying that it has put more money in their pockets. For example, the government is now giving people money directly for children and child care, but in the end, there will not be any child care centres.

How much money has been transferred to the provinces? We do not spend enough time in this House talking about people who receive social assistance, people in need. How can a person on welfare live on $500 when that person is disabled? How is that person supposed to live on $500 a month? That person did not ask to be on welfare, to be sick, to have an accident or to be disabled. Nobody asks for that. Every human being on the planet is willing and wants to work and do their part. These people did not ask to end up like this.

Instead of giving $14 billion to large corporations that are already making a ton of money and reducing their taxes, could they not give some money to the citizens who really need it? Why not give to homeless people who are on the street because they have nowhere to live? Why not invest money in building houses and putting a roof over the heads of people forced to live in the streets? Why do something like that and help these people? The budget contains nothing to help them. They were completely ignored . Why not allocate some money for older people who need to buy lots of prescription drugs that cost them an arm and a leg? They have to pay for electricity, the cost of which has gone up, as well as their rent. Why not help our older people, our parents who worked hard and are now retired? Some people do not have retirement savings because not everyone had the opportunity to contribute to a pension fund. Why not help these people? We live in a world with an aging population. Baby boomers are retiring, but there is nothing for them in the fat sum of $14 billion that is going to big business.

That is what the Conservative government is doing. We should be asking ourselves some questions about this. This was not a good budget or a good mini-budget, which is why we will vote against it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member suggested enriching employment insurance is a way to deal with some of the social challenges the country is facing. He has often suggested that in the past as well.

However, the problem with employment insurance is that it is not available to contract workers, to those workers who work very part time hours, to small business owners and to self-employment workers. Therefore, it is not a program of universal import.

Often these contractor workers, self-employment workers and small business owners are immigrants. They are new Canadians. They have come to this country, the land of opportunity and hope, to build a new life. They have decided to open up perhaps a small restaurant in Montreal or to drive a taxi in Toronto in an effort to get themselves ahead. However, the employment insurance program is not available to these new Canadians, these immigrants, a population that is vulnerable, at risk in many respects and that has fallen behind.

Could the member explain to me how expanding employment would benefit these vulnerable populations, populations that have been documented as being at risk, populations that the United Way of Greater Toronto, for example, has said are falling behind? How does expanding employment insurance benefit some of the most vulnerable in our society, these new Canadians?

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to make a difference between new Canadians or old Canadians and who is a Canadian. As far as I am concerned, if one is a Canadian, one is a Canadian.

I have travelled across the country visiting every province. I met immigrants in Toronto and they asked to have a program for the self-employed. I proposed a bill in the House of Commons, which was denied by the Conservative Party. It denied a program for self-employed people across the country.

How many times have we had bills in the House of Commons asking the government, which was the Liberals in the past and the Conservatives today, to make a change so self-employed employees could pay into the program?

As far as I am concerned, if people have jobs and lose their jobs, they should be treated the same. We have asked the government to change the rules of the employment insurance program to include everyone who works and wants to pay into the employment insurance fund and receive their employment insurance benefits.

It would be fair and just. It does not matter if one is a taxi driver, or a nurse or a miner. When people lose their jobs, they should have benefits to feed their families, and the Conservative Party refused to do that.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst, who is obviously making efforts to help workers. All parliamentarians must make efforts so that Canadian workers can share in the collective wealth of our country.

I would like to ask my colleague a question.

The most recent budget contained a number of measures to help Canadian workers. I would also like to remind my friend that Canada still has a significant debt of $467 billion. I am certain that my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst does not want today's workers or future generations to have to shoulder that debt.

The latest budget still includes nearly $33 billion to service the debt. If our predecessors had managed Canadians' money properly, we would not have had to take on that burden.

I believe that Canadian workers are happy to have a government that is paying down the debt every year. I would also like to remind my colleague that, as a result of the most recent budget, 385,000 Canadians are no longer paying income tax.

Why did my colleague vote against the budget, because it is an excellent budget for all Canadian workers?

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The member for Acadie—Bathurst has 30 seconds to reply.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Lévis—Bellechasse is telling us that the government brought down a good budget.

If that is so, then why is the government giving $14 million in tax relief to big companies, instead of allocating that money to pay down student debt?

The debt has been shifted. The government is paying down the debt, but our students and our children are going into debt to the tune of over $40,000 for four years of education. The government has done absolutely nothing to remedy that situation. Absolutely nothing.

Moreover, it has done absolutely nothing for infrastructure. Municipalities even report that they are running a deficit because of this government. That is why we voted against the budget, because—

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate.

The member for Vancouver Island North.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the question asked of my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst with regard to future debt and how ordinary workers would have to pay for that debt if we did not accept the budget as is. Ordinary Canadians are already paying that debt as a result of lost services. I will talk about some of the things ordinary folks, the people who really need those services, do not get and the reasons why.

I am pleased my colleague from Ottawa Centre moved the amendment that would take away corporate tax cuts. The budget was not balanced. It favours large corporations with enormous tax breaks. Everyone else may get a few tax credits, and that is good, but ordinary Canadians have to spend that money first to get it back. A lot of people cannot afford to do that, so there will be no tax credit or savings for them. If we allow Bill C-28 to pass unamended, it would make everything in our ridings harder to achieve.

People in my riding who are responsible for administering a lot of services tell me that the greatest need is housing. I live in a rural area and we do not see people on the street like we would see in greater centres. They do not congregate on the streets as they do in big cities. They live in campsites and in their cars. People do not realize this because our homeless do not live downtown where everyone can see them. We only realize this when we look to the service providers and find out that people are in dire need. These are not unemployed people. A lot of them are underemployed or they work part time. Some are young families with children.

We are doing everything we can to help them in our communities, but we are doing it with scarce dollars. This could have been addressed in the budget. Some money should have been put into a national housing program like the one called for by the NDP for many years. The program was eliminated, but we would like to see it resurrected so people can get into affordable housing.

The situation with respect to housing on reserves is very sad. Sometimes 18 to 24 people live in a house that was only designed for a family of four. They are living in very crowded conditions. Because the houses were not built to a very good standard, they are mouldy, or leaking or falling apart.

Money needs to be invested in these communities to ensure aboriginal people have the housing they deserve, which would give them the ability to live in dignity. It is quite shameful that we are forcing first nations to live in Third World conditions on reserves. I cannot say in strong enough words how shameful it is on Canada's part.

The $14 billion going toward large corporate tax cuts could have been invested in a child care program. Hopefully, my colleague's amendment will pass in the House and we will have a national child care program in the country very soon. All parents have been calling for a child care program. It is sorely needed and it would help ease the debt burden for a lot of working families. I fully support that. I look forward to the day when parents do not need to have bake sales to raise money to fund child care centres. It is important for all our communities.

There are other things that we do not see in my riding, especially where I live on coast. A lot of our communities used to be dependent on fishing resources. We have lost a lot of that. What we have lost is habitat protection and part of that is because there is not enough money in the system. We need huge dollars invested in our habitat protection on the coast so we can ensure we have a viable fishery for the future, but we have not seen that. It is sad. There seems to be enough money for so many things, especially for corporate tax cuts. We would like to see some of that money flow to our communities to protect our streams, rivers and lakes. We would like people there to protect those areas so we can have fish in the future.

My colleague from Acadie—Bathurst also talked about forestry, which is another area of concern in my riding. Because of the softwood lumber sellout, we now see the increase of raw log exports from all our forestry communities across the country. That is causing mills to close. I know the government has said that it will make some investment into mills and resources in Quebec, but I did not hear anything about the west.

I remember the finance minister saying in his budget speech that his Canada was from the Atlantic to the Rockies. I live on the other side of those Rockies. I remind him there is a whole province out there with a huge forest industry, which is in big trouble. We need an investment in our value added manufacturing. We want to see our communities stay alive. Instead we are seeing all our raw logs being shipped out of the country and being processed elsewhere. It is having a devastating impact on our communities and something has to be done about it. The government had an opportunity with billions of dollars in surplus to do that.

At the beginning of my remarks I mentioned that workers were paying for the debt. They pay for that by a lack of jobs. We have seen a loss of jobs in our forest sector and our fishing industry. There is the lack of child care and housing. People pay huge amounts of money out of their own pockets to the detriment of being able to pay rent, or mortgages or even living decently in a community. That money is being stolen out of their pockets and their tax dollars with nothing given back to them. It is shameful.

Education and training is another area where the government could have made a real difference for our young people. It could have invested in our colleges, universities and other institutions. It could have ensured that education was more affordable for our young people so they would not have to pay such high tuition fees to get an education, to further their skill building and to get a better career. A few million dollars into the education sector could have gone a long way to help young people reduce their debts, which would help them start their working lives on a more even footing, not having to start off with thousands and thousands of dollars of debt. Some of that debt is probably why they have to live in their cars and campsites rather than in a home. It is another shame on the part of the government.

One group I have not talked about is seniors. A seniors charter was passed in the House, but has never been enacted. The government could have invested in some of the things in that such as home care program and long term care for our seniors who really need it. This would help them and the system save money because they would not end up in hospital. They could stay home and be looked after with dignity. It think we would all like to see that for our aging parents.

Prescription drugs should have been made much more affordable, if not free for seniors, as well as dental care. These things were in the seniors charter, which has never been enacted by the government. Again, that is a shame

For all these reasons, I support my colleague's amendment to Bill C-28.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would agree with me that the government could do more to help tourism. She mentioned a number of industries that were in trouble because of the government. There has been an unprecedented assault on the tourism industry.

The Canadian Tourism Commission had money left over from its move which it could have used in marketing, but it was taken away. Lots of tourists travel through my riding to Alaska. The GST rebate for tourists has been taken away. The museums assistance program has been cut by 25%. Small museums are the heart of the tourism industry in rural areas. The exhibition transport service, which takes exhibitions of Canadian heritage across the country, is going to be cut next March.

I wonder if the member would agree with me that we should do more to support tourism and not cut all of these valuable programs.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely, the government missed an opportunity to provide some investment in our tourism sector. The member talked about museums. That is one other part of our communities that actually pays for the debt vicariously by not getting the investment needed to continue operations in a much more growth oriented way.

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

Mr. Speaker, the other day at a reception I had discussions with a group of military personnel. Someone who had just returned from Afghanistan said that the mission in Afghanistan is not over until the last Canadian who participated in the mission dies. He was saying that some of the men and women who come back from Afghanistan may have mental or physical disabilities and may require care and treatment for the rest of their natural lives. What he was referring to is that the mission is not just when people go in and come out, but it encompasses whatever requirements they may have for the rest of their lives.

When the government is asked what contingency funds are in place for the future concerns of people who come back with mental or physical disabilities and their families, the answer is that there are none. We can spend $4 billion on the operation of a mission, and I certainly will not argue what is required to operate the mission, but would it not be prudent for the government to ensure that certain funds are put aside so that the men and women who served in that conflict will have their needs met in future years? That could be done in a budget. Those funds could be allocated to make sure the money will be there to ensure their needs are always met.

The government says it supports the troops, but I always ask what happens to that support when the uniform comes off. Why would the government not do something of that nature on a specific point with respect to the budgetary funds?

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree with my hon. colleague about the shameful practice of not supporting our veterans once they come home. I personally know a couple of people who served in Bosnia and are suffering severe psychological trauma as well as physical damage from the events that happened there. They feel that they have no support.

It would not take much money out of the billions of dollars that were given to corporations to help support the people who so sorely need it, people who did nothing more than serve our country so proudly. We have abandoned them by giving that money in corporate tax cuts instead of investing it in the health and peace of mind of our veterans and their families. It is beyond me why Canada is so cold hearted in that regard.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this bill and to support the amendment that would eliminate the provision for corporate tax cuts.

With the current government, it does not matter whether it is a social program or economic development or what the issue is, the solution is always a tax cut. Clearly, these tax cuts are not working. The massive corporate tax cuts made by previous governments have drained so much potential from our federal resources and the current government is continuing along the same path. The high cost of these tax cuts means that we are not investing where we ought to be investing, which is in our communities.

We have seen a growing economic gap in this country. People are working longer and harder, yet they are falling further and further behind. There is a growing number of Canadians who are homeless, a growing number who are badly housed and who are at the limit, in terms of their capacity to assume any more debt. I certainly see it in my own community. There are people who are working for less than $10 an hour, in other words they are poor, who are paying $1,000 a month for an apartment for them and their families. They are under-housed and cannot make ends meet because they cannot support themselves and pay that kind of rent.

Where is the money to be able to invest in a national housing strategy? There are 75,000 families in my city, Toronto, who are on the waiting list for assisted housing. Those numbers are not going down; in fact, they are growing every day. We do not have money to build new facilities for them. We are not seeing new co-op housing or other forms of affordable housing being built. This is an absolute disgrace.

A recent United Way report showed that the number of families falling into poverty in my city of Toronto is double the number in many other communities. Why? Toronto is a fast-growing city. It is the home to many newcomers to Canada. It is the most expensive city in the country. Tax cuts are not fixing the situation.

Tax cuts are also not fixing the situation with the loss of manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing is the biggest sector in our city and yet we have seen the loss of 125,000 manufacturing jobs from our community. These are decent paying jobs. They are full time work. They allow people to support themselves and their families. People are being thrown out of their jobs. Their lives are thrown into turmoil. Often they are only able to secure much lower paying, insecure work.

Instead of targeting a strategy to help the manufacturing sector at a time of a high dollar, at a time of greater competition, at a time of high fuel prices, what we have seen is across the board corporate tax cuts which, frankly, are not helping the companies that are not making profits anyway. These companies cannot benefit from the tax cuts. Those that do benefit are already extremely profitable, multi-billion dollars profitable, such as the banking sector and the oil and gas sector. In fact, we are helping the already overheated sectors of the economy, which pushes our dollar even higher.

The government needs a focused targeted strategy to deal with the crisis in the manufacturing sector. It needs to make a strong investment in social programs. It also needs to make a strong investment in infrastructure programs. None of these things happen with across the board corporate tax cuts.

I want to spend a couple of minutes on the issue of infrastructure investment. It does not matter whether it is engineers, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities or the Board of Trade, in all the studies everyone agrees that we have a crisis in infrastructure spending, that the current government and previous governments have neglected their responsibilities to invest in our infrastructure. Whether it is water or waste management, roads or transit, the proper stewardship has not been exercised in these areas. We need a major commitment to invest in our infrastructure. Corporate tax cuts do not provide investment in our infrastructure.

I have put forward a motion calling for a national transit strategy. It is a disgrace that the government does not have a national transit strategy. Our transit systems are growing as our populations grow, especially in our major urban centres. In a city like mine, in Toronto, we are seeing a growing gridlock with the resulting pollution and drain on people's time. It puts stress on the family. It is a huge drag on business. The Board of Trade has said that the number one thing it would like to see is investment in transit.

This ought to be public investment and not shunted off to a public-private partnership. We saw what happened in the city of London when it had a public-private partnership to expand its subway system. There was a $4 billion cost overrun there which the public is on the hook for. It is false economy to say that we can divert this to the private sector, because ultimately the public will be on the hook for it.

For us to be able to invest the needed moneys in our infrastructure and in our transit, we need a strong tax base. Letting profitable corporations off the hook to the tune of tens of billions of dollars is a colossal mistake. It is wasting our tax revenue. It is missing an opportunity to invest in the services, the programs and the infrastructure that Canadians need.

At this time when our economy has been expanding and doing relatively well, if we cannot now make these important investments, when will we ever be able to do it?

I would argue that to let companies off the hook and not have them pay the taxes that they should be paying based on their very successful profits is a mistake. It is missing a golden opportunity at this point in the business cycle to be able to address the physical and social infrastructure needs that our country has.

Through neglect we are letting our country slide into crisis, a crisis of poverty for a growing number of people, a crisis of a lack of child care, a crisis of a lack of housing, a crisis of a lack of infrastructure, especially transit. With the growing number of seniors in this country, I fear that we will increasingly have a crisis in terms of neglecting the needs of seniors as well.

In conclusion, I would strongly argue that this is not the time for across the board tax cuts. We need to pay attention to the manufacturing crisis and the crisis in other sectors, such as tourism, that desperately need attention from the government. These sectors desperately need attention. Across the board tax cuts do not help them. This is the time to be investing in our country.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member represents Parkdale--High Park. Many of her constituents work for the financial services sector in Toronto, at King and Bay. Many of them are executive vice-presidents and vice-presidents in various banks, various investment dealers, various other financial services firms. They are very aware of the need for a competitive corporate tax regime in this country. They are very aware of the need for Toronto to have a vibrant financial services sector, a sector that is under threat, that has declined in recent decades vis-à-vis the global marketplace. As part of that effort, the Minister of Finance has been working hard to come to an agreement on a national securities regulator.

Does the member for Parkdale—High Park and her party support the need, support the creation, support the initiative for a single national securities regulator?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have more than bank vice-presidents in my riding. In have people who are living below the poverty level. These are people who in many cases are living in substandard housing. They are struggling and scratching every day of the week to try to support themselves and their children.

For the government to ignore the daily pressing reality of so many families in the city of Toronto is disgraceful. The government tries to divert attention and only says that it will give a corporate tax cut that will allow the banks to make even more profits through the neglect of the majority of people who are increasingly stretched to the limit.

Obviously, we want to help the economy. The economy is only healthy if so too are the people who depend on it. I can say to the hon. member that many people in my community, be they bank vice-presidents or others, want above all a fair society. They do not want to see so many people left behind. That is exactly what the government is doing.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member for Parkdale—High Park this question. How does she see the lack of investment in infrastructure, particularly transit, affecting the economy in her riding?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, when I meet with the board of trade or with small businesses in my community, they say the same thing. Because of the lack of investment in transit, the streets are clogged. We have gridlock in our city. Goods and services are delayed and are taking forever to get into our community. It is difficult for people to get to businesses. It increases staff time. It is a huge economic issue.

Clearly, previous governments did not invest sufficiently in transit. The current government is holding up funding for transit in our community. More transit is desperately needed. The city of Toronto has a blueprint for an effective expansion of transit in our community. All the city is waiting for is money from the federal government. My question for the government is, when is it going to deliver?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question. She was asked by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills if she finds any similarity between the government's position on a sole regulator for securities in Canada, which is something the government talks about here and in Ontario, but it is never mentioned when the government comes to Quebec.

Does she find a similarity in the position of my favourite poser, Gerald Kennedy, who is always against the recognition of Quebec as a nation when he is in Mississauga, but conveniently forgets to mention that when he is in Laval-des-Rapides?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting how politics can sometimes trump common sense when it comes to the positions that members take on issues. It is important when we take a position on an issue, whether it is about sovereignty or finance, that we have the good of the entire country at heart and that we are true to those answers.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the motion that is before us today seeks to provide a simple amendment to Bill C-28. It would remove a clause that the Conservatives intend to use to reduce the corporate tax rate.

I have been listening to several of the interventions from some of the Conservative members in the House. It has been very interesting. The argument goes something like this: we have to become more competitive with what exists elsewhere in the world.

One of the problems we have in Canada right now is that we have built, over the past century, a very balanced economy that includes a very strong resource sector. Of course, mining and forestry have always been the backbone of the Canadian economy, but we also have, especially since the second world war, built a very strong industrial base, especially in the central and eastern parts of Canada.

Because of the increase in the Canadian dollar's value, especially in the past year, the Canadian manufacturing sector has been under a lot of stress and strain. The same thing applies in particular to the forestry sector. Whether it be in Ontario or Quebec, we have seen a lot of companies closing. We see companies like Baronet, which is a wonderful Quebec company that has been manufacturing furniture since the 1940s, simply unable to compete with the current value of the Canadian dollar.

Instead of recognizing that in a country the size and the breadth of Canada that the government has to play a role in shaping the economy and maintaining it when there are these types of ups and downs that we have been going through, what have we got from the Conservatives? They have thrown themselves headlong into a race to see how quickly they could reduce the corporate tax rate.

What is the result of that? It is quite simple. In the forestry sector, companies have not made any profit in the past year simply because the Canadian dollar is so high and exports have become that more difficult for those companies. As a result, those companies will not benefit in any way, shape or form from this purported help that the Conservatives are providing. It is the same thing in the manufacturing sector, where very few companies have actually made a profit in the last year.

Who will get the $14 billion that the Tories are putting on the table and that they keep snapping their suspenders about? The companies that have made the biggest profits and that have been throwing the economy out of kilter, precisely the oil and gas sector, especially in the west, in Alberta to name it, where the companies have made huge profits in the past year.

Several companies will get cheques back from the government for $50 million, $60 million or $70 million because of the fact that we are reducing the corporate tax rate. It will benefit those companies that have made the most profit and therefore they should be paying the most taxes.

The banks are also in for a windfall. We all had the benefit of watching our current Finance Minister go cap in hand to the banks last year and ask them to do something about reducing the fees at ATMs, the automated teller machines. What happened? They told him to take a hike. He thinks they are his boss. He does not realize that he is in charge of regulating the banks in the public interest. They told him to get lost and he did. He came back to Ottawa, reported duly to the House, and said, “Sorry, they will not move”, and that is where it stayed.

It was the same thing earlier this year when he talked to the retail sector and asked them if they really found that it was fair that a product had two prices on it, one in Canadian dollars and one in U.S. dollars, and that the Canadian price was 35% higher than the U.S. price, given the fact that generally speaking in the past year our dollars have been pretty close to par. There was no problem there either. The retail sector told him he did not understand anything about inventories and sent him packing.

What is interesting is that when we look at the oil sector, no one ever argues that the existing inventories were bought at a lower rate. The minute there is an increase in the per barrel price of oil around the world, somehow the company that is pumping the oil into the tank in our basement, if we have oil-fired hot air at home, increases the rate overnight to go along with that worldwide increase. Anyhow, the argument of the companies works sometimes and not at other times.

The amendment before us would remove the tax cuts proposed by the Conservatives in their so-called mini-budget.

It is worth noting the following for everyone watching today: the Liberal Party of Canada is supporting the Conservative Party on these cuts for companies, for big corporations, such as the oil and gas companies and the banks. This is interesting, since the economy in Quebec is destabilized because of the massive increase in the production of oil and gas, which has caused the economy in the west to overheat. Instead of trying to alleviate the negative impact of this overheating in the west, what do the Conservatives propose? They would like to issue $50 or $60 million cheques in tax refunds to the oil companies.

What does that do for the manufacturers in Quebec and Ontario? What does that do for forestry companies in Quebec and Ontario that are in the process of shutting down, putting hundreds or thousands of families out on the street without a job? The Conservatives are doing absolutely nothing because they strongly believe that it is a mistake for the government to take care of the economy. They do not think that the government, even in a country as large as Canada, has a role to play. It means nothing to the Conservatives that this manufacturing sector has been built up over 60 years a mari usque ad mare. They are prepared to destroy this sector.

It is interesting to note that the Liberals tend to preach in major cities such as Toronto and to speak in favour of food banks. We forget that it would be worthwhile asking, when speaking to the managers of food banks and those working in this sector, what was the Liberal Party of Canada doing when the Conservatives were handing over a nice gift to the big oil companies? I will tell you what the Liberals were doing. They were sitting on their hands, as they have been doing since the beginning of this parliamentary session. Why are they doing nothing? Because they believe in nothing. They do not believe, not for one second, in the people who need help in our society. They do not at all believe that the government has a role to play in a modern and diversified economy such as that of Canada. The Liberal Party of Canada has a great deal of explaining to do.

Right now, the only political party that has the courage to stand up in this House, and to tell the public that we must help the manufacturing and the forestry sectors, is the New Democratic Party. The only political party with representation from British Columbia to Nova Scotia and a real chance to form the next government is the NDP. The people of Quebec and Ontario who believe that the government must play a more active role will vote for the New Democratic Party in the next election.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to what the member had to say. He is beating the same drum as the other NDP members who do not seem to understand that when we make the economy stronger overall, we provide more jobs and is that not what the government has done?

We had another record job producing month. After last month a record 17 million Canadians are working in this country. That is what the government has done for Canada. It is what we have done for the economy and that is the result of working with companies to build a stronger economy.

There is one thing on which I can agree with the member. The Liberal Party can get upset, jump up in the air flailing its hands, and come down firmly on both sides of every issue which means that it is very difficult to stand for anything in particular. But the member does not understand that not only are we assisting manufacturing, assisting forestry and industry but we are making all industry stronger which is going to result in better paying jobs for all Canadians.

I would love to know why the member does not support that?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague seems to have difficulty understanding that when we allow the economy to become as unbalanced as it is right now, and we start hollowing out a whole manufacturing sector that has been built since the second world war, we are not doing ourselves any favours.

It is not true that the jobs that are being created at Starbucks and at Wal-Mart are going to properly support families and allow us to replace the good paying jobs in the manufacturing sector.

I believe that he knows that and I also believe that he knows that his government is on the wrong track, and yet by ideological blindness he continues to convince himself, although he is not able to convince other Canadians, that his Tory government is right to allow the manufacturing and forestry sectors to simply die on the vine.

Look at the agricultural sector. We are going through the same problem right now. It has simply become too expensive to export. We have seen this type of economic problem before. It existed in Holland when hydrocarbons were found there in the 1950s. It emptied out its manufacturing sector and it took them a long time to rebuild a balanced economy.

We have the second largest country in the world but only a population of 33 million. We must have some form of assistance to maintain a balanced economy. That is what the Tories simply do not understand.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to narrow this down to a couple of people in my riding who are having great difficulty. This is about people who served their country with valour and honour and now are veterans. One of these people is the widow of a veteran.

Here is what happens. When we speak to officials at DVA privately over a glass of beer and with no microphones or anyone looking over their shoulder, they will tell you that the reason why they say no and deny so many people their proper rights and pensions is because they simply do not have the money. They would love to go public with that, but they cannot because we do not have proper whistleblower protection

I will give two examples. Chris Beattie is the widow of a veteran who served at Chalk River. Just before he died, DVA said to him that he was entitled to the veterans independence program. However, two days before the program was actually delivered, before DVA came to his house to deliver and assist with the VI program, he died. Because he died and because he did not actually receive the program, his spouse is not entitled to VIP.

Another example, which is reported in today's Chronicle-Herald, is that of a veteran firefighter with the Department of National Defence, 73 years old, who has been denied repeatedly for cancer and heart problems because of the smoke inhalation he suffered in his career.

The province recognizes that pension disability, but DVA says no. With a $14 billion surplus, does the member not think that for their service to their country the government can assist people to have some semblance of a decent life ?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague just pointed out a glaring example of where the Tories are wrong. Instead of giving a $14 billion tax break to the large oil companies and to the banks, of course we should be taking care of veterans and their families and providing them with a proper allowance. Those are the types of things that governments are there for.

Governments are there to take care of people. Unfortunately, for the Conservatives it is more important to take care of corporations. That is the difference between the New Democratic Party and the Conservatives. It is something that people will be able to concentrate on at the next election. Of course, when they look at the Liberals sitting on their hands, they will also be able to understand that they do not constitute an option any more.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

We will move to resuming debate now. The hon. member for Sackville--Eastern Shore will have about four minutes and then will be interrupted for question period. After that, he then can finish his remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was very proud a couple of years ago to stand with the NDP caucus and amend the budget at that time to eliminate the corporate tax cuts and put that forward for the reinvestment of $4 billion in things such as public transit and housing. I will never forget the current Minister of Human Resources and the current Minister of National Defence ripping up Bill C-48, saying that this was fiscally irresponsible and was going to do damage to our nation.

And what did they do when they formed the government? The Minister of National Defence, as the Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, was in Halifax giving out a cheque for public transit, money that the NDP fought for in the budget. The Conservatives can howl all they want, but the reality is that when banks and petroleum companies are making record profits under the current tax regime, giving them tax breaks is not the answer.

If we really want to give people a tax break, we can eliminate taxes on funerals and crematorium services. We can eliminate taxes on over the counter drugs. We can eliminate taxes, for example, on home heating essentials, as we are advocating in Nova Scotia. That is a good tax break. We also can help the poorest of the poor and stop taxing their disability pensions, for example. That is where good tax relief should go.

I have always believed in a one-third, one-third and one-third approach: one-third of the budget on debt relief, one-third on strategic tax incentives and one-third on social reinvestment. But those folks over there put the vast majority of it to the most profitable corporations.

What do we tell veterans and their widows? We cannot help them. What do we tell fishermen and their communities? We cannot help them. What do we tell the Inuit in the far north who are trying to get housing? We cannot help them. What do we tell students who are struggling under massive debts? We cannot help them. What do we tell parents with autistic children who are struggling to pay for the treatment the children require? We cannot help them.

It goes on and on. I remind the government about the children at Base Petawawa. When some of those kids whose fathers died in Afghanistan were having psychological problems, we asked a question in this House and the Minister of Health's response was that mental health issues are “a provincial responsibility”. What nonsense. They were kids from a military base who required assistance. Thank goodness for the report of Ontario ombudsman André Marin, who slammed both the Ontario government and the federal government. We are glad to see that there was an arrangement after that.

However, we should not have had to have a report. We should not need to have media influence in order to do the right thing. If the government has this kind of surplus, when is it going to invest in the people and communities of this country? My colleague from Toronto is absolutely correct, but it is not just Toronto that is struggling under a massive infrastructure debt. Halifax and others are as well. I will continue this right after question period, Mr. Speaker.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-28, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of Motion No. 1.

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Before the debate was interrupted, the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore had the floor and he has seven minutes remaining in the time allotted for his remarks. I therefore call upon the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.

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

Mr. Speaker, again I am going back to the issue of the day, which is the big difference between those of us in the NDP and those in the Conservative and Liberal Parties.

We in the NDP believe in the collective. We believe that the government can be a source of good for Canadians across this country from coast to coast to coast. We also believe that the resources of this country should benefit Canadians. As well, we should be able to share our expertise and wealth with those around the world who are struggling for human rights and human dignity and also on the environment, education, health, et cetera.

However, also within our own country there are many who are veterans and widows of veterans, who have been promised certain things by the government and have been denied. As my colleagues used to say, there is no greater fraud than a promise that has been broken.

On June 28, 2005, when the current Prime Minister was then opposition leader, he promised Joyce Carter of Cape Breton that if the Conservatives formed the government they would immediately extend the VIP services for all widows and veterans of World War II and Korea. Twenty-two months later, there is still nothing.

Also, when the Prime Minister and the member for New Brunswick Southwest, who is now the Minister of Veterans Affairs, were in opposition, they said publicly in Gagetown and during the campaign in 2005 that they would look after and compensate all those victims of defoliant spraying in Gagetown from 1956 to 1984. “All” of them is what they said. They recently came out with a package that covers only those in 1966 and 1967, which is exactly what the Liberals had proposed beforehand.

The Conservatives in New Brunswick were elected on that promise and they broke that promise. It is unconscionable that a government that is like Scrooge McDuck, sitting on a pile of coins, loonies, toonies and cash, is not able to help those who served their country with such distinction and honour.

I recently toured the north. One of the most outrageous conditions people there are living with is extremely crowded housing. They simply do not have enough housing to go around. We talk about Arctic sovereignty, first nations rights and helping aboriginal people and improving their health, yet the government does very little, if anything, to solve the housing crisis of the far north.

It does not take a rocket scientist to understand this. After travelling to Resolute, Grise Fiord, Arctic Bay or Iqaluit and the other communities of the great territory of Nunavut, one understands that there is a terrific housing shortage going on. If the government is not going to help when it has billions and billions of dollars of surplus, when is it going to do so?

As I said earlier, a colleague of mine who just got back from Afghanistan said the mission in Afghanistan will not end until the final soldier who serves in that country passes away. What he meant by that was quite clear. A lot of the individuals coming back from Afghanistan are going to suffer from mental and physical disabilities. A lot of them are going to require long term care. They and their families are going to need that care for the rest of their lives. That is what he was referring to: the mission will continue in their lives. It is the same for people who lose loved ones in Afghanistan. For them, Remembrance Day is every day.

The government has billions of dollars for the mission in Afghanistan. We argued that point the other day. The reality is that it is not hesitant to spend money on the actual mission itself, but when the government is asked what contingency funds are put aside to help with the mental and physical disabilities the soldiers and their families may have down the road, the answer is zero.

I reiterate to the government: if it cannot do this now, when it has surpluses, when is it going to do it? I advise the government to make sure there is enough money put aside to ensure the proper care and treatment down the road of those brave men and women who serve their country.

Also, one of the greatest opportunities we have for economic development in this country is shipbuilding. The industry committee unanimously adopted a resolution that the accelerated capital allowance, or ACA, proposal should go from two years to five years, yet the government still has not done that. Those in the shipbuilding industry would like the same considerations that the government has been giving to the aerospace industry in Quebec for a long time.

We have approximately $20 billion worth of construction to do on naval replacement vessels, Coast Guard replacement vessels, ferries, the laker fleet, tugs, et cetera. We have five remaining shipyards in this country that could do that type of work.

I would encourage the government to ensure that the domestic procurement process enables those workers and those industries in those yards across the country, in Victoria, Vancouver, Port Welland, Lévis, Halifax, and Marystown in Newfoundland and Labrador,to have the opportunity for long term sustainable growth. That way, especially in Atlantic Canada, people would not have to go down the road to find work.

Those are some of the things the budget should be addressing.

Other issues, of course, are seniors and student debt.

We in Halifax have the privilege of being one of the education breadbaskets of Canada, but so many students who come to our schools get their education and leave with a massive debt. That cripples them in their opportunities down the road and they make choices that they normally would not like to make, such as having to move to the United States or other parts of Canada. We would like them to be able to work and find their livelihood right in Atlantic Canada, but saddling them with a massive debt is unconscionable.

We in the NDP were very proud to rewrite the last budget of the Liberals when they turned around, drafted Bill C-48, took away the corporate tax cuts and reinvested that in housing, public transit and student education. I was very pleased to see that the Premier of Nova Scotia just recently authorized a $400 rebate for students in our province.

These are some of the things the budget should be doing. I would be happy to answer any questions that members of the House of Commons may have.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore. I listened carefully to his comments. The member likes to paint himself as a champion of veterans and their families. How does he square this with the actions of the NDP caucus last Thursday evening when those members stood in the House to vote against the supplementary estimates?

The NDP was the only party to oppose the supplementary estimates, estimates that contained additional funds for ex gratia payments for victims of agent orange, for the establishment of five clinics for operational stress injury, for the Office of the Veterans Ombudsman, for the restoration of World War I monuments and for the Vimy commemoration. I could go on. The NDP voted against $42.8 million for veterans and veterans services.

How does the member square that with his regular efforts to paint himself as a champion of veterans? When will he start to walk the walk? The member takes hypocrisy to staggering new heights.

How does he square the circle for the entire NDP as a party? NDP members talk and talk, but when it comes time to walking the walk and voting for the supplementary estimates and real money, significant money, $42.8 million for veterans, they do not walk the walk. They just talk the talk. I would love to hear his reaction to that.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the hon. member does not have that much service in the House, so let me remind the hon. member why we voted against the supplementary estimates.

It was his government that promised almost 300,000 people on the defoliant spraying in Gagetown that they would be compensated. It has ended up that less than 4,000 will be able to apply. Much more than $19 million is going to be needed to look after that. We are looking at hundreds of millions of dollars. That was the promise they made.

The Conservatives also made a promise to extend the VIP services to all veterans and all widows. That was not in the estimates.

There are many other things they have promised veterans and have failed to deliver time and time again.

Right now I have a veteran in Windsor, Nova Scotia, who is being denied compensation for the smoke inhalation he suffered while serving his country. Many more veterans are denied hearing aids. Many more veterans are denied VIP services. Many more veterans are denied orthotics. All of that is because there is nowhere near enough money, which the member said is in the Veterans Affairs budget, to look after those needs.

This is also the government that promised to get rid of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board and replace it with medical and military personnel. But what did it do? It brought in Angela Vautour, a defeated Conservative candidate, to sit on that board of appeals. She knows nothing about veterans and their medical concerns.

He talked about hypocrisy. The member for Palliser is oozing it out of his pores.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore for walking us through some of the clear problems the NDP has with the current strategy of corporate tax cuts being the cure for everything, from toothaches to dyspepsia to whatever we can think of.

One of the things that my colleague from Sackville raises is a great deal of these corporate tax cuts would go to the oil and gas industry, which already enjoys record profits and do not really need any motivation to do any more development in the tar sands. Some say it is already overdeveloping the tar sands to the expense of our water reserves, et cetera.

Would the hon. member confirm if what I have read is true? The increase in royalties that the province of Alberta recently applied to the oil and gas industry is 100% tax deductible at the federal end? In other words, it is getting a tax deduction for paying a royalty to gouge and use up all our valuable energy resources.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the provincial and federal Conservatives are in cahoots on this one. The only aspect of our economy they seem to care about is the energy sector.

When it comes to individuals, those who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector, in forestry, in auto, in shipbuilding, in the fishery, in farming, et cetera, they are told to get to the back of the line.

The oil companies and the banks make record profits under the current tax regime. Why would the government give them further tax incentives when there are so many pressing needs out there? This includes not only in the city of Winnipeg, but from Vancouver to St. John's and up right to the far north.

There are so many other things the government could do with that money. In fact, if the Conservatives would like a lesson, they can come to Room 240, Confederation Building, and I would be happy to share a beverage with them and explain it to them very carefully.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on the report stage amendment to Bill C-28 put forward by my colleague from Ottawa Centre, the one and only amendment. It calls upon the government and the House of Commons at this stage of debate to delete clause 181 of Bill C-28.

For those who have been following the debate over the last days in the House of Commons, clause 181 contemplates even deeper corporate tax cuts as an aspect of the economic statement.

The public should be aware that for the last decade or so, there has been a mantra, a theme, a motif, throughout the Liberal government for 13 years and now the Conservative government, that the cure to all Canada's evils is corporate tax cuts. If it is child poverty, we need corporate tax cuts. If we have potholes in our streets, we need corporate tax cuts. If we give more money to the Canadian business community, that will somehow translate into relief for health care ills, infrastructure and virtually everything of which we can think.

Those of us in the NDP have challenged that orthodoxy. We understand we need a competitive tax regime, but we believe we already have that. In fact, those of us who were asked to tighten our belts for the last 10 or 15 years through record surplus budgets have decided it is time to invest some of our hard-earned cash elsewhere. Some taxpayer dollars can go elsewhere other than its final state of repose in the deep pockets of a banker or somebody in the oil and gas industry.

We believe the deep corporate tax cuts contemplated in Bill C-28 would undermine the fiscal capacity of the government to address the many other legitimate priorities our country has. Simply put, it would take $190 billion of fiscal capacity away from the government and future governments, because God willing, the government may not last that long and perhaps another government will take its place. With a corporate tax structure, which would then be the lowest of developed nations, not in the middle of the pack, not in a competitive, on par basis, but the lowest, we believe we would lose the ability to address the many other pressing social deficits that have been created by years and years of what can only be described as an ideological crusade to eliminate taxes on business.

My father used to tell me that not long ago the tax system was structured in such a way that business tax would be about 50% of government's revenue and individual personal income tax would be approximately the other 50%. Systematically, incrementally, bit by bit, slowly over the last 20 or 30 years, that has changed dramatically. I do not know what it comes down to with these current, most recent changes, but the proportion was roughly 85% individual personal tax and 15% total revenue from corporate tax. That will be dramatically reduced even further. I can only surmise, given the relentless pressure to reduce and reduce, the ultimate goal would be corporations and businesses would pay no tax and all the tax burden would be shifted onto us.

In their race to the bottom, there has been a competition between the Liberals and the current Conservative government. The Conservative government said that it would reduce the corporate tax from 21.5% or 22% down to 18.5%. The immediate reaction from the leader of the official opposition was the Liberals would have gone even further. While that was pretty good, they could do better.

The Minister of Finance took him up on his challenge. If the Conservatives had carte blanche to cut in half and slash corporate taxes, they would take them up on that game of chicken and reduce it to 16.5% in 2011 and to 15% by 2012. That is way below the average of comparable developed nations. It is as if this in and of itself would be the answer to all the shortcomings and the social deficit and the spending that we all recognize is necessary.

There is a theory that “a rising tide lifts all boats”. When the economy is cooking, we all benefit. We have changed that cliché to “a rising tide raises all yachts”. It fails to lift a lot of the boats of the people I know and the boats of the people I represent.

I thank my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore for pointing this out. The only social spending that has occurred in the last 15 years, 13 years of Liberal rule and two years now of Conservative, has been when the NDP managed, through its balance of power, to stop contemplated corporate tax cuts put forward by the Liberal government of the day. We used our influence, traded our support, to the minority Liberal government in exchange for significant social spending in Bill C-48. We managed to interrupt another completely unnecessary and secretive gift to Bay Street.

The Liberals did not run on that. They certainly did not give Canadians a chance to have any say on whether another $4.8 billion would be dutifully shuffled to their friends in corporate Canada. Fortunately, we intervened and that resulted in $4.8 billion worth of social spending.

The Canadian public deserves to be made aware of this. Some of the social spending now announced by the Conservative government is money that was booked and earmarked two years ago in Bill C-48. The NDP used its balance of power in a minority government to trigger some much needed social spending in social housing, post-secondary education, transit and foreign aid, some of the shortfalls.

We were asked to tighten our belts for 10 surplus budgets in a row. The Liberals told us that the social spending we called for would come but they had to first take care of some necessary priorities, such as paying down the debt and massive corporate tax cuts to their buddies on Bay Street. It seems they always come first.

Without the NDP to provide a balance of power in a minority situation, the government will always come first. When a right wing corporate organization elects a right wing corporate government to serve its interests, it is not surprising then that budgets are crafted in such a way to benefit those right wing corporate interests and the rest of us are forgotten.

I represent the riding of Winnipeg Centre, which off and on, depending on what details are used by Statistics Canada, is the poorest riding in Canada. When the Liberals ruled the day and told us that we had to tighten our belts, they cut and hacked and slashed every social program by which we define ourselves as Canadians. Marginalized groups, low income groups, like in the riding I represent, suffered the most. Let me give one example.

When the Liberals cut back eligibility for UIC, or EI as it is called today, those cutbacks in my riding alone amounted to $20.8 million worth of income revenue. There was a similar amount in my colleague's riding of Winnipeg North and even more in some of the ridings in Atlantic Canada. This $20.8 million worth of income that came from the federal government into my low income community pushed more people off EI and on to welfare. That was like taking the payroll of a company with 2,000 employees out of my riding. It ripped federal government revenue out of the heart of my riding and put it into more tax cuts for corporations.

We have just about had it with this ideology. We will oppose, at every opportunity, these further gratuitous wheelbarrows full of money to corporate Canada. Every time the Conservatives are in charge of the budget, they give the money away. They squander their money.

The Conservatives are the most reckless, foolhardy, wasteful party in Canadian history, the way they shovel money to Bay Street with no expected return. It is like Jack and the Beanstalk, where Jack trades--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I must interrupt the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. We will now have questions and comments, and the hon. member for Abbotsford has the floor.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention. I did hear, however, that he has this fixation for corporate taxes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

You do. You guys do. It is an obsession. That is all you do.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when we listen to the member's speech and also the heckling that is coming from the NDP corner of the House, we notice that the NDP members fail to mention in any way some of the other significant tax cuts that we have delivered to Canadians.

The NDP has failed to mention that we have added another 1% cut to the GST. The GST has gone from 7% down to 5%. That helps the poorest Canadians in our society.

We have also reduced income taxes for hard-working, ordinary Canadian families. The tax break provides them with a bit of help in raising their families. We have also reduced taxation on small businesses. Yet the NDP votes against all of those tax reductions.

Despite the fact that the member focused very much on reductions in corporate taxation, why does he oppose the reduction in taxes for hard-working Canadians, a reduction in the GST, a reduction in taxes for small business people across this country? Why?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's comments are a graphic illustration of how out of touch the Conservatives are with low income Canadians. I am not sure if that party can consult at all. As soon as the government announced its 1% GST cut, my phone started ringing off the hook with calls from the low income people whom I represent.

I should point out that 47% of all families in my riding and 52% of all children in my riding live below the poverty line. When the government tells those people that there is a cut to the GST, they think it is a cut to their GST rebate cheque. They receive a rebate cheque on a regular basis from the government. They do not pay GST.

My colleague's targeted tax cut in terms of a GST break is of no use to the genuinely poor in this country. They do not pay GST. They get a GST rebate. If anything, they will get less money back from the GST rebate when the tax is reduced.

If the government were serious about targeted tax cuts and serious about ameliorating some of the social deficit, it would take some of the $190 billion that the government has squandered by shovelling it over to its corporate buddies and put some of that money toward the infrastructure deficit in our streets so that the public could enjoy public amenities like they used to.

The government should do something about social housing. The Mulroney government eliminated all of the social housing programs in 1993, except for one, and the first thing the Liberal government did when it took over in 1993 was to kill that too. I know because I was the president of a housing co-op that was waiting for an allocation of units so we could put the shovel in the ground and start building. The first thing the Liberal government did was kill the very last remaining social housing program. Canada has had a social housing deficit accumulating year after year ever since.

The government has squandered our future by giving all that money away to companies that do not need it. It is irresponsible. It is wasteful. It is negligent.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for his terrific presentation on what the Conservatives are doing around this fiscal update. It is certainly not in the interests of ordinary working families from coast to coast to coast.

The member has a great deal of experience around ethics. He serves on the ethics committee. I would like to ask him about the ethical difference between the Conservatives and its budgets and the former Liberal government and its budgets, which also just shovelled money out of the back of a truck to the corporate sector. Does he see any ethical difference in how these two same old, same old parties approach fiscal management?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has 40 seconds to respond.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief in thanking my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster for the question. It is morally and ethically reprehensible to prioritize gratuitous gifts to one's buddies at the expense of much needed social spending.

The only difference I can see between the way the Liberals did it and the way the Conservatives do it is the quid pro quo. The Liberals used to shovel money to their corporate buddies in exchange for massive campaign donations and political donations. The Conservatives, at the request of the NDP, have banned corporate donations now, so that the Conservatives do not really have to shovel money to Bay Street any more. The government will not get anything back for it anyway. It is purely ideological. Maybe that is the ethical--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow the member for Winnipeg Centre. I think it is a good segue into what the budget update reflects and what is happening in the main streets of this country.

When I arrived on Parliament Hill three and a half years ago, I suddenly realized, like my other NDP colleagues, what a bubble Conservative and Liberal members of Parliament live under. They come here and corporate lobbyists are around and they read from the corporate media that everything is just rosy in Canada and they believe it because they are profoundly isolated from what is really going on.

I think it is important to provide that context of reality, this dose of reality, as we look at the economic statement. Two-thirds of Canadian families have actually seen their real income fall since 1989. That, of course, was the year when the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was implemented. Subsequent to that, there has been NAFTA. Now the Conservatives and Liberals are trying to foist the so-called security and prosperity partnership, the SPP, on Canadians.

Through that entire process, none of them, not a single Liberal, not a single Conservative member of Parliament have actually looked into what has happened economically with most Canadian families. Two-thirds of Canadian families have seen a fall in real income. The middle class has lost about a week's income for every year since 1989, since the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was implemented. The lower middle class have lost about two weeks of income. The poorest of Canadians have seen a catastrophic fall in income. They have lost about a month and a half of income in real terms.

At the same time, overtime hours are up about 50%. The number of Canadians working overtime is up considerably. The average Canadian worker is working about 200 hours more than before. People are working longer and longer hours for less and less pay. What has been the net result? The debt load of the average Canadian family has doubled over that period.

What we are talking about is an income crisis. We talk often about the prosperity gap. It is the prosperity gulf. It is an income crisis that most Canadian families are living through. Yet Liberals and Conservatives seem to take their direction from corporate CEOs and corporate lawyers because in talking to those folks, life is rosy. They do not need any government support. They do not have to look at the deplorable situation that Canadian services such as health care and our post-secondary education system are in.

This deplorable income crisis is something that is very real. It means that tonight in the main streets and parks of our nation, about 300,000 Canadians will be homeless. They will be sleeping in homeless shelters, in parks and on main streets, despite how cold the Canadian winter is.

What has the Conservative government done to address the income crisis and what most Canadian families are living through? What we have seen is basically an economic update that says the priority for the government is corporate tax cuts, massive corporate tax cuts. Never have corporate tax cuts been deeper.

Over the next three or four years, we are talking about an impact of $12 billion a year in corporate tax cuts. The priority of the government is to shovel money at the corporate sector, despite the fact that the corporate sector is at its record level of profits. It makes absolutely no sense, but that is the priority that is contained within the economic statement.

The Prime Minister likes to say that we have a surplus and that is why the government can give all that money to the corporate sector. The Prime Minister's saying that is like the tale of the little child who was given $2 by his family to go to the store to buy milk and bread, to buy some essentials, and instead spent three-quarters of the money on candy and when he got back to his house said, “I have a quarter left over. Look how well I have done”.

The Prime Minister and the finance minister have taken care of absolutely none of the essentials that Canadian families need. Instead, the Prime Minister spends money on candy, which is corporate tax cuts, and then he says there is a surplus. We can put the lie to the surplus argument.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has talked about the annual deficit in infrastructure. This includes making sure that waste is carried away, that communities from coast to coast to coast have clean water, that highway overpasses are not collapsing and that highways are kept in good shape, and that there are social and recreational facilities for Canadians across this country. The FCM has said that the deficit of what needs to be invested and what is actually being invested is about $18 billion a year. For the government to say there is a surplus and it is going to shovel money at the corporate sector makes absolutely no sense.

We know some of the other issues that the NDP has brought to the House. We know the Liberals have said that they are giving the Conservatives a majority in that they are not going to do anything to stop the Conservative agenda. Essentially the government is operating as if it had a majority. Let us look at some of the issues the government should have dealt with.

Seniors have been ripped off by a bad calculation on the GIS. There is nothing to deal with that. The member for Hamilton Mountain has been raising that substantially and effectively in the House of Commons, but the Conservatives have refused to give seniors their due part. In a very real sense they have been ripping off Canada's seniors.

There are Canadians with disabilities. We know that half of all of the homeless across the country, about 40% of those who go to food banks to make ends meet, are Canadians with disabilities, and yet the government has done virtually nothing to support them.

We have a crisis in homelessness that I spoke to earlier. There are 300,000 Canadians out on the streets of our nation, and yet the government does nothing except talk about the money that came from the NDP budget. Aside from that, the Conservatives have done absolutely nothing.

Canadians are crippled by the cost of drugs and yet there is no pharmacare program, despite the fact the NDP has said that has to be a government priority.

The government has done absolutely nothing for the environment. The Liberals had a deplorable record on the environment, but at least they did not try to sabotage international meetings. That is what we are seeing now from the Conservative government.

These are all issues that need to be dealt with by the government and it has not dealt with any of them. Instead, the Conservatives' priority, very clearly announced, is that they will shovel money off the back of a truck to their friends in the corporate sector. That is their priority.

Earlier there was a question from the member for Abbotsford regarding tax cuts for working individuals. We know that the change in the bottom bracket, for example, brings a benefit of about $15 a month for the average family. This comes at a time when the income crisis means that, essentially, those families are earning about $2,000 less per year than they were earning back in 1989. That is a $15 benefit when, on the one hand, those incomes have fallen catastrophically and, on the other hand, the net impact will be an increase in service fees and user fees for the services that actually help those families. It makes no sense.

We are seeing underfunding in the health care sector. In British Columbia where I come from Gordon Campbell brought in similar tax cuts, a few dollars a month for most families. It turned out that because of all of the increases in user fees for those families, any family earning less than $80,000 a year ended up paying more under the Gordon Campbell tax cuts than the family was paying before. Families got a few dollars off on their income tax and they had hefty, healthy hikes in the cost of the services that they depend on.

That is why the NDP is speaking against this budget update. The Liberals have capitulated. They abstain. They will let the Conservatives do anything they want, but in this corner of the House we believe that the real needs of working families need to be addressed.

I would like to finish with one final point. The NDP has the best fiscal record in the country. The Ministry of Finance is the one that told us that. It did a longitudinal study over 20 years. It compared Liberal governments, Conservative governments and NDP governments. The best fiscal managers, the ones that actually balanced the budget or had a surplus, most often were NDP governments. The ones with the worst records were the Conservatives and Liberals. The reality is they just do not know how to handle money. The only way they handle money is to shovel it off the back of a truck to the corporate sector. That is not what Canadians need and that is why we oppose this economic update.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the previous speaker for his comments and his passion on this particular file.

It just strikes me as ironic to hear people talking about how great a GST cut is and how much it is supposed to help the poor. It is a consumer tax. How can it help the poor when they do not have the money to consume in the first place? I find it despicable to have our government of the day standing here and putting forward the trickle down Reaganomics that we all know failed. How can that possibly help poor people?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member knows about the manufacturing crisis in Hamilton and southern Ontario where we have seen a loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, which is why most Canadian families are earning less now than they were 20 years ago.

We have had good, family sustaining manufacturing jobs replaced, through the horribly irresponsible policies of the Conservatives and the Liberals before them, by part time jobs at Wal-Mart. Essentially, that means that we have more and more working poor than we have had in this country in the past.

In fact, according to some indications of income and equality, the clock has been turned back to the 1930s when the CCF was born and when we fought to put in place employment insurance, pensions and medical care. Without the CCF and the NDP, Canadians would be much worse off because it is our battles that have advanced the cause and the quality of life of ordinary working families.

As the member notes, there is nothing in this so-called fiscal update that makes any substantive change in the lives of most Canadian working families and nothing that deals with that fundamental falling of income that has taken place over the last 20 years.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested in my colleague's comments, particularly as he was describing having lived through this once through former premier, Gordon Campbell, in British Columbia, and indicating what the net effect of those tax cuts and the tax cut agenda had on constituents in British Columbia.

I come from Ontario and we all remember very well the record of the Mike Harris government there. Mike Harris was the self-proclaimed tax fighter. That agenda not only took millions and millions of dollars out of communities and impoverished families in our communities, but the downloading side and the impact of those tax cuts on our municipalities left our community, the city of Hamilton, in desperate need of money for infrastructure reinvestments.

We have had a number of water and sewer main breaks and our roads are in terrible shape. The government says that it is not in the business of dealing with potholes. The government ought to be because it is the senior level of government and our municipalities need our help to deal with those fundamental infrastructure deficits.

I wonder whether my colleague could reflect on whether the same experience is true in B.C. I am not as familiar with what is happening to municipalities out there but from my perspective as an Ontarian, and, first and foremost, as a Hamiltonian, I had hoped that this mini budget would actually reinvest in our cities and give places like Hamilton an opportunity to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the member for Hamilton Mountain, the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek and the member for Hamilton Centre for their very strong and solid representation from Hamilton. They have been bringing the concerns of Hamiltonians to the front and centre of the nation here in the House of Commons.

The problem with infrastructure is one that is shared with Hamilton and cities across the country. What we are seeing here is absolutely irresponsible. What the government is doing, with its sleight of hand, is putting a few billion dollars in when it knows that the infrastructure deficit is $20 billion a year. It is $125 billion now and growing by $20 billion a year. It knows that the net result will be that water will be of poor quality and we may see other Walkertons and that highway overpasses may well collapse as we saw in Minnesota.

These are not academic exercises or philosophical discussions. They have a very real impact on the lives of ordinary working families from coast to coast to coast. The government is being profoundly irresponsible by choosing the corporate community and corporate tax cuts rather than support for Canadian communities across the country that desperately need those resources.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate again in this debate on Bill C-28, the budget and economic statement implementation act.

The first time I spoke to the bill at second reading there was a lot of discussion on what exactly the government's direction was in how it dealt with financial planning.

Colleagues today have been stressing the fact that the measures included in the bill and in the government's other economic measures are gutting the fiscal capacity of the federal government. It is gutting it by a total $190 billion over the next six years. That is money that is taken away from the government and Canadians collectively to address the problems that face our society, the needs in our communities and the important aspirations of our families.

When we do not have that money and we take that money out of the capacity of government to respond, it is very hard to get it back, if at all possible. We need to pay attention to the direction of the government when it comes to gutting the fiscal capacity of government.

We also need to pay attention to the way that surpluses have been dealt with, both by the Conservative government and by the previous Liberal government. The constant refrain of “surprise, it's bigger than we thought” and “surprise we're going to put all of that money toward the debt and the deficit”, that is not good financial planning. To take that money out of any financial planning process related to this place and to the needs of Canadians is not a responsible course of action.

We have seen it time and time again where those huge sums of money that could be helping Canadians, that could be going to meet our obligations to our neighbours and to people across the country, are taken out of that discussion and do not become part of the priorities of the government.

There is a real problem with how we set priorities for government spending, both with the present government and the previous Liberal government.

In this corner of the House, we have had some success in trying to draw back governments from making that mistake. When the Liberal government was in power, the NDP negotiated to bring an end to a corporate tax cut that was being proposed at that time. We knew that corporate tax cut would not help Canadians in the way it was proposed. We knew that it was not the way to go. We knew that it was wrong. We proposed instead that the money that would have gone to that tax cut go to important programs that would actually help Canadians: lowering student tuition fees, building affordable housing, supporting public transit projects that help the environment, and to help our neighbours around the world by ensuring that Canada was doing a little bit better in meeting its obligations on foreign aid.

We were successful in that and now the only major money that we have seen spent on social programs in recent years is the result of our action in this corner of the House turning back that last Liberal corporate tax cut in favour of spending in those very important areas.

I am proud when I walk down the street in Vancouver now and I see the new blue and grey buses that are part of the Coast Mountain bus fleet in Vancouver. I know those buses were possible because of the money that the NDP fought for and obtained in that last Liberal budget. It is making a difference in people's lives.

Unfortunately, it is not enough. More needs to be done in the area of public transit and in the area of housing. We know that money went some way to helping and it is being spent now by provinces across the country but we need more to do that. It is not dealing with the crisis in affordable housing and in homelessness that confronts our communities and our citizens every day.

We know that students still face high levels of student debt. We know that was only a beginning in what needs to be done in continuing efforts to address those important issues.

On the foreign aid issue we are still nowhere near the commitments we made years ago to dedicate a certain percentage of our gross national product to ensuring assistance to people around the world.

We have a record in this corner of the House of showing what we would do when confronted with corporate tax cuts, corporations with high levels of profit that do not need our assistance right now. We know that big oil and gas companies and the big banks do not need our assistance because they have sky-high profit rates and are doing very well. They do not need the kind of assistance that the Conservative government is putting forward.

I am pleased we are debating an amendment to Bill C-28 that would remove the corporate tax cut completely and ensure that money is available for important programs. Hopefully, the government will engage in a process that will see the ideas and needs of Canadians engaged so that money could be spent more appropriately.

What are those areas where spending needs to happen? One of the areas that I want to talk about is the need to deal with the levels of child poverty in Canada. Back in 1989, this place made a commitment to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. The Conservative government and Liberal governments of the day failed miserably in even approaching that commitment. In fact, child poverty has gone up in Canada over that same period of time. That was a failed process. It did not happen because nobody in the governments of the day paid attention to that commitment. It is still an issue.

Firstcall is a cross-sectoral, non-partisan coalition in British Columbia made up of 79 provincial organizations, anti-poverty and community organizations, and 25 mobilizing communities of which I am happy to say the city of Burnaby is one. Last week, Firstcall released its annual report card dealing with the issue of child poverty. Sadly, British Columbia has the worst record on child poverty in Canada. Statistics in 2005 showed that almost 21% of B.C. children lived in poverty. That is absolutely shameful in a country as wealthy as Canada and a province as prosperous as British Columbia.

In its report card, Firstcall proposed setting targets where governments could be held accountable for reducing child poverty. We know the importance of setting those kinds of targets. We often do it in other areas but for some reason we cannot seem to bring ourselves to do it in important areas of social policy.

Firstcall is calling for a minimum 25% reduction in the child poverty rate by 2012 and a minimum 50% reduction by 2017. It has some suggestions about how that could happen and what kind of policies could deal with that. It suggested that the federal government increase the Canada child tax benefit to $5,100 per child. It said that cuts to employment insurance should be rescinded. It also said that we should be working with the provinces to provide universally accessible, affordable and high quality child care. I am proud to say that New Democrats have all of those things on our agenda.

We know that the child tax benefit needs to be increased. If the Conservative government had put that taxable $100 a month toward the child tax benefit, we would be approaching that $5,100 figure. That would have put it up into the high $4,000 range, which is where it needs to be to provide significant assistance to families and children.

The NDP has fought long and hard for that. Our colleague from Acadie--Bathurst has been the prime figure in terms of restoring EI. The NDP's bill to establish a national child care program would do exactly what Firstcall is calling for. We will continue to push for that because we know it will make a difference to children and families in communities in Canada.

As the spokesperson on cultural issues for the NDP, the government needs to pay attention to CBC service. My colleagues from Hamilton East--Stoney Creek and Hamilton Mountain will agree with me when I say that the CBC proposal to ensure local radio programming in communities all across this country needs to go ahead. It is not an expensive program, which makes me wonder why it is not in the proposals that we have before us from the government.

Eight million Canadians currently do not have access to CBC local radio programming, which is one of the most successful aspects of CBC work. Local radio programming increases the cultural life of Canada. It has brought Canadians together. It has increased the democratic participation in Canada by informing Canadians about what is happening in their communities. However, 15 communities need that kind of service, including Kitchener, London, Montreal South Shore, Barrie, Kingston, the Laurentians, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Drummondville, Red Deer, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Fort McMurray, Chiliwack, Saskatoon and Cranbrook, not to mention Hamilton. Canadians living in those places deserve to be connected in the same way that the rest of us enjoy CBC services.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I am noting in listening to the remarks of the member for Burnaby—Douglas is something that used to be said about the Mike Harris government in Ontario which was that the Harris government appeared not to believe in government itself, that it was gutting government services.

Assuming the Conservative government is around for awhile, it is very strange to see members putting into motion the very wheels that are going to limit their fiscal capacity to address the needs of Canadians and Canadian cities. Would the member suggest that perhaps the end result of this might be an increase in municipal taxation at the property tax level?

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

Mr. Speaker, we know that is already the case. Municipalities are already having to look at increasing property taxes to cover the expenses that they cannot meet given the current fiscal situation. We have seen the mayor of Mississauga directly say that this was going to be necessary in her community. Other communities across the country are having to look at that.

The offloading onto the shoulders of municipalities, because of cutbacks at the federal government level and at the provincial government level, have been quite serious all across the country in many municipalities, including my own of Burnaby. They have had to struggle against that.

Senior governments would have been happy to see municipalities step in and take over responsibilities that really were not in their jurisdiction. However, municipalities know, they are on the ground every single day and they know the difficulties of their citizens. They have often struggled with how to meet those commitments and how to meet those needs in their communities, but we cannot afford to let that continue.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, in its recent report which all of us received in this place, points out a $123 billion infrastructure deficit that affects our communities all across this country, big and small. It points out that this is increasing, that the infrastructure deficit climbed far faster than even it had expected.

In my own riding of Burnaby--Douglas there are a number of important infrastructure needs that are not being assisted by the federal government even when they fall in areas of federal jurisdiction. Burnaby receives a large number of immigrants and refugees each year and is one of the major settling points of immigrants and refugees in British Columbia.

The city of Burnaby, seeing the need for services to that community, proposed establishing an immigration service hub, a physical centre in the city of Burnaby where new Canadians, where immigrants and refugees could find the services that they need to access regularly without having to go into the city of Vancouver or travel all over the Lower Mainland.

Something like that would be absolutely necessary to help them establish in our community and get the services they need to settle appropriately. Yet, the federal government will not participate in that program. The city found the money to offer the land, but no other level of government would step up to the plate and help that happen.

We have also seen it with Burnaby Lake which is an urban lake and subject to all of the pressures of being smack dab in the middle of a large urban area. It is infilling because of the silt that regularly flows into the lake. This is an important open water lake. A number of species demand and need an open water lake, and gradually it is turning into a mud flat.

The city has had for many years an environmentally sound proposal to dredge that lake to ensure that it continues as an open water lake, to ensure that those various species can continue to live there successfully, and also to ensure that it is available for the citizens of Burnaby and the surrounding communities as a recreational place. Yet, we cannot get the money from the federal government to assist with that kind of program.

The previous Liberal government found money for a similar program to dredge Wascana Lake in a Liberal member's riding, but no, it could not find the money to assist Burnaby with that and now the Conservative government seems to be having the same difficulty.

We are going to continue to push to ensure that this important municipal infrastructure spending happens in our communities because we know how crucial it is to its success.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise here in the House today to speak to Bill C-28 to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament in March 2007. Some additions were also made in the economic statement of October 30, 2007. I will come back to that a little later, with some comments.

The main reason I rise here today is to have a closer look at the situation. It seems to me that my colleagues across the floor, the Conservatives, have really missed the boat when it comes to addressing the whole manufacturing and forestry crisis.

To this, we must also add the whole question of the employment insurance crisis. Upon reading the various elements of the government's budget contained in Bill C-28, one must wonder where the extra support is for workers.

For several months now—in fact, since the Conservatives came to power in Ottawa in January 2006—the reality has been that more and more jobs hare being lost every day, every week and every month. In the meantime, we have a Conservative government that is doing absolutely nothing to help our workers. What does this really mean? It means the families are not being supported.

These families are in crisis. The holidays are just weeks away. For several weeks now, plants have been closing one after the other. What does that mean? Lots and lots of lost jobs. Who is suffering as a result? Families. The children of these men and women who work so hard to ensure a better future for their children.

I remember how hard I fought to get the additional five weeks of employment insurance. I practically had to get down on my knees in front of the Conservative government to make it possible for our people to benefit from supplementary assistance during very hard times, especially people who work in seasonal industries.

Let us take a look at what has happened in the past few months. Conservative members have been saying that the country is doing well, that there are lots of new jobs, that everyone is working and that there is no economic crisis. I would invite them, as I have invited the Prime Minister, to come to my riding, Madawaska—Restigouche. They should not make it a little side trip that they can cancel at the last minute. They should come to Madawaska—Restigouche and meet the people who are losing their jobs week after week. Maybe then the Prime Minister and the Conservatives will understand what a dire situation this country is in. This is not a local phenomenon. This is not just a crisis happening in one region. This is happening across the country.

I would like to list some of the companies that are in crisis and that are cutting hundreds, if not thousands of jobs in the riding of Madawaska—Restigouche and across the country.

Here are some examples: WHK Woven Labels in Edmundston; Atlantic Yarns in Atholville; and AbitibiBowater, a pulp and paper mill in Dalhousie.

Today, a new disaster hit the manufacturing sector. Shermag in Edmundston and Saint-François de Madawaska announced it would be closing plants. This means lost jobs, and that is unacceptable.

How long have we been asking the Conservative government to take action? For a long, long time. Actually, we have been asking since they took power. We have been telling them to get ready and do something. Our workers must get help. Businesses must receive support in order to save our jobs.

However, cutting taxes is not necessarily the only way to support businesses. If a business is not paying taxes because it is experiencing financial difficulties, what good is a tax cut? It does not pay taxes. This does nothing for that business.

We must save what we have so that employees can continue to work today, tomorrow, a year from now or 10 years from now. Today, the Conservatives are showing that they would rather have a business shut down. They are saying that it is no big deal and keep telling Canadians that everything is fine.

The people in my riding of Madawaska—Restigouche have known for a while that things are not going well. As the Conservatives continue to tell people in my area that things are going well, I am looking forward to seeing what happens to them during the next federal election. The reality is that the government must help people everywhere.

It just so happens that an AbitibiBowater plant closed in Quebec as well, in Shawinigan. However, the Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is unable to find one red cent to help the plant, the workers, and the region of Dalhousie. It is absolutely despicable to act that way in such situations. In the meantime, other regions where the Conservatives are perhaps trying to buy something or other, or are at least hoping to win votes, are managing to get a bit of help. If they can receive help, why is the Conservative government simply not able to help everyone in the country?

Is it perhaps because we are talking about Atlantic Canada? Hon. members will recall the Prime Minister's comments about our defeatist attitude before he became Prime Minister. Is that why the Atlantic region is currently having problems? Is that why the Conservatives are giving absolutely nothing to help the Atlantic regions and their manufacturing and forestry industries? That is how we see it.

What is more, the country is bursting with surpluses, but it is unable to help people. The surplus was $11.6 billion for the first six months of the year. The public grasps the scope of that number. In the meantime, the Conservative government cannot give one red cent to help the manufacturing and forestry industries.

All of a sudden we hear ministers, including the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Finance, telling us not to worry, that help is on the way because the budget is coming. However, here is proof that this help will come too late. Bill C-28 that we are debating today is entitled An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007. This is December; why is it that we are still dealing with matters the government has not resolved since the budget was brought down in March? Even if the next budget provides help, how long will it take before our regions, our businesses and our workers finally get the help they need? Six months, a year, two years, ten years?

This government is all talk and bluster. However, when the time comes to present concrete measures, where are they? Let the Conservatives take note that this is the proof. In December we are still discussing what the Conservatives proposed in the March budget. Our citizens need help now, not in 10 years.

This is exactly what we are going through right now. We have a Conservative government that does not want to take any kind of action, while people everywhere in my riding, in the various plants and mills that I mentioned, need help. And that does not even include all the job losses in all the other companies and those yet to come because of the Conservative's inaction. We can imagine all the other indirect jobs that will be lost. In fact, we are discussing direct jobs, more than 1,000 to date. This number can definitely be doubled when we take into account all the indirect jobs in the companies that provide services to these primary businesses.

How will we help workers in the future? For one thing, we must provide immediate assistance to workers and their families. We must ensure that existing buildings and equipment continue to be used—we call that hibernation. We need to find other solutions. The Conservatives will not do that. It will be up to us, the ordinary citizens, to find solutions while the government resists taking any kind of action.

In addition, we must ensure that the government provides assistance to communities. Look at Dalhousie, for example. Not just the city of Dalhousie, but all of Restigouche will suffer. Not just this area, but the entire Madawaska region will suffer because of the closing of the Shermag plants in Edmundston and Saint-François-de-Madawaska. We must be able to provide assistance to every community so they can get through the crisis. Had the Conservatives listened at the right time, we would not be at this point.

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

Mr. Speaker, on November 14, I remember the debate and the vote on a motion that called on the government to help manufacturing industries. The motion was very clear. It talked about the crisis faced by the manufacturing sector.

I want to know where that member of Parliament is in terms of voting. Why did he decide not to support the motion to help manufacturing industries? Will the member have the courage of his conviction?

He spoke with a lot of passion. He talked about the importance of the manufacturing sector. Will he have the courage of his conviction and vote against the bill in front of us, which gives nothing to the manufacturing sector?

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for her question.

We have to face facts. Today, in 2007, nearly 2008, we are in an unbelievable mess because of the Conservative government. Everyone knows it. Even people in Tim Hortons are starting to say so. That means things are starting to go badly for the Conservatives.

The NDP member referred to courage, but we also have to face facts. Why are we in such a mess today, in December 2007?

It is because one fine day in November 2005, the NDP decided to support the Conservatives, who were then in opposition, in defeating the Liberal government. Today, we have a Conservative government. As we often say, the NDP should stop complaining that the Conservatives are like this or like that, because they, too, are responsible for what is happening.

They should be ashamed, and they should think twice the next time they vote and act. Because if they had not done what they did back then, the manufacturing and forestry sectors would certainly be better off now.

The Conservatives seriously need to redouble and even triple their efforts, because this is a human crisis that is affecting people across Canada and in my riding every day. If they go on like this—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague, who has been here for some time.

When we solved the problem of the financial crisis—what is known as the softwood lumber crisis—the Liberals had been in power for seven years. For seven years, they allowed the major forestry companies to go under. And not only are we paying the price today, but we are seeing the results. We have succeeded in saving the furniture industry, but that is all. On the other hand, the Liberals literally destroyed the major forestry companies.

Why were they opposed to the $5 billion settlement paid to the forestry companies, when today, we have managed to save only the furniture industry? Given one more year, the Liberals would have bankrupted these companies and brought them to their knees, and no workers would have jobs today.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to watch what I say, because it is incredible to hear such comments. We have to face facts. There is nothing to be proud of in all this.

Moreover, the Conservatives are boasting about giving $1 billion to the U.S. government and the American lobby so that they can take us to court again. Today, they have the gall to say that they are the saviours of the industry, when they are paying people to sue us and are making sure our industry cannot function.

The fact is that the Conservatives have been in power in Ottawa for 23 months, and things have been in a mess for 23 months. Let us look at the reality. The value of the Canadian dollar is shooting up. What have they done? Nothing. Yet Ottawa has the money to help our companies save jobs, to give jobs to our workers and to help families. When it comes to this issue, the important thing is always to look at—

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The member for Trinity—Spadina.

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

Mr. Speaker, recently the shares in Suncor Energy gained 53¢. It is producing 266,000 barrels a day above the targeted average. On the second of this month, the Canadian Oil Sands Trust rose 3.6% to $1.27. The oil companies are doing quite well. What these companies do not need are more tax cuts and tax subsidies.

There is a subsidy of $1.5 billion for big oil and gas companies in the budget. On top of that, in the upcoming five years a total of $14 billion in corporate tax cuts will be given to all profitable organizations and companies. In the year 2012, we are looking at an amount of $6 billion in one year. That is a lot of money to a very profitable industry.

I know we are in the middle of a discussion in Bali about Kyoto and beyond and about greenhouse gas emissions. In Alberta there are beautiful boreal forests, wetlands and peatlands. The tar sands lie directly underneath all that. Turning the tar sands into oil is the world's most polluting and carbon intensive oil process. It drains the wetlands, diverts rivers and strips trees and vegetation from the surface. The production process emits three to five times as much greenhouse gas as conventional oil development. The tar sands development is slated to destroy an area of Canada's boreal forest the size of Florida.

In May of this year 1,500 scientists, led by an international panel on climate change authors, recommended that Canada protect at least half of its 1.5 billion acres of boreal forest, and we need that. What we do not need to do is to give these companies more corporate tax cuts.

I would like members to think about what we can do with $14 billion. Think about what we can do for public transit and for clean air. Last summer we had a record of 48 smog days in my hometown of Toronto. This weekend I took the subway to different places in Toronto. I was at the Bloor Street and Yonge Street subway station where millions of Torontonians pass through. It is a hub. The ceiling is falling apart and wires are hanging from it. The Toronto Transit Commission desperately needs more funding for the upkeep of its subway system. It is called a state of good repair.

While I waited for streetcars and buses, I looked around. The Toronto transit system is struggling. Hundreds and hundreds of people wait for streetcars on Queen Street and King Street. More riders want to take public transit, but there is not enough federal investment in it. In fact, Canada is the only G-8 country without a national transportation program. We are the only G-8 country that does not support the operating costs of a transit system. We absolutely need to invest in out public transit.

I also want to quote the mayor. A recent report states that 46% of the population of Toronto is born outside of Canada. In Vancouver that percentage is 40%, with mother tongues other than English and French.

We do need a lot of settlement services, housing, support services, community centres and libraries. The mayor said recently that Toronto did not get a nickel from the federal government to support city services. What the city of Toronto is desperately looking for is support from the federal government so these services can be provided.

Also, a lot of new immigrants and some not so new immigrants, those who have been in Canada 10, 15, 20 years, are looking to bring their parents from overseas to join them and live together. Yet the wait times in overseas visa offices, if a person wants to bring his or her loved ones to Canada, is anywhere from three, five or eight years. There is a very long wait to reunite families and that is plainly unfair.

Another area that is of great concern in my riding is post-secondary education. We notice that federal cash transfers for post-secondary education, as a percentage of the gross domestic product, have declined steadily over the past 23 years of first Liberal and then Conservative governments. In 1983 the spending of post-secondary education was .56% of GDP. By 1992-93, the spending was .41% of GDP, and it keeps dropping.

We know we need at least a $4.9 billion investment to fully restore the federal share of post-secondary education funding to 1992 and 1993 levels. This is according to the Council of the Federation. This kind of funding is needed to freeze and roll back tuition fees, hire faculty, purchase equipment, reduce cost size and increase support for student services.

What we need and what we have pushed for is doubling the investment on federal student grants, offering new grants of $1,500 to every Canadian student loan borrower and giving students a six month grace period after graduation before they begin to repay student loans. A lot of students and graduates in my constituency are desperately trying to pay their student loans. They need to develop their careers and they want to start a family. Because of the huge debt of over $30,000 a year, it is very difficult for them to get a head start.

Right now we waste $12 million a year paying private collection agencies to go after students for their loans. That same kind of money would be much better spent on grants and research funding for deserving students.

We have a bill in the House, which sets out the war on drugs. The U.S. had many years of war on drugs and it did not worked. We know court diversion programs for young people will work. We know residential treatment programs will work. However, there are no residential treatment programs and no community based residential treatment programs that are planned for the long term. We know there are long waiting lists for any kind of drug treatment program.

If people are looking for court diversion programs, they are hardly any. A lot of community centres that do this kind of diversion work do not have the permanent and secure funding to provide these kinds of services.

In conclusion, the budget in front of us is misdirected and unbalanced. It does not give young families anything to hope for. It does not clean our air. In fact, it gives the most polluting industry a great big corporate tax break. This is why the NDP will not support the budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, earlier in the debate we heard the member for Madawaska—Restigouche say that somehow the NDP had brought about the defeat of the former Liberal government. As I recall, at that time in 2005, the Liberals were promising the same type of large corporate tax breaks. That, combined with their need for power, opened the door for the NDP to come along and propose changes, which was later called the NDP budget. It strikes me as ironic that we hear these stories from across the way of what the NDP did when in fact it was the Canadian people who gave those birds the boot.

Would the member agree that it is further evident, at least it is to my mind, that the Liberals have yet to take ownership of their disgraceful record and the abuses that Gomery uncovered?

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

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. In fact, from 2001 to 2007 corporate tax cuts have lost Canadians a total of $56 billion in government revenue.

What if we were to take 10% of that $56 billion and invest in housing, in our young people, in child care, in supporting the manufacturing industry, and in supporting green jobs such as retrofitting homes so that people can burn less and pay less? Imagine what we could do with the $56 billion. Imagine the kind of greenhouse gas reduction that we could really make happen.

I recall that in the 1993 red book there was a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20%. By now, they have actually gone up by 30%. It is unbelievable. What the Liberals do really well is talk one line. I heard all this discussion about how we need to protect and save the manufacturing industry, yet in November, when there was a chance for us to vote, the Liberals were nowhere in sight. They abstained. They decided not to offer their opinion in the vote. What they say is completely different from what they do. That has been their record.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was really interested in my colleague's comments, because of course when we are looking at a surplus of $14.2 billion, that is not actually the government's money that is being given away here. It is revenue that has been generated by the hard-working families of this country. Over the years, many of them, of course, are the exact same hard-working families who are now living in and heading up seniors' households.

I want to talk about seniors specifically because I have had the opportunity, as the NDP seniors critic, to talk to seniors right across the country. What they are telling me and what they are looking for is some investment in safe, affordable housing and public transportation, and of course my colleague just touched on that.

They want to have access to doctors. We have all probably heard the stories about the long waiting lists in communities like mine in Hamilton. They want pharmacare, adequate nursing home standards and adequate long term care.

They want lifelong learning opportunities. We almost caricature seniors as being beyond their prime when so many of them can play really important roles, for example in intergenerational learning.

Above all, what seniors are looking for is some help with their income supports. They need increases to the OAS, CPP and GIS so they can make ends meet. They have played by the rules all their lives. They have worked hard. Now all they want to be able to do is pay the bills that are arriving at their doors.

While the government has chosen to give truckloads of cash to the oil and gas industry, we are leaving seniors at a point where they have to choose between heating and eating.

I would like to ask my colleague from Trinity—Spadina if she would agree that what we really need to do in the House is start to undertake a review of income supports for seniors and make sure that we look ahead for 10 years so that seniors will have the money they need to live in retirement with dignity and respect.

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

Mr. Speaker, seniors have served our country really well and deserve to live in dignity. They deserve to actually get the money that is owed to them, because the pensions they have, whether it is the Canada pension or old age security, are calculated by the rate of inflation because they are indexed.

However, the government made some mistakes a few years ago and owes at least $1 billion. First it was the Liberal government and now it is the Conservative government. Do we think that because they made a mistake they are willing to say they are sorry and return that money? No.

Aside from all the investments that a previous speaker talked about, we should really increase the--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order. 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 Hull—Aylmer, Government appointments; the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, Human Resources and Social Development.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity, however short it is, to give voice to a growing number of people across the country who are increasingly anxious about their state in life and their ability to look after themselves and their families. More and more of them are falling into poverty.

The homeless in our communities want somebody to speak in the House on their behalf and to challenge the government in terms of its priorities and what it has set out in its budget, in the mini-budget that we saw come before the House, and in Bill C-28, the bill we are speaking about.

I will tell people what many of us were expecting, given what we are hearing, seeing and feeling across the country, with the unease and anxiety in people as they look anxiously and uneasily at their futures and as they are experiencing their abilities to look after themselves, to buy food, put it on table, pay the rent and look after their families as the economy evolves and globalization takes hold and the very foundation of our industrial sector gets shaken to its core.

There was a time in this country when people could look ahead if they worked hard, made the investment and got the education they needed. They could look ahead and expect that investment of time and energy to produce progress for them. It would put them in a place where they would be able to earn a few more dollars and afford a few more things to look after their children in a different way.

However, we are now at a time in our history when that is not the case. As we cross the country and talk to people, and I have done that over the last two years to look at the very real poverty in our communities, we find that more and more people are actually anxious about where they are. They are not so much looking ahead any more. They are now beginning to look over their shoulder to see what might be there should they slip, should the rung disappear, should they lose their jobs, should their plants close, in short, should something happen over which they have absolutely no control, something that throws them into a total tailspin.

What is there for them? What kind of social safety net exists any more, particularly when they and others and our forefathers and foremothers worked so hard to weave a social safety net in this country, which we expected would take care of us in times of difficulty and in our old age?

More and more we are beginning to see the edge of the fabric fray and people dropping into poverty. We have levels of poverty like we have never seen in our communities, our society and our country today. The poor themselves are a major challenge. We need to be doing something about that. We are disappointed over in this corner of the House that there was nothing to address that in the budget, in the mini-statement on the budget or in Bill C-28.

However, even more important or as important is what this says about the rest of society. Thomas Walkom, in a recent article in the Toronto Star, said it most eloquently in my view. He said:

--the poor are the canaries in the coal mine. The deliberate attempts to reconfigure Canada over the past 30 years--by gutting social programs, dismantling national institutions and insisting that market forces alone can solve every problem--have affected everyone. But they've hit the poor first and hardest.

We shouldn't care about poverty just to be nice. We should care about poverty because, in the end, this story isn't just about the 11 per cent or 16 per cent of the population (depending on your statistical source) officially designated as low-income. It is about the deliberate erosion of middle-class Canada. It's about us, too.

I agree with him. As I cross the country I hear more and more people becoming very alarmed. People are experiencing that reality and people are working, getting together and doing everything they can to try to provide some support, to try to knit together with scarce resources community forces and community energy in a way that will provide support, help and assistance to those who find themselves in need.

There are groups in places like St. John's, Newfoundland, where I visited last week, who are gathering to work with their government, which now has an anti-poverty strategy, to try to make sure that people have good and affordable homes to live in. There are people like those in groups in my own community who have come together to work on homelessness and put together a proposal and a plan.

Alas, what these people tell me is that the resources they need to do this good work are scarce to begin with and are running out. They now go from month to month and year to year wondering if there is going to be anything in the budget to support them in the work they do. They are getting tired. They are getting older. They are running out of resources. Unless all levels of government come to the table, they say, the job becomes harder and harder and a point will come when it actually becomes impossible.

On this side of the House, we in the New Democratic Party propose that the government step out with courage and conviction and begin to work together with the folks out there who are committed to this to put together a comprehensive national anti-poverty strategy.

What should be in that strategy? Again, the people I have spoken to and the groups that are working out there tell me that the first and most important thing is to make sure that everybody who lives in Canada, everybody who calls Canada home, everybody who has a Canadian citizenship paper in his or her pocket, should have a decent home to live in. There should be a national housing program.

We have not had a national housing program in this country since the late 1980s or early 1990s, when the Liberal government of 1993 decided, in its zeal to cut the deficit, to do away with the Canada assistance plan and to reduce by literally $7 billion or $8 billion the social transfer that went out to the provinces. We know what impact that had as provinces tried to come to terms with it and download to municipalities. We know what difficulty groups and municipalities then had in dealing with the downloading and what a very difficult challenge they had to live with.

What people are saying is that they need a roof over their heads. If they are going to get out there, get a job, look after their families, feel good about themselves and take advantage of what little opportunity there is, they need a roof over their heads. We need a national housing program.

We need a homelessness initiative with permanent funding, not the band-aid we saw from the previous government. We have groups out there with very little funding that are spending most of their time raising money through car washes and bottle drives to try to house the homeless in their communities. We need a real homelessness initiative with substantial money and core permanent funding.

They also say to me that to put food on the table for people, particularly children, they need income security. We believe that we must give all children access to healthy food. We believe that we need to have support for families during the early years. We need a national child tax supplement, income security and a national child care program.

We also need productive work for people. We need to recognize in a more meaningful way the effort that most people put in when they go to work. We need to make sure that they are making a half-decent wage so they can pay the rent themselves and buy the food they need. We need affordable child care. We need fair minimum wages. We need income security.

Do we expand the Flaherty or Goodale working income tax benefit that covers so few--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order. The hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie knows, as he is experienced enough, that he is not to refer to other members of the House by name, and what members cannot do directly, they cannot do indirectly either. The member may proceed.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

My apologies, Mr. Speaker.

We need affordable post-secondary education. We need jobs and skills training. We need literacy programs. We do not need to see money cut from literacy. We need to be putting more in. We need to be investing in those skills that people need in order to be involved and engaged in the economy and, hence, we need federal support to strengthen the capacity of Canada's literacy network.

We need a national prescription drug plan to help families afford the medications they need. We need universal public health care.

As I crossed the country, the face of poverty that I saw was primarily female, disabled and aboriginal. That is a disgrace in 2007. A country that consistently shows surpluses in its budgets year after year cannot come to terms and come forward with a comprehensive national anti-poverty strategy.

If this country is looking for a group that has the courage, the commitment and the plan, it need look no further than this end of the House and the New Democratic Party come the next election.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the debate upstairs and could not help coming down because I heard all this hot air.

The member Trinity—Spadina and the member for Sault Ste. Marie talked about transit, housing, environment, students and aboriginals. I would like to quote from an article in the newspaper from back then. It said, referring to the NDP-Liberal budget:

$1.6 billion for affordable housing, with no obligation for provincial matching funds, and will include housing for aboriginals.

$1.5 billion to reduce tuitions to make it easier for students to get post-secondary education--

$900 million for the environment--

$500-million increase in foreign aid to bring Canada in line with a promise to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP.

$100 million to protect workers' pensions--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. Every penny of that money that he spoke about was going into corporate tax breaks. The member for Toronto—Danforth met with the then Prime Minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, and convinced him to actually spend that money on those programs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague. We know that these budget arrangements are a huge giveaway to very profitable large corporations in the oil industry, the gas industry and banking. We also know there is a group of Canadians who receive the guaranteed income supplement who were cheated out of a reasonable payment because of an error that was made in calculating their income and their benefit.

I wonder if the member could address that problem. Why do seniors not deserve the appropriate assistance, the fair dollar that they were to receive, but the large corporations get this huge corporate tax giveaway?

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question because that is exactly the point that we at this end of the House are trying to make.

There is a choice to be made here. We can take the money that taxpayers give to government and use it to put programs in place that will support people, particularly seniors who have made their investment, who have done the work, paid into their pension plan, and find themselves more and more, as they deal with government, done out of the money that they expected to get.

The indexing is only one example. Not automatically getting their GIS is another example. Some people who qualify for disability pension are not getting that and the list goes on and on.

We are saying let us make investing in people and communities and eradicating poverty a priority. Let us put the money that we have into programs for people instead of into corporate tax breaks.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have more of a comment than a question because I do not think anyone in the House doubts that one of the most passionate advocates not just for the reduction of poverty but rather for the eradication of poverty is the member for Sault Ste. Marie.

I welcome his comments and in particular I want to focus on child poverty. The reality is that there is no such thing as a poor child in Canada. It is that child's parents who are poor. Yet, we are putting kids further and further behind the eight ball precisely because of the kinds of things that my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie was just mentioning. We do not have safe and affordable housing. We do not have adequate health care. We do not give kids the benefit of education and literacy training, skills training or youth employment.

I want to say to the member for Sault Ste. Marie, whom the members for Hamilton Centre, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek and I had the privilege of hosting in Hamilton, that his message was taken to heart there. Our community has adopted the motto that Hamilton should be the best place to raise a child. I want to give kudos to him for taking a leadership role right across the country in fighting poverty.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member for Hamilton Mountain. We as a party have a very comprehensive set of initiatives that we want to put in place that would lift children out of poverty and help their families look after them. In fact, give them everything that they need, including nutrition, an education, and the capability to participate in their communities to become good and contributing citizens of this country.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill. I want to thank my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie for raising the issue of poverty because had the budget measures that we are voting on in another hour or so contained a poverty reduction, let alone eradication, strategy, we would be debating the merits of that.

Being in opposition, we would probably say it is not good enough. That is our job, but as it is, there is nothing for us to talk about on the issue of poverty because there is no money at all in here that is going to poverty. That is not what this is about.

We are talking about, and make no mistake, tax cuts, and for the most part, while the Conservatives can stand and talk about a few dollars going here and a little bit going there, at the end of the day, average Canadians are going to see a couple of bucks here and there if they are lucky.

However, close friends of this government that are already making megabucks are going to love this bill because it gives them more megabucks. Why would they not vote for the Conservatives? What leaves me a little confused is that those who do not benefit from this support the Conservatives when they are pretty much laughing up their sleeves at those who do support them because the best of what they have to offer, meaning all that Canada has to offer, goes to their friends. Believe me, the friends they hang around with every day are not the same folks that the member for Sault Ste. Marie hangs around with every day.

Not only is there not a plan here to deal with poverty, there is nothing here about infrastructure, and every one of our communities has a dire need for infrastructure. We have a finance minister who is on the record saying that the federal government is not in the business of fixing potholes.

Well, somebody better do it and somebody better do something about our sewage systems, our water treatment systems, our bridges and our roads. Right now, the attitude of the government is that it is, “Not our problem. It does not say in the Constitution it is our job, so we are not even going to worry about it”.

Are we debating anything here that goes for infrastructure? No. Is a tax cut going to build a bridge? No. Is a tax cut going to provide clean water for anybody? No. This is about taking bags of Canadian money and giving it to people and entities that already have it.

If people have any doubt, they should check and see how well the banks, the oil companies and the gas companies do in this bill, and compare that to what people in poverty in Hamilton are going to see, or any of our communities in terms of building the infrastructure so they can have the economic strength to provide those things.

Leaving cities out there dangling, like they are somebody else's responsibility, and expecting that we are going to have a strong, vibrant national economy is dreaming in technicolour. Without strong local economies, we cannot have a strong national economy, but the government does not take that approach.

I must say that for some of us, this is a matter of déjà vu, not only on the message that tax cuts solve all problems, but even the person delivering it. I spent 13 years at the Ontario legislature. Far too many of those months and years I had to listen to the current federal finance minister espouse the same thing as the provincial finance minister.

Let me tell members how that worked. There is a very telling point here. When the Harris government came into power in Ontario, it brought in massive tax cuts, saying that tax cuts were good for the economy because they would stimulate the economy and create jobs, people would be working and paying taxes, and at the end of the day, the government would have more revenue to do the things that it says the NDP wanted to do but there would be no money to do it. It came out with massive tax cuts in 1995, 1996, and I believe it carried on into 1997.

At the same time, Canada and most of the world was just coming out of a recession from 1989. In about 1993, 1994 and 1995 the indicators were there, but it did not really take hold until about 1996, 1997 and 1998, which coincides with the Harris government coming into power.

The Harris government was able, at the end of its fiscal year, to stand up and say “see, we were right. We cut taxes and our revenue is up”. The next year the same government stood up and said “we were right again. Here are the tax cuts and here is the increase in revenue”.

Both facts were true. There were tax cuts and there was an increase in revenue. But it had far more to do with the overall world economy, particularly the North American economy and the U.S. picking up and generating economic activity, which then put demand on the services and products that we produced.

The telling point is that when, as happens in a cyclical economy, it started to edge down a bit after we had this rather strong rise going into the late 1990s, there was a bit of a turn. The finance minister, and I am not sure if it was the one that we have now or his successor, still had the same message.

What happened on the way to nirvana, as Conservatives saw it, was that the economy was going down. We all knew it. The indicators were there. Nobody was hiding it. It was a known fact that the economy was about to get a little bit soft. Guess what happened? I think if the government had this magical formula of tax cuts creating more income, that the more trouble the government was in the deeper the tax cuts should be because the greater the reward in terms of revenue would be. It makes sense. If it happened in good times, then it is a magic solution to grab on to in the bad times.

That is not the way it happened. The finance minister of the day postponed the tax cuts for the coming year. Why? It was because the economy and the Ontario budget could not afford it. There was no better example than a group that said tax cuts work miracles and pointed to the revenue increases and said, “see, we cut taxes and we get more money. We cut taxes and we get more money. We are incredibly smart, we are”. However, when the economy was turning down and the next round of tax cuts was ready to take hold and provide its next phase of the miracle, the provincial Conservative government postponed it.

This argument that tax cuts alone are a saviour is so untrue. It does so much damage to this country's ability to rise to all that we can be. That is why we are so upset about this budget. It is because this bill is all about taking care of those who already have.

Any argument that somehow a working stiff somewhere else in Canada is going to benefit because the gas and oil companies got a bigger tax break is a bad joke. It is deadly in some cases, when we talk about the circumstances people find themselves in.

Canada is losing thousands and thousands of jobs in Hamilton, tens of thousands of jobs in Ontario, and hundreds of thousands of jobs across Canada in our manufacturing sector alone. What is this bill going to do for that? I have no doubt we are going to hear from the Conservatives, as we have before, that the tax cuts are going to step in and solve the problem.

It is the old Reagan trickle down theory. If the government takes care of the big corporations and the well off, then the little people will get the crumbs that fall down. Do members remember the trickle down theory when it came back around? It was called Reaganomics.

We have to remember what everyone would say to one another at that time about the trickle down theory. People asked if they had been trickled on lately. We have had all the trickling that we need in this country.

We will stand proudly against this bill because it takes us in the wrong direction. It does not put the assets and the value that Canada has to where it will do the most good for the most people. We will continue to oppose an agenda that takes care of the very few and leaves the vast majority behind.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, earlier on there was a bit of a mix-up and I did not get a chance to finish, but now I can just take my time to say what I have to say. I was listening to the debate earlier on and members of the New Democratic Party asked when the Liberals were going to take ownership for the last result. We have acknowledged it. My question is, when are members of the NDP going to take ownership for the betrayal of their constituents?

The member for Trinity—Spadina, the member for Sault Ste. Marie, and the member for Hamilton Centre were elected in the last election because they said to Canadians, “Look what we got for you already. Lend us your vote and we will get more for you”.

The NDP-Liberal agreement talked about supporting transit, housing, environment, students, aboriginals and seniors.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I am glad they are applauding, Mr. Speaker. That is part of the betrayal that upsets me.

That agreement provided $1.6 billion for affordable housing with no obligation for provincially matched funding. Why did they betray that? There was $1.5 billion to reduce tuition for students, which was what the NDP wanted. There was $1 billion for the environment. There was half a billion dollars for foreign obligations. There was $100 million for pensions.

The bad mouthing of the Liberals by the NDP is only a sign of their weakness, not their strength.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe I said anything about the Liberals, but I appreciate the opportunity.

It is good to see the member on his feet. He said he had been on his feet before, but obviously not often enough. We keep having votes and the Liberals keep sitting in their places. They are not standing up for the people of Canada, which is what we are doing here.

The member opposite has a lot of nerve to talk about being responsible. We are 100% proud of the fact that we took $4.8 billion of money that was scheduled to go pretty much to the same crowd as that one, and we diverted that, and that was the Liberals with the Conservatives' support, the Liberal plan. We took that $4.8 billion and put it into all the things that the hon. member talked about. What that member would really like is to be an NDPer so he could be proud of his agenda and his track record rather than having to defend not even standing up and voting in this place.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or members having risen:

Call in the members.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the vote be deferred.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Accordingly, the division will be recorded at 6:30 this evening.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-28, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007 as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

It being 6:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division at report stage of Bill C-28.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on Motion No. 1, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #23

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare Motion No. 1 lost.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Minister of Finance]

moved that the bill be concurred in.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

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, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

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 #24

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.