Bill C-50 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 2008 and to enact provisions to preserve the fiscal plan set out in that budget

Part 1 enacts a number of income tax measures proposed in the February 26, 2008 Budget. In particular, it
(a) introduces the new Tax-Free Savings Account, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years;
(b) extends by 10 years the maximum number of years during which a Registered Education Savings Plan may be open and accept contributions and provides a six-month grace period for making educational assistance payments, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(c) increases the amount of the Northern Residents Deduction, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(d) extends the application of the Medical Expense Tax Credit to certain devices and expenses and better targets the requirement that eligible medications must require a prescription by an eligible medical practitioner, generally effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(e) amends the provisions relating to Registered Disability Savings Plans so that the rule forcing the mandatory collapse of a plan be invoked only where the beneficiary’s condition has factually improved to the extent that the beneficiary no longer qualifies for the disability tax credit, effective for the 2008 and subsequent taxation years;
(f) extends by one year the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit;
(g) extends the capital gains tax exemption for certain gifts of listed securities to also apply in respect of certain exchangeable shares and partnership interests, effective for gifts made on or after February 26, 2008;
(h) adjusts the rate of the Dividend Tax Credit to reflect corporate income tax rate reductions, beginning in 2010;
(i) increases the benefits available under the Scientific Research and Experimental Development Program, generally effective for taxation years that end on or after February 26, 2008;
(j) amends the penalty for failures to remit source deductions when due in order to better reflect the degree to which the remittances are late, and excuses early remittances from the mandatory financial institution remittance rules, effective for remittances due on or after February 26, 2008;
(k) reduces the paper burden associated with dispositions by non-residents of certain treaty-protected property, effective for dispositions that occur after 2008;
(l) ensures that the enhanced tax incentive for Donations of Medicines is properly targeted, effective for gifts made after June, 2008; and
(m) modifies the provincial component of the SIFT tax to better reflect actual provincial tax rates, effective for the 2009 and subsequent taxation years.
Part 1 also implements income tax measures to preserve the fiscal plan as set out in the February 26, 2008 Budget.
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, the Excise Act, 2001 and the Customs Tariff to implement measures aimed at improving tobacco tax enforcement and compliance, adjusting excise duties on tobacco sticks and on tobacco for duty-free markets and equalizing the excise treatment of imitation spirits and other spirits.
Part 3 implements goods and services tax and harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) measures proposed or referenced in the February 26, 2008 Budget. It amends the Excise Tax Act to expand the list of zero-rated medical and assistive devices and to ensure that all supplies of drugs sold to final consumers under prescription are zero-rated. It also amends that Act to exempt all nursing services rendered within a nurse-patient relationship, prescribed health care services ordered by an authorized registered nurse and, if certain conditions are met, a service of training that is specially designed to assist individuals in coping with the effects of their disorder or disability. It further amends that Act to ensure that a variety of professional health services maintain their GST/HST exempt status if those services are rendered by a health professional through a corporation. Additional amendments to that Act clarify the GST/HST treatment of long-term residential care facilities. Those amendments are intended to ensure that the GST New Residential Rental Property Rebate is available, and the GST/HST exempt treatment for residential leases and sales of used residential rental buildings applies, to long-term residential care facilities on a prospective basis and on past transactions if certain circumstances exist. This Part also makes amendments to relieve the GST/HST on most lease payments for land on which wind or solar power equipment used to generate electricity is situated.
Part 4 dissolves the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, provides for the Foundation to fulfill certain obligations and deposit its remaining assets in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and repeals Part 1 of the Budget Implementation Act, 1998. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 5 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act and the Canada Student Loans Act to implement measures concerning financial assistance for students, including the following:
(a) authorizing the establishment and operation, by regulation, of electronic systems to allow on-line services to be offered to students;
(b) providing for the establishment and operation, by regulation, of a program to provide for the repayment of student loans for classes of borrowers who are encountering financial difficulties;
(c) allowing part-time students to defer their student loan payments for as long as they continue to be students, and providing, by regulation, for other circumstances in which student loan payments may be deferred; and
(d) allowing the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to take remedial action if any error is made in the administration of the two Acts and in certain cases, to waive requirements imposed on students to avoid undue hardship to them.
Part 6 amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to authorize the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to give instructions with respect to the processing of certain applications and requests in order to support the attainment of the immigration goals established by the Government of Canada.
Part 7 enacts the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board Act. The mandate of the Board is to set the Employment Insurance premium rate and to manage a financial reserve. That Part also amends the Employment Insurance Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 8 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the recruitment of front line police officers, capital investment in public transit infrastructure and carbon capture and storage. It also authorizes Canada Social Transfer transition protection payments.
Part 9 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to Genome Canada, the Mental Health Commission of Canada, The Gairdner Foundation and the University of Calgary.
Part 10 amends various Acts.

Budget Implementation Act, 2008

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House we have abundant confidence in Ontario. We have confidence in hard-working Canadians. What we are lacking confidence in is the stewardship of the government and the Minister of Finance. That is the problem. It is not the fault of Canadians. It is not the fault of those who were laid off today. It is not the fault of others who have been laid off for months, and many more to come. It is the fault of the government for its incompetent management of the economy.

I would ask the member, why does he think it is competent to tell Canadians that Ontario is the last place to invest? Who is the one expressing a lack of confidence in Ontario? It is not this side of the House. We have every confidence in Ontario. It is the Minister of Finance who tells domestic and international investors that Ontario is the last place to invest. How is that expressing confidence in the Canadian economy?

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with awe to the member for Markham—Unionville's speech. In one breath he is denouncing the Conservatives, and rightly so, for the discretionary powers that the bill would give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration while asking, why should we trust the Conservatives to exercise that kind of discretionary power? It is appropriate criticism of the legislation.

In the next breath he says that Canadians should trust the Liberals, when they are re-elected and form government, to change the legislation and excusing the fact that right now, last night and coming up soon, they will have the opportunity to defeat the change here in the House of Commons.

Last night they chose to be absent rather than see those immigration sections pulled out of the legislation and defeated last night. Yet, he says that we cannot trust the Conservatives with this extra power, but Canadians should trust Liberals some time down the road to undo this terrible change.

Why will Liberal members not stand up on their own two feet and defeat the legislation now while they have that opportunity if this immigration change means anything at all to them?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very good issue as to why Canadians should trust Liberals rather than Conservatives when it comes to immigration. Let me compare two prime ministers, a Conservative Prime Minister, the incumbent, and a former Liberal prime minister by the name of Pierre Trudeau.

The incumbent Prime Minister in a quote, I do not have it exactly in hand, talked about new Canadians living in ghettos in western Canada and not integrating with western Canadian society. It is hardly a point of view to inspire confidence or trust among immigrants. Whereas Pierre Trudeau was the one who introduced multiculturalism and opened Canada's gates to immigrants.

We on the Liberal side are in the legacy of Pierre Trudeau, and that is why Canadians will and can trust the Liberal Party when it comes to immigration because we are the party of immigration. It is the current Prime Minister and many in his party who have displayed anti-immigration sentiments which bubble to the surface from time to time.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before this budget, we Liberals had in fact recommended a few things, one of which was a recommendation to lower corporate taxes. I have to say we are glad the Conservatives took that good Liberal advice. Unfortunately, we had also recommended a number of other things, among which were some recommendations to deal with infrastructure.

The prior Liberal government had allocated $10 billion to debt reduction. Do not get us wrong, we are all in favour of reducing debt, but not when the walls are cracking and the roof is leaking.

Liberals had recommended that of that $10 billion, $7 billion would go to infrastructure. We had also suggested that $3 billion go into a contingency, which would have been a continuation of the Liberal prudence of keeping a few billion dollars as an annual contingency. Unfortunately, the current Conservative government did not take that particularly good Liberal advice.

The rest of this budget, in large measure, does in fact reflect past Liberal initiatives, albeit what we see is extremely watered down. I would, however, like to highlight a significant concern, notwithstanding all of the finance minister's rhetoric and recent efforts to, quite frankly, mislead the Canadian public. Only two weeks ago, in fact, he was quoted as saying that the Canadian economy is growing in every region of this country, yet we have now learned that the Canadian economy in the first quarter of 2008 has declined.

I would like to remind the finance minister that two quarters of shrinkage makes a recession. Therefore, notwithstanding the finance minister's rhetoric, false support, and statements encouraging the view that somehow the government has been a strong economic steward, the opposite is true.

I will go back to the infrastructure deficit. In this country we have an infrastructure deficit of $123 billion. That is a lot of money. In fact, two cuts of two points in the GST over the course of 10 years and one point a year would have been worth $6 billion. That is interesting math. Adding interest to that, $6 billion a year per point is $12 billion. That would have meant the ability to reduce and eliminate the infrastructure deficit in this country over the course of the next 10 years, but no.

What we desperately need in this country are the initiatives to encourage a strong economy. Virtually every economist has acknowledged investment in infrastructure is critical. It is critical to enhance productivity and I will add that productivity is critical to global competitiveness in the growth of our economy.

Productivity does not mean working harder. Canadians work extremely hard as it is. However, productivity does mean working better, more effectively and efficiently. It is absolutely acknowledged everywhere that in order to encourage productivity, we must in this country address the infrastructure deficit. The current Conservative government has not done so.

The government now faces a challenge given the cuts in the GST, the imprudent management of the current economy, and the fiscal situation in this country. Not only has the economy shrunk in the first quarter, and not only are we in danger if it happens in the second quarter of officially being in a recession as we have not invested in the critical infrastructure and other investments in innovation and research and development that are so critical to enhance a Canadian economy but we have also seen that the economy as a whole is now suffering.

Notwithstanding all of the rhetoric, the government has simply not done what it should have been doing, what we have been asking it to do, and what this country deserves.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the Liberal Party has difficulty understanding that the Canadian currency has gone up significantly and that does affect our GDP number since we are a major exporting nation. Nominally. when our dollar goes up, vis-à-vis foreign currencies, that does affect our GDP but that does not mean the economy has shrunk. The member, however, does not quite understand how currency volatility can affect those things.

We will see how that comes out in the second quarter because I really do not buy into the Liberal doom and gloom. Canada has a great economy. We are moving forward, led by constituencies like mine, of Peterborough. We work very hard and we will continue to make the economy very strong.

During clause by clause at the finance committee, the Liberals voted with the government members to limit debate on every amendment brought forward to five minutes. They then abstained on every vote that was brought forward.

The government has a position on Bill C-50. Whether they agree or not, the NDP members have a position. They have made that clear and they stand by their convictions.

The Liberals stand in the House today and make speeches. They pretend to counter positions when they really have no position at all. They have no plan. I am sure the NDP will agree with me when I say that the Liberal Party is void of any plan whatsoever. The Liberals simply pretend to have a separate position from the government but put no solutions forward whatsoever.

I do not think doom, gloom and spin is a good position for a party that hopes one day to be government. Maybe the Liberals will come up with a platform because they sure do not have one right now.

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will remind the member opposite that I just finished explaining a very significant recommendation that the Liberal government had made with respect to infrastructure investment, which the current Conservative government completely ignored.

I will repeat what I said. We support the concept of reducing debt but not when the walls are cracking and the roof is leaking.

How can we trust a finance minister who, only two weeks ago, assured Canadians that everything was wonderful, that they should not worry and, arguably, with a little pat on the head to Canadians? He said that they should not worry, that the economy was doing great and that the Americans were the problem and they are suffering. The finance minister said that two weeks ago and, sure enough, in the first quarter of 2008 the American GDP grew and the Canadian GDP shrank.

Notwithstanding the efforts by the member opposite to somehow connect currency, he has exhibited a sorely lacking understanding of economics.

How can Canadians trust the finance minister and the government when only two weeks ago they were trying to assure Canadians that the economy was growing when we have clear evidence now that the Canadian economy shrank in the first quarter and is in danger, if it happens in the second quarter, of officially putting Canada in a recession? Is that Conservative government prudence?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member for Willowdale.

She also talked about the issue of trust. Her colleague from Markham talked about the way the Liberals do not trust the Conservatives with the discretionary powers around immigration that are in this legislation. However, at the same time, the Liberals are asking Canadians to trust them to fix it when they get back into power, whenever that happens.

Why should Canadians, who have an application or a relative's application in the immigration backlog, trust the Liberals to fix that when that backlog was developed by Liberals? When 800,000 of the 900,000 applications in the backlog occurred under the Liberal administration, why should any Canadian who is concerned about immigration, trust the Liberals to fix that backlog problem?

Why should any Canadian, who is concerned about immigration, trust the Liberals to fix that when they have the opportunity to make sure these changes do not go ahead now and they are not using that opportunity to defeat the legislation or to see changes made in the legislation?

[Martha Hall Findlay, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will respond to the member opposite by pointing out two things.

First, the very fact that there are immigration provisions in the budget implementation bill is a significant Americanization of the Canadian process. It is not something we are supportive of at all. It should not be in the budget implementation bill in the first place.

I will also add that trying to deal with a backlog by only addressing new applications does not deal with the backlog at all. There is absolutely nothing in the provisions put forward by the Conservative government that will, notwithstanding all the rhetoric, deal with the backlog.

This country needs some very concrete proposals and funding associated with those proposals to legitimately deal with the acknowledged backlog of immigrant applications that we have in this country.

We need skills and we need people willing to put those skills to work. We need that backlog addressed. The Conservative government, notwithstanding all of the rhetoric, has put nothing in the bill to address that backlog.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to repeat, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, the position we have maintained since the budget was introduced. The Minister of Finance asked to meet with the opposition parties, and we met with the finance critics and deputy finance critics to inform them of the Bloc's positions and demands concerning the budget. But we were extremely disappointed to discover that the budget presented by the Minister of Finance did not contain a single measure that would truly address the demands of the Bloc Québécois and, in particular, of the people of Quebec. The Bloc Québécois members in the House of Commons represent the majority of ridings in Quebec. The Quebec nation and the people of Quebec expected much more from a federal budget.

I will remind members of the conditions we set for supporting this budget. We called for direct and immediate assistance for the manufacturing and forestry sectors. I will go into a bit more detail later, but there was nothing of note in this budget for these sectors. The budget does not offer adequate and fair assistance for the workers and communities affected by the crisis in the manufacturing and forestry sectors. It does not provide for any measures to reimburse the seniors who were swindled out of the guaranteed income supplement. The Conservatives made a promise about this during the last election campaign—yet another promise that was not kept. The Conservative government keeps breaking promises from one session to the next. It continues to take a polluter-paid approach, instead of adopting a polluter-pay approach. It refuses to do a 180-degree turn on the environment. The environment is very important to Quebeckers.

Once again, there is nothing in this budget to address that. It does not provide for any major investment in culture, nor does it do anything about the ideological cuts already announced by the Conservative government. Worse yet, it reiterates the government's plan to set up a single securities commission, an idea that has met with strong opposition in Quebec. Hardly anyone supports the idea of setting up a single securities commission. It is clear that the Minister of Finance and the Conservative government have chosen to give market forces free rein even though market forces are working against people in Quebec.

With their laissez-faire policy, the Conservative government and the Minister of Finance have slashed funding for many programs, suspended others, and encouraged cheap imports by leaving loopholes in trade laws and not acting on the recommendations of the trade tribunal. Everyone is talking about globalization nowadays, and this House's failure to do anything has given competitors the window they need to gain strength.

Quebec's economy is becoming less and less competitive, and job losses are piling up. There is nothing in this budget to help Quebec. That is clear. For example, Quebec's manufacturing sector, which used to be one of the province's strengths, has been turning into one of its weaknesses since early 2003. In Quebec, 148,000 jobs have been lost, 35,000 of those in 2006 and 43,000 in 2007. Some 78,000 jobs have been lost since the Conservatives came to power. That is significant. Those 78,000 jobs were lost in Quebec's manufacturing sector, one of our key sectors. The budget offers nothing at all to support this sector.

Rather than do something to alleviate the crisis, the Conservatives are making it worse with their laissez-faire approach. All they have done is lower corporate taxes. Cutting corporate taxes for companies that do not pay taxes because they do not make a profit is meaningless. That is the truth.

Overall, in 2007, businesses in Quebec did not turn a profit, so the tax cuts do not apply. One of these days, the minister is going to have to admit that these corporate tax cuts have not put an end to the devastation in the manufacturing and forestry sectors. At the same time, these cuts have enabled the oil companies to save millions of dollars.

A major share of the $14.1 billion in tax cuts the Conservative government announced in its economic statement last fall will go to the oil companies. Once again, by not taking action or by bringing in measures designed solely to reduce corporate taxes, the government is not helping a truly fragile sector in Quebec.

The banks are another sector that has received generous treatment from the Conservative government in this budget. While the oil industry in western Canada is rolling in dough, the manufacturing industry in Quebec is going through a serious crisis. High-quality, well-paying jobs with attractive benefits that created wealth in the manufacturing sector are being lost in favour of unstable retail jobs and self-employment in Quebec and Ontario.

According to the TD Bank, laid-off manufacturing workers will lose an average of $10,000 of income annually if they take jobs in the service sector.

I can give a striking example. In my riding, in Shawinigan, the Belgo pulp and paper plant, which employed 550 well-paid workers, closed last fall with almost no notice. The company closed a plant that paid very good wages. I am convinced that the Toronto Dominion Bank's statistics are accurate for the workers who found other work. They found new jobs, but at much lower pay.

The region's whole economy is suffering, and the same scenario is being played out all through Quebec. Well-paying jobs are being replaced by jobs in the service sector that often pay minimum wage or very low wages.

Meanwhile, after bringing down a budget that does nothing to help industries in trouble, the Conservative government is telling us that jobs are being created. But these are poor-quality jobs that pay much less, with the result that Quebec is becoming poorer.

The minister must stop spouting his Conservative propaganda and admit that the employment shift from the manufacturing sector to the service sector, to retail for example, has cost Canadian families more than $1 billion in revenue in 2007. That is a lot of money.

In addition to the strong Canadian dollar, which is bringing down the Quebec manufacturing sector, the financial crisis affecting the global economy will reduce Quebec manufacturing exports, thereby exacerbating the crisis they are already facing. The proof is in the numbers.

In the first three months of 2008, Quebec exports fell by 6% compared to the same quarter last year. Statistics therefore clearly show that the manufacturing sector is really suffering.

This Minister of Finance, who advocates economic Darwinism, says again and again that his government did what was needed by lowering corporate taxes. This drop in Quebec exports means lower profits and lower taxes, but lower taxes do not help a business that is not making any profits.

As I was saying earlier, the Conservative government's economic laissez-faire approach with this budget does nothing to help businesses that are not turning a profit—and that is generally the case in Quebec at this time. We definitely do not see how anyone could support this budget.

Yet the minister had the means to do something. Instead he chose to let things take their course, once again. Instead of allocating $10.2 billion to pay down the debt, the Minister of Finance could have put forward direct assistance measures to help the manufacturing and forestry sectors survive the crisis. This was a true error in judgment. Good judgment seems to be quite rare in this government.

The manufacturing sector needs a boost from the government in order to overcome the extremely rapid rise in the value of the Canadian petrodollar. The Canadian dollar is currently at par with the American dollar.

It is no coincidence that it has reached that level. It is in fact because of overproduction, the production of oil and the extremely generous help the Conservative government is giving that industry. That is what is behind the rising dollar, but, in the meantime, the adverse effect of all this is that the manufacturing industry in Quebec is suffering. The industry has a much harder time being competitive when our dollar is on par with the U.S. dollar and it is therefore less able to face international competition. Again, the government helps the oil industry, which harms the manufacturing industry in Quebec. What is more, the government is not doing anything in particular to help that industry.

The federal government, through the Minister of Finance, preferred to lower taxes rather than to help businesses make the necessary investments. For a long time now, we have been calling on the government to help by providing loan guarantees or doing something to support businesses, whether through subsidies or loan guarantees, in order to help them become competitive. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology had listed the conditions that would enable the manufacturing industry to survive, but the Minister of Finance ignored them all.

The Conservative government continues to allow the oil companies to benefit from major tax breaks through accelerated capital cost allowance. The minister said they would gradually abolish that measure. He gave himself until 2012 or 2013. If nothing is done for Quebec by then, what will remain of its manufacturing and forestry industries?

The minister has to take his blinders off and acknowledge that instead of adopting this laissez-faire attitude and focusing on the debt, he could have taken $3 billion or, at most, $4 billion out of the $10.2 billion to truly help the manufacturing industry. The hon. member who spoke before me said that when we are on the brink of bankruptcy, it is time to take action. When the roof is leaking, it is time to plug the holes. That is what the Conservative government is refusing to do.

Currently in Quebec, I cannot say that the roof is leaking, but it does not look good. It needs good support for some renewed vigour. This laissez-faire attitude and focus on the debt used by a government full of dinosaurs—those are not our words, that is what journalists called them the day after the budget was brought down—is causing the de-industrialization of Quebec and Ontario. The government could, for once and for all, adopt the real industrial revitalization strategy the Bloc Québécois has been advocating.

While the manufacturing sector is reeling from rising energy costs, oil companies reap record profits and the minister continues to subsidize them. Had he demonstrated a minimum of leadership, he would have immediately abolished the tax benefits given to oil companies and proposed real strategies to encourage research and development, particularly by introducing refundable tax credits. Will the minister wake up one day and abolish the tax incentives for oil companies and replace them with refundable research and development tax credits for the manufacturing sector?

At present, this government is a menace to the Quebec economy. By giving significant tax incentives to oil companies, failing to put in place a real plan to fight greenhouse gas emissions and introducing an equalization formula that only takes into account one half of oil and gas revenues, it has added more measures that favour the oil sector. These actions, which are irresponsible in terms of the economy and the environment, inflate Canada's petrodollar, and that, in turn, dampens the considerable efforts made by Quebec and its manufacturing sector to weather the economic disruptions affecting global markets.

Once again, could the government and its minister consider the interests of the Quebec nation rather than concentrating solely on quenching the thirst for oil of its Republican friends in the U.S. and encouraging Canada's bad environmental behaviour? It is not too late to take action. In spite of this budget—dubbed the dinosaur budget—the government could establish a plan to truly support the manufacturing sector.

The Government of Quebec has allocated $620 million—I will move on to another topic shortly—to support the manufacturing and forestry sectors, while the federal government injected $2 billion over three years for all of Canada. In light of the Government of Quebec's enormous effort, how can the federal government contribute so little?

It is very disappointing that the federal government allocated just a billion dollars over three years when it had a $10.2 billion surplus that it could have used to provide real support to the manufacturing sector.

As if that were not enough, it turns out that the $1 billion trust, which will subsidize jobs lost between 2005 and 2008, adds up to about $2,275 for each job lost in the manufacturing and forestry sectors in Quebec. In Alberta, that same amount over three years adds up to $20,000 per job lost. Clearly, that is not fair.

The government made a big show of announcing its $1 billion trust, but the trust is completely unfair to places where the manufacturing sector is really important. Alberta will get $20,000 per job lost, while Quebec will get $2,200. That is really unfair. Add to that the fact that industry is flourishing in Alberta. With an industry in such good shape, they do not need $20,000 per job lost.

How can the minister justify such an under-achieving, poorly designed plan? He has completely failed to understand the economic situation in Quebec.

I would also like to talk about another budget issue: the fiscal imbalance. The Conservatives pride themselves on having resolved the fiscal imbalance. However, the Séguin report in Quebec, which all Quebeckers agreed with, identified three major, specific deliverables with respect to resolving the fiscal imbalance.

The first was a new equalization formula that took into account total revenues of all provinces, which is not in this budget.

The report also recommended eliminating federal spending power in areas under provincial jurisdiction. We were expecting a bill during the last Speech from the Throne. Will this bill be introduced before the end of the session? This was a promise from the Conservative government. Will we see yet another promise broken? They talked about this in the House yesterday.

The federal government is having a hard time understanding real needs when it comes to its spending power. We need to talk about more than just shared-cost programs—there are none anymore—as it announced. It makes no sense. The Quebec government made it clear that it would not support the bill that we are waiting for. Will the government introduce the bill? It is important that the government keep its promises, or at least try to.

Now back to the fiscal imbalance. I was talking about the Séguin report. It also recommended replacing cash transfers with equivalent sales tax and income tax points.

If we talk about the manufacturing and forestry sectors or the fiscal imbalance—which the Conservatives committed to resolving and claim to have resolved—we are still nowhere near the point where the Conservative government has truly thought about the needs expressed by Quebec, specifically in terms of a key component of its economy, the manufacturing sector, and in terms of the fiscal imbalance, which is still far from being resolved. There is nothing about this in the budget. The Bloc Québécois will vote against the budget, that is obvious.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the member's speech. I will talk about two egregious errors the Conservative government has made relating to humanitarian aid.

First, as incredible as it may sound, the government has reduced the amount of money available for the prevention of polio, and this is unacceptable. If the government supports polio prevention, it can stop a child from being crippled for life for 60¢.

My second point is this. Tomorrow an important decision will be made by the Thai-Burma border commission about food in the refugee camps. There are 140,000 people at risk. They are about to go on a starvation diet. Their rations will be cut to half of what the World Health Organization says a person needs to live. Something has to be done about that.

The Conservative government has been asked numerous times to help. Only $1 million from Canada is needed and the other $6 million would come from the other donor countries in a year. The prime minister of Burma made this point to our Prime Minister when they met a few weeks ago and talked about this crisis.

Would the member support the Conservative government and help lobby it to somehow reinstate this funding? It does not necessarily have to be in this budget, if that is difficult. It can be done through the supplementary estimates. Will the government at some point reinstate money to its previous level for polio prevention for what could be a humanitarian crisis? Will the government solve the urgent crisis in the refugee camps in Thailand by adding the $1 million a year, for which all NGOs involved have asked? The prime minister of Burma, who is in exile, has also asked our Prime Minister for this money.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the member for Yukon that obviously, as I said earlier, the Conservative government favours one sector at the expense of many others. When it directs its encouragement only to the oil companies with its tax cuts and subsidies that are targeted to them, when it focuses its political strategies on economic development in that sector at the expense of many others, we can see that it conveniently forgets to provide adequate support for a number of sectors that should receive much more from a government that inherited a $12.5 billion surplus.

It is true that money is very poorly allocated. The government should not overlook its humanitarian aid obligations, which have been completely left out of this budget. I fully agree with the member's comments on this matter.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I am an Alberta MP and I sit in the House every day. I listen to members of the opposition, particularly the Bloc, trash the oil and gas business. Frankly, it does get a little tiresome.

It is an accident of geography that Quebec has hydro power and that Alberta has oil and gas. The best thing for the Bloc is that it is allowed to stand up and be sanctimonious forever in the House.

Has the hon. member any appreciation of the number of jobs and the economic impact that the oil patch in Alberta, and now Saskatchewan, has on the prosperity of his province? Does he know the number of manufacturing jobs that have been created for Quebeckers, the amount of money that goes into social programs for Quebec and the amount of the Quebec pension plan that is invested in the oil and gas business?

I think the best thing to straighten out the attitude of the Bloc members would be if they discovered oil and gas in Quebec.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the member for Edmonton Centre that when he talks about the members of the Bloc Québécois imagining things, he should remember that the members of the Bloc Québécois were elected by a very large majority in Quebec, and that democracy will require them to listen to us. Quebeckers are the ones who elected us, and they want us to make demands on their behalf.

He spoke about the many jobs that have been created in Alberta, and compared this to hydroelectricity. Earlier I spoke about the issue of equalization; the government only includes 50% of revenues from natural resources in the equalization calculation, even though we know that some calculations in Quebec take into account all the revenue from hydroelectricity, a sector that has never received assistance from the federal government.

We do not need lectures from anyone on this subject, especially not from the Conservatives.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to hear my Bloc Québécois colleague's presentation. Everyone knows that the Bloc Québécois supported the Conservative Party on the last two budgets. This time, Bloc members will follow the NDP's lead, which we very much appreciate.

My colleague talked about all the economic consequences for Quebec. Let us have another look at the softwood lumber agreement. The Bloc Québécois supported it and that led to the haemorrhaging of jobs in Quebec, including Mauricie, Abitibi and Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. Thousands and thousands of jobs were lost because the Bloc supported the Conservative Party, as did the Liberal Party, on the softwood lumber agreement, which basically auctioned off Quebec's softwood lumber industry.

I would therefore like to ask the hon. member if he regrets the fact that the Bloc Québécois supported the softwood lumber agreement, which led to such massive job losses in Quebec.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have two things to say to the NDP member.

First, I would like to address his comments regarding the Bloc having supported two budgets. I would remind him that the NDP also supported the first budget. Liberal and NDP members remained seated during the vote and, oddly enough, both said they forgot and had not realized their mistake. Even if it was a mistake, they must accept it and admit that they nonetheless supported the budget. Those are the facts.

Second, I have no regrets about the Bloc Québécois supporting the softwood lumber agreement. I personally consulted the numerous businesses and mills in my riding of Saint-Maurice—Champlain, which employ many workers. I toured my riding before votes were held on the agreement. I visited the majority of businesses and workers and most of them told me that there was no choice, that they were at the end of their rope.

I agree with my colleague that the agreement was not perfect. However, in the end, we had to sign because people could no longer survive.

Had the government, whether Liberal or Conservative, provided loans and loan guarantees to companies before then, they could have coped with the serious problem. However, they were on their last legs and could no longer survive.

We listened to Quebeckers, supported the agreement and have no regrets.