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

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

moved that Bill C-50, 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, be read the third time and passed.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to present Bill C-50 at third reading, a bill that proposes to implement certain measures from budget 2008.

This year's budget further illustrates the responsible leadership of this government. This is a budget for uncertain times when a strong and steady hand and focused leadership is needed.

Building on the government's 2007 economic statement, budget 2008 is balanced, focused and prudent in order to ensure that Canada remains strong and secure amid global economic uncertainty.

To that end, budget 2008 continues reducing debt and taxes, focusing government spending, and providing additional support for sectors of the economy that are struggling in this period of uncertainty.

Today I would like to touch upon some of the key measures in the budget that are included in Bill C-50, including as it relates to citizenship and immigration and specifically as it impacts on my constituency of Souris—Moose Mountain. In doing so, I will demonstrate how the government is providing strong and responsible leadership.

I will also demonstrate that our priorities accord with those of Canadians. We are reducing debt, strengthening Canada's tax advantage, investing in the country's manufacturing heartland and investing in priorities that matter to Canadians.

By carefully managing spending and continuing to reduce debt, the government is ensuring that its programs provide value for money, are sustainable and keep the tax burden to a minimum.

We are also ensuring intergenerational equity. This means that we should not ask our children and our grandchildren to pay the freight on the spending excesses of the past, such as by the previous Liberal government in the March spending madness that took place where budget surpluses were used for continual and additional spending.

That is why we are reducing the federal debt by more than $37 billion, including $10.2 billion in 2007-08. As a result of our aggressive debt reduction plan, by 2009-10 personal income tax reductions provided under the tax back guarantee will amount to $2 billion, which will continue to grow into the future.

Our government is also working to create a tax advantage for Canada. The measures we have introduced since taking office will provide almost $200 billion in tax relief over 2007-08 and the following five years. That is $200 billion left in the pockets of Canadians to further increase their business and their initiatives, which will produce more jobs.

As the Minister of Finance has said, our government is meeting the challenge of global economic uncertainty with a plan that is real, a plan that is responsible and a plan that is working.

Budget 2008 builds on past action by proposing what is the most important, federally driven, personal finance innovation since the introduction of the registered retirement savings plan, and that is the tax-free savings account. This flexible, registered, general purpose account will allow Canadians to watch their savings, including interest income, dividend payments and capital gains grow tax free. Yes, tax free.

As a new general purpose savings account, the tax-free savings account will provide an additional tax efficient savings vehicle for Canadians that complements existing registered savings plan, such as the RRSP and the registered education savings plan.

In other words, Canadians will have access to a complete set of tax efficient savings vehicles to meet their various needs: for their children's education, for their retirement and for their own immediate use purposes during life.

An important point to emphasize is that a tax-free savings account will provide greater savings incentives for low and modest income individuals. Neither the income earned in a tax-free savings account nor withdrawals from it will affect eligibility for federal income tested benefit credits, such as the Canada child tax benefit, the GST credit, the age credit, the old age security and the guaranteed income supplement benefits.

In fact, in the first five years it is estimated that over three-quarters of the benefits of saving in a tax-free savings account will go to individuals in the two lowest tax brackets.

The government has taken another action to help those who need it, including Canadian seniors, for example.

Many seniors live on a fixed income. They often find it difficult to make ends meet. That is why our government has provided significant tax relief for seniors and pensioners. This includes a doubling of the pension income amount to $2,000, with an increase in age credit amounts by $1,000.

The tax relief also includes increasing the age limit for maturing RPPs and RRSPs and, for the first time ever in Canada, pension income splitting for seniors and pensioners. For a one-pension working family of two, the savings will be incredible, into the thousands.

However, we can and must do more to support our seniors. Budget 2008 therefore proposes to increase the guaranteed income supplement exemption to $3,500 from the current maximum of $500. This will benefit seniors with low and modest incomes who choose to continue working. We must also remember that the interest they earn on their tax-free savings account will continue to help them. Moreover, this initiative will help these seniors live their retirement years with dignity and the respect they deserve.

Our government is also investing in Canada's manufacturing heartland. It is committed to helping Canadian communities in need. Just this past February, members will recall, Parliament passed the government's $1 billion community development trust to support communities and workers suffering from economic hardship. Among other things, this funding could support job training to create opportunities for workers, community transition plans that foster economic development and create new jobs, and infrastructure development that stimulates economic diversification.

Budget 2008 also demonstrates responsible leadership by helping to create the conditions for our businesses and entrepreneurs to invest and thrive at home and abroad. To that end, budget 2008 takes targeted action to help important Canadian industries. For example, it proposes to provide $250 million for an automotive innovation fund. This initiative, being led by the Minister of Industry, will help Canada's automotive sector adapt to the challenges of the future and remain a key component of Canada's economy.

Budget 2008 also proposes to extend temporary accelerated capital cost allowance treatment for manufacturers and processors for three years, on a declining basis.

This government continues to invest in the priorities of Canadians, one of these being a desire to live in a safe and secure community. This government takes seriously the responsibility of protecting Canadians. Budget 2008 provides funding to protect Canadian families and communities, building on the important investments this government has made in previous budgets.

Bill C-50 proposes to implement a measure from budget 2008 that will provide funding to provinces and territories to support them in recruiting 2,500 new front line police officers. The bill proposes to set aside up to $400 million in 2007-08 to be paid into a third-party trust for provinces and territories, allocated proportionately, to meet this objective.

There is little doubt that the environment is another priority for Canadians. Canadian participation in the earth hour event in March was strong evidence of that. People, not only across the country but around the world, turned off their lights to make a statement about helping find new ways to reduce their impact on the environment.

One of the budget measures contained in Bill C-50 is a proposal to set aside $250 million for a full scale commercial demonstration of carbon capture and storage in the coal-fired electricity sector and for research projects to accelerate the deployment of the technology. Carbon capture and storage presents an opportunity for Canada to develop and benefit from world-leading technology that can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

On March 15, the Prime Minister of Canada visited my constituency of Souris—Moose Mountain to formally announce the budget provision of $240 million to the province of Saskatchewan for carbon capture and storage and clean coal technology. The province of Saskatchewan confirmed plans to use the funds at the Estevan Boundary Dam, located just south of my home city of Estevan, Saskatchewan.

This federal funding will help leverage an estimated $1.4 billion of investment into clean coal technology and carbon capture and storage. This project will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated one million tonnes per year.

I wonder if NDP members realize that by voting against the passage of Bill C-50 they are voting against this critical investment that will result in the equivalent of removing millions of cars from the roads. This project has the potential to provide a solid base for enhanced oil recovery, more jobs and significant economic spinoff.

SaskPower is developing what it is calling one of the first and largest clean coal and carbon capture demonstration projects in the world. This commercial demonstration of state of the art carbon capture and storage technology will make Canada a world leader in clean energy production. Benefits from this project will extend to enhanced oil recovery initiatives.

At the premiers conference in Prince Albert, the premier of Alberta stated in the Saturday, May 31 issue of the Leader-Post that the carbon capture and storage technique is “the quickest, most rapid way of significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions”.

In the same article, Premier Wall said that Saskatchewan already is a centre of excellence in terms of carbon capture and storage, with the Petroleum Technology Research Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan, and its Weyburn-Midale pilot project, the largest carbon dioxide storage in the world.

Encana's facility located near Weyburn, Saskatchewan is Weyburn's flagship project, with a seven year record of demonstrating CO₂ storage on a commercial scale. At this time, Encana receives CO₂ from Beulah, North Dakota, using it for enhanced oil recovery, and is presently touted as the world's largest CO₂ sequestration project and the largest commercial scale carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery project in Canada.

The Petroleum Technology Research Centre in Regina is actively involved in the Weyburn project. The potential for southeast Saskatchewan is phenomenal. CO₂ can be compressed and piped to storage locations. The geological formation for CO₂ storage exists in southeast Saskatchewan. It is waiting for expanded, innovative thinking and brave initiatives on the part of all affected parties.

Budget 2008 provides a capital cost allowance rate for compression and pumping equipment on CO₂ pipelines of 15% and an increase in the rate from 4% to 8% on CO₂ pipelines transporting CO₂. It is this type of initiatives that the NDP would be voting against.

It sounds exciting. It sounds invigorating. It is the kind of action and leadership that are required of a government, that enhance and encourage the enterprise, the initiative and the ambitions that Canadians possess and that partner with others like the province of Saskatchewan, SaskPower and industry to ensure projects such as this can take place.

Kevin Hursh, a consulting agrologist and farmer based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, stated in a National Post article on May 31, 2008:

In a lot of small and large towns, [in Saskatchewan] you can hardly find a house to buy and if you do, the price has increased dramatically. Older houses that no one wanted a few years ago are being gobbled up and renovated. Even houses in old farmyards are in demand.

He added that there is an optimism in the agriculture and grain industry sector that has not been seen before. He stated:

People are moving back to Saskatchewan and it isn't only the cities that are benefiting. Rural Saskatchewan still has problems, but there has been an amazing reversal of fortunes. Local governments are scrambling to switch from survival mode to a growth mode.

Our economy and its continued growth will depend on a flexible and responsive immigration system to ensure we have the skilled workers and the tradespeople that our country needs. Neither Canadians nor prospective immigrants benefit from an immigration system that, due to its dysfunctional nature, forces prospective immigrants to wait for up to six years before their application is looked at, let alone processed.

The current system is especially problematic, since in a few short years all of our net labour growth will come from immigration. That is why changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act were included in budget 2008. “Advantage Canada” in 2006 identified that Canada needs the most flexible workforce in the world, an issue that is critical to Canada's future.

A new and more efficient processing system is desperately needed, a system that is responsive both to the needs of newcomers and the needs of Canada. Canada faces serious international competition in attracting people with the talents and skills we need to ensure our country's continued growth and prosperity.

Compared to the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, Canada is the only country that does not use some kind of occupational filter to screen, code or prioritize skilled worker applications. Compared to other countries, Canada's system is just not flexible enough.

The legislative changes that we propose will prevent the backlog from growing. With the growth of the backlog halted, the government also has allocated additional resources to reduce the backlog. Among other things, our government has committed over $109 million over five years to bring down the backlog.

Part 6 of Bill C-50, when combined with these non-legislative measures funded in budget 2008 and beyond, will act to control and reduce the backlog and speed up processing. The government will be required to consult with provinces and territories, industry, and government departments.

These consultations will include getting assurances that if the regulated professions are prioritized, commitments from provincial regulatory bodies will be obtained, to ensure that individuals brought here will be allowed to work in their chosen fields soon after arrival. The instructions must respect our commitments to provinces and territories regarding the provincial nominee program and the Canada-Quebec accord.

These proposed changes are part of a vision that involves creating a more responsive immigration system, one that allows us to welcome more immigrants while helping them get the jobs they need to succeed and build a better life for themselves and their families. Their success is our success.

Urgent action is required. Part 6 and all of budget 2008 delivers this much needed action.

The bill we are debating today illustrates just how our government is prepared to meet the challenge of global economic uncertainty. We have a realistic plan for Canada, a plan that is working. There is no way we are going to slide back to the days of high spending, high debt and higher taxes, as some would have it. Canadians do not want that and neither does this government.

Rather, as reflected by the measures proposed in Bill C-50, our plan is taking us down the right road, a road that requires focus, prudence and discipline, yet at the same time it is a road that is very refreshing, exciting and invigorating, a road that will point the way forward for Canadians for years to come. To all Canadians, it will be like a breath of fresh air.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague from the Conservative Party, although I will make the comment that the highest debt load and biggest deficits in Canadian history were under a Conservative government, the former Conservative government of Brian Mulroney. For the member to pretend that somehow the Conservatives know how to manage money I think is a bit far fetched.

I want to get to the reality of this budget. The Conservatives now have been in power for over two and a half years and what we have seen is a steadfast erosion in good, quality, family-sustaining jobs in Canada.

A study came out two weeks ago which indicated that the Conservatives have managed to kick out of the country hundreds of thousands of good manufacturing jobs that pay over $20 an hour and replace them with minimum wage jobs in the service industry, jobs that are temporary and part time. Like some kind of economic magicians who cannot handle their magic wands, the Conservatives have taken Canada decades backward to the time of minimum wage jobs by kicking manufacturing jobs out of the country.

Therefore, my question is very simple. Right across the country we are seeing a hemorrhaging of good manufacturing jobs due to Conservative policies. We are seeing that the only thing the Conservatives can come up with are minimum wage jobs that are not family-sustaining jobs, that are part time and that do not come with benefits. Will the member admit that the budget has already failed because what we are seeing for most Canadian families is a steady pushing back of their incomes and a steady pushing down of overall wages in Canada?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, quite the contrary, the Conservative government is managing the economy very well. It is managing the continued growth of the economy and jobs very well. If the member will recall, there was a Globe and Mail article that indicated the types of jobs that are actually being created. They are not the Tim Hortons or burger-flipping type jobs. They are jobs in management. They are jobs in various sectors.

The economy remains strong. Interest rates are low. Inflation remains within the targeted range. Disposable personal income continues to go up. The unemployment rate is at a 33 year low. Employment is on the rise in every region of the country. More than 750,000 new jobs have been created. The taxes that people pay are at an all-time low. Debt is being paid down. Spending is under control. We can remain focused with prudence, or we can pretend that it is not working. All the indicators show that the economy is on a solid foundation. Notwithstanding what is happening in the global situation, we appreciate that has some impact on our economy, as well, but we have addressed those by strategically targeting and we are helping to overcome those, while the rest of the country continues to grow. There are many sectors of the economy in various provinces, like Saskatchewan, that are doing exceptionally well.

It is very important to point out that more Canadians have more dollars in their pockets today than they have had in a long time. Indeed, the income taxes that people work so hard to pay have been going down proportionately every year, into the thousands of dollars. It is important for Canadians to be able to keep some of that money to use on their own initiative to further invest in our economy to create yet more jobs. Certainly it will not be through going the route that the New Democratic Party is talking about. I would urge the member and all hon. members from his party to support this particular budget because it has a number of innovative initiatives that need to go forward to ensure our economy continues along the line that it has been doing in the last little while.

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

Mr. Speaker, if the member is talking about some sort of fiscal balance or an approach that is striking balance within the economy, why has the government chosen to continue with a subsidy to the most profitable part of the economy, the oil sands? There is a $1.3 billion or $1.4 billion subsidy that will continue this year, next year and into the year after that, going to a part of the economy which is making absolute record profits with the price of oil being at an all-time high.

This does not make any fiscal sense nor is it prudent at all when other sectors of the economy are struggling just to keep their doors open. There was another announcement from GM today. The government, in a sense, is regionalizing the country. It is breaking it into its component parts rather than maintaining a cohesive unit where various components of the country's economy are presented as a unified force rather than advancing certain interests that are narrowly geographically defined.

How is it that the member's government continues to justify an obscene and perverse subsidy to an industry that does not need it and has not asked for it? Certainly the money could be used much better in other places, whether it be the auto sector, the wood manufacturing sector, just about any other manufacturing sector within our economy, rather than in companies that simply are making profits that were unimaginable in previous economies.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the big oil companies to which the member referred, the member should have noticed that we took away the accelerated capital cost allowance. This is actually a tax hike for big oil companies. We transferred that benefit to manufacturers in Canada as I described earlier. The member surely is aware that more than 19,000 net new jobs were created in this country last month alone, this despite the slowness of the United States economy.

Since this government took office, employment has increased by 832,000 people. There are some single industry communities in particular which need help. That is why the Prime Minister announced the community development trust fund of $1 billion to help communities in parts of the country that have met some difficulties, but there is specific assistance for those in the manufacturing sector. A whole host of programs have been developed to ensure they continue. There is $250 million over five years to support strategic large scale research and development projects in the automotive sector, to develop innovative, greener and more fuel efficient vehicles. This funding will contribute to a more competitive Canadian automotive sector and will help Canada achieve its environmental objectives.

There is a whole host of other programs, such as: $9 billion in tax relief including broad based tax reductions, as well as temporary accelerated writeoffs for investments in machinery and equipment used in manufacturing and processing; $1.3 billion per year in additional funding to the provinces for post-secondary education and training to create a more highly skilled workforce; more than $1.5 billion over three years through budget 2006 and budget 2007 to support Canada's leadership in science and technology; and of course, $33 billion over seven years in infrastructure investments that will continue to ensure that we have the infrastructure to ensure that our economy continues to grow.

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

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary mentioned some of the tax cuts in this budget bill. It is important to point out that the largest most targeted tax relief in the last two budgets has in fact been for the manufacturing sector, in particular, $1.3 billion in last year's budget and $1 billion in this budget with respect to the two year writeoff for capital cost allowance so companies can invest in new machinery, so they can improve their productivity over a very short period of time and compete at the dollar parity they are facing today.

The second thing I want to point out is there are comments made about the service sector which unfortunately are very pejorative and in fact are incorrect. According to Statistics Canada, and the NDP is free to survey its website, the average service sector wage rose from $14.97 to $17.54 between 2000 and 2007. This was the fastest growing sector, in terms of percentage per annum of the labour force surveyed, growing by 3.1%. I know the NDP likes to say that they are only McJobs, but the service sector includes financial services, the life insurance sector, health professionals and teachers. That is what the service sector is. This is what the industry committee is studying.

I encourage the member to talk to his colleague from Parkdale—High Park so he gets a broader view of what the service sector is in this country and how important it is. That is what the service sector is. It is intricately linked with the manufacturing sector and other sectors. We should be proud of all workers in this country, rather than use pejorative terms like the NDP is choosing to do in this debate.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for drawing attention to what should be painfully obvious to the NDP, but we do know what we do not need. We do not need the type of economic policy the professor across the way would have, which would max out the national credit card and pay for it with a new carbon tax. It would kill jobs. It would drive up the cost of everything, gasoline, diesel, home heating oil. It would reduce the standard of living for all individuals and families. Those are the kinds of things we do not need. We need the types of programs that will ensure the economy goes forward, that jobs are created, good quality jobs as my learned friend has indicated. The NDP should wake up and get behind us and support the initiatives we are taking in this budget because it will certainly help all Canadians.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Markham—Unionville.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek the unanimous consent of the House to split my time with the member for Willowdale.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in the third reading debate on the budget implementation bill. I will divide my comments between the budget per se and the immigration provisions.

On the budget per se, our leader said at the time the budget was presented that this was not a very significant budget and it certainly was not worth going to the people in an election on such a minor budget. Most of the money had been spent in previous actions, but there were a number of items in the budget with which we took exception.

First of all, we had recommended that rather than pay down $10 billion in debt, the government pay down $3 billion in debt and devote $7 billion to an infrastructure fund. We were highly conscious of the fact that Canada faces an infrastructure deficit in excess of $100 billion. This would be an investment in the future not only for ourselves but for our children and our grandchildren. As an important byproduct, it would have created many jobs across the country. Sadly, the government chose not to take this advice and this opportunity has now disappeared.

I also have some reservations about the EI enterprise. First of all, it is an exercise in bureaucracy. Experts have told me that to set EI premiums according to some formula, we do not need to set up some vast new enterprise which is a waste of taxpayers' money. It can be done in a much simpler and more expeditious way.

I am also concerned about the fact that the surplus in that new enterprise is only $2 billion, which will force the agency to increase EI premiums by a substantial amount just at the moment when the economy may be going into a recession. This is a counter-cyclical bad policy. As actuaries and others have said, there should be a larger surplus so that the EI account is balanced over the cycle rather than year by year.

Coming now to the immigration provisions, we on the Liberal side are strongly opposed to these provisions. First of all, the government is simply saying, “Trust us”. It does not tell us anything about what it is going to do. All of the power rests with the minister to do whatever she wants to do. The mantra of the government is, “Trust us”. Our view is that given the record of the government, there is no reason that any Canadian should trust the Conservative government to do anything, let alone make very important decisions on immigration.

One of the other concerns I have with the immigration provisions is that the government put virtually no more money into the immigration budget. Any serious attempt to deal with backlogs, waiting times and processing times is empty if there is not more money to hire more people to do the interviewing and the processing.

When the government effectively puts no more money in and it says that certain groups will be fast-tracked, that automatically implies, logically speaking, that some other groups will be slow-tracked. The Conservatives do not admit to that. They do not fess up to that point, which is fairly basic. In saying that they will fast-track the economic immigrants, they are implicitly, while not admitting it, saying that they will slow-track the family reunification immigrants.

We on this side acknowledge the importance of the labour shortages and the economic immigrants, but at the same time we believe in balance, which the government does not believe in. We do not think that fast-tracking of economic immigrants should be carried out on the backs of family reunification immigrants. In brief, I think what we are seeing is the commoditization of immigrants, that immigrants are seen not as people but as commodities by the Conservative government.

Therefore, we oppose these provisions. If we oppose them in large numbers, there may be an election. If we oppose them in small numbers, we are sending a message to the people of Canada that when a Liberal government is in power, we will replace these immigration provisions with a better policy which will certainly involve a certain amount of funding and which will certainly involve policies that address both family reunification immigrants and economic immigrants, and do not favour one group at the expense of the other.

The next issue I would like to address is the stewardship of our economy by the government. Not so long ago on May 12, the finance minister said, “The factors behind the current American malaise are not likely to be duplicated here”. Then he went on to describe how Canada was doing so terribly well compared with the United States that was doing so terribly bad. He talked about our financial institutions being strong. He talked about us not having a subprime mortgage crisis. He talked about us not having a housing slump. He probably mentioned the resource-based nature of our economy which is causing a boom in western Canada and other parts of the country.

How is it then that the most fundamental indicator of the health of the economy, the indicator that tells us whether we are in recession or not, that is to say the growth of the gross domestic product, that in the first quarter of this year Canada's GDP went down and the U.S. GDP went up? That shocked everyone because some people believed the finance minister that the Canadian land is strong and the U.S. land is weak. How come it went up and we went down?

Not only that but Canada had the weakest first quarter of this year of any G-7 country. These are facts. These are not government spin. So Canada had the weakest first quarter of 2008 of any G-7 country. We are technically half way into our first recession in some 15 years. Yet, the government blathers on about the land is strong and everything is fine.

We have the weakest first quarter of any G-7 country. Consumer confidence, it was reported yesterday, has plummeted to the lowest level in seven years and business confidence is weak. Only today 1,000 jobs were lost in Oshawa, thanks in terms of the General Motors plant. Maybe that will wake up the Minister of Finance because a lot of those people actually live in his riding.

What is the answer? Yes, the Minister of Finance is right, Canada has these advantages. We do not have a subprime mortgage crisis. We do not have a housing slump. We do have a strong resource sector. Then why is Canada doing so badly relative to the U.S. and other G-7 countries in the first quarter of 2008? I will give the House the answer. It is the bad stewardship of this economy carried out by the Minister of Finance.

First of all, he said that Ontario is the last place to invest. It seems this morning General Motors was listening. General Motors announced today that it will not be investing in Ontario. It is closing that plant. I think it is the height of irresponsibility. Whatever the differences in policy view between the federal government and the provincial government, it is the height of irresponsibility for any finance minister to trash the business climate of any province, let alone his own province, telling people that it is the last place to invest.

People are starting to listen. It is irresponsibility, irresponsible on his part, and he should retract that comment. He should apologize for that. He should say the truth which is that Ontario is a great place to invest, not the last place to invest which is what our Minister of Finance said.

He is ideologically rigid. We have hemorrhaging jobs in manufacturing. He is ideologically opposed to any government investment in or support for the manufacturing sector. We saw the consequences of that this morning. We will see many more consequences of that down the road. He is not in the pothole business, so he is not wanting to put money into infrastructure. We disagree with that.

We have hemorrhaging jobs in manufacturing. His laissez-faire policy, ideologically motivated, is not to provide any direct support for the manufacturing sector and we are seeing the consequences of that today.

Last but not least, the minister inherited a $13 billion surplus, the biggest inheritance in Canadian history and in just over two short years he has taken Canada to the verge of deficit. Some say we are in deficit. He spent like crazy during the two first years when times were good to the point where Andrew Coyne, hardly a Liberal hack, labelled him the biggest spender since Confederation. Having spent like crazy--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. I did try to warn the hon. member, but if he never looks at the Chair, I cannot warn him.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Peterborough.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that speech was almost unbearable it was so misguided and so rife with political spin, doom and gloom. I do not think that is what Ontarians want. I do not think it is what Canadians want.

When he talks about massive surpluses that the Liberals ran, it is certainly not because they were good spenders. There were three budgets in the last year that there was a Liberal government in Canada. There were three budgets with a 14% spending increase in one single year.

This government has done a lot for manufacturing. We have done a lot for industry and what the finance minister was saying was that the province of Ontario has an opportunity before it to harmonize its sales taxes, and to get its corporate taxes in line. I know the member agrees with it because he is on the record saying that reducing corporate taxes is a powerful tool to stimulate industry in Canada.

Now he stands in the House, having followed what the finance minister has done, which is exactly what he called for, and asks, why is he not helping? He has helped; he has helped a lot. What the member fails to point out is the fact that when the Liberals were running massive surpluses, they were doing it on the backs of Canadians.

It was excess taxation and the reason why he laments the EI change. This is what I would love to hear him respond to, why when they were in government, did they operate EI just as a tax? It was tax and spend, tax and spend. That is what they did.

That is why they are upset about the EI change because it is another tax that they will not be able to spend. It is another slush fund they will not be able to access any more. That is what the Liberal Party is upset about, is it not?

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak in the third reading debate on Bill C-50, the budget implementation act.

It is not without some disappointment that I rise this morning to speak in this debate, largely because of what happened last night at the report stage votes on Bill C-50.

Last night we had the opportunity to show our displeasure with two key components of this legislation, the changes that it would impose on employment insurance and the immigration measures that are included in the bill.

Last night we were voting on two series of amendments that the NDP strongly supported. I know the Bloc also supported them; in fact, they proposed some of the amendments that we voted on, and the NDP proposed the other set. The amendments would have made significant changes to the legislation that we are debating this morning. They would have deleted the problematic sections pertaining to immigration in this legislation. They would have changed the provisions dealing with employment insurance in this legislation.

Unfortunately, we were robbed of that opportunity by the Liberal Party. Twelve members of the Liberal Party voted against the legislation last night, despite their protestations that they strongly oppose these provisions and that they are speaking up for Canadians who are concerned about immigration policy. Unfortunately, that was not enough to affect the outcome of the vote last night.

It is actually shocking that despite their protestations, the Liberals find it difficult to come to this place and express the opinion that they expressed to Canadians across this country and instead say, “Trust us. We will change it when we come to power”. We do not know when that is going to happen.

The reality is that last night was the opportunity for the official opposition, the Liberal Party, to exercise the power that it does command in this Parliament and to see that the legislation was changed, to see that the problems were fixed, to see the Liberals standing up to speak for those Canadians who are concerned about the changes to immigration, for instance, in this legislation. Instead, they chose not to do that. I think that is a very serious problem.

I do not think there is anything more important that I do in this place than rise in my place and vote on important legislation that is before the House. I take that moment very seriously. I wish more members of the Liberal Party would take that moment seriously. We have that opportunity in this minority Parliament. It is important that when we say we are going to seek changes, as the Liberal Party did, when we see problems with legislation that we exercise the power we have in this place, but that is not what is happening.

Sadly, the bill is at third reading now and we are debating the bill that the Conservatives proposed. We are debating again the immigration and EI measures that are so problematic and so significant, that imply such significant changes, and which we really do need to address.

I thought it was ironic this morning in debate that a Liberal member said that we could not trust the Conservatives to exercise the discretionary authority around immigration that is in this legislation, that we could not trust them to have that kind of discretionary power, and at the same time said that Canadians should trust the Liberals some point down the road to fix the legislation.

The opportunity is here now. The opportunity was here last night to make those changes. Clearly, Canadians cannot trust the Liberals to put their votes where their mouths are on this immigration issue in particular. That opportunity was lost last night. It is very serious. I think many Canadians will have something to say to Liberal members of Parliament about that.

With regard to the bill before us, one of the significant changes that is in this legislation is regarding the operation of the EI fund.

We have heard very strong language used, particularly from this corner of the House, about the implication of the changes in this legislation. Some members have said that there is a theft under way, that money is being stolen from workers and employers in Canada as a result of this legislation. I have to agree with members who use that strong language, because it is a very serious proposition that we are debating in this legislation.

In recent years there has been an accumulation of a $54.1 billion surplus in what is taken in in EI premiums over what is spent on EI payments and on training programs related to EI. That is money that has been collected in good faith from Canadian workers and from Canadian employers to run the employment insurance program.

The legislation is proposing that a new Canada employment insurance financing board be established. The board's job will be to set rates and cover payments for employment insurance. There is a significant change in all of this because the operation of the board will be more related to general economic trends rather than the needs of individual workers, which is the current bias of the operation of the EI program. That is a significant change.

The other significant problem with what is being proposed is that the reserve fund that is being established to cover changes in the economic climate and a rising unemployment rate will only be $2 billion. That is the reserve fund that is being established as a result of this legislation.

We know flatly that is just not enough. We have strong supporters in that opinion. The Auditor General has been very clear in saying that $10 billion to $15 billion at a minimum is necessary to ensure that any economic downturn can be accommodated by the EI fund. The former chief actuary of Canada has said that $15 billion is necessary to accomplish the same thing. Yet the proposal that we have before us only sets aside $2 billion.

When there was $54 billion collected from workers and employers over the years and we are only setting aside $2 billion, what is happening with that other $52 billion? That is a serious problem.That is why some members have been led to call this a significant theft and claim that that money is being stolen from workers and employers in Canada.

Rather than propose this kind of measure, there was a time when the Conservatives were in opposition when they actually proposed that the $54 billion should be repaid to the EI fund recognizing that this was money collected from workers and employers in Canada. Sadly, they have lost that impetus to do the right thing, to do justice to workers and employers in Canada to ensure that that money was used for the purposes for which it was collected. They have done a complete about face and are now willing to write off that $52 billion completely, and in doing so, make a very inadequate accommodation for the possibility of an economic downturn.

I think all of us are nervous about that right now. The Conservatives talk about people who are preaching doom and gloom. I do not think any of us want to preach doom and gloom, but I think all of us want to be aware of the signals that are out there. There are many people who are concerned about the possibility of recession and the possibility of an economic downturn.

Without a strong EI program we know that is going to make any downturn more problematic for Canadians. Many of us believe that the EI program that exists today is a mere shadow of what it once was. Many Canadian workers are finding it difficult when they are laid off to get by without the kind of EI program that we have had in the past.

The news today from Oshawa, the city where I was born and in which I grew up, is not good. The truck plant is being shut down and a thousand more auto workers are going to be out of a job. That is a very significant development. It is a real depletion of the operations of General Motors in Canada. It is a significant blow to Canadian workers, losing a thousand more well-paying manufacturing auto industry jobs, jobs that have great benefits, that have pensions attached to them. The shortcomings of the EI program are going to make it more difficult for workers in places like Oshawa who are losing their jobs today and in the coming months. It is a very serious problem. We should be using that $52 billion to ensure there are programs to assist workers as job losses happen and assist them with job retraining. That is not what is going on. That is not the direction the Conservatives are choosing.

If there is a reason to not support Bill C-50, that is one excellent reason. I put it to the member for Oshawa and the member for Whitby—Oshawa, who proposed this legislation, that I do not know how they could turn their backs on their constituents at this terrible time in their community. I do not know how they could not be taking every measure possible to ensure that programs are in place to assist them as these very difficult closures happen.

It is not just in the auto sector that this is happening. It is happening in the forestry sector in British Columbia.

We have seen many communities in British Columbia dramatically affected by the loss of forestry jobs, such as the community of Mackenzie, for instance, and many other communities in the interior of British Columbia, as well as communities on Vancouver Island and even communities on the lower mainland, where mills have closed. They all have seen the difficulties associated with the changes in the forestry industry, yet there has been precious little assistance from the government.

The EI fund is of less assistance than it might have been at one time because of the changes that have been introduced to it. That is a significant issue in British Columbia.

We know about the ongoing litany of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs that have been lost in recent years in Canada. Those jobs are gone. Gone with them are the high wage rates, the benefits and the pension plans.

The government says constantly that it has created many other jobs. We know that those jobs that have been created have been largely service jobs. They are largely minimum wage jobs or pay slightly above minimum wage. They do not have the same kinds of benefits. They do not have pensions associated with them.

There can be no substitution of those kinds of jobs with the kinds of jobs we are losing all across this country, the jobs that pay great wages and have excellent benefits and pensions associated with them. It is a very serious problem.

Our EI critic, the member for Acadie—Bathurst, has often described the situation of eligibility for employment insurance today. Only 32% of women workers are eligible and only 38% of male workers are eligible. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers are ineligible for EI benefits. These are people who are out there working in the economy and yet do not qualify for EI.

As well, any time there is the possibility of a downturn in the economy, localized or national, provincial or regional, we know how important having a strong EI program has proven to be over many years and decades in Canada. Sadly, we do not have the same commitment to that program today. This legislation is not going to help that at all.

We also know that when we are trying to address poverty issues in Canada, family poverty and child poverty, EI is a crucial piece of the grouping of policies and programs we need to see a decline in poverty in Canada. Sadly, when we do not treat EI with the kind of respect it deserves as a program central to that effort, it is actually an outrage. It is an outrage that we would not give it that place of importance in all of this.

This legislation also includes the controversial amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that would give the minister, among other things, greater discretion in whether or not to accept immigration applications. There is a problem with the fact that this is here in the first place.

This change should not have been included in the budget implementation act. It is a serious change to immigration law in Canada. It should have been on its own. It should have been stand-alone legislation so that it could have had the direct attention it deserves because of the significance of the change it implies.

It should not have been buried in a budget implementation bill. I hope the Conservatives will reconsider that kind of tactic in future when they are bringing forward other legislation. It is not appropriate to bury something on a completely different topic in this kind of legislation.

This change the Conservatives are proposing is very important to people in my riding. I have a significant new Canadian and immigrant population in my constituency. Any change to immigration law is keenly watched in my constituency.

Giving these kinds of discretionary powers to the minister is inappropriate. We should not be giving the minister this kind of discretionary ability to ignore applications.

We fought long and hard to ensure that any immigration application submitted was considered. That change was a major victory for people who care about the exercise of immigration policy in Canada.

This legislation would undo that. Again, if there is a reason for not supporting this legislation, that is it. This turns back the clock on important gains that have been made in the past with regard to immigration policy and the immigration application process in Canada.

The reality is that this change is promoted as a way of dealing with the immigration backlog, which is at about 900,000 applications or more right now. This will not do anything to address the backlog because it does not apply to most of the applications in the backlog. It does not really do what it is being sold as attempting to do.

I think it is a bit of false advertising on the part of the Conservative government to say this measure is somehow going to improve the backlog, because it will not. It will not even really touch it. We need greater processing capacity to deal with the backlog. This bill does nothing to address that.

There are a lot of problems with where the Conservatives are going on immigration and this bill highlights all of those problems. The new emphasis on temporary foreign workers is a huge change in Canadian immigration policy. In the past, we have encouraged people needed in our economy to come here as permanent residents. We have put them on the track to becoming full citizens of Canada.

European countries, for instance, have relied on a guest worker policy. We have never gone in that direction. When we see some of the social problems that have occurred in Europe as a result of that kind of guest worker or temporary foreign worker policy, we are lucky that Canada has not gone in that direction.

However, that is where the Conservatives are going now. In fact, they are reducing the number of places in the overall immigration target available to economic immigrants for family reunification in favour of temporary foreign workers and students. They are encouraging them to apply for permanent residence instead.

That is not going to help the backlog either. We are not going to alleviate that backlog if we keep taking away places that could be considered for family applications in the system.

It is a real problem because family reunification has been one of the strong points of our immigration program. It has been one of the successful points of our immigration program. One of the reasons people have chosen to emigrate to Canada over other countries is that the possibility of having family members join them here was held out as a significant promise to them when they came to Canada.

We let that program wither at our peril, I believe, because in a world that is increasingly competitive with regard to immigrants, we cannot afford to give up any of the competitive edges that we hold over other countries when it comes to attracting immigrants.

I believe the government is bent on reducing the emphasis on family reunification. The first time the former minister of citizenship and immigration appeared at the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, he left reunification out of the list of reasons why we have an immigration policy in Canada.

He talked about the economic needs of Canada, nation building and protecting vulnerable refugees, but he did not mention family reunification. It is significant when a minister fails to list one of the key objectives of Canada's immigration program over many decades. That was a significant indicator.

If people go to the immigration website, as I did a little while back, it is hard to find in any of the general descriptions of Canada's immigration policy a reference to family reunification. It has dropped off the opening pages of the website. Again, it is a very serious downgrading of the position of family reunification in Canada. The changes proposed in this bill will only feed into that.

I could have talked about some of the things that this bill does not address and should have. It does not talk about any new program for housing in Canada. We know that is a significant problem all across this country. Affordable housing and homelessness are very serious issues that Canadians want addressed and they are not in this bill.

I could have talked about how the Conservative government, with this legislation, is lowering overall corporate tax rates but raising overall individual corporate tax rates. That is inappropriate as well.

I could have talked about the loss of income that Canadians have suffered since 1989 and how these budget measures do nothing to address that. It is only the very wealthy who are doing better in this time period. Everyone else is taking a hit, particularly those at the low end of the income scale.

I could have talked about gutting the fiscal capacity of government by over $200 billion, which the government is in the process of doing.

I could have talked about the funding cuts to the important programs that would have addressed some of the important social needs of Canadians. Those programs would make it possible for Canadians to collectively address some of the social problems that exist in this country.

There are a lot of problems with this legislation. We in this corner will be voting against this legislation once again. We will stand in our places to do that and to keep our promises to Canadians on what we think about this legislation.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the member's comments. I do not agree with a lot of what the hon. member had to say, but I do respect the fact that he stands and votes in the House and makes sure that he represents his constituents.

In May 2008, BMO Capital Markets economist Doug Porter produced a paper on 10 reasons to “feel good” about the Canadian economy. I would like to quote a bit of what he said. He ticked off our low inflation rate, rising real incomes, healthy government surpluses, record high employment rates, record car sales, a strong TSX and rising trade surpluses as positive economic benchmarks.

He said:

The glass is much more than half full in Canada. So instead of obsessing about a temporary bout of cyclical weakness, driven entirely by our largest trading partner, Canadians should instead be embracing the world of [economic] opportunities that still await.

This is the economic reality. We understand the Liberal spin on the economy right now and why the Liberals feel that way, but the member did cite something.

The member talked about low income Canadians and Canadians who are struggling to pay their bills. I would love to ask the member a specific question about the Liberal carbon tax plan, which we have heard the Liberals muse about. I know the NDP does not agree with this because those members know how much it would hurt low income Canadians, families and seniors relying on fixed incomes, and I would love to hear the member's comments on it.

I also wonder if he would like to talk about his disappointment with Liberal members who claim to disagree with the government but do not show up and vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member quoted an expert who said incomes were rising in Canada. I beg to differ. A lot of research shows exactly the opposite. In fact, my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster has been a long-time spokesperson for the analysis of that trend, which is directly opposite to what the member for Peterborough talked about.

I want to quote what the member for Burnaby—New Westminster said yesterday here in the House in describing the situation:

When we talk about middle class families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, they have lost a week's income each year and every year since 1989. Lower middle class families earning between $20,000 and $40,000 a year have lost two weeks of income....

The poorest of Canadians, including unemployed Canadians, have seen a devastating fall in income [over that period]. They have lost a month and a half of income since 1989 for each and every year. We are talking about a catastrophic fall in income....

There is ample evidence from Statistics Canada and other organizations to show that incomes are falling for over two-thirds of Canadians and that it is only the very wealthy who are doing better in this time period. The legislation that we are debating today and the policies of the Conservative government do nothing to reset that balance and ensure a fairer distribution of income in Canada.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the preamble to Bill C-50 states that “the Government of Canada is committed to meeting the challenge of global economic uncertainty” and so on. I would like to ask my friend whether he was surprised that this document makes no mention of regional economic uncertainty. I am talking about the whole country, but my friend will understand that one sector in my riding is particularly affected, and that is the forestry sector.

As we have seen, the trust did not meet the needs of foresters in crisis, who are self-employed workers who own private woodlots and manage our forests, the lungs of our planet. I imagine that there are also such forestry workers in the province of the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas. Yet they have been completely left out of the budget.

Why does this bill contain nothing for this sector of Canada's and Quebec's economy?

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the hon. member because she has raised a very important point. I did speak about the importance of the forestry sector in my area and in British Columbia, and the number of communities that are suffering under the terrible demise of the forestry industry in British Columbia.

We have seen precious little assistance and in fact we have seen the opposite of that. We have seen the sellout of the softwood lumber industry by the policies of the government in recent years. We have seen little assistance to communities that are struggling with the decline in the forestry industry in British Columbia, so I am not surprised that the same thing is happening in her community and in regions in Quebec.

It is a very serious problem and these kinds of economic uncertainties are not a priority. The Conservatives are not doing the kind of regional development that is necessary. They are not addressing the specific problems that are facing the forestry industry. They have not had a good plan to deal with the pine beetle in British Columbia nor have they stopped the export of raw logs, and have not ensured that there is secondary production in Canada. They are not ensuring that the EI program meets the needs of people in the regions.

The calculations for the EI rates, the number of weeks for which workers are eligible, do not correspond to the areas of need in many of our communities and many of our regions, and in fact lump people in with other areas of higher employment and therefore limit their benefits. I have often heard the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan talk about how that affects forestry workers in her riding. They are seeing the end of their EI benefits far sooner than they ever expected given those kinds of changes and the inability of the current EI program to respond to the needs of those communities and workers.

It is a serious problem across the country and we are not getting that kind of leadership from this government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on my colleague's excellent point about the employment insurance program. The reason I emphasize the word “insurance” is that it is meant to be a program which establishes some sort of back up, some sort of insurance policy for workers and businesses.

The idea is that, at its foundation, businesses and people working for those businesses contribute to an insurance fund. Why would anyone take out insurance under any type of notion or policy other than to provide assistance in time of need?

The forestry sector, in particular, but there are others, manufacturing sector across Canada in Quebec and Ontario and other places, is in need of assistance right now. Everyone, from I think all four corners of the House, has recognized time and again that the EI program needed fixing. There were problems with it.

Rather than actually fix it, what has the government done? It has gone in the opposite direction taking more than $50 billion out of the program that was intended for insurance, that was put aside for insurance, and the government in this bill is crafting a law to rob that money from the workers and employers who put the money in, in the first place.

It would be like a family taking out a certain level of home insurance, $1,000 let us say, and the government fixing the law and saying that it would pay $100 of the actual insurance and the other $900 the government would take away for other purposes.

I would ask my hon. colleague, when workers, communities and employers look for this assistance, what type of response are they going to get from the government? What kind of answer are those families and workers going to get from this government?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the legislation provides part of that answer. They are not going to get any of that kind of assistance. The government is not going to make sure that the program even has the capacity to offer that kind of assistance if there is even a further downturn in the economy in Canada.

The program, we all know, is a shadow of its former self. This is not just this government that has been doing that. The Liberals loved to play fancy, fast and free with the unemployment insurance program. They started us down this road during the time that they were in power. In fact, back in the 1970s there was a crisis in the Trudeau government when a minister resigned over the first attempt to gut the unemployment insurance program at that time.

Many Canadians saw that the Liberals could not be trusted either at that time to ensure that there was a program there that was really going to provide workers and communities with the kind of assistance that was needed in the time of an economic downturn and in time of unemployment.

The program is a former shadow of itself and I do not think that the language that we use is strong enough or could be strong enough. Words like “stealing” from workers and “theft” have all be used in this debate and I think they are entirely appropriately used in this debate because $52 billion has been taken from workers and employers in Canada, money that should have been used to ensure their economic security, to ensure their training, and it is gone.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, this budget debate has gone on long enough. The NDP members continue to rail against it. We are delaying $1.5 billion in spending that is in jeopardy and that Canadians are waiting for. They continue to delay, to confuse, to obfuscate, and to live in a land of make-believe. It is unacceptable.

Therefore, I move:

That this question be now put.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask the member the same question I asked the Bloc. There are two crises pending related to financial affairs.

One is on polio. The government has reduced the money for polio. We are talking about very small amounts of money. It is actually shocking that 10% of Canadians are not vaccinated, and for only 60¢ we could stop a child overseas from being in a wheelchair for the rest of his or her life, or in poor countries even crawling if they do not have wheelchairs.

Therefore, I would ask if the member would join me in lobbying the government to reinstate the money for fighting polio, in some form. Maybe it would not be in this budget. There are different ways of doing it. It is such a small amount of money, it could be done in supplementaries.

The second thing is that tomorrow, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium has to make a decision on the fact that rice has increased three times in cost and 140,000 people in refugee camps in Burma are going to have their rations cut in half of what they need to survive. The six types of food they get now will be cut to just simply rice and salt, and they will get half enough rice in a day to live.

I am just wondering if he could also help me encourage the CIDA minister to provide an additional $1 million a year from Canada. Canada has been funding this for 10 years already, but we would need to add $1 million. There is another $6 million shortfall but the other donor countries would follow suit, I am sure, if Canada led.

I am hoping the member would join me in lobbying the government for these small amounts of money, one way or another, whether it is in the budget or some other form, to solve these humanitarian crises that have arisen.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his sincerity in asking that question, but the member would know that we have increased our budget for foreign aid substantially over what his government had in foreign aid. CIDA has taken a much more proactive stance in the world and has positioned itself to deliver aid more efficiently. There are a number of factors on a number of fronts where we have been proactive on foreign aid.

On the question about rice specifically, I recognize the need for some immediate relief there and I appreciate that, but the question of rice is greater than simply aid. We have had a crop failure in much of Asia. There is a drought in Africa.

I thank the member for not trying to get off track here of the real issue and saying that somehow this is ethanol production in the world that is causing a food shortage, because that is quite frankly not what is happening at the present time. The issue is a concern and we have put more funding toward it.

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

Mr. Speaker, although my hon. colleague's comments on such an important bill were remarkably brief and sought some way of shutting down debate, I have a very specific question.

I know he has stood in his place a number of times in the House of Commons here and lauded the efforts of the Auditor General of Canada. He talked about the good work that Ms. Fraser has offered to this place and the good advice, an objective perspective, which is rare within the politics of Canada.

One piece of advice from the Auditor General of Canada, having done successive reviews of the employment insurance program, was that in order to have good management of the program and sound protection for Canadian workers and employers, that a baseline, a minimum, of $15 billion was required in the EI fund in order to give that assurance to workers and businesses, and overall to protect the Canadian economy from the ups and downs of the boom and bust cycle of some of our major resource economies.

The government, within this bill, is suggesting that Ms. Fraser is completely wrong, that the analysis from the Auditor General's Office is wrong, and that $2 billion, a very much smaller portion of the fund, is sufficient.

I am wondering if my hon. colleague has some sort of analysis that counters the Auditor General's report or some better assessment of the facts and reality.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it was obvious that the hon. member was talking about the changes to the EI account. Although that was not clear from his statement, I will answer the question in that manner. The EI account, as the member has previously said in his comments, has been abused by the previous government to the tune of over $50 billion, which was literally taken away from workers, I would not use the word “stolen” although he hon. member did, and put into general revenue.

Consistently, employees and employers across Canada have asked for EI premiums to be lowered. They have asked for the account to be revenue neutral, and they have asked that there should be some type of cushion in place for catastrophic events that are beyond the government's control: in the advent of a recession, the downturn in the cod fishery that we experienced in the early nineties off the east coast of Canada, and those types of catastrophic events.

We can talk about putting $15 billion in the account. There has never been $15 billion in the EI account. For the first time ever there will be a legislated $2 billion cushion that will allow for those types of catastrophic events and changes in the economy in this country.

In the meantime, workers and employers will benefit, the system will be revenue neutral, and the government will not be able to reach out with its long hand and pluck money out of it. It is a much better system than ever existed before.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in answering my colleague from Yukon, the parliamentary secretary stated that the government has given more money through CIDA. In the earthquake that just happened in China, with close to 60,000 people dead, 17,000 people missing and four million people homeless, the government reacted by giving $1 million.

Is that his example of the government responding and giving more? Because if it is, he should stand in his place and apologize to the 1.1 million Canadians of Chinese descent as well as to all Canadians if this is his example of Canada giving more aid to the world.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, as the member would know, there are always complications with foreign aid. We have given more to foreign aid than the previous government. The previous government finds that an awful shock. The reality is quite simple. We work with foreign countries.

With the earthquake in China, we worked closely with the Chinese to the benefit of the victims of that terrible tragedy. We will continue to work with the legitimate government of China, the same as we continue under difficult circumstances to attempt to work with the government of Burma. None of these questions are easily answered. There is no panacea that will solve the problems of the world, but we are working diligently to do that.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and to the Minister of International Trade, and I had the opportunity to travel recently to Colombia and to Panama to further our trade relations and opportunities for Canadian businesses to prosper.

The bill we are debating, Bill C-50, is to continue to keep our country strong and competitive, and our businesses prospering and to promote innovation and productivity.

There has been a lot of discussion coming from British Columbia concerning the forestry sector. In this perfect storm that has been set up, the fact of the increased dollar, the downturn in the housing market in the U.S., and of course the pine beetle that has devastated the forests of British Columbia, our government has reacted with $1 billion throughout the country, about $129 million for British Columbia.

The province of B.C. has been working with the communities to try to help those who have been severely economically impacted, and I am proud of working with our province, our Prime Minister and the government leaders to do that.

I hear a lot of gloom and doom in the House about our economy, and I just want to refer to an online story today from the CBC. BMO capital market economist Doug Porter said, “We know that bad news sells, but this is ridiculous”. We are basically criticizing the media because bad news sells. He said there are all kinds of signs that the economic fundamentals are strong: low inflation rate, rising real incomes, healthy government surpluses, record high employment rate, record car sales, and a strong TSX. He added that rising trade surpluses are positive economic benchmarks.

The glass is more full than half full and it is a good sign that our fundamentals are strong. The Minister of Finance has indicated we have some challenges, but I would like my hon. colleague to talk a little bit about--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. There are only a few seconds left for the hon. parliamentary secretary if he wants to make a brief response.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there were a number of issues in that question, and I appreciate it. We have some great challenges. We live in a global economy. Fluctuations in that global economy and fluctuations in the economy of our closest trading partner and neighbour to the south, the United States, affect the situation in Canada.

I will pick one point that the hon. member mentioned, and that is the pine beetle. I can remember being in British Columbia in 1999. When I flew out of Williams Lake to the coast, I could see the pine beetle destruction then. There was no strategy to combat the pine beetle until 2006, when our government came to power. However, there is little we can do about it. It is a serious situation. It is one that we can try to control, but we cannot change.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as we are discussing Bill C-50, it is probably the last opportunity to really look at the bill and how it affects immigration.

Let me go back in history.

Last year, when we had problems with “Lost Canadians”, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration came to the committee. She asked us to produce a report, bring it to her and she would certainly move to ensure that we would get something through the House on “Lost Canadians” and ensure they would get their citizenship.

A unanimous report was written, although, personally, I had problems with the second generation. This report came to the House and the House moved very quickly to ensure that children and brides of our war people of World War II were given the citizenship for which they had been waiting for many years.

Therefore, I thought that in this context and in this period, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration would have had the fortitude and the backbone to come to the committee and say that there was a problem, that there were long wait lines and ask if could the committee take a look at it and get back to her with solid recommendations for her to go through and implement.

What have the Conservatives done? They put have included this under part 6 of the budget bill, saying to the rest of the House, “Do or die”. It is not a do or die situation. The citizenship and immigration backlogs are more serious than just a vote of confidence at the end of the day and who votes for it or who does not vote for it. There has to be a serious discussion on this item and there has to be serious consideration. It would take the citizenship and immigration committee to do a report, to give it to the minister and for the minister to adopt that report and move forward.

However, what happened? The citizenship and immigration committee was given less than two weeks to talk to people, come back and write a report to the committee of finance to tell it how bad this legislation was.

However, let us look what triggered this. It was triggered by waiting times and a backlog. Waiting times, when the Conservative government took power in 2006, went up by 20.79%. In 2007 they went up by 7%. Fifty per cent of our immigrants come from countries such as China, the Philippines, South Asia, being Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka, and the Middle East, being Iran, Iraq, Syria and Jordan. Therefore, although 50% of our immigration cases were from those area, in 2006 there was over a 10% increase in the waiting times.

Let us look at some specific examples. In 2006 the overall increase in waiting times was 40.78% for Beijing, 8% for Islamabad, 11.45% for New Delhi, 5.88% for Manila, 10.28% for Hong Kong and 20.83% for Colombo.

However, let us fast-forward to today. The minister put this legislation in Bill C-50. Even before the bill became legislation, the minister put out an advertisement about what a great piece of legislation this was. She went out to the ethnic press. It was the first time a government department had advertised in the ethnic press, and it spent well over $1 million.

When she came to committee, my question to the minister was, “will the minister come back to us with specifics, where the money was spent, which newspaper was bought, how much did it cost on advertising, all the details?” The minister said, “Yes, we will do that”. That was May 13. The minister promised she would come back in two weeks with specific details.

The minister appeared before the committee on May 28 and I said, “two weeks ago you made a commitment to provide this committee with a list of newspapers in which the department placed advertisements”. The minister answered, “We will be providing it very shortly”.

When I asked her again how soon, she answered, “Very soon, by the end of the week”. That was supposed to be last Friday. I also asked her, “And these will be an itemized, breakdown list?”. The hon. minister answered, “This will be a list that you requested”. We requested an itemized list of where the ads were place, how much they cost and the whole gamut.

I tabled in the committee and in the House an email that I received from a particular newspaper of Tamil background in Toronto. It said that it was encouraged by the agency on the record to charge three times as much. I gave the minister specific examples of how in some newspapers there were editorials that were favourable to the government. There were op-ed pieces by the minister. There were front page articles, and I would not say bought but maybe just encouraged, of how the Prime Minister was in Toronto touting and hollering about the immigration bill. This was in a Nigerian newspaper, and the Prime Minister went to a south Asian event.

I sat there and scratched my head. Why would the Nigerian newspaper carry on its front page something the Prime Minister said to the south Asian community? It is nice to see the diversity of our country and see different ethnic newspapers carrying news about another community. However, hardly ever do we see a newspaper of one ethnic group carrying front page news about another ethnic group unless it was encouraged to do so.

The newspaper in question is the Nigerian Canadian News.. I have in my hand its contract for a full page ad. It is a full page, black and white, 10X14.6 inside, at a cost $220. I am sure the department paid much more than $220. I also have the weekly AWAM,, $450 black and whites; the Urdu Times, $600; the Philippine Reporter, $315; the Shahrvand, $375; and the weekly Hindi, $500.

The minister was questioned and given the opportunity to do the right thing and provide the committee with information on where the ads were placed and how much they cost. At 4:52 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, knowing absolutely full well that the national media had gone home, that their stories had been filed and that everything has been done, the minister sent us the list. This is the garbage we get.

The list states the province, the city, the publication, the insertion time and the language. There is one thing missing, and that is the cost. It is not so much that the Conservatives have contempt for the House, that the government advertises before a bill is even law and is sugar coated, but they also have contempt by the minister. When she came to committee, she stated, “Very soon, by the end of the week”. I asked again, “And this will this be an itemized, breakdown list? She said, “This will be the list that you requested”.

Therefore, twice in committee, on May 13 and May 28, to specific questions, questions that were put forward to the minister, asking her if she would supply the committee with breakdowns on where the money was spent and the publications, she failed very miserably. Not only did she fail the committee, she failed the House and she also has failed Canadians.

Canadians want to know where the government spends its money. They want to know what we get as a result of that money. There have been many examples where in the past governments spent money before the bill passed and they were told that it was a no-no. Similarly in this situation the minister went out of her way to advertise in the ethnic press and tell the ethnic press and the diverse multicultural tapestry of our country what a great government it was and what it would do to take care of the backlog.

The Conservatives are saying that they will get doctors in before us. What hogwash. What a lie. They well know that when a medical doctor comes to Canada, unless working with the provinces and the provincial and territorial organizations, the Ontario Medical Association and the Quebec Medical Association, these people cannot get their licences, they cannot practise in that province.

The province of Ontario says that it will double the amount of medical people it takes from 24 to 48. That is great. It will now have another 24. There is a lack of doctors in northern Ontario. I am wondering if the minister will stand in this House and reassure the people in northern Ontario or the small territories that the legislation she is proposing will bring doctors to their community when she has done absolutely nothing to talk to the provincial bodies that legislate these folks. Has she asked the provinces to give licences to these doctors to practise if she brings more in?

We have hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals in Canada who have their credentials as doctors back in the old country. The minister can simply say that we have doctors and that she will talk to her provincial counterparts and to the medical associations about us getting them to rectify and acknowledge their credentials. Why would she say that the government will bring doctors into this country when we have hundreds, if not thousands of qualified physicians from other countries already in this country who are willing and able to practise?

The minister says that the government will expedite family class reunification, that it will expedite husbands, wives, children, grandparents and parents. What a bunch of hogwash.

The minister is looking to Bill C-50 to get the power to dictate from where and who comes forward. However, when she says that the government will expedite parents, we know very well that she is looking at categories that the provinces want, which are economical, and that business people go forth in the line. We will have two streams. We will have the old stream and we will have the new stream. In the new stream the minister will decide that we need bricklayers and then move forward to bring them into the country. In the old stream we still chug along with the applications that are there. Parents and grandparents are way at the back of the line.

How can the minister say that the government will expedite parents, grandparents, family class and bring them to the fourth of the line, when she knows very well that her new legislation would chug along? She will decide who is necessary and those people will come to Canada faster. Then we have the old stream, the 925,000 cases still pending, and parents and grandparents are way in the back. What total hogwash.

Why does the minister not have the fortitude to go to the committee and say that there are 900,000 cases in the backlog, that we have a problem and that we need a solution? Why is there disrespect from the minister when she comes to committee and is asked where the money was spent, which newspaper was bought, how much it cost and all the details? On May 13 the minister said that the government would do that.

I have many more examples of how the minister has misled the committee and the House and how the minister is hiding behind a list of close to 100 pages of rhetoric, with absolutely no figures on how much money was spent, where it was spent and how it was spent.

Where was the money spent? Who received the money? What favours did the Conservative government get in return for the $1 million-plus advertising that it did with the ethnic media?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the member highlight a large number of failures of the Liberal government, a government he was part of. He talked about the immigration backlog but it was his party that created it. He talked about how Canada brought in skilled immigrants and then never recognized their skills, but that was his government that did that, not this government. This government has moved toward skills recognition.

He talked about something else. He talked about doctor shortages. As we know, there were no doctor shortages when his party took power. Why did that happen? It is because it made cuts to things like transfers to education.

This government has made investments in education, investments the member voted against, like the 40% increase for post-secondary schools. In this budget we see the creation of a new government student loan that will assist hundreds of thousands of students, and it ramps up. By 2012-13, it will reach 245,000 students each and every year. It will support students from coast to coast. We will train Canadians to be doctors to solve Canada's problem.

I guess the member has a problem with investing in education because he will be voting against the bill, which means he will be voting against the tax-free savings account that will assist Canadians of all generations. He will be voting against investments in knowledge of new technology. He stands for the status quo on immigration. Apparently, he likes the backlog.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, either the member did not listen carefully, he did not pay attention or he is too busy reading the Conservative spin.

Although he rants, raves and talks about what we will do and what we will not do, the question still stands. We have hundreds of doctors in this country. The minister could easily call the local organizations right across the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and ask them to please ensure people are eligible to practise. We do not need new doctors to come to this country. The minister does not need to say that she will bring in doctors. She knows very well that in the agricultural community, where there are no doctors, this red herring will be sold nicely.

The member did not get up and say that the government would provide the money that the minister promised. I am wondering if he wants to stand on his feet again and reassure the House, on behalf of the minister, that the government will do the ethical thing and provide what has been asked for, not the stuff it gave, which is totally senseless.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, at a very minimum, for his exuberance. I wonder if that exuberance is shared down the rows. I am not certain if his opinions, views and enthusiasm against this budget and the government is necessarily shared by his colleagues.

I have two fundamental questions. First, does he have any sense that we will have a better representation from the official opposition, the Liberal Party, the next time this is voted on? Last night there was a total of 12 members? I believe he may have been one of them but it is hard, in such a large crowd, to pick out a face.

The second question is more fundamental than that. Why did the government spend $1 million on advertising for legislation that has not yet passed through the legislature? It seems to me that when government spends public funds on advertising and public education, it is about something that exists, as opposed to something that is proposed and very contentious, which is immigration reform.

First, will anyone from the Liberals actually stand and represent their constituents by voting? Second, is this a precedent for the way the Liberal Party will conduct itself?

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly do not want to take any lessons from the NDP, or lack thereof, on representing our constituents. However, he pointed out the way the government is using advertising dollars.

I want to point out for the member that I brought to the attention of the House under a question of privilege the fact that the minister had spent the money before she was allowed to and that the government put out ads before the bill was passed. There was a ruling from the Chair but I will not go into that.

However, I wonder if the member agrees with me that we must get a complete itemized list of where and how the money was spent. I am wondering if he also supports that.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly enjoyed the member's passionate speech on the problems with immigration in the bill but I would like him to go a bit further.

The member has a lot of immigrants in his riding and I am curious as to their feedback on these changes to the Immigration Act and their reaction to the fact that the government tried to sneak this through in the budget implementation bill, a place where, in honest parliamentary procedure, it should not be.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I sent out a questionnaire to all my constituents outlining the bill and putting out there the government's perception of the legislation and its talking points. I also put in my own talking points. I held a town hall meeting. Many constituents, mainly the mainland Chinese and Mandarins, invited me to a town hall meeting at a church. I did not hear one individual support the legislation, support the way it came in or support the way the government was doing things.

The status quo certainly needs changing. The minister has the duty and the responsibility to ask the citizenship and immigration committee to take a look at this.

I do not want to sound like a broken record, but the minister has the duty and the responsibility to tell the House exactly where the money was spent and how much was spent in the ethnic paper, as she promised. If she does not feel that she has the duty to do that, then she is certainly hiding behind something, and the Conservative Party is in cahoots with that. Therefore, either she does the honourable thing and does it today or she can hand in her resignation.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member rant and rave about advertising dollars but his party, the Liberal Party, is absolutely the last party in the House that should be talking about advertising budgets.

The Liberals can make accusations and put forward innuendo but they need to remember that there was a commission and documented proof about where the advertising dollars went. Millions of dollars went to some people's best friends in various parts of Canada.

He also mentioned doctors. This government is the first government to work with our international partners and through our higher learning institutions to recognize foreign credentials so we can see who is qualified to work in Canada.

The member talked about doctors, et cetera. When the Liberals were in power they cut $25 billion many years ago from transfer payments to the provinces. The member immortalizes that now. He is talking probably $100 million. The Liberals are the absolute last people in the House who should be talking about this.

I would ask the member to talk more about what his party did with the advertising dollars.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the hon. member that we did the honourable thing. There was an inquiry at which prime ministers testified. I am wondering if the current Prime Minister will be testifying before committee about the affair involving the previous minister of foreign affairs. He certainly is not.

However, the fact still remains that the minister was not asked once but twice about where the money was spent. She said that she would provide the information but she did not. Which part of that does the member not understand? Which part of that does the member still want me to point out? I guess none of it because he does not want to listen.

The member talked about foreign credentials. I want to share with him a personal experience about foreign credentials.

He talked about a website that the government has set up. The minister raves about the site and says that it has had thousands of hits. I am just wondering if any of the Conservative members have taken the opportunity to visit that website and see what is on it. It has a phone number that refers people to Service Canada. When people phone Service Canada about foreign credential recognition it does not know what it is talking about. I phoned myself and said that I was an engineer who had graduated from the University of Toronto and was thinking about moving back to my area in Canada, and I gave the person the coordinates. When I asked who I should be calling I was told to contact the professional association of engineering technologists. Service Canada does not know what it is talking about and neither does that member.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say it is a pleasure to join this debate, but unfortunately, the process that we see existing between the two parties in front of us, the two that are nattering back and forth today and on previous days around such an important piece of legislation, does not allow one to have a lot of confidence either in the government's ability to manage prudently the affairs of the nation nor in the ability of the official opposition, in this case the Liberal Party, to oppose the mandate put forward by the government.

In order to have some balance and fairness, some sense of equity in our House of Commons, there must be the exchange of ideas, the to and fro of debate. That is what Canadians expect and it is what Canadians deserve. The government proposes various notions under a budget. The budget, as are all budgets, is the most serious and important piece of legislation a government provides in a fiscal year. It allows government agencies, corporations and individual Canadians to get a sense of the government's priorities and the direction that the government is taking. Has this been done in a thoughtful way or in a considerate way? Has it been done in a democratic way in this Parliament? I would suggest not and I will present some important reasons regarding that.

In a budget, choices are made. The government has only so much in funds available to it. It has only so much time and only so many powers. In those choices, it sends a clear and concise signal to Canadians at all levels, in private enterprise, the public sector and as individuals, as to where the government feels the most work needs to be done.

New Democrats oppose this budget and have consistently done so from the beginning. At its first instance this budget presented an unfair choice for Canadians, an unbalanced approach to our economy and the future direction of our country. Not only has the government chosen an unbalanced approach in terms of fiscal matters, the way that our tax regime is handled, but it has also rammed into a budget bill one of the most sweeping changes to immigration the country has known for some decades.

One would think that in a two and a half year mandate, and it is feeling longer every day, if immigration was a top priority for the Conservatives, they could have presented those changes in an immigration bill. It is logical. It would allow the minister of immigration to promote the changes. It would allow the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to debate those changes and bring the appropriate witnesses forward. It would give a clear and concise view of what the government's intentions are with immigration.

Instead, sensing a certain weakness from the official opposition benches and the current Liberal leader, the government chose a tactic known as confidence and placed the immigration changes into a confidence bill. The government has thereby upped the ante in this high stakes game of poker that it has been playing with the Liberal leader over the last number of months. The Conservatives have received, I believe, 22 consecutive confirmations of confidence from the Liberal Party. This is unprecedented in Canadian history. When a party presents itself, as the Liberals have, in opposition to some of the fundamental beliefs and ideologies of the current regime, the Conservatives, one would expect that that lack of confidence would show up when it came time to vote.

Last night was very instructive. The government was faced with amendments to fundamentally change what it was proposing on immigration, to strip out the powers that the government is attempting to give to the minister of immigration. Certainly members of the New Democratic Party have railed against the government's proposal here in the House of Commons and all across the country. Members of the Bloc have also suggested opposition, as have members of the Liberals, but last night when there came the opportunity in the full light of transparency and democracy, there were 12 Liberals, and I am not sure how many Liberals are left, who decided to vote in a show of tokenism, in weak opposition, which therefore allowed the government bill to pass unamended, unchanged.

That is what occurred, after all of the protestations from my Liberal colleagues, and I am sure some of them are even sincere. They have heard from their constituents who time and time again have said that these proposed changes to our immigration policies, these changes to the fabric of our nation, an immigrant nation, are unhelpful and damaging and should not be supported. That is what my constituents have been telling me. That is what my industry partners have been telling me in my community. I am sure that is what is being told to many members of this House from all corners.

The question comes to that fundamental choice. When we ask Canadians to step into the ballot box, we ask them to make a choice. We ask them to determine who will go forward and represent them and their interests in this place, this most sacred place of democracy in which we all stand forward with various levels of courage and pride and attempt to represent in the best manner possible the interests of our constituents and our ridings.

The best way that is done is when the Speaker calls a vote. That is the determination. There has been a debate. There have been press conferences, public meetings and community gatherings. When the vote is called is the moment when each member individually makes his or her choice and describes his or her allegiance, to whom the member feels most indebted.

I represent Skeena--Bulkley Valley in northwestern British Columbia. The people in northwestern British Columbia have a very solid principle which they reiterate to me time and time again. On various decisions and votes they may have a difference of opinion, but their base expectations are twofold. One is that I listen and apply my thinking and my own prudence and judgment to what I am hearing from my constituency. The other is that I express that opinion here in the House of Commons when that opportunity is given to me. That is the moment of voting.

That is the moment when the Speaker calls for each member to stand in his or her place. At that time any given member of Parliament has a few choices available. One choice is to support the vote, as was done by the Conservatives, as was to be expected because it is their bill. The second choice is to not show up at all, which was done by the Liberals, unfortunately, lamentably. The third choice is to oppose, to push back against the agenda and ideology and present a different view on the future, hope and expression for our country.

The priorities that were represented by members of the Liberal Party last night showed more loyalty to their own party and their own polling numbers than to their constituents. That is a deep and profound shame. It is a shame in the sense that all of us come together collectively and present our own views, but the expectation at the end of the day is that we will have a fair, honest and democratic exchange and then go forward, because Parliament, in particular a minority Parliament, needs to be able to function.

Canadians have constructed for us a minority House. They have said to the Conservatives, “We will not give you the authority and absolute power to mandate what you will, as is the case under a majority Parliament. We are giving you part of the power. We would like you to share the power with the other parties, to work out the ideas”. The NDP has been consistent in trying to present alternatives to the government.

There will be a vote tomorrow night on the most important issue of climate change, on a private member's bill in the name of the leader of the NDP, the member for Toronto—Danforth, to put for the first time ever in Canadian law climate change targets. It is something that Canadians have talked to us about time and time again. We expect members of this House to present themselves either to support the bill or to oppose it. To simply not show up or to simply show up and then sit in their seats is such a tragedy and such a perversion of democracy, it is difficult to attempt to achieve the right pitch and tone of condemnation. To not show up, to not represent their constituents and still pretend that they are members of Parliament, to still pretend that they are representing the interests of anybody outside of their own party interests, is a falsehood.

Choices will be made in the future. I have great faith in the Canadian electorate to watch, to pay attention and to show some judgment. When they make a decision at the ballot box and a choice for the future, part of that decision will include the notion that whomever they choose will represent them. I am appalled that we have to stand on this most fundamental principle and point out first, the idea that we expect members of Parliament to show up here and vote. That that is even a point of contention and debate is incredible to me. We can debate all the other issues, whether they be immigration issues, fiscal measures in the budget or, environmental issues, but the fact that we have to encourage my colleagues and friends in the Liberal Party to show up to work is lamentable. In any other circumstance, not showing up to work has immediate and dire consequences for most Canadians. They are given a warning and then they are fired. That is the typical and natural course of events.

Let us take a look at what is actually in Bill C-50, now that we have established the tragic consequence of a weak official opposition and a government that has realized it and has received more than 20 consecutive supports of confidence from that party. An immigration bill has been rammed into a bill on the finances of the country.

When the Conservative government took office, there were 700,000 people in the backlog which is constantly talked about. They are waiting for some sort of hearing, for fairness, to be listened to and understood on their applications to come into this country.

As with many members in this place, my family was an immigrant family. My family had to go through that process, make and application and indicate what it was they wished to bring to the fabric and strength of Canada, hard work, determination and honesty, which is what the immigrant community has brought. Now we see this being perverted. We see this being taken down a different path for political expediency and for the interests of a very narrow few.

The backlog was 700,000 people. The Conservative Party decried it for many years. In the time between then and now, in two and a half years, the backlog has grown to over 900,000. Applications have actually been at a lower rate of acceptance under the Conservative government. It has jigged the numbers in talking about receiving more people from overseas. It has started to include temporary foreign workers as if they were in the same category as those who receive landed immigrant status.

That a temporary foreign worker is given a small piece of paper which allows the person to work for a short period of time but then must leave Canada is part of the immigration scheme of the government speaks very well to why that was included in a bill on the finances of the country as opposed to a bill on immigration policy. This bill at its essence is about a very narrow interest within the business community, which seeks to have temporary foreign workers come into the country at lower rates and lower rights than the average Canadian worker. They are removed from the country when they are no longer needed, when the projects are over, thereby contributing less to the Canadian economy and hurting the interests and values of workers who are already in the Canadian economy.

In the northwest of British Columbia, the unemployment rates in some of our communities are devastating economically and socially. Communities like Hazelton, Terrace and others in the far northwest have experienced rates of unemployment upward of 80% to 85%. It is devastating. The forestry industry is closing one mill after another.

Of all the wood produced in Canada and exported, British Columbia produced more than 50% of it. With all those trees of such magnificence, stature, strength and desirability on the marketplace, it is an unimaginable notion that British Columbia may no longer produce that wood. It certainly does not produce much in my region where the foundation of many communities was forestry and ecology.

Forestry lived with us and we lived with it and understood the measures, the to and fro of a sector that experiences the upward and downward trends of a resource based economy. Now we see a downward trend like we have never seen before. In the northwest there is a perfect storm. The minister of all things, of industry, foreign affairs and various other things, has been involved in the forestry sector, and understands that a high Canadian dollar, a bad softwood lumber deal and a softening U.S. housing market have contributed to this unimaginable convergence of events that has virtually shut down the northwest's forestry economy, a long and proud tradition that built up many of my communities.

In immigration the government is asking for a very unusual and significant proposal. Under this bill the Conservatives will give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the absolute power to reject acceptable applications, people who have applied through the process, ticked all the boxes, made sure their applications were strong. Under this bill the minister could reject those applications with no scrutiny or transparency whatsoever, and in the reverse, accept applications that do not meet the measure of our own immigration law, thereby sending further confusing signals to those who are considering coming into our country.

Canada has unfortunately gained the reputation, particularly from the professional sector, as an unwelcome place, a place where an application will take many years longer. The bill, in pretending to speed up that process, has unfortunately made it less transparent, less accountable, and therefore less reliable to that immigrant community. There is no certainty given. There is no ability for parliamentarians to petition on behalf of willing and able applicants who have met all the requirements. All people will get is a rejection from the minister and no indication as to why and no ability to find out why, to change their odds and get their application approved. This is a tragedy.

This speaks to an increasingly serious component, particularly in rural Canada, where we have been losing our brightest and best, our youngest. We have watched the brain drain. This applies not just to northwestern British Columbia but across our country. We are working hard to attract our young people back here. We are working hard to ensure that they have education opportunities, both within the region and without, but also that they have an economy and a community to return to. Immigration bills like this do nothing for us.

One important caveat that I need to throw in here in qualifying my expressions for this and in qualifying the interests of people from the northwest is that when I first arrived we asked the Library of Parliament to do a cursory study of all the money the northwest has sent to Ottawa's coffers over the previous 10 years. We also asked the library to make an estimation of all the money Ottawa has sent us back through all the programs and systems that the government can do.

It took the Library of Parliament some time. I thank the library for its work. It was diligent. That work was boxes high on my desk when it finally arrived. The ratio was 10 to 1. For every $10 sent from the northwest, from Skeena, from our mining, forestry and aluminum operations, from people earning money for their own behalf and paying those taxes to the Canadian economy, the Library of Parliament told us there was $1 coming back in services.

The most remarkable thing is that folks in Skeena and folks in the northwest do not necessarily hold a grudge about this. They do not mind contributing to the wealth and prosperity of this country. They understand that when they are doing well, when forestry is doing well or mining is booming, the boom and bust cycle means they are contributing. They understand that. They are proud Canadians and strong nationalists.

On the other hand, when the economy turns down, when the forestry sector goes through such upheaval, they have paid into an insurance scheme, not specifically just the employment insurance scheme but the insurance of what it is to be a country, to have a fabric, to be connected, so that when one part of the economy or one region slows down, the others that are doing well are okay and contributing their tax dollars.

The irreversible damage done in this bill is to attempt to permanently tilt what it is that the Government of Canada can and cannot do. In this budget, the government is stripping out some $200 billion of the government's fiscal capacity over the foreseeable years, the capacity to answer any question, whether it happens to be an economic downturn, the challenge of climate change, the need for affordable housing, the need for safe and accessible child care or any of those circumstances.

As members of Parliament, we have constituents and people in our offices all the time who are petitioning for certain bills and certain programs and showing the need, the proof and evidence of why this or that is important. I have been turning that back to them time and time again and asking how they can expect the federal government to do anything when the government is stripping away its own capacity to do anything at all.

More and more, the constituencies that work around Parliament Hill and within the Canadian diaspora as they push for various initiatives and efforts, for part of their vision for this country, are realizing that the real and irreversible damage going on, the real game under an ideology that is spoken to in this bill, is to change the very nature of the way federal government works, to devolve itself of its powers and its ability to affect the direction of the country, and to regionalize, to continue to fracture what it is that is Canada.

Someone once said that Canada works well in practice but not in theory, saying that a country so large, with so many unique and different histories all cobbled together, would be unimaginable in other parts of the world. It has been said that this would lead to inherent and conflictive tensions that would erupt into violence on a consistent basis and we would never be able to hold the fabric of the federation together.

However, look at what we have done. For so many years, we have been providing peace, order and good government. Now we see a government intent on something else.

In the northwest, we have noticed the immediate effects of climate change. We have noticed the impacts and direct implications. That is not coming from me but from the chief forester of British Columbia. It is coming from industry and the mining community. All they are looking for is some level of certainty and understanding from government that it will take climate change seriously.

What do we see instead? A report released just last Friday afternoon late in the day, so that no one would read it, shows that the government's own plans on climate change are all being downgraded. The spending is all being downgraded.

The attempts to lower greenhouse gases in this country are all being lowered by the government at a time when people in the northwest are demanding otherwise. They are demanding a government that takes the issue seriously and will come forward in a forthright manner.

Last, in the balance and the choices that every government has in a budget, it is to be noted that revenue coming from corporations will go down by 14% in the foreseeable future and revenues from individual Canadians will go up by 12%. That is what the government has shown as its priority.

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. He brings good sense to the House of Commons. He is a very strong voice both for British Columbia and for the northwest part of British Columbia.

I would like to ask him a question. He mentioned the fact that essentially the Conservatives hand out these corporate tax cuts to corporate CEOs like candy. They shovel the money off the back of a truck in the most irresponsible fashion possible. Billions of dollars are given to Bay Street rather than going to benefit other regions of the country.

I would like his point of view on the contrast between the billions of dollars that have been given to Bay Street and the fact that the Conservative government signed a softwood lumber sellout that has destroyed the softwood industry in British Columbia. Thousands of jobs were lost in the northwest, as they were throughout British Columbia, because of wrong-headed, irresponsible Conservative policies.

It was mind-boggling how dumb it was. Everyone knew, because we heard testimony at the international trade committee that the impact would be thousands of lost jobs in this giveaway of billions of dollars, at a time when we had won in court.

I would like him to contrast the softwood sellout with the billions of dollars going to Bay Street and also the so-called response from the Conservatives on the pine beetle epidemic. The Conservatives announced that some money would be provided. It never was. It was just pennies on the dollar. Hundreds of millions of dollars supposedly were going to go to British Columbians for the pine beetle, but only a few cents have been given on that broken promise, that betrayal of British Columbians. Could he contrast those two things, please?

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

Mr. Speaker, the softwood lumber deal is the absolute essence of what it is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. This was at a moment when Canada had won consistently at the tribunal and court levels. The courts said that America had illegally taken this money from softwood producers. When Canada had won all of these victories, the government then negotiated a deal in which we left $1 billion and more on the table and then agreed to a negotiated deal.

I remember the minister getting up in this place and saying not to worry, that there would be peace in the land and prosperity for our softwood lumber producers. As we say in Skeena, the proof is in the pudding. Since that deal and as a part of that deal, we have lost thousands upon thousands of jobs in that very industry.

The industry players come to me and say there is no certainty or guarantee under this deal, as the Americans ramp up and get prepared to launch even more lawsuits against Canada. So much for peace in the land. So much for an economic survival package for my communities and the communities that depend on forestry. It is so very frustrating.

These corporate tax cuts are fascinating only in the sense that there was some goading by the Liberal leader. He said in his speech in November, just prior to the so-called fiscal update, that the government should not cut taxes by just a couple of billion dollars for the most successful corporations, but by $7 billion or $8 billion. He said that would be appropriate.

Hearing that signal, the government rewrote its fiscal update and cranked it up to $14 billion. It was like a game of bad poker: “I will see your $3 billion, raise you $7 billion and get up to $14 billion”. As well, 50% of that was going to companies in the oil and gas and banking sectors. How can the government justify that banks and oil and gas companies were in desperate need of a handout of $7 billion or $8 billion? It is preposterous. It is not balanced. It is not fair.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from British Columbia for his concern for the forest industry. It is a major concern, as we have heard in the House. A report was tabled by the committee this morning about the challenges and opportunities in the forestry sector.

Just to clarify, I would remind the member that our government has committed to putting $1 billion over 10 years toward the pine beetle issue. We have already committed $200 million toward diversifying economies throughout British Columbia and across the country. I know that the hon. member's riding has been the beneficiary of many of the grants that have been handed out already.

I also want to state that the budget our government tabled included the phasing out of the accelerated capital costs for the tar sands projects in Alberta. The NDP members voted against that. I guess they talk out of both sides of their mouths.

I have a specific question for my hon. colleague. The fact is that within budget 2008 we have a new tax-free savings vehicle that is going to allow all Canadians 18 years of age and older to invest up to $5,000 a year, with all the proceeds generated within that savings account being tax free. I would like to ask my hon. colleague if he thinks it is a good idea that Canadians will be able to generate revenue in a tax-free savings account.

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

Mr. Speaker, just to clarify in terms of what the government is actually proposing, the interest is what is tax free as opposed to the money that is placed into this account. Canadians have to be careful when they see the ads and get very excited about this new way to save on tax money. It is the interest that will develop. The NDP has proposed an alternative that would actually give people more and clearer direction on where they could make those savings happen.

In terms of the 10 years and $1 billion, I think two things are important. One is that the government initially proposed to hold this money as a political hostage and place it within the budget to help out resource economies across the northwest. We said not to do that. Our leader stood up immediately and said to take out the $1 billion.

In terms of the $1 billion previously promised for the specific pine beetle initiatives, I can remember being at a conference with the natural resources minister in which there were all sorts of municipal leaders from across British Columbia demanding to know where the heck the applications were. It had been 16 months and there was no application on the Natural Resources Canada website.

The minister asked why the department did not extend all of it another couple of weeks and I watched all his deputies and officials scurrying around behind him wondering how the heck they were going to do what the minister was asking for. Suddenly the panic button was pushed.

All of my communities had been lining up all these different ideas and projects, but with no criteria or no guidance from the government. It had been months in discussion. Meanwhile, an economic crisis and catastrophe was going on in those very same communities.

The government's response was to take a year and a half to figure out the criteria for the agenda. While the initiative was applauded, we needed the money for those communities yesterday. The government took 18 months to figure out what was actually going to be applied for, then hit the panic button and said there were 14 days to meet the criteria.

The municipalities were furious. They were absolutely livid. This process was disrespectful. It did not actually honour the wishes, guidance and hopes of my communities. Their hope was to generate a new type of economy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am enjoying these comments from the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who represents northern British Columbia.

There are two other Conservatives who represent the north. Inexplicably, they voted for the softwood lumber sellout. In fact, the member for Cariboo—Prince George, to the dismay of the Prince George Citizen, said that he had not even bothered to read the agreement when he voted for it. He just said that he guessed the Minister of International Trade knew what he was doing. Of course, the constituents of Vancouver Kingsway know full well that the Minister of International Trade is a serial betrayer. In the case of the softwood lumber industry, it is very clearly a betrayal.

Could the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley tell me why people in northern British Columbia should trust the Conservative government when it has sold out northern British Columbia, sold out the softwood industry and sold out every single northern British Columbian?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have visited some of the communities that have had some form of representation from my two hon. colleagues in the Conservative Party.

Just recently, one of those communities, Mackenzie, was faced with a thousand layoffs. For people to properly understand what that means, this is happening in a community of a total of 4,500 people. As for a thousand layoffs in direct jobs, we can multiply that and basically say that the town was faced with ruin.

There was not even a call. There was no one picking up the phone and calling the community of Mackenzie, neither its leadership and the local council, nor the union, the representative of those one thousand workers. As for their elected representative, they had just lost a thousand jobs and their Conservative member of Parliament did not bother phoning them to ask them what they might need or what could be done or to tell them what help might be available.

They had a huge rally in Mackenzie. More than a thousand people showed up, again with no representation from their elected official, the member of Parliament from that region. That is just a tragedy. It is unsympathetic to people's serious concerns and to a community that potentially could be wiped out. That was the response from that Conservative member. Partisan politics aside, I do not think that is very good. I do not think that is right. I do not think it is acceptable or honourable to watch the community face that.

Let us try to imagine the equivalent in any other riding. I say this for all members of the House of Commons. What would it be like in a riding in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal to face a thousand jobs lost out of a total population of 4,500? There would be incredible fear and concern about the devastation of an economy and a community. And to then not see anyone at all?

Our candidate from that region, Betty Bekkering, actually showed up and delivered notes on our behalf. We talked to the workers. We talked to the local community. We do not even represent the community, but we thought it was important for them to know that someone in the House of Commons was listening to their concerns and realizing the devastation of Conservative government policies in their lives.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, have been listening to the debate on the budget because I thought that was what we were discussing.

The budget is an opportunity for the government of the day to lay out a vision, to lay out a plan, to lay out a strategy for how it will expend the nation's resources; that is, the taxes that it collects, what it will give back to Canadians for the money that it takes out of their hard-earned paycheques and equally important, how it will deal with the economic stresses of the day, and the natural resources that are at the disposal of people in every province in order to meet the demands of everyday life.

That is what a budget is supposed to do. That is what a budget is designed to do in a democratic environment, so that a government can be accountable. It lays out a plan, it lays out a vision, and it takes responsibility for both vacuums; that is, what is not done and what is done insufficiently.

In this budget document, Mr. Speaker, I ask you to think carefully upon the following for a moment.

First, it has shown that the government is capable of spending money at a rate that no other government that has preceded it has been able to demonstrate. In fact, public expenditures have gone up by 14%. An increase of 14%, we would probably say, is money well spent, whether it is done through tax cuts or outright emissions of dollars, this is good for the country.

All of my constituents, like the ones from British Columbia, are asking: What do we have to show for that 14% increase? If we spent 14% more on a car we purchased, we would be able to tell the difference. If we bought 14% more groceries, we would be able to tell the difference. If we spent 14% more on our clothing, we would be able to tell the difference. What has been accomplished with that 14% expenditure increase? Perhaps the government members would like to tell us what impact that 14% increase has had on an auto sector in Ontario, primarily, but throughout Canada, that is completely collapsing.

Today, for example, General Motors announced that in Oshawa it will cut another 1,000 jobs. I am not a member from Oshawa. I used to be responsible for the GTA. I might, without undue humility, say I prevailed upon cabinet to do some things for the province, for the manufacturing sector, and for the auto industry, in particular, because so many jobs depend on the auto industry.

Mr. Speaker, were you aware that there are approximately 385,000 jobs that are directly or indirectly associated with auto assembly, the auto part industry and after market delivery? That is 385,000.

When we take a look at that number, we get a sense of how much of an impact that number has on Canadians everywhere. That is 385,000 families. Even if we were to take the average number of people per family and do the appropriate multiplication, we would see that it is a population that is in excess of the population of the province of New Brunswick. It is greater than the population of the province of Nova Scotia. It is almost greater than the population of Manitoba as well as that of Saskatchewan,.

We are not talking about incidental job losses. We are talking about the infrastructure of a people and the infrastructure of a province on which the people depend for sustenance, for wealth creation, and indeed, for the maintenance of the Canadian federation.

I do not see anything in the budget on that. It shocks me that the Minister of Finance, who is from the centre of that manufacturing industry, the auto sector, would have not a mere consideration for what would be involved.

He sees, for example, as the government must see, that the price of fuel, gasoline at the pumps, has gone to $1.30, in some cases more, and there is nothing there. Yet, we know that the government, when it was in opposition, was complaining intensely when the price of a litre of gasoline was at 80¢ and 85¢.

What does the government do now? What does it do to alleviate the increased costs of energy and the means of production, both of goods that are edible and goods that are consumable differently? What is in the budget that tells us that the government is seized of the crisis and is prepared to do something about it? Is the answer “nothing”?

I see government members in the House willing to support the initiatives of their Minister of Finance, but where is the action? There is none.

In fact, let us take a look at the transportation modes that are at the heart of the way that the manufacturing sector must operate, not only in Canada but, and let me be parochial for a moment and think about my province of Ontario, the north-south trade. In particular, the trade that we have with the United States depends so much on the access routes, specifically in Windsor and Fort Erie, but also in Sarnia, up in Sault Ste. Marie, and up north in Thunder Bay, and I dare say even as we get closer to Brockville and Kingston. However, none of those access routes were mentioned in this budget. There are no funds for a transportation system that would facilitate the flow of goods to our biggest market, our partner that consumes approximately $1 billion of our exports every day of the year.

Where are the funds for ensuring that CBSA, the Canada Border Services Agency, builds its efficiencies at these border points, so that goods can move across freely and quickly in a just-in-time environment, a just-in-time environment in a manufacturing sector that is collapsing as we speak today.

These are not inventions. General Motors and the CAW issued press releases today, probably at a press conference while we were here in the House, to reinforce it. The economy is collapsing because of these issues. Where is the government on this budget? It is absent.

However, I have to compliment at least one member in this House because the total amount of money that this budget apparently, although we do not see it definitively, talks about, in terms of transportation flow from the federal government to any province, specifically Ontario, has to do with a potential train between Peterborough and Toronto. Forty per cent of all of the moneys put in a transportation transit fund, $200 million, is for that one singular project.

If it is a city or a greater metropolitan area like the GTA, it is out of luck. Peterborough is not yet part of the GTA, although I imagine that some of the transportation funds and the construction associated with its expenditure might eventually build out in that direction.

I do not want to be too facetious, but the construction industry is collapsing. Where is the government on an issue where we are talking about the collapse of the construction industry? And it is collapsing for the usual factors that we would think of. There is a financial meltdown in the United States and its effects are being felt here in Canada, number one.

Number two, we have been talking about the lumber industry, its impact, the prices associated with it here in Canada, the production associated with it, or lack thereof, and the closing down of communities.

Where is this budget on these matters? It is a financial statement, a financial expression of the government's willingness to lay out a strategy for the entire federation, and the answer is nowhere. There is no strategy. There is no plan. There is no vision.

I take a look at where we have been going in the debate so far. People have started to refer to Bill C-50 as “the immigration bill”. Can members imagine that? We are talking about a budget.

One page has defined this budget, the importance of which has been magnified by the Minister of Finance who has said that it is of crucial importance to this country that we eliminate the backlog in the number of applications of those who would make Canada their home. That is the big crisis. The big demand for a vision statement that the government opposite is responding to.

Let us take a look at some of the figures. Government members and opposition members have now begun to accept the fact that there were 700,000 applications in the backlog when the Conservatives formed government. According to Conservative figures, that represented an increase in the backlog by 54,000 per year during the Liberal administration.

According to government advertisements, the 700,000 backlog in applications has jumped to 925,000. In two short years the government has managed to increase the backlog in applications by 225,000. The government has not told us how many people have actually applied but it picked this number of 925,000. The government is not going to do anything to solve the problem. In one page out of a 139 page budget document there is one little clause that says none of this applies to anybody who was already in the queue as of February 28, 2008. Imagine.

Canadians following this debate are thinking the government does not have a strategy for meeting this crisis of the day, but when it fabricates one, it does not have a plan to resolve it. The government is simply going to pretend the problem has disappeared because as of February 28 those 925,000 applications are still going to be there and the government is not going to do anything about it. The government's position is not to do anything. It is the same as the economic position on the crisis of the day.

Does the government treat immigration as an economic issue? Let us look at it for a moment. To meet the economic requirements of today, the government says people must be brought in who would satisfy the demands of a growing Canadian population. That is fine but consider this. Between 2001 and 2006, the five year period immediately preceding the arrival of the Conservatives to government, what happened? According to the government, immigration policies were wrong. Yet, over a five year period the immigration program produced 350,000 new immigrants between the ages of 25 and 64, people at their most productive. These individuals had a university degree or better. How much money does that represent in terms of investment?

If the budget were directed to 350,000 people in Canada with a university degree or better; that is, they were prepared to meet the demands of a changing economy, a knowledge-based economy, an economy of the future, how much would that cost us? The cost would start at $50 billion and climb, but we could not produce that kind of talent pool in five years because we would have to do it over a 22 year period.

Let me use our young men and women pages here in the House as an example. It takes about 22 years from the time they enter school until they graduate. A knowledge-based economy, a competitive economy, in the 21st century cannot wait 22 years to produce 350,000 people with a university degree or better.

Our immigration system, over the previous five years preceding the Conservatives coming to power, produced that many people. In addition to that, it produced an additional 70,000 people who had a college diploma or equivalent; that is applicable skills in the post-secondary environment. That is not bad. That cost a little less. Those immigration policies also produced an additional 30,000 people who had some form of training that went beyond high school. In other words, they had a skill set that could be applied in a hands on environment.

I know you have been following those numbers, Mr. Speaker. Of the men and women who entered our country between the ages of 25 and 64, 67% had better than post-secondary school education or training. Canadians probably are wondering what the comparative numbers are for born in Canada applicants to the job market. While 51% of immigrants had a university degree or better, only 23% of those born in Canada had a similar qualification. We go abroad for our talent.

Think about the kind of talent we need. Today provincial premiers are telling us we need more than university educated people. We need more than college educated people. Yes, we need people who have skills on the job. We need more of them, and we need more of those who have post-graduate degrees.

Canadians should think about this, that 49% of all Ph.D. degree-holders come through our immigration system. How many have a master's degree? The answer is 40%.

I know my colleagues opposite are saying where is this going? It is going precisely to this location. If Bill C-50, through the immigration changes, is designed to give us greater skilled immigrants, how much does the government expect to improve on those figures? How many more does the government expect to bring in who meet those qualifications? In fact, does the government want people with those kinds of qualifications?

Those numbers are available to the government. Statistics Canada reported them. I did not invent those numbers. Statistics Canada is giving the government those answers. Statistics Canada and Human Resources Canada is telling the government what we have as a basis for building a society and an economy and budgets therefore that will respond to that economy. Here is what we can do. Here is what we ought to do.

What is the government's response? On the economy, it is nothing. On immigration, it is less than that. Let us do away, is the government's response, with all those measures that succeeded in bringing to us, for us, for the development of a Canadian society for the 21st century the kinds of men and women who provide us not only with the skill sets we need today, but for the leadership that we must have tomorrow.

Are we up for it? We are. Are we prepared to go forward with the kind of change that will bring a new dynamic to our country? We are. Are we prepared to take those risks that say that immigration is as much a part of the economic policy of the nation as any other fiscal plan? We are.

Why is the government silent on its most fundamental defining document of both where we are going in the future and how we are resolving the problems of today?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to point out what hollow, empty rhetoric we just heard from the member.

It is really remarkable. He talked about the Liberals accomplishments on immigration. He talked about the people they brought in. He did not talk about the enormous waiting list that built up under the Liberals, with the enormous landing fee they charged every immigrant to come to our country. They should be ashamed of that.

Second, when they did bring these immigrants in, they dumped them off, wishing them good luck and hoping they would make out all right. They never assisted them with getting any of their credentials or skills recognized. They abandoned them. They got their $1,000 and abandoned them.

That is the Liberal record on immigration, and it is terrible. There are 900,000 people waiting on the waiting list.

He talked about the train to Peterborough. I am very proud of that, but what I am really proud of is how that will assist the city of Toronto. That is every bit as much a Toronto issue as it is a Peterborough issue. It is an integrated transit solution for the eastern Greater Golden Horseshoe region.

What did the mayor of Markham say about it? I do not think the member knows. He talked about it as an integrated solution, how he would partner up with York Region Transit and how it would provide an integrated transit solution for the future of York region, for Durham region, for Kawartha Lakes, for Peterborough.

How many jobs will it support? How many jobs were lost in places like Peterborough and Oshawa because, under his government, infrastructure in our country declined? We have a massive infrastructure deficit. This government is doing something about it with the building Canada fund. His government did nothing. My region suffered because his government let us down, period.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess when one does not have an argument to make, one can raise one's voice. However, when I and my party left government two and a half years ago, a sad day, the unemployment rate in Ontario, and in his part of the country in particular, was just under 6%. That comes awfully close to being severely underemployed. It means people in that part of the country were not only being well served by the government of the day, but they really thought they had struck something very important.

For example, he would probably have received an answer, had he asked, that one of the first things that happened in the government, of which I was a part, was some $350 million were put toward GO Train expansion and a further $350 million for the TTC. He probably would not have mentioned that because, unfortunately, when his government took over, it held up that money until just a few months ago. He said that they needed to have something that is very specific instead of something macro.

He probably would also have received the response if he had asked, but he is not interested, that the provincial and the federal governments combined put in $1 billion for the auto sector. So many people worked in the auto sector in Peterborough and the municipalities between Peterborough and Oshawa. However, this would suggest that he understands a plan when it hits him in the face, but he does not.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke earlier in his comments about the loss of jobs in the auto industry, and my colleague spoke earlier about the loss in the forest industry.

In his reading and review of the budget, did he see any understanding of the fact that those thousands of jobs lost were predominantly men's jobs, but those men had families? Often in small communities, members of those families are employed in secondary industries, or secondary businesses that will also potentially close.

We know that the abuse of children and women increases in times of economic stress. Did he see something in the budget, or did he hear the minister responsible for women talk about the dangerous effects that these job losses potentially would have on women and children?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member probably knows the answer to that already. I am not in the habit of answering rhetorical questions, but it is a serious rhetorical question. It is a reflection on what I said at the very beginning.

The government in its fundamental document, the one that expresses whether it understands the dynamics of the country and the way that society evolves in the country, has come up very short. In fact, there is no evidence of that. There might be counter-evidence that the Conservatives, when they recognize it, will do something negative. We have seen all the cuts to those programs that the hon. member has suggested builds the social fabric of our society, but she is quite right.

When we lose jobs, tensions are created, whether the community is a nuclear family or a small community. The member has seen some of this happen already in over 350 communities across Canada, many of them in British Columbia, which rely almost exclusively on one industry and, in this particular instance, the lumber industry. She is quite right that when the lumber industry collapses, the entire community feels the social strains as well as the economic strains. The government has not calculated, but we have taken note, what happens to communities when a fundamental industry, which keeps them alive, is torn away.

We have not talked about what happens to the academic institutions that depend on a thriving economic environment to do the research and development to keep the community healthy. That is not seen in the budget. The government is again demonstrating it has no vision, no strategy and no plan.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to my hon. colleague. He makes a bit of sense on a few issues, but I have some questions for him. I just read in the Calgary Herald today that the Ontario based construction sector council said Monday:

—unrelenting construction growth is pushing the labour force to its limits, and nowhere is the problem more acute than in Alberta. The council said Alberta will need an additional 52,000 construction workers over the next decade—21,000 just to replace retirees and 31,000 to handle growth.

Not only Alberta is growing. We are seeing construction growth in Ontario right now. The hon. member talked a lot about the knowledge based economy. I came out of the knowledge based sector. I have taught computer programing. I worked in the knowledge economy for a long time before I came here, so I know of what I speak. When we cannot find anyone to do the construction work to build colleges and universities, then we will not have much of a knowledge based economy to build it upon. While it is great that so many educated immigrants have come to our country with masters degrees and Ph.D.s, we also need people to get down into the trenches and do some of the heavy lifting.

While my hon. colleague is so vehemently opposed to the budget and he said we are absent in so many areas, will the member be present or absent when it comes to third reading on Bill C-50?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for being here for my entire speech. I thought it was very gracious of him and I thank him for it. I thank him as well for noting that the items I discussed have a bearing on both society and the economy. I want to replicate that by addressing the very serious issue he raised.

It just so happens I used to be the minister responsible for human resources as well as the minister responsible for immigration. I know of the problems in the human resources deficit in Alberta. We were taking measures to address them. I know, for example, in Calgary, some three years ago, there was a shortfall of 16,000 job fillers on the spot. However, the issue is not so much how many. It is whether in fact we want to build a society on the basis of our need today.

The basic crux of the discussion is if the 16,000 per annum over a five year period in Calgary alone were to be filled by immigrants, whether they would be migrants who would fill a job that would be temporarily available or whether we would use the opportunity to build on those 16,000 additional job fillers per annum to bring them and their families in or to have them encouraged to stay here in Canada and to build a society for the future, to build not only the homes, the pipelines, the roads, but to also build the schools that would be required when they expanded society by making this their home.

Whether we recognize there is great need for skilled labourers in Alberta, or whether we use that opportunity to enlarge Canadian society, to build it for tomorrow and to ensure that the kind of wealth we see today in a place like Alberta would be carried on for the next generation and the generation after that, that is missing in this budget.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to speak, sadly, to Bill C-50, which is known as the budget implementation act.

Given the weakness of the Liberals, the Conservatives have rolled two other provisions into the budget implementation act, one that would simply gut our existing immigration system and give new powers to the minister, and another that would essentially take money that was set aside for Canadians in employment insurance and readjust that away, contrary, of course, to the advice of the Auditor General.

In my opinion, what we are considering today with Bill C-50 is the corporate handout act, the indentured servitude act and the legalized theft act. I would like to speak to each aspect of Bill C-50.

I will first talk about the corporate handouts. The Conservatives have not been speaking today. They refuse to defend their own budget, which is kind of interesting. However, when they did speak to it a couple of days ago, when they were actually willing to speak before they realized the inconsistency of the budget document, they said that they were spending a certain amount of money on this and a certain amount of money on that. They tried to say that the budget, overall, was a good budget because they would be spending some money on new programs that deal with the desperate situation that so many Canadians are in. I will say more on that in a moment.

It is important to note what the NDP has been saying in the House, even though the Conservatives are moving to adopt the budget, with the support of an incredibly weak Liberal leader who is essentially allowing the budget to pass, that for every $1 in new program spending, $6 will be going to the corporate sector in corporate handouts, in tax cuts to corporate CEOs. They are essentially shovelling money off the back of a truck to the corporate sector.

I call Bill C-50 the corporate handout act because it is a redistribution of income from hard hit Canadians to the wealthiest of Canadians.

We know the last 20 years have not been kind to ordinary Canadian families. Ordinary working families have borne the brunt of incredibly irresponsible and misguided economic policies conducted first by the Conservatives, then by the Liberals and now by the Conservatives. In fact, we have the same ministers sometimes crossing the floor once or twice. It seems to be the same group of people with the same economic policies.

It is helpful to talk a bit about what the actual impacts have been for ordinary Canadians since 1989. The portrait is a very disappointing one for NDP members who deal on a regular basis with ordinary Canadian working families. We can see the impact of misguided economic policies.

What has happened over the last 20 years? The wealthiest, the corporate CEOs, the folks who the Conservative Party love to give money to, now take half of all income in Canada. We have not seen that level of inequality in income since the 1930s, and that is essentially what the Liberals and Conservatives, working as some sort of weird wrestling tag team, have managed to produce in the Canadian economy. The wealthy now take half of all income.

What has happened to the other income categories? The upper middle class has seen stagnation, neither a rise nor a fall in their real incomes. However, it becomes much more sad and impressive when we look at what the income impacts have been as we move down the income ladder.

Middle class Canadian families earning between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, which is one-fifth or 20% of the Canadian population, have lost a week of real income for each year since 1989. It is like they are working harder than ever because the average Canadian family is working 200 hours more now than they were then. They have been working extremely hard but it is as if they do not get a paycheque for one week each year. They are working 52 week years and getting paid for 51 weeks, and that is because of the economic geniuses in the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party.

What has happened in other income categories? What about the lower middle class, those families earning between $20,000 and $40,000 a year? They have lost two weeks of income since 1989. They are working 52 week years but it is as if they miss an entire paycheque. Under the Conservatives and Liberals, they have one paycheque taken away from them. They now work 200 more hours a year but they now have to skip a pay period of two weeks.

What about the poorest of Canadians, the families earning less than $20,000? Under the Conservatives and the Liberals, they have seen a catastrophic fall in income. They have lost a month and a half of income for each year since 1989.

It is no secret why it is estimated that there will be about 300,000 Canadians sleeping out in parks and on the main streets of our country tonight. It is because for the poorest of Canadians, it is as if for a month and a half a year there is no paycheque at all waiting for them and they need to scramble to make ends meet.

We have seen a catastrophic incomes crisis for most Canadian families. Since 1989, the real income of two-thirds of Canadian families has gone down. What do the Conservatives and Liberals offer in their budgets? They offer more corporate tax cuts to corporate CEOs, as if that is the only group of Canadians that exists. It is as if they are unable to see that on the main streets of this country there is a completely different reality from Bay Street. Bay Street seems to be the only place they are willing to listen to because those corporate CEOs now take in half of all income. We have seen a decline in real income for the vast majority of Canadian families but what do we get in the budget? We get the corporate handout act. It contains $6 in corporate tax cuts for every $1 in new spending.

We have a crisis in the health care system. We have record levels of student debt in post-secondary education. We have the collapse of the softwood industry brought about by the foolish and irresponsible softwood sellout that has particularly impacted British Columbia. Now we have other trade initiatives from the government. It enjoyed selling out the softwood industry so well that it is now moving to sell out the shipbuilding industry with the EFTA. It just seems to be serial sellouts from the government.

We have seen, time and again, all of those elements that Canadians are crying out for, such as a national pharmacare program, which the NDP has been pushing forward, and the adequate funding for our health care system and actually saving money in our health care system by redirecting the money toward bulk purchasing of drugs, for example, which would actually allow us to save money on the health care system and redirect it to primary care, but instead, under Liberal governments, like Conservative governments, it just seems to be the same old story repeating itself, one time after another.

[An hon. member]

It'll never happen.

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

I hear some heckling from the Liberals and Conservatives. It is important to note that the Department of Finance did a long term study, the only time one has been done in Canada, on which governments managed money the best.

I think everyone in the House would agree that the people in the Department of Finance are the economic experts, supposedly. They did a long term study on the actual fiscal returns of NDP governments, Conservative governments and Liberal governments. They found that the NDP, while not perfect, managed money the best. Most of the time NDP governments actually finished their fiscal period returns, not the budget documents, not the promises and projections, but the actual fiscal period returns, and balanced its budgets or were in surplus.

What happened to the Conservatives? Two-thirds of the time the Conservatives were in deficit. We are not talking about the budget flim-flam, the budget documents and the promises. We are actually saying what happened on the bottom line. Two-thirds of the time Conservative governments were in deficit, which I think shows that they have some problems with fiscal management. In fact, Conservative fiscal management is kind of an oxymoron.

How did the Liberals do? It was the only party that was worse than the Conservatives. They were in deficit 86% of the time.

It is important to note that the federal Department of Finance, which I do not think anyone would say is a socialist hotbed, has looked at how the various parties manage money and it said that the NDP managed money the best.

Since I was getting some heckling from the Liberals and the Conservatives, I thought it was important for the people of Canada to know who manages money best.

It is true that the NDP would not be giving corporate handouts. It would not be providing $6 to corporate CEOs for every $1 in spending that touches vital and important issues like housing, health care, post-secondary education and getting the debt down, this mortgage on the future that we are imposing on younger Canadians.

We now have record levels of student debt, $26,000 on average. When these kids come out of post-secondary education they go into a labour market where the entry level wages are lower than ever before, which, unfortunately, has been accentuated by Conservative policies. I will come back to that in a moment. These people are also in a job market where most jobs that are created do not come with pensions or benefits.

We are looking at this apprehended incomes crisis where those kids, having finally succeeded in paying off their post-secondary debt, will retire, after a long working career, at a time when there is no company pension available to them. That is what has happened under the Conservatives and Liberals.

What has happened directly in terms of employment under the Conservatives? We saw that two weeks ago with the study that came out about the jobs we are losing in the manufacturing sector and the jobs that the Conservatives have managed to dig up for Canadians. They seem to be very proud. They talk about these jobs they have created but they do not mention what they actually pay. The jobs the Conservatives have lost paid over $21 an hour. They were good manufacturing jobs, family sustaining jobs.

We have lost hundreds and thousands of jobs in the softwood industry because of incredibly irresponsible policies, like the softwood sellout, and in a wide variety of other sectors, such as the auto sector and soon to be the shipbuilding sector because of another free trade deal that is a sellout. There is a complete lack of understanding of how the federal government can support key industries and put in place an industrial strategy to keep those industries, ensuring good jobs for Canadians.

We have lost the $21 an hour jobs. What have we gained? The same study indicated that the jobs the Conservatives have gained to offset that massive hemorrhaging of good manufacturing jobs are service industry jobs paying less than two-thirds of the salaries of the jobs lost.

Statistics Canada also tells us that most of the jobs created in today's economy are part time or temporary. We are not talking about family sustaining jobs anymore. A constituent in my riding told me that he guessed the Conservatives had created jobs because he had to take on three of them that are all part time jobs.

The Conservatives love to say that they have created lots of part time jobs but when a Canadian has lost a full time family sustaining job and has to take two or three jobs for $6 an hour for six hours a week, they are not better off. Their real income has catastrophically fallen. The Conservatives do not seem to understand that fundamental mathematics.

If people have a good job at $21 an hour and they lose it due to Conservative policies and then work at two or three jobs at $6 an hour, six hours a week, they have actually lost two-thirds of their income. They have not gained anything. The Conservatives continue to stand up in the House and pretend that there has been some kind of net gain. It is clearly not the case.

The extent of Bill C-50 is basically corporate handouts when support for health care, housing and post-secondary education were really called for.

What else is contained in the bill? The Conservatives, with Liberal compliance, have slipped in major changes to our Immigration Act as well. We call it the indentured servitude act because it would give the minister full powers to bring in temporary foreign workers, rather than ensuring the kind of family reunification that we used to have in Canada.

This has been put into place because we have seen, under the former Liberal government and the current Conservative government, chronic underfunding for the immigration system. The immigration system, like the health care system, has to be funded for it to work effectively, but we have seen cutbacks under the Conservatives and Liberals.

The result has been a waiting list that has ballooned to almost one million people. Seven hundred thousand of those came from the Liberal government which did not deal with the problem. Now because the Conservatives are not dealing with the problem, the list has grown even longer.

What is the solution? The solution is to invest in our immigration system. Instead, what we have is a reliance by the Conservative government on bringing in temporary foreign workers. Those folks are not subject to the health and safety regulations, nor the minimum wage laws that Canadians enjoy. This is to the advantage of a company, of course, because why pay a skilled worker from Canada a good, family sustaining wage when the company can bring in someone and pay below minimum wage?

No one objects to bringing in foreign workers when there is a skills shortage, but there is clear evidence that Canadians who could be in those positions are not being hired for those positions because the companies can bring in, with the compliance of the Conservative government, temporary foreign workers and pay them less. Then the companies send them home when their contract is finished. If the workers argue for a day off, or if they actually talk about forming a union, any of those reasons are good to send those temporary foreign workers home.

The Conservatives tucked this provision into a budget bill and the Liberals are saying that they are going to let this budget bill go through. As in Shakespeare's famous phrase, all sound and fury signifying nothing, the Liberals have stood up in the House of Commons and said that they are opposed to the immigration provisions. My goodness, they are opposed; they are opposed so much they are going to let the bill go through.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member will have three minutes left to conclude his remarks after question period. We will move on to statements by members.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, 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, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster had the floor when we were last on this debate. He has three minutes remaining in the time allotted for his remarks. I therefore call upon the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am tragically bound to comment on Bill C-50, the corporate handout act.

We talked earlier in the day about the tens of billions of dollars that the Conservatives, through this bill, are giving to wealthy corporate CEOs rather than providing that money for health care, post-secondary education, housing and the variety of needs that working Canadian families have. Instead, the Conservatives are shovelling money off the back of a truck to the corporate sector.

I spoke a bit about the indentured servitude provisions that bring in temporary foreign workers.

I would like to address in my final few minutes the legalized theft act, which is essentially diverting $54 billion in insurance premiums paid by hard-working Canadian families into employment insurance. The Conservatives are now diverting that away. They are simply writing off $52 billion of that $54 billion total.

This is contrary to the advice of the Auditor General. It has changed the employment insurance system from what existed before the Liberals started taking money from the insurance fund. It has changed it from an insurance system to a lottery system.

Essentially what we have today when people are unemployed is a system in which, instead of people having insurance when they need it, they have a lottery. One out of every three women actually has access to the employment insurance she has paid for.

It is a shameful situation. For me, it is unbelievable that the Liberals are voting to support this Conservative measure. They essentially are allowing this budgetary measure as well as the immigration changes and the corporate handouts of tens of billions of dollars going to the corporate sector. The Liberals are allowing all of that to pass. The leader of the Liberal Party is ensuring that all of that passes and becomes law. That is the most disgraceful aspect of all of this.

When we know that changes to the immigration act are going to lead to underpaid temporary foreign workers who are not subject to health and safety regulations, the Liberals support it. When we see the theft of money that was paid by hard-working Canadian families into employment insurance, the Liberals support it. When tens of billions of dollars are going to corporate CEOs, which now take almost half of all income in this country, we see the Liberals supporting that.

In fact, the Liberals go even further. They say they want to push down corporate taxes even more despite the fact that we are seeing record levels of profit and most working families are earning less now than they were 20 years ago. Two-thirds of Canadian families are earning less now than they were 20 years ago.

The Liberals are supporting all of these Conservative schemes. All I can say from the one corner of the House where there is opposition to the Conservative agenda is that the Liberals should be ashamed of themselves.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his dissertation on Bill C-50. It is certainly one that we have spoken to many times in the past in the House.

When we look at the state of economy that we have heard coming forward in the last report on the gross domestic product, for instance, which has slipped by 0.3% over the last three months, even at a time when our resource profits and the huge increase in the price of oil and natural gas have occurred in the country, one would think that these types of activities in the economy would by themselves create a positive nature in the gross domestic product. However, we are seeing a drop.

Quite clearly, the losers are losing and the winners are winning very strongly with this budget. Where is the fairness in the budget, in the corporate sector at least, where so many companies that are trying so hard now to remain afloat are having such great difficulty?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Western Arctic is, as usual, very eloquent and is absolutely right.

In study after study by KPMG and Price Waterhouse, it has been confirmed that the corporate sector gets its major source of subsidy from Canada's health care system. Therefore, the primary level of competitiveness that comes from Canadian companies is due to our publicly subsidized health care system. A company in Canada does not have to pay the health care premiums that a company in the United States or in other countries has to pay. Our public health care system is a major source of subsidy and support to Canadian companies.

What happens? Because we obviously have a mathematically challenged finance minister and a Prime Minister who learned his economics from a textbook and never actually had to meet a payroll in his life, instead of adjusting corporate income taxes so the corporate sector picks up part of the cost of that extensive subsidy, they give more money to the corporate CEOs.

On the one hand, we subsidize, through public support, health care, but as health care declines, instead of providing more funds for that, which would be a greater support for Canadian companies at the same time as it is greater support for ordinary Canadian working families, we see the opposite. The Conservatives cut back in health care and make the health care system worse but they give tens of billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts; $6 in corporate tax cuts for every $1 in new program funding. That is absolutely disgraceful.

However, I did find one element in the budget that purports to help working people and it is the announcement the minister made about a tax-free savings account. He compared it to RRSPs. Canadians would assume that means that the money going into a savings account is tax free. That is not at all the case. This is just another case of Conservative snake oil. The money going into that tax-free savings account is fully taxed. It is only the small interest income that the individual gets that is tax-free.

That is just another example of how little the Conservative government does for ordinary working families. It is a disaster. It is as bad as the former Liberal government and that is saying a lot.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to engage in the debate on third reading, particularly as it pertains to section 6 of Bill C-50, which deals with the changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The changes that are being proposed are major structural and draconian changes to our Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. To put such important structural changes in conjunction with a budget implementation bill shows the government's contempt for the institution of Parliament, the citizenship and immigration committee, new Canadians and all Canadians.

I need not remind the government that immigration has been the lifeblood of this country, that immigration is the lifeblood of this country and that immigration will continue to be the lifeblood of this country.

Any thoughtful person in Canada knows that we are faced with serious demographic challenges. Within the next four years, 100% of our net growth in labour will be met through immigration. This issue is one of great importance to the future of our country.

When section 6 was put into the budget implementation act, it is amazing that no reference was made by the government to the citizenship and immigration committee. The reason we have standing committees of Parliament is to hold the government, the minister and the bureaucracy accountable. That is the very basis of our parliamentary system. The government tried to bypass that process and, to a large extent, it has bypassed the process.

It so happened that the finance committee of this House of Commons referred a question pertaining to changes to the Immigration Act, section 6, over to the citizenship and immigration committee and asked us to respond to it. In considering the changes, the committee tripled its number of sittings. It held extraordinary sittings to ensure we could hear from Canadians.

I will tell members what happened. When the government announced Bill C-50, the committee was just starting to undertake a cross country consultation in every capital city on the issues of undocumented workers, temporary foreign workers and immigration consultants. The Conservative members on the committee would not allow us to talk about Bill C-50 as it pertained to the changes to the Immigration Act.

Members can just imagine the incredible wasted opportunity we had at that point not to be able to talk to Canadians. Every time we got into the issue of witnesses trying to make representation on Bill C-50, the parliamentary secretary objected very strongly.

We need to revisit the rules because it puts us in disrepute as a parliamentary committee conducting consultations across the country and we are not talking about the most important issue on the parliamentary agenda, which is section 6 of Bill C-50. However, as I mentioned, we did the best we could. We held hearings and extended the hours of those hearings.

I want to share with members of the House what one witness said to the committee. The name of this witness was submitted by the parliamentary secretary as being someone who should be speaking to Bill C-50.

Mr. Warren Creates, head of the Immigration Law Group with Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall, said:

Thanks for asking me to participate in this important piece of your parliamentary business.

When this legislation was introduced on March 14, I was on national television that night--it was a Friday--speaking in support of it. With reflection and in the fullness of time, I have considered it more carefully and want to share my thoughts with you.

The minister announced on that day that this legislation would reduce the backlog; would restrict the size and cost of maintaining a large and outdated inventory; would result in faster processing; would result in improved service--or, as she was quoted saying, just-in-time inventory--aimed at reducing the wait time to an average of one year; would make the system more responsive and nimble to immediate regional economic needs by listing and selecting strategic or priority occupations; and really, we couldn't continue to build a warehouse that would occupy these hundreds of thousands of applications, when every year we were selecting only about 250,000 to get visas.

Those were the political comments made at the time in support of the legislation, and I was one who then supported the initiative. Now I'm a very different person as I appear in front of you today. I've gone 180 degrees, because it's clear to me now what effect this legislation is going to have.

First of all, it's going to move some categories of applicants to the front of the line and delay other categories. As the minister continues to move categories to the front of the line, including the Canada experience class that we'll see at the end of this summer, there is no front of the line any more. There are so many priority silos in the business of this government now. I'll list them for you: interdiction, enforcement, refugees, visitors, students, work permits, spouses, children, provincial nominee programs, and soon the expanded Canada experience class. It's not going to be possible, with this legislation and the existing platform of resources, to deliver the promises of this minister. There is no front of the line.

What I find particularly heinous or egregious is proposed subsection 87.3(2), which talks about the opinion of the minister. The legislation says:

The processing of applications and requests is to be conducted in a manner that, in the opinion of the Minister, will best support the attainment of the immigration goals.

Since when do we live in a country where the minister decides what happens with something as important as the immigration program?

Our immigration officers in Canada and outside Canada should never be accountable to the minister. They should instead be accountable to our Constitution, our charter, the legislation and laws of this country, this House, and this parliamentary process that gets the views of stakeholders. That's what's important.

We're going to see in this legislation the erosion of the sacred rule of law principle that this country is built on. Democracy is shrinking because of Bill C-50. Processing priorities, which we have already decided by a tried, tested, and true established and transparent parliamentary procedure for both legislative and regulatory change, will now be reduced to stakeholder input.

I will not read any more of that but I will say that this person, when he first heard the announcement around section 6 of Bill C-50, stood and applauded it and supported it. As soon as he was able to examine what it really meant we see the results. That is what I quoted and he was very much in opposition.

Another issue which the person talked about, and it should be talked about, is what the government claims it was going to accomplish.

The government has taken the unprecedented step of spending $4 million to spread misinformation to Canadians, by buying ads in the ethnic media. It is making the same kinds of claims that were made to that gentleman, who is a lawyer and who, upon examination, rejected those claims. The minister said, and this is an important issue, “Currently, the immigration backlog sits at 925,000 applications. This means that the wait time for an application can be as long a six years”.

The skilled workers class, which is essentially where the growth happened, had a waiting list of 615,000 at the end of 2007. This is essentially the backlog. Those are the numbers that are important in this debate. It so happens that since the Conservatives have been in office, they have grown this category by over 100,000 in two years. The minister is responsible for 85,000 of that growth. Here we have a minister saying that she is going to reduce the backlog, but the reality is that it was on her watch that the backlog grew.

Regarding the claim made by the Conservatives in terms of dealing with the backlog, let us take a look at another standard of performance. What has happened to the backlog at the Immigration and Refugee Board?

When the Liberals left office, there was a backlog of less than 20,000. The processing time was being reduced. It was less than a year and we had hoped to get it down to six months. For the first time we had turned the corner on the program. It had been put in place initially by the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney and actually was a beehive of patronage appointments, but we changed it to a merit based system and the Liberal government did not interfere in the appointment of IRB members.

The Conservative government came in and it failed to fill the vacant positions. Of a 160 member Immigration and Refugee Board, there were about 100 members. The Conservatives grew the backlog from less than 20,000 to about 45,000 today, which is going to hit 60,000 or 62,000 by the end of the year.

The time to process the claims has increased to 18 months and that is if there is no appeal. If there is an appeal, because of the shortage of IRB members, they cannot even take time to make a booking because they just do not have the people power to process it.

That is one claim the minister made. I think I have shed some light on the fact that the rhetoric does not meet the record of the government.

The government in this ad, upon which the government is in the process of spending $4 million, promises more resources. It states, “More resources: An additional $109 million to speed up the application process”. That is over five years. That works out to something like $22 million a year. The Liberals put in $700 million, which breaks down to $140 million a year to deal with the backlog and make the system more efficient. The Conservative government got rid of the $700 million and put back $109 million. That is a cut of $600 million.

The government is promising faster processing times. We know the reality. The processing times have gone up under the Conservative government's watch. While I talk about the processing times going up, I might also mention that the government missed the number of immigration landings that the Conservatives themselves promised would take place in 2007. This was the first time in the past decade that the targets were not met.

The government talked about complete processing, that all applications currently in the backlog would be processed. There is really no credibility in the claim by the government. It is really an insult to all parliamentarians, to this institution itself, and to Canadians that the government would do advertising on legislation that still has not been passed. I can only say that we expected better from a government that promised transparency, that promised to do things differently, that promised accountability, that promised parliamentary reform. What we have are promises upon which the government has not delivered.

In closing, the open and transparent process of objectively selecting immigrants coming to this country was pioneered by Canada. It is a process that has been copied by Australia, by New Zealand and by many nations in Europe. The United States Senate is studying it because it looks to us as the leaders in this area. What we are doing is walking away from that process.

The reason we have that process is steeped in our history. It is steeped in the reality of the evolution of this country. I remind the House of the Asian exclusion act, the Chinese head tax, the internment of Ukrainians, the Komagata Maru, the SS St. Louis. I remind the House of a time when immigration policy essentially discriminated against people from various countries because of the colour of their skin or because of their religion. That is why, because of our sorry history and the sufferings of many Canadians, we pioneered a process that was open and transparent, where it was done objectively. The Conservative government is walking away from that process, a process that we should be proud of. We pioneered this process.

What do we have? We have a Conservative government which, when it came into office, did it reach out to a member of its party who is competent and knowledgeable on these issues to help with the necessary reforms? The member for Calgary—Nose Hill is a very experienced member. She served on the citizenship and immigration committee. She knows the portfolio. Did the Conservatives appoint her? No, they appointed a rookie minister who has no previous experience in the immigration and citizenship portfolio, none, zero, zilch. That person was in office for less than a year and the Conservatives replaced him. Did they replace him with someone who is knowledgeable on the portfolio, such as the member for Calgary—Nose Hill? No, sir. They replaced that person with another minister who has absolutely no understanding or knowledge of citizenship and immigration, but who gets high ranking in the Conservative hierarchy because her husband happens to be a major organizer for the Prime Minister, the leader of the Conservative Party.

As I said before, immigration has been, is and will continue to be the lifeblood of this country. I call upon the government to come to its senses and make the necessary changes that we can embrace in order to maintain objectivity and transparency. Let us continue to be leaders.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. colleague. I appreciate the sacrifices that he has made. He was the only member of the Liberal Party, aside from a small group of the leadership, who actually voted against Bill C-50 and for the NDP amendments that would have taken out the most egregious aspects of the immigration changes and the theft from the employment insurance fund. Essentially, he was the one Liberal who said, “I am going to vote along with the NDP for these amendments and I will vote against Bill C-50”.

The appalling results last night were that aside from the hon. member, there were only 11 other Liberals who were in the House and Bill C-50 was allowed to move from report stage to third reading. Because somewhere around 84 or 85 Liberals were absent last night, that essentially allowed the Conservative government to move forward with an agenda, which the hon. member has said very clearly is not a good agenda for Canada, and I admire him for it. I realize he has been punished by his leader for having spoken up. I am grateful that there is one Liberal who is willing to stand up in the House and show some backbone.

My question for him is very simple. What can he do when his own leader refuses to stop any aspect of the Conservative Party agenda? For over a year now in confidence vote after confidence vote we have seen Liberals endorsing the Conservatives' agenda. Every single time, all the Conservatives have to do is mention the “c” word, confidence, and the Liberals and the Liberal leader automatically vote for whatever it is, regardless of the consequences for the country, regardless of what it means for ordinary working families.

How does the member feel about his own party simply not standing up for the principles that he has enunciated in this House and for which he actually voted last night, principles on which the NDP has led, amendments to this bad, bad bill in order to move forward with a budget that actually would do something for working people? When his own party has left him, where does that leave him?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to look back to December 2005 when a choice had to be made. At that time the NDP and the Bloc joined forces to bring down the then Liberal government. This was done after ignoring the pleas of most progressive forces in this country, be it the Sierra Club, environmentalists, child care advocates, first nations, and the list goes on.

The Liberal Party is opposed to Bill C-50. My party is also cognizant of the political reality that the Conservative government wants an election on Bill C-50, particularly as it relates to part 6.

Conservative members observed what happened in the last provincial election where the ADQ used immigrant bashing in the province of Quebec and almost formed the government. We saw that intolerance generated during the course of the reasonable accommodation debate. Make no mistake about it, the Conservative Party had this very much in mind in terms of trying to trigger an election on Bill C-50.

The decision to trigger an election belongs to the official opposition because without it there will be no election and our leader is cognizant of that. As much as I counselled our leader at the time of the Throne Speech and on numerous other occasions that we should go to an election, thinking better now than letting the Conservatives do any damage, I have to be cognizant of the fact that we have a responsibility to make sure that those folks across the way, the neo-conservative party in the House, never form a majority government.

It is the job of the leader to frame the question on what the next election is going to be fought on. That day is coming. I see an election being called around the issue of the carbon tax because most opposition parties want to reduce our carbon output. It would shift the economy to reward things that are good and would penalize things that we want less.

I am not the leader of my party, but I do have a strong interest in citizenship and immigration and issues related to the charter. I do occupy a place in the House that no member with my years of experience occupies. This gives me a good view of what is going on and it also affords me the opportunity to get a bird's eye view not only of all members from the backbenches forward but in the opposition as well.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Questions and comments.

I would like to avoid having a dialogue at this moment and allow other members of the House to ask questions.

The hon. member for Scarborough--Rouge River is standing to ask a question. He has one minute.

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

Mr. Speaker,--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Burnaby--New Westminster is rising on a point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the Standing Orders say that when a member has risen for questions and comments and no other member has risen, that member must be recognized. I rose and asked to be recognized. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, you are now asking members from the Liberal Party to ask questions among themselves. That is not in accordance with the Standing Orders.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I appreciate the good advice that the hon. member is giving me. I would like to remind him that I have been more than generous toward him, today and on other occasions.

I also do not like to have members of the same party asking questions of members who have just spoken, but I have to deal with the cards that are dealt to me.

Right now I am recognizing the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River. Unfortunately, the one minute has now been cut in half.

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

Mr. Speaker, thank you for promoting a wider, open debate. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster has had a lot of air time.

I just wanted to comment and there may not be time for a reply.

The bill contains a provision in relation to the immigration act that creates something called an instruction, which goes into the envelope of statutory instruments and regulations, but it is not either of those things. It is a new approach. It is different. It sounds expedient, but it may vary from rule of law. I am curious if the member, who has the floor now, has a view about the use of such an instrument in this circumstance.

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

Very quickly, Mr. Speaker, regulations are a much better way to go. That is the present practice. It allows scrutiny, transparency and accountability. Let me also just close off by saying that the temporary foreign worker issue is particularly egregious in the bill. My simple feeling on that issue is that if individuals are good enough to work here, they are good enough to live here, become Canadians, and help build the country.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill C-50. I want to touch on a number of issues, one relating to the widening income gap that we are seeing in Canada. On another issue, I want to touch on some solutions that my colleagues and I have proposed.

I also want to talk about what the government could have done with some of the money received from Canadians other than continuing to subsidize large oil and gas companies and other big corporations. I also want to speak about the changes to the immigration act, as they will really touch some of my constituents who come into my office to speak to me.

The latest census figures paint a grim picture of our economy. While incomes for the richest 20% of Canadians have increased, the poorest have become poorer and meanwhile the incomes of those in the middle have just simply flatlined. This is according to the recent Statistics Canada report.

This corporate wealth grab is the result of a well orchestrated partnership with neo-liberal governments of past decades. The Thomas d'Aquinos have syphoned off all the benefits. We hear a lot about the trickle down effect. I am sure that it might make sense if it were not for the sponges at the top that are preventing any kind of trickle down.

In Victoria alone, according to recent research published from a “Quality of Life Challenge” report, parents need to make almost $16.50 an hour just to earn a basic living wage. It reports that 27.2% of families in B.C.'s capital fall below the acceptable living standard line. What is more alarming is that the research reveals that the majority of parents had 70 hour work weeks, the equivalent of two full time jobs. This is up 10 hours from last year.

What we see also are young people, aboriginal and immigrants, who are marginalized and trapped in part time, unstable, low paying McJobs, despite the government's rhetoric about job creation.

It is important for all of us in the House to talk seriously about the living wage. Victoria's housing costs are among the highest in the country. While the unemployment rate is the lowest in nearly four decades, I concede, employment trends are toward more low wage, part time and more insecure jobs that support the service sector, including tourism.

The labour pool will continue shrinking as the boomers retire and not many families with children can afford to live in Victoria. Only a small number of new immigrants make their homes in my riding. Young people tend to move away.

When more people are paid a living wage, the quality of life in the community improves. That is well known. A healthy economy attracts families, businesses and tourists. A living wage begins to close that income gap that we are seeing and reduces the number of people who are disadvantaged because of poverty.

In the study that I mentioned, expenses for a family of four were calculated on approximately $4,600 income per month. The rent took the largest bite with about $1,300, approximately 28% of costs, but it was closely followed by child care which amounted to approximately $1,000 a month, and then food and transportation costs. However, we know that food prices are rising exponentially.

This is where the government's neo-liberal approach is failing Canadian businesses and families. The federal government's absence from the table to make housing more affordable in Canada is inexcusable. The government's inaction in establishing national standards for child care and providing multi-year funding is adding to the crisis that families face.

These are all actions that we know would help working families and small businesses.

A couple of months ago, I met with some mayors of rural communities in the province of British Columbia. They told me that the absence of a national child care system and stable multi-year funding from the federal government were creating serious problems for those communities' ability to attract new businesses, because business owners know that they will not be able to attract employees.

High living costs are impacting businesses as well. They are having difficulty in attracting employees to our own high priced city and retaining them. Despite historically low unemployment and new sources of wealth creation, poverty in British Columbia's capital region, particularly among the working poor, is unacceptably high.

I was intrigued to read in the Statistics Canada report a couple of weeks ago that in 2007 British Columbia had its second best year for retail sales since 1995. That was a 6.7% increase over the previous year in Victoria, yet Victoria's downtown shopping centre, with its report of double digit sales growth for most of 2007, showed that the actual number of shoppers going through its doors was flat.

There is something wrong there. Or if it is not wrong, it is at least interesting that businesses have higher sales but fewer shoppers. Perhaps this indicates that fewer shoppers were simply purchasing more. This could be explained by the fact that in Victoria more than 30% of residents live below the poverty line and are unable to shop for anything beyond the very basics of food, transportation and so on.

This percentage could be reduced if more people who want to return to work were able to do so. At the moment, they are hampered by the fact that affordable day care, for example, is simply not available in the capital city of British Columbia.

Another recent report, from the University of British Columbia's Human Early Learning Partnership, highlighted an immediate need of 13,000 child care spaces for children from infant to school age. These numbers clearly cry out for a high quality national day care program to be put in place.

Along with high quality child care, education and skills training must be the starting point in breaking the cycle of poverty and illiteracy and ensuring Canada's competitiveness in the knowledge economy. Yet since 1995, when the then Liberal government initiated devolution for training to the provinces, Canada has remained leaderless in setting national standards or certification and qualification systems.

An OECD report,“Beyond Rhetoric: Adult Learning Policies and Practices”, states:

Governments' influence over national legislation and public resourcing policies is perhaps the most important way it can express clear commitment to supporting integrated policies for adult learning.

We need government policies, legislation and regulation that facilitate adult learning. We need financial incentives that encourage firms to invest in their workforce or incentives for individuals to engage in learning. All of this was cut by the Conservative government in last year's budget, at a crucial time when we know that many Canadians still lack the fundamental skills they need to move ahead.

Basic skills training and equitable access to education obviously remain a low priority for the government. Many Canadians come to my office and tell me about training needs and the difficulty in accessing programs. According to a recent Canadian Council on Learning report, 30% of Canadian workers reported in 2002 that there was job related training they needed or wanted to take, but they were unable to do so.

Although I realize this represents partly the former government's under-investment in training, important issues remain. Not enough is being done, and certainly not in this budget, to address the problem nationally.

Along the same lines, many families have spoken to me about the high cost of education. Without a meaningful investment in student grants for students of low income and middle income families, the Conservatives' transfer of funds from the Millennium Scholarship Foundation to a government-administered grants system will do nothing to improve access. If it is essential to our prosperity, why are we not doing more?

Not only does the lack of skilled workers affect ordinary Canadians' ability to cope, but it is impacting businesses. Small and medium-sized enterprises, which make up Victoria's business community, face greater barriers. Some small business owners have told me that poaching is a real problem for them. If the Conservatives chose to act on the employability report recommendations, it could help address these issues.

The employability report was tabled several months ago. If the government decided to implement these recommendations, it could help reduce the problems associated with poverty and also help small and medium-sized enterprises. I would like to mention a few of these recommendations. One of them recommends:

that the federal government provide funding to assist individuals who agree to relocate to enter employment in occupations experiencing skills shortages.

That is exactly the type of recommendation submitted by my colleague for Hamilton Mountain to the government. Another recommendation proposes “a national agency for the assessment and recognition of credentials, especially foreign credentials”.

Yet another calls on the government to consider:

expanding and restructuring the apprenticeship job creation tax credit and the apprenticeship incentive grant to encourage growth in apprenticeships and the completion of apprenticeship training generally.

Several recommendations seek to make access to education more equitable. At present, low to middle income families find it quite difficult to pay the very high tuition fees charged by Canadian universities.This employability report recommended that the federal student loan interest rate be considerably reduced or simply eliminated.

At present, students from low to middle income families have less access to education than students from rich families. Although the government has announced some changes and improvements to the administration of the student loans system, which I certainly applaud, there remain many bureaucratic and administrative problems to be resolved. We recommended the creation of an ombudsman for student loans to promote the better use of the loan system.

Various recommendations of this type would help solve the problems faced by many Canadians with respect to precarious jobs and would also help small businesses facing labour shortages.

I also wish to take a few minutes to speak about the changes to the immigration act that the government has proposed. These changes are going to encourage queue jumping. They are going to make family reunification more precarious and that is of serious concern.

I want to give members two typical cases. I could give many cases, but these two really illustrate some of the basic problems.

We are all aware that there are problems with the huge backlog of applications that has accumulated over the last decade, and these problems must be solved. However, they should not be solved by simply accepting that we have an immigration policy that becomes totally arbitrary, withdrawing it from the purview of Parliament and putting it in the hands of one person, the minister.

The son of one of my constituents, for example, still has not received a visa after many years. We have contacted the Canadian embassy in Nairobi. When it did not respond to our emails, I called the ministerial inquiries division and asked it to check into the situation. I was told that Nairobi was waiting for the medicals to arrive from the doctor, but when we spoke to the constituent, she said that she had called the doctor's office and had not heard back.

The message is that this reunification of a mother and a son has taken an unacceptably long time. This is not a problem that we will solve by simply making the kinds of changes that render our immigration policy totally arbitrary.

We need that family reunification clause. It is an important aspect of our policy, a longstanding policy that Canada offers to families we welcome in our country to allow them to better settle here.

I would like to give a couple of other examples. Back in 2004, one of my constituents and his wife began the process of applying to sponsor her parents from the Ukraine. It took two years before the application was actually received in the embassy in the Ukraine, which was November 2006. They continue to wait. My question is, why does it take so long to reunite a family?

I see that I have a couple of minutes left and would like to end by touching just briefly on the environment. The 2008 budget does not take decisive action to tackle climate change. It continues to reflect a regressive approach to the issue, focusing on such measures as carbon sequestration to further increase the development of the tar sands rather than a comprehensive program to reverse climate change.

Just in the past few days, we have seen Ontario and Quebec get together to put in place measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions, as have B.C. and Manitoba. As the Globe and Mail stated, the country's most populous provinces “are turning their backs on Ottawa” by setting up a cap and trade system.

Faced with the government's inaction, Canadian premiers are giving up on Ottawa. For example, Quebec's and Ontario's use of 1990 emission levels as a baseline for setting caps contrasts with the government's baseline, which is 2006.

The Minister of the Environment said just today in the House during question period that Canada must actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I wish he would actually take action to do that rather than maintain the Conservative government's intensity based targets--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I must interrupt the hon. member. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the member's remarks. She covered a great deal of territory and a lot of points.

I want to address the immigration component of her remarks. I suggest that the backlog she describes, while it is real and while it numbers some 800,000 or 900,000 people, is not necessarily a function of anything that Canada has done wrong. At least in part, the backlog is there because of the increased demand in coming to Canada.

Canada still is taking 250,000 to 300,000 new Canadians every year. We continue to generally meet our immigration targets. I am not so sure if we have even asked Canadian communities if they would be in a position to accept another 100,000 or 200,000 per year. That is a whole other question. We now take about 300,000 per year and can our Canadian communities absorb more than that?

We are really looking at a way to manage the increased demand for entry to Canada. I am curious to know whether she believes the measures in the four sections in the budget implementation bill will manage to address that issue of higher demand and increasing the backlog, which some people can regard as an inventory of immigration applicants wishing to come to Canada.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion we are not going to manage to receive a higher number of immigrants simply by making the rules more arbitrary, as the government is proposing. Not only that, I recall the minister stated that the new rules would not apply to applications prior to 2008, so I do not know what will happen to that backlog.

What I find more worrisome about the government's way of approaching the problem is it seems to be turning immigrants into economic units. That is deplorable. Immigrants have contributed and continue to contribute much to the fibre, the quality, the diversity and the richness of our country. Simply reducing that population to becoming economic units to fill jobs is not the way to go.

Family reunification, as I described earlier, is an important component that we must maintain. There may indeed be a skills shortage. As I tried to also express, there are many measures the government could take to address the skills shortage that may exist in the country. Simply short-cutting to bring in workers on a short term basis, with no commitment to their well-being in the long term or their stay in Canada, is not the way to go.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Victoria served on the committee that looked at Employability in Canada: Preparing for the Future, a report that was tabled in the House. The report talked about the barriers to employment for aboriginals.

Part of what was included in the report was the fact that poor health, poverty, unsuitable living conditions, including inadequate housing, racism and discrimination, had a direct impact on the social, education and occupational achievements of aboriginal people.

Then there were numerous recommendations, including the fact that the government should take immediate steps to strengthen the commitment to provide high quality, culturally relevant elementary and secondary education to aboriginal students and that it should also support indigenous controlled post-secondary education institutes.

Could the member comment on the Conservative government's failure to address these in this current budget implementation bill?

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this was a very important component of the study we did. The government has been remiss in investing properly not only at the primary and secondary school levels, but also at the post-secondary level for first nations. We noted in the report that the government has not adequately financed post-secondary education for first nation students.

One of the recommendations was to put in place a number of programs to better support them, for example, mentorship programs and skills training. The latter could help first nations build capacity as well.

At least 15 recommendations touched specifically on issues on which the federal government had been remiss, and it is shameful to admit that. These recommendations would go a long way toward helping first nations. They were endorsed by many of the first nations people who spoke at committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has a background in municipal affairs. One of the issues we find in northern Ontario, in terms of ensuring that an economy can grow, is the fact that the burden for tax has been handed over to municipalities, such as water rates, sewer rates, increased taxes on local businesses and so on. The federal government has walked away from infrastructure as have the provinces walked away from some of their infrastructure requirements. The fundamentals of building an economy are roads, sewers and communities that can actually keep up.

From the hon. member's experience in the Victoria region, could she comment on the transfer of a massive amount of debt onto homeowners and businesses?

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question is one of reasons that led me into federal politics.

As a councillor in the municipality of Victoria, I saw the download that happened over the years by a former Liberal government in an attempt to cut costs at the federal level. It simply passed the costs on to provinces and municipalities. This led municipalities across Canada to an infrastructure deficit. I have stopped counting in the past couple of months, but it had reached the $85 billion mark and that was for sewage treatment plants, storm water disposal and community centres.

The mentality of the Conservatives seems to be putting more money in the pockets of people pockets, which we all appreciate, but those members have to remember that individuals cannot build schools, hospitals or sewage treatment plants. We get this infrastructure from taxes.

The government has been remiss in its responsibilities in helping municipalities cope with these issues.

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

Mr. Speaker, almost two months ago, I rose in the House to discuss the serious concerns my constituents had about the proposed changes to Canada's immigration laws in Bill C-50.

It is with great frustration that I rise in the House again with the same concerns.

The government has had ample time to listen to the many people who have spoken out on this issue and to the changes that it wants to make, yet it has refused to listen. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration was recently in my riding. Instead of listening to my constituents and instead of bringing the message from my constituents of Newton—North Delta to Ottawa, she tried to impose the orders from Ottawa on those constituents. In fact, she did not even care to meet the general public there. She only met her Conservative loyalists to relay her message and to look good.

It is not only my constituents of Newton—North Delta who are concerned. In fact your constituents, Mr. Speaker, of Ottawa—Orléans are feeling the same way. They want you to bring the message from the grassroots to the House of Commons, not the other way around.

Another incident happened. When the minister was to meet the South Asian media on this issue, some people gathered where the minister was supposed be so they could express their concerns to her. What happened? As usual, following the Conservative policy and plan, the minister cancelled the event to meet with the media because she did not want to face those constituents. She met only with her preferred people and left out the South Asian media.

On another issue, when an election spending scandal issue was in the House, the Prime Minister did the same thing. The minister is following the lead of her leader.

We should be clear that the government has never tried to make an honest, open attempt to improve our immigration system. The Prime Minister has always wanted to sneak these changes through the back door by including them in the budget implementation bill, a confidence measure.

Those who had hoped for a change of heart over the past two months have been sorely disappointed. There was never any public consultation on these changes before they were introduced in the House of Commons. The only real public consultation these changes received was from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

The committee heard from a number of witnesses over extended meetings last month. Its conclusions were disheartening.

First, the committee reiterated how fundamental changes to our immigration system should be made. Changes need comprehensive and meaningful consultation. That did not happen. Changes should be introduced in stand-alone legislation. That did not happen. The committee should be given clear and detailed explanatory information. That did not happen. It is almost as if the government is trying to prove that these changes are being made in bad faith.

Nonetheless, the committee continued its work, and I commend its well thought out conclusions. The committee concluded, as I have, that these changes would not fix the backlog of applications. The changes would only apply to the applications and requests made on or after February 27, 2008.

The changes will not speed up the processing of the 900,000 applications made before then. This point is worth repeating. The government claims that it introduced these changes to reduce the backlog but they will do no such thing. Even when we look at the record of the government on reducing the backlog, the record is very clear. Under its administration, the backlog of applications has increased by 125,000 applications. The changes could even result in longer waiting times for these people as new applicants are prioritized.

The committee also found that the proposed changes cut at the heart of Canadian values. Canada is known around the world for its commitment to fairness and equality and yet these changes jeopardize the predictability and fairness of the current immigration system that we have in place.

The changes would give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration discretionary powers to prioritize who will get into Canada and to direct which category of applicants may be returned without even being processed. This discretion lacks transparency and creates uncertainty for prospective immigrants. It takes oversight and accountability away from Parliament. That is not unusual when it comes to the accountability of the government. On every issue the government has failed to prove that it is accountable to Canadians.

No person should be subjected to that kind of arbitrary power, which the minister is trying to skew. People are worried that they could do everything right and obey every law but still be rejected out of hand. The minister claims that the intent of these changes is more modest. The problem is that our country is ruled by law, not intentions.

We are opening the door to the kind of abuses that are completely unacceptable in a country like ours. If we open the door to these abuses, where will it stop? Even the attempts at openness proposed in the new law are nothing more than red herrings. The Conservatives say that the government will publish new instructions for prioritizing applications in the Canada Gazette, but publication will only occur after the instructions have come into effect, leaving no opportunity for consultation.

It is sad that the government did not try to hold a consensus among all parties to reform our immigration system. We all agree that the system is in dire need of reform. We have a backlog of more than 900,000 applications of people who want to immigrate to Canada. This backlog leaves applicants waiting for years to hear back from us.

At the same time, many parts of Canada also have severe labour market shortages. Within the next decade, British Columbia will face a potential shortfall of 350,000 workers. Even though the government is trying to bring in the temporary workers to fill those positions, it is not working.

Every day in my riding of Newton—North Delta small business people come to my office with complaints and getting frustrated with the government's policy because only one out of ten applicants are successful in coming here as a temporary worker.

Small businesses, particularly manufacturers, are facing competition from giant forces like India and China. They cannot compete when it comes to the labour force. On top of that, they have a shortage of people. They have spent millions of dollars in capital investment but the government is doing nothing to help them with the shortage of labour they are facing.

The record on that one is very clear as well. If we look at the government's record over the last two years on bringing immigrants into this country, it brought in 36,000 fewer immigrants to meet the needs of those businesses. It is very important to have those permanent immigrants coming into this country because in the next decade the only way we can meet that demand is from those permanent immigrants. Those are the ones who will create the local economy. On the other side, temporary workers will come in for eight months, earn money and then go back to their countries. They will not be contributing anything to the local economies.

Over the next decade, particularly in British Columbia, over $100 billion worth of new infrastructure projects are planned or under way in British Columbia but many are delayed due to the lack of workers. The opening of Cloverdale Trades and Technology Centre at Kwantlen University was delayed because it could not find enough tradespeople to finish the job. It is hard to believe that a trades school could not find enough trades workers to finish its own building. This is how bad the situation is and the minister and the Conservative government are not waking up to this issue.

On top of that, our aging population makes these challenges all the more important. For the first time ever, over half of our workers are over 40 years of age. The ratio of those aged 65 and over to those of working age from 18 to 64 will start rising from the current level of 20% to 46% by 2050. The bottom line is that Canada cannot survive without immigration. All of our population growth and labour market growth will come from immigration over the next two decades. Without immigration our economy will collapse.

This is not rocket science. Canada should match its labour market demand with the labour supply that is waiting to immigrate. The backlog represents a tremendous opportunity to do that. There are two ways to actually solve the backlog. We can either eliminate applications or add more officers to process them faster.

The choice is very clear. Does the minister want to eliminate the applications to catch up with the backlog instead of hiring more immigration officers to process those applications expediently so we can bring in those immigrants and meet the demands of the labour shortage in places like British Columbia and Alberta?

The government has the money to hire more officers but it has been unwilling to do that. The government found money for boutique tax credits, money to reward their friends and money to bribe voters in swing ridings but it cannot find the money to bring in immigrants to meet our labour market needs and meet the needs of small businesses that are going out of business because they cannot find competent people right here in Canada.

It is not that the government cannot invest more money into the system. It is that it has chosen not to do that. This is the right time to make that investment and for the government to listen to the opposition members in this House and to those businesses and Canadians who know exactly where the problem is, not the minister who has no clue what she is trying to get into.

If the government had any integrity, it would withdraw section 6 of Bill C-50 and begin a real consultation on a different way to fix the challenges facing our immigration system, but I do not think it will, and I cannot support that.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, Oil Imbalance.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with almost perverse fascination to my hon. colleague's speech for 20 minutes while he talked about the need to have integrity in voting and how the government needs to listen to the opposition on this issue of immigration.

The issue of immigration is paramount to the future development of our country and it needs to be debated and brought forward. As my hon. colleague points out, something this important should not be slipped into a budget vote.

However, when a government does something that will affect so many Canadians and knows that it is wrong, those Canadians must turn to their members of Parliament. It is a role of each member in this House to stand up at certain times and say that we cannot allow this, that this is not the way it is done. Sometimes those votes come at a cost. Each of us, as a member of Parliament, has had to make decisions that we know will cost us personally.

This is a situation where the government brought this bill in because it knew that members of the Liberal Party would be more interested in saving their own jobs than representing their countrymen, the people in their regions and in their ridings. The government knew that the members opposite would not stand up when the time came so it felt free to do what it wanted.

I find it absolutely appalling that the member would stand and say that the government did something wrong. The government is doing something that it believes it can get away with, and it is doing that through the collusion of that party.

Last night we had a vote in the House but I would never say whether people were there or not. My glasses were off so I could only count six or seven people at a time. I cannot say whether the member actually stood and voted but he is paid to vote. He is paid to stand in this House and represent his constituents. He is not paid to come after the fact, shrug his shoulders and say that it was a terrible thing but that he could not afford to lose his job, that he could not afford to go to an election or that he could not afford to stand and challenge the government. He is paid by his constituents to be there for these votes that are so crucial.

If this is such an important issue, and I believe it is, then we need to say that we will not stand for it. Whether or not the government is threatening confidence, his job as opposition is to either stand and challenge the government or to roll over and stop complaining.

Where has the member been on these votes?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for expressing his opinions. My record on voting is very clear on this particular bill. I consistently have been opposed to the legislation. If the member for Timmins—James Bay was that concerned about Canadians, he should think about 2005, when his leader, the leader of the NDP, just to gain a few more seats in the House of Commons, brought down the Liberal government.

In regard to those policies that are very near and dear to the NDP, the member for Timmins—James Bay should have advised the hon. members not to bring down the Liberal government. Then we would not have been betrayed with Kelowna, Kyoto, the child care agreement and now this immigration policy.

Let me tell the House that it is that party, the NDP, that is trying to ruin this country's fabric because it wants an election every day.

This is not about wanting an election every day but about making and bringing in change and there is only one party that is the natural governing party of the country. That is the Liberal Party. I can tell those members that when the time is right we will be out there asking for a verdict from the voters, not from the NDP.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it is possible, but I would suggest, quite frankly, that my colleague put aside all partisanship, disregard all of the parties in the House and respond simply as an elected representative of the people and his constituents, just as I am.

He spoke very eloquently about immigration. I myself spoke yesterday about part 6 of Bill C-50. When it comes time to vote, at the end of debate on this bill at third reading, why would he not actively vote in the interest of his constituents of whom he so eloquently spoke? Why would he not speak out against this bill? As far as I understood, the member expressed nothing but concerns, just as I did in my speech yesterday.

Why would he not rise in this House to vote against this bill that he is criticizing? That is how I see it.

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

Mr. Speaker, while I thank the member sitting on this side of the House for the suggestion, I would also like to tell the member that I have consistently opposed the bill and the Liberal Party has stood up consistently against these changes.

We will bring in an alternative immigration plan that will work for all Canadians. When it comes to me personally, I can assure the hon. member that I will consistently keep on opposing the legislation, because it is not good for Canadians, Canada or British Columbia, and it is not good for Quebeckers.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting to listen to my colleague.

I have one very short question. What do we call this party that has sat in the House for decades?

We have listened to the party positions of the previous Reform Party and then the Canadian Alliance, which now have morphed into the Conservative Party, and those parties made it clear they were opposed to women's equality rights and the rights of official languages minorities. The Conservatives had every intention of abolishing the court challenges program if and when they ever came to power. They did not support any kind of government financial support for early childhood development and child care spaces. They were opposed to the agreement that the then Liberal government signed with 10 provinces and 3 territorial governments. They were opposed to the Kyoto protocol.

Knowing that was the position of the then official opposition, that other party cooperated with the official opposition to bring down a government that clearly had shown it was in favour of the court challenges program and actually had brought it back to life and that also was in favour of early childhood and child care spaces, the Kyoto protocol and the action plan on official language minorities.

Then that other party turns around and says it is the party of the people. What do you think of that kind of party? I believe it is called the New Democratic Party--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine is experienced in the House and knows not to use the second person when addressing another member.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I apologize, Mr. Speaker.

What does that member, my colleague, think of such a party--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

That is fair enough. We have heard the question. The hon. member for Newton—North Delta has the floor for one minute.

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

Mr. Speaker, the intervention of the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine leads me to exactly what I wanted to say. It is the same NDP that for the sake of gaining a couple of seats--

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

And $1.75 a vote. Don't forget that.

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

That is exactly what they did. They brought down the Liberal government.

This policy lies with the Liberal Party. Now NDP voters are very clear on it and in the next election they will deliver that, because they will not be voting for that party. They will be voting for the policy and that policy lies with the Liberal Party of Canada on this side of the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House to oppose Bill C-50, the budget implementation bill.

I can assure members and the people of Nanaimo—Cowichan that I will actually be in my seat and will vote in the House when Bill C-50 comes before the House. Not only will I speak in opposition to the bill, but I will actually vote in opposition to the bill, unlike some members of the Liberal Party.

There are many good reasons to oppose the bill. On one of them, I will come back to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which has issued a paper called “A Budget Canadians Can Count On”. In the paper, the centre says:

The legacy of this minority government is one of neglect: the Conservative government has failed to address some of the most pressing issues of our time....

Canadians are working harder but they are struggling to afford the basics: housing, child care, post-secondary education. There has been nothing in the previous two Conservative budgets to address these issues. Canadians have not been able to count on their government to get them through shaky financial times.

The centre goes on to state:

This, for a minority government, is shocking. Its tax cut agenda to date reduces Canada's fiscal capacity by close to $190 billion over the next six years. That $190 billion could, and should, fund programs and services that all Canadians can count on but within a matter of years--the blink of an eye--it will have disappeared with no lasting investment in this and future generations of Canadians.

That in itself is a very good reason to oppose the budget implementation bill.

Over the last several months since the budget came out, we have seen increasing joblessness in Canada. A CBC story dated May 9 talked about the fact that manufacturing continued its decline in April, with losses in Ontario and British Columbia. The number of factory workers has decreased by 112,000 since April 2007, according to Statistics Canada. Recently, of course, we have heard of more layoffs in the auto sector, and certainly forestry is reeling.

In my province of British Columbia and my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan, we have seen hundreds of jobs disappear over the last six months. We have heard nothing but absolute silence from the government. We have called on the government to institute a national forestry strategy and a national auto sector strategy. The silence is deafening.

The Financial Post of Saturday, May 10 said:

B.C.'s forestry industry has experienced hard times before, but nothing close to this. As long as fallers worked the forests, and truckers hauled their logs, and sawmills produced lumber, and pulp mills turned their waste to paper, the whole system, while precariously co-dependent, seemed to work.

With three production lines capable of producing 400,000 tonnes of pulp product a year, Harmac was the industry's Hercules. It was ageing, and not terribly efficient and probably in need of a major overhaul. But the mill was always counted on to chug along...

This week was black. A sawmill near Campbell River, on Vancouver Island, was scheduled to permanently close. Its owner, Vancouver-based TimberWest Forest Corp., had been trying to sell the Elk Falls plant since 2005. Another 257 jobs, gone. Production stopped this week at Harmac's sister pulpmill in Mackenzie, a town in the B.C. interior, putting 260 more people out of work. A thousand loggers and contractors on Vancouver Island were laid off this week by Western Forest Products Inc., a leader in the industry.

Trees are still being felled in B.C. forests, but more and more, logs are loaded onto ships and delivered, raw and cheap, to such countries as the United States and China, where they are processed. Trucks used to haul logs and wood products around the province are sitting idle.

The result: Mills are starving...A sawmill in Ladysmith, near Nanaimo, closed indefinitely in April. More than 80 workers just lost their jobs at a mill in Crofton, down the highway. Almost 150 people were told not to return to a papermaking plant near Campbell River.

According to the Forest Products Association of Canada, there have been 46 mill closures in B.C. since January, 2007, and 5,747 jobs lost. There is no fix on the horizon...

Nanaimo lost something integral. The city, a thriving, busy hub of shopping malls, new housing developments and myriad services, is at heart a mill town.

All of that was from the Financial Post, but I want to now put some names and faces to this, because this is not just about numbers. This is about people. It is about their families. It is about their children. It is about their grandchildren.

I want to talk a little more about what the article says about how this impacts on people's lives. The article states:

“We thought it would go on forever,“ said John Kloppenburg, 53, one of the few men who did stop to talk outside the mill on Wednesday...“It was my bread and butter for 34 years. And now...” His voice trailed off. “Now I feel lost.”

Further on the article states:

“Guys are looking for answers, they are trying to figure out how they are going to put their lives together,” says Gerry Tellier, president of president of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers Union, Local 8....His father, Louie, started at the mill in 1951, three years after it opened. “He told me that if I was going to work for a living, I might as well work for a big company that's going to pay well, because they are likely going to stay around forever,” Mr. Tellier recalls.

He took his dad's advice, and signed on at Harmac in 1966. He passed the wisdom along to his own son, Trevor, who went to work at Harmac 20 years ago.

There are three generations of the Tellier family who worked at Harmac. Now they have lost their jobs and they are being forced into leaving the community where they grew up, a community which they love and which they contribute to in so many different ways.

Another person from my constituency, Laura Bohun, in writing on behalf of her husband, said:

As a voting taxpayer in the degenerating province of British Columbia, I feel I must call on you to address the issue of Employment Insurance. My husband is one of the many thousands of men across the country that lost long term forestry employment as a result of the criminal changes made to our forestry code by provincial government, ignored by federal Ministers....The rape of our forest communities continues the sell off of raw logs to the U.S. while forestry communities are dying.

After 26 years of employment at the Ladysmith Western Forest Products Mill (formerly known as Domans) he was given a one week notice (on April 17, 2008) and told that the mill was shutting its doors indefinitely, at least one year minimum. Since January of the same year, my husband only worked every other week on an on call basis. Never enough time off to apply for EI benefits until the mill shut down on May 5th.

She goes on in her letter to talk about the fact that her husband is going to face an unconscionable delay in even getting a decision about whether he qualifies for EI benefits. She recognizes the fact that there are surpluses, excuse me, that there were surpluses. She said:

I implore the powers that be to take some of this EI surplus and use it for the purpose it was intended to serve. How...are ordinary working class people supposed to stop paying mortgages and buying food while we wait for the government to give us back money they failed to disburse to us?

She goes on to talk about the fact that there are 10,000 other unemployed skilled workers in B.C. and that work is very hard to find, and that no one who makes $10 an hour can afford to own a house.

That is a critical point because in Bill C-50, there is a clause to actually set out the EI fund at arm's length to the government. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with setting the EI fund at arm's length so that successive governments cannot pilfer the fund, what we are really concerned about is that over $50 billion has disappeared from the EI fund. This is money that could be used to help workers in transition, to help them with bridging into other employment, to take a look at reinvesting in communities so that communities can diversify and make sure that families get to stay in their own communities instead of having to move somewhere else.

On March 5, the member for Acadie—Bathurst in a question put to the minister responsible for the EI fund, said:

Why does the reserve fund of the new crown corporation not contain the entire $57 billion that belonged to workers?

Fifty-seven billion dollars. The Minister of Human Resources and Social Development responded by saying:

Mr. Speaker, there is no question the Liberals did raid the EI account to the tune of well over $50 billion.

The minister acknowledges the wrong that was done by the Liberals but does nothing to rectify it. We are telling Canadians it is perfectly okay for the previous government to take $50 billion of workers' money, money that workers have paid into a fund for decades and never collected, and then when it is time to actually make sure that workers have that social safety net in place, the government says it is too bad. The money was pilfered by the Liberals, but the government is not going to put it back in the fund where workers can actually take advantage of that fund to make sure that their communities stay viable.

Mr. Speaker, I am very aware of parliamentary privilege and that we have to be very careful about how we talk about funds that go missing, but the member for Halifax today talked about a former finance minister and about misappropriation of funds. I would argue that when workers pay into a fund and expect it to be there and the fund disappears, that sounds like misappropriation.

We know that the previous Liberal government gutted the EI fund anyway. The Liberals took the money out and made sure that only one in four men and one in three women who were working could actually qualify. The Liberals reduced the amount that people would get to 55%. The benefit rate is now only 55% of their earnings. They made the number of hours much higher so that people would have more difficulty in qualifying.

What is happening right now in Nanaimo--Cowichan is that people who had worked for decades in the forestry industry, after five or six months on EI, are told that their benefits are running out because Nanaimo--Cowichan's unemployment rate is tied to that of the Lower Mainland, a completely different labour market. When we followed up to find out if there was anything that could be done about that, we were told that the regions are reconfigured every so many years and it is just not time. We wrote to the minister saying that these are real people who are worried about paying their mortgages, about sending their kids to college and could something not be done. The response to date has been silence.

Those 1,500-plus workers who have lost their jobs over the last six months, whether it was at Munns Lumber, Ted LeRoy Trucking, Catalyst Paper, Harmac Pulp Mill or Western Forest Products' Ladysmith mill, whatever the company, are all people who have homes in our communities, who pay taxes in our communities. Not only are those workers worried about whether or not they are going to have a future in our communities, but the municipalities are also worried about it. They are losing a good tax revenue source as these companies close. The very health and vitality of Nanaimo--Cowichan was the forestry sector. People are wondering what the future holds for them.

There are some very good reasons, just on the forestry sector alone in Nanaimo--Cowichan, British Columbia and across this country, for opposing this bill. This bill holds nothing for forestry. It holds nothing for the EI fund in terms of making sure money goes back to the workers who actually deserve it.

On another note, as the aboriginal affairs critic for the New Democrats, I have to draw attention to the shocking absence in the original budget speech and now in the budget implementation bill of meaningful measures for aboriginal people.

I have spoken many times in this House about the desperate poverty with respect to many first nations, Métis and Inuit, but as a reminder, 41% of aboriginal children under 14 were living in poverty nationally in 2001, rising to 51% in Manitoba and 52% in Saskatchewan. Those are shocking numbers. In Canada in this day and age we should not be talking about how poor the first nations, Métis and Inuit children and their families are, but sadly all we see is the government's inattention and neglect in such matters as education, housing, clean water, and many of the initiatives in early learning and child care that would actually help lift first nations, Métis and Inuit out of poverty.

We all know from the many studies that have been done that education is one of the tools that can be used to make sure that people have access to employment. In some areas there are skills shortages, for example, apprenticeable trades, physicians, medical technologists. There are many, many occupations where there are skills shortages. It has been studied to death, whether it was in the aboriginal affairs committee or the human resources committee, and the recommendations have consistently been to put more money into education. It is simple. The second piece of that is to make sure that first nations, Métis and Inuit are involved in designing, developing and delivering that education.

I have spoken about the First Nations Technical Institute many times in this House. We recently received a letter from the minister indicating that although the First Nations Technical Institute got some additional money this year, it is not likely to happen in future years. In fact the letter stated:

--the Department's preferred focus is on transferring tuition dollars directly to learners. As a result, 2007-2008 is the last year the Department will provide transitional funding to the First Nations Technical Institute.

This flies in the face of so many reports that have talked about the importance of indigenous control of education. The First Nations Technical Institute graduates high numbers of students. The students have a very high success rate in terms of placement in employment or further education. What we are hearing from the minister is, “Too bad. You have the results. You are performing, but too bad. You have to find some private money from somewhere”. First nations post-secondary students have to go to institutions that are privately funded from somewhere else. We do not ask other students in Canada to do that. Why would we ask first nations students to do it?

While I am talking about schooling, the member for Timmins—James Bay has been tireless in bringing forward the shameful fact that Attawapiskat children do not have access to a clean, safe public school.

We did a bit of research. We asked the Library of Parliament to do an analysis. The analysis showed that there was roughly $56 billion in federal corporate tax cuts from 2001 to 2007. Based on that amount, we could build every pending school project 177 times.

When we tried to get a list of what schools were pending for construction or renovation we were able to get the names of 39. We know the number is substantially more than that because of an access to information request. Based on 39 schools that needed renovation or construction, that would total $315,833,000. From the billions of dollars that were used for corporate tax cuts, surely we could have found $315 million to build schools to provide education for first nations children. Without proper education, first nations children will continue to face the wall of poverty that their mothers and fathers faced.

Officials from Indian and northern affairs appeared before committee. I posed a question to them around the funding issue. There are a couple of issues here. There is something called the band operating funding formula which allows the schools to continue to operate. We found that they received exactly the same money as they received last year even though we know that was substantially less than what is needed to operate the schools.

On reserve schools are substantially underfunded compared to schools off reserve. Does this mean a first nations child does not deserve the same level of education as an off reserve child? First nations children do not have access to computers or other technology or libraries. They do not have access to special needs programs or a speech therapist because they live on reserve and they are a first nations child.

I asked the associate deputy minister about the funding and he said that K to 12 funding is still part of the 2% funding cap and that is a challenge. It is a bit of an understatement to say that it is a challenge. The Auditor General has identified population growth at around 11% and yet funding has been less than 2% when a bunch of other elements are factored in, such as the cost of living and those kinds of things.

The 2% cap was put in under the previous Liberal government in 1995-96 as a cost saving measure despite the fact that it knew that the population was growing. The Conservatives have maintained that 2% funding cap despite all of the reports, including the Auditor General's report, that talk about the serious underfunding crisis in education, in housing, in health care.

I want to put a couple of faces to this issue.

The member for Timmins—James Bay has done an excellent job in raising the issue around Attawapiskat. Canadians from coast to coast to coast recognize that the children from Attawapiskat articulately talk about what it means for them to go to school.

The Canadian Press on January 24 published a report, “Funding crunch affects native schools”, which states:

“They've put a freeze on even our renovation dollars,” said the co-director of education for the Prince Albert Grand Council in Saskatchewan. It's one of the largest tribal councils in Canada, representing 12 bands and 26 communities.

Hill said at least a quarter of the council's 29 schools need major repairs.

Sometimes there isn't even a building. A school at Deschambault Lake in northern Saskatchewan hasn't been replaced since it burnt down in 2004.

That was four years ago. For four years those kids have been shipped all over their community, taking classes in basements and wherever else that space could be found. I would argue that in any community off reserve it would not take four years to get a school back on the ground; in fact, I know it would not. In other communities where schools have burned down, they have been rebuilt within two years.

The member for Timmins—James Bay did an access to information request on the state of school construction projects. I could not even find that one on the list.

We talk about the importance of education, yet the government keeps shovelling money away from education. It has underfunded so many projects. In the period 1999-2000 and 2006-07, a total of $72 million per year was reallocated internally from the capital facilities maintenance program to address the pressures in other areas.

When we are trying to fund schools, there has to be a dedicated pot of money that puts children first. We need to make sure that first nations kids on reserve have the same access to education as has every other off reserve child in this country. It is criminal that children are not getting that education.

We in the NDP will be opposing this bill on principle.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, particularly the reference she made earlier to employment insurance. I thought I would take this opportunity to clarify the framework under which employment insurance works.

The member talked about the employment insurance fund. In fact, in the days of the Liberal government there was no EI fund per se. There was a notional fund. The Conservative government is planning to set up a crown corporation or something, but the previous government had a notional fund.

In the late 1980s the auditor general requested that the government consolidate the EI fund, or notional fund, into consolidated revenue because the fund was in deficit. The EI fund, notional fund, was in deficit from the mid 1980s to the early 1990s. At that point, I do not recall the unions or management clamouring to Ottawa to say that they would make up the deficit.

Yes, it is true that the EI surplus did form part of consolidated revenue and helped the government deal with the $42 billion deficit left by the Conservative Party, but, as I said earlier, there was a string of seven or eight years when the EI fund was in deficit and there was a certain logic to allowing that to happen. Then when our government came in, it reduced the employment insurance premiums every year. We were able to get it to the point where now the Conservative government can look at it as a self-sustaining insurance fund.

Is the member aware of the history of EI fund and notional fund and would she look at it in the context of her remarks earlier, when she seemed to intimate that the surpluses were from the wages of workers and were exploited by the Government of Canada?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very well aware of the CRF.

The member talked about the fact that there were a number of years when there were deficits in the EI fund and that the government had to step up to the plate to ensure workers would continue to have access to the social safety net that they quite rightly believed should be available to them. Then the surplus grew because of a number of factors, including raising the premiums. It also grew in part because the government reduced the amount of benefits that workers could actually collect. A significant number of workers are no longer eligible for the fund, despite the fact that they continue to pay premiums week after week.

We now have a crisis in manufacturing and forestry and workers simply do not have access to an adequate fund as a social safety net. The understanding of the workers is $50 billion have been paid into the fund over a number of years. They wonder why that social safety net is not in place for them. They simply do not understand why the present and previous governments have failed them in a most fundamental way. When we talk about a misappropriation of funds, I still maintain that workers deserve to have an adequate social safety net in place and their communities deserve to remain viable.

The current legislation puts $2 billion into the fund. The Auditor General has indicated those are insufficient funds to deal with potential labour crises in the country. She says that a minimum of $15 billion are required to be in the fund. If we want to ensure workers are looked after in this country, we need to ensure money is available to look after them.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan for her speech and particularly the soundness of her remarks regarding employment insurance. I find it unfortunate that the Liberal member provided some information that does not correspond to reality. I would remind the House that, in the past, when the fund was running a deficit—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Look, Mr. Speaker. The member is continuing. It is hard for him to hear the truth, because it is his party that created the problem.

As I was saying, when the fund was running a deficit, the public purse made up for the deficit with a loan. And every time, additional contributions had to be made in order to pay back those loans.

Over the years, after this fund was rolled into the consolidated revenue fund, both successive governments—the Conservatives until 1993 and the Liberals after that—began dipping into it. How did they go about it? They began restricting access to employment insurance and lowering benefits, to the point that, today, out of everyone who pays into employment insurance, only approximately 40% can hope to receive benefits, since about 60% of them have been excluded. That is how they have accumulated surpluses, namely, on the backs of people who lose their jobs. That is the Liberals' pathetic record and I understand why the Liberal Party gets worked up when we bring it up.

My question for my colleague is as follows. Does she not believe it is time for the government to pay back, gradually, over the long term, the money that was diverted from the employment insurance fund?

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

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely do believe that the money the workers have paid into the fund for all these years should be returned to it.

For example, I spoke earlier about the critical skills shortage in our country. One of the ways that EI money could be used is to enhance training money, currently available through HRDC, and do some of that bridge training for unemployed workers, like forestry workers, so they can take advantage of some of the skills shortages. I know Bloc members have been very vocal about programs for bridging for older workers. Back in the early eighties, some effort was made to bridge pension funds for workers who were 55 plus, where there were major industrial downturns.

The Liberal member who spoke previously talked about the consolidated revenue fund. It really is smoke and mirrors to talk about the consolidated revenue fund, taking money out of it and supplementing from other areas. The bottom line is workers and their employers pay premiums and they expect that money to be dedicated to a social safety net for workers, their families and their communities.

Members can play it whatever way they want in terms of the money that went into consolidated revenues, that we had access to it to pay down other money. This is nonsense. The money belongs to the workers and it should be used for the workers. Any other avenue is simply a misappropriation. If the government wants to tell those workers that they do not get to take advantage of those funds, it should be up front about it, particularly when they pay their EI premiums on every paycheque. It should tell them that the money will be used for something else and not for the workers.

Workers have an expectation that the EI fund will be used for the benefit of workers and their communities and it should remain in that context.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak today to the budget bill. I want to speak about a number of problems I have with the fiscal management of the Conservatives.

I will be maintaining consistency in standing against the budget, but ensuring there are not enough people that the government falls at this time. I do not have a rush of constituents who want an election this week. However, that does not negate the fact that there are all sorts of problems with the fiscal management of the government, and I want to go through a number of smaller items I may not have had a chance to mention in previous budget debates.

The first is related to Northern Native Broadcasting. Its fiscal year ends April 1 and it is waiting for a decision on its funding. If members of Parliament did not get their paycheques since April 1, they would pretty upset.

Last year I brought up the fact that Northern Native Broadcasting, a very large and important organization in native broadcasting in Canada, did not receive its cheque until October. Once again this year it has not received a decision on its funding. This year is especially unique. Because of new requirements for high definition television, it has to lay off six of its crew. This is totally unacceptable. I hope the Department of Canadian Heritage will make good on this very soon, get the decision made for whatever adjustments have to be made and get the payroll flowing. It should not have to be behind the eight ball like this every year.

The second point I have mentioned a couple of times in this debate, but it is so urgent I have to mention it again, is related to the refugees on the Thai-Burma border in Thailand. There are 140,000 of them there. The price of rice has gone up three times since Christmas. The results of that is the Thai-Burma border control, which feeds these people with the money it receives from 14 countries, including Canada which it has donated for 10 years, does not have enough money. In fact, it has a $7 million shortfall. The people's housing rations are already cancelled as are many other things. They are eating six or seven types of food. The critical decision day will be tomorrow, when they will be cut back to basically one type of food, which is rice and salt.

Imagine eating rice for every meal. That is what these people will be eating. Not only that, they will have only half the amount the nutritionists say on which people need to survive. It is going to be a disaster. The refugee program is going to collapse. It is not like I have not mentioned this before and that the government is not aware of it. When the prime minister in exile met with the Prime Minister of Canada a few weeks ago, he made an urgent, critical plea. Therefore, the Liberals or the parliamentary friends of Burma are not the only ones saying this. The prime minister in exile of Burma as well as the members from all parties in the House of Commons and Senate understand this critical crisis, and that is the TBBC, at its board meeting tomorrow, will have to make these harsh decisions about lives of people.

This is a tiny amount of money in the grand scheme of things. It is simply $1 million. If Canada comes in, the other donor countries will be convinced to raise their donations so these people can at least eat enough rice in a day to survive. I know all members of Parliament want to help out in this crisis. I ask the minister responsible for CIDA to please make a decision somehow to give this small amount of $1 million tomorrow to increase the food aid to the 140,000 people who will in such a dire condition. They are depending on Canada and a few other countries.

The next item I mentioned earlier today, and I want to mention again because it is almost unbelievable, is the government has cut back its future funding on polio. How could members of Parliament ever suggest that we would want to cut back on that?

Polio, as we all know, can cause a person to be crippled. There are people around the world who are called crawlers. Not only are they crippled, but they crawl around for their whole lives because they do not have the crutches to help them to stand or wheelchairs to move around in. They do not even have that. What a sad state of affairs when it only costs 60¢ to vaccinate these people. How could a modern country like Canada deny that 60¢? What is even more phenomenal is that approximately 10% of Canadians are not even vaccinated against polio. It could happen to us.

I would ask the government, for that small amount of money that would be pocket change for the government, to please reinstate our support for the fight against polio and let us eradicate it from the face of the earth.

The next area I want to talk about is child care, not globally, just one small aspect of it, because we have talked about it globally and we know we will not convince the Conservatives to reintroduce the national child care program that we had. I want to talk about the funding for the Canadian Child Care Federation. My information, unless it is outdated, is that it had all sorts of support. This is a national organization that really helps organize child care workers. It speaks for them and advances their cause. I do not think any MP, including governments, would be against that type of objective to help out in that area.

This organization needs funding because a lot of the funding from the past is no longer there. I will give some sources of past funding. It had a capacity grant of about $750,000 from HRSD in 2007 but that was terminated this year. It had received $154,149 for national crime prevention but that was terminated this year.

According to information given to me by the Canadian Child Care Federation, the funding from the Canadian International Development Agency has been terminated.

In 2007, the organization received $260,469 from the Public Health Agency of Canada but the funding was terminated on March 31 of this year.

Heritage Canada had a project in 2005 but that has been terminated.

I would encourage the government to at least support this national child care organization to help make it better for the children. This is not the $5 billion that we put into national child care program. This money would be to help the organization to provide information, advocacy and improve the operation of child cares in Canada.

The next item I want to mention is the clawback of military pensions. I have asked a number of ministers to look into this and I am hoping for a response soon. As we know, a lot of military people have made the case that when they turn 65 there is a clawback in their pension system. I think most MPs have heard of this. I would like a comprehensive reply on that. It is not just veterans who are now asking. It has been passed as a motion in the Yukon government. So there is another entire government asking for the government to deal with this.

The next area I want to deal with is homelessness and to once again implore the government to make decisions on some of the very successful and critical programs related to homelessness. I cannot imagine there would be an MP in this House who would not abide by the dictum that we rate a nation by how it deals with its most vulnerable and, among the most vulnerable, obviously, are the homeless.

Canada, over the years, has come up with some programs that have helped out and some programs that have been very successful. Obviously a lot more could be done, which I will not go into, but it should at least not let the things that are working die as we come up with new solutions.

There are a number of programs, three of them in particular, that have been very successful in my area and, I think, across the country from what we have heard in the House. The first is the national homelessness partnering strategy, which has been a huge success in my riding. It is always totally subscribed. There are shelters for people who have never had a shelter before.

That program is scheduled to expire at the end of March, 2009 and I implore the finance minister to announce very soon that he will reinstate that program. In all these things, we cannot make an announcement the day before because people need time for planning. This program is run by local committees, which is one of the reasons for its success.

The second area is the residential rehabilitation assistance program which helps people to fix up their houses, especially those who are disabled and elderly, once again, the people most need it. In this time of oil price increases, it will be incredibly painful. I do not know how some poor people, people on fixed incomes and elderly people will survive if heating oil stays at the rate it is now. I will talk about that later in my speech.

We should not let that program expire because it at least helps people to fix up their houses so they will not need to use as much heating oil, which they cannot possibly afford. I implore the Minister of Finance to please announce soon that this program will continue past March 2009. Canadians of all political stripes have said that it has been very successful. I hope the minister lets the people know now so the whole machinery of the program does not shut down and people are not left in the lurch. The program needs to carry on smoothly.

The last area I want to mention is the affordable housing initiative. With the prices the way they are in Canada, I think it is pretty clear to everyone that affordable housing is very essential.

The next area I want to talk about is the residential schools. Along with the residential school settlement, there was an agreement that Health Canada would provide services to the survivors who are obtaining payments. As we know, after they received their payments, there were a number of sad stories about those survivors.

During the walk on the day of protest, and there obviously were a number of things to protest but I probably will not have time to get into them in my speech today, the people with whom I was walking, who work at the national associations, were saying that this service was not being provided in the way it was supposed to be.

I certainly hope the government will deal with that. In fact, I would hope the government would meet with the national aboriginal organizations to come up with solutions concerning the reasons they were having the national protest. It was only the second one in history, the last one being last year. It would be a very wise, mature and thoughtful thing for the government to sit down with those national aboriginal leaders, ask them about the key items on the day of protest and then ask what can be done to work on those. This, of course, would have financial ramifications, budget ramifications.

The next area I want to talk about is justice. Being on the justice committee, it is an area we spent a lot time on this year. The government brought forward a number of justice bills that would incarcerate a lot more Canadians for a lot more time. Fortunately, a lot of the bad bills did not get through, but there was no budget to go with it to pay for the increased people in the jails and the services that they would need. In fact, when those services were terribly underfunded in the first place, it makes that strategy counterproductive. Although it was counterproductive anyway, it makes it even worse.

If people go into jails and they do not have the appropriate rehabilitation, educational, anger management, personal and readjustment services, they will come out much more likely to reoffend. Where was the investment for all of that over and above all the extra services that would be caused by this increased incarceration that was roundly decried by the experts who came before the justice committee to talk about the solutions?

One of the really successful programs, and I commend the justice minister for supporting it this year, is the aboriginal justice strategy. However, what I have been asking for a number of times is that it be made permanent. Once again, if we have something that is part of the justice system, it must be funded. We would not appoint more judges next year and the next year and then decide in the following year whether we will provide the funds for those judges. It is part of the system.

Therefore, the aboriginal justice strategy should be made permanent. It should not be right on the edge to the end of the year as it was a couple of years ago.

The next area I want to talk about is gasoline. We are in a critical time with rising oil and gas prices, which can be particularly problematic for seniors and people on fixed incomes. When we were in government we had a fund to help those people get through a cruel winter.

Everyone has a big problem with income trusts, which was a major broken promise that cost seniors billions of dollars.

The one thing that was promised for the north was two icebreakers and we obviously do not have them. One has been announced way into the future but that is another broken promise.

There is no money yet for northern economic development. I hope that will come through.

This is National Tourism Week. I wish the government would understand that this is a huge sector for the national economy, some $70 billion a year, and it should take it seriously. It should stop cutting things like the museum assistance program which was cut by 25%. It should reinstate the GST rebate that all countries in the world have for tourists. My riding is dependent on tourism and it is being hit particularly hard because of the high Canadian dollar and high gas prices. At least the government should not make it worse by doing things like cancelling the GST rebate.

Finally, the government cancelled the $5 billion for aboriginal people, some of the most needy in our country. It cancelled $1.8 billion for education, $1.6 billion for housing and infrastructure, $170 million for policy capacity of aboriginal organizations and $1.350 billion for health.

I could go on but I do not have enough time. I mentioned a number of areas and I hope the government listened because I made them in a positive way and they could help Canada.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I would like to advise the hon. member that when we come back to the study of Bill C-50 he will have 2 minutes left in his debate and 10 minutes under questions and comments.

The House resumed from June 3 consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, 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, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

When we last visited this topic, the hon. member for Yukon had two minutes remaining in his allotted time.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, in the short time I have remaining I want to once again emphasize a couple of points that the government could move on, whether in the budget or through supplementary estimates. Some of the points are very small and it has the authority to do it but I implore them to because it is critical for people's lives.

The first point concerns Northern Native Broadcasting, an ongoing broadcaster in my riding. Its fiscal year ended April 1 and it has had to lay off the entire television division of six people who have not received their paycheques. If everyone in Ottawa, in the House and everywhere else had not received their paycheques since April 1, they would be a little upset. I would ask the Minister of Canadian Heritage to please solve that.

The second point is that today is decision day for the 140,000 people of Burma in the refugee camps in Thailand. Rice prices have gone up three times, leaving a $1 million shortfall. Canada has funded this for 10 years with 14 other countries. The system is going to collapse because they only have half the amount of needed food and there will be chaos. The people will be cut back to rice from six or seven commodities. The prime minister of Burma, who is in exile, and all sorts of NGOs have been imploring the Minister of International Cooperation and the Prime Minister to solve this critical problem.

Another item, which I brought forward recently, is related to why it takes three months to receive a military pension and only one month for the RCMP pension. A pensioner brought this issue to me this week.

We also would like the government to reinstate money for polio. It is inconceivable that it cut money for polio.

We also want it to re-establish the oil monitoring agency, which we had established previously, at this time of oil price increases.

We also want it to reinstate the GST rebate, which is hurting my riding with regard to tourism and to--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I must stop the hon. member there and move to questions and comments.

The hon. member for Mississauga South.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the member's main speech and was quite interested in his concerns about the economic outlook in the budget.

As we know, in the second year it was getting to the point where there was very little latitude for any unforeseen circumstances, and that continues to be the case. Recent reports are that the economy has negative growth. It is one of those issues that deals with people's jobs and their ability to pay bills, et cetera.

I wonder if the member can provide the House with his view on the importance of fiscal management and the need for strong fiscal management at this time of fiscal pressure.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, that is a concern. It led off question period today as ostensibly the number one concern of Canadians. Thousands of Canadians have been losing their jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Since the present government came in, much to the shock of Conservatives across the country who have been calling their own members to task, it has been the largest spending government in history. It has spent so much that it has pushed the government very close to a deficit. The previous government had a $3 million contingency fund and always made sure that when things came up, like SARS and the various emergencies that always come up such as this, there was room to move. However, it seems that the present government does not even have the will to move.

The Prime Minister basically said today, to paraphrase him, that these things happen. That is not a very good answer to those families that cannot feed their children and cannot pay their rent, and the thousands of people who are unemployed. To hear that there is not even an attempt to help them at this time is very sad.

We need to put in things like the increases we put in for research; for the program for green manufacturing that would have created all sorts of jobs for exporting; and for the manufacturing equipment to make companies more efficient so they use less oil and energy, which, of course, was visionary because that was our plan even before oil and gas prices went up. Had that plan been in place for modern, efficient, competitive and green factories, they would have been much more economical and less likely to close because they would have been using less energy.

As well, getting rid of the millennium student fund, some of the research funds that were so critical in their first term and even the cutbacks in literacy, which we fought and mostly got reinstated, affect productivity and the ability to keep companies open when we get under pressure like this.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the other issue that was raised yesterday in debate was the substantial concern about the new EI enterprise that is going to be established, instead of the current situation where there is an EI notional fund and the moneys are included, both revenue and expenses from employment insurance, in the consolidated revenue fund.

One of the concerns that I had, and I do not know if the member shares it, is that this new enterprise will only have an initial surplus of some $2 billion. As members know, the current rules prescribe that there should be sufficient reserve or surplus within the fund to allow for two cycles. I think it is $10 billion or $12 billion. That means that the EI fund could come under risk if we were to enter a sustained recession.

I wonder if the member also shares a concern about this new EI enterprise which seems to be underfunded, maybe for the wrong reasons.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I definitely share that concern as well. The purpose of this fund is to have it during the ups and downs in the economy, which happened to be doing very well in recent years. However, all of a sudden we have this downturn that could cause a huge number of people having to apply to this fund. There certainly should be sufficient latitude in that fund to deal with those types of contingencies.

I went to the briefing on Bill C-50, the finance bill, and there were a couple more esoteric points I had related to this fund and also to the changes to the Bank of Canada financing. What I am worried about is taking the investment ability and distancing it into this agency from the Government of Canada.

We have had a crisis lately related to asset backed funds. If we take the investments at more arm's length from government, how do we know what these investments might be in? How do we have government control? We, of course, want safe investments and socially acceptable investments with these funds.

It is the same with the Bank of Canada. Some provisions in this bill, which I am not sure have been talked about in the debate at all, that would increase the latitude and the mechanisms the Bank of Canada has in investing the money that it happens to have at a particular time.

I do not have a problem with modernizing the investment procedures to fit modern instruments, et cetera, but in this time, when we have had some great crises, in fact we have had a committee hearing specifically on this crisis of failures in certain types of assets, I think we should give particular concern to watching the latitude or the distancing of government investments. We need to keep that very close at hand and ensure, as people always expect, these are safe investments. People do not expect the government to be making huge profits but they do expect it to be investing in things that will never lose their money.

I think those are two important items that, as these things are implemented in the future, we should keep very careful watch of. I know members of the various opposition parties will be watching these items.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to come off a question that was just posed by the member for Mississauga South over a concern that I had with regard to this legislation.

I know the leader of the New Democratic Party addressed the CLC just recently and spoke, as well, at a couple of other public functions about how the Liberals and the Conservatives only spent five minutes on the EI legislation and the establishment of this crown corporation. He was indignant and disgusted that they were in cahoots with each other and only put in five minutes.

The member totally ignored the fact that my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour put forward a Liberal motion to the human resources committee that we would study this. We put almost four weeks into this and we were hoping to table the report tomorrow. With total disregard for the work that was put in by the human resources committee, he tried to lead organized labour and Canadians to believe that this was some covert operation by the Liberals and the Conservatives.

Does the member find that sort of discredits the party and calls into question its sincerity in its opposition to this bill?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, being a positive type of guy, I would like to speak to the positive efforts that the Liberals have made in this Parliament in the seven years that I have been here relating to employment insurance. They have looked at all sorts of different adjustments for it. They have made improvements to it, such as things that would help the most vulnerable and help people get training. In particular, the member's colleague, the other Cape Bretoner, has an excellent bill on how to improve EI. It is in relation to people who are ill and are unable to return to the workforce.

I will not speak of the other parties, but I commend all the people in the Liberal Party who have done so much to improve this fund and to carefully watch--

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in speaking to the bill today I want to highlight not only what my concerns are about some of the things contained in Bill C-50, but actually about some of the things that should be and are not.

I want to begin, for instance, with the millennium scholarship fund, the cancelling of the fund, and the current redistribution of the money to students.

On the surface, this seems like a very good thing, but the point is it was not made stable. The millennium scholarship fund had been there for 10 years. This new fund is now there for who knows how long. The Canadian Alliance of Students Associations said that part of the budget for students lacked any sort of long term vision. Putting in little bits and pieces that may sound good on the surface on a one shot deal quite often is of great concern, when we think that the issues of productivity and competitiveness in this country will have to do with skills and training, and an educated labour force.

The fact also that the fund will now be distributed mainly as an income-based fund and not a need-based fund makes a big difference. We cannot expect this party to understand that difference, I understand, but when we look at the millennium scholarship fund, it used to be based on cost of living, tuition, cost of books and was based on student resources and need regardless of income.

The Education Policy Institute in Quebec noted that this seemingly simple shift in language could create a loss to Quebec students of over $80 million a year since the Quebec system is based on need.

Here we have a system again that had been changed. I do not know why, but the government did not give much thought to what the consequences would be. We now have a province that is going to have a problem with its own students having the ability to access the funds.

The new student fund also seeks to increase the number of students who will get the grants that the millennium scholarship fund used to bring forward. However, we now find that this could create larger numbers of students getting perhaps $2,000 instead of $3,000, and for a student a thousand dollars less a year is a lot of money.

The other thing is that this has been taken away from the arm's length body that used to manage the millennium scholarship fund and it has gone now directly to HRSD to be looked at, and we have seen what happens when programs go directly under HRSD. The summer student program fiasco last year had the government scrambling to do damage control and it did. However, again, it was short term, one year, damage control.

This year, we see the same thing happening. I am getting letters and I am getting calls from many NGOs who cannot get students this year, never mind the fact that students are being deprived of the ability to have that apprenticeship experience in their field of studies. Once again, we see this kind of one shot deal, this kind of shiny object in the window that happens for a year but does not have any substance to it that can actually achieve a long term objective of having more students accessing education.

The MSF is only one example of how the government is very good at playing with language which is designed to fool the people. It is the old Harris trick. The problem is that citizens actually get hurt in the end.

We need to remember that the strengthened plan for students' access to post-secondary education brought forward in the Liberal fiscal plan of 2005 and the fiscal update brought in by the then finance minister was hastily tanked by the NDP who love to speak about students and its wish to help students. In its rush to get to the polls to gain a couple more seats, in spite of the fact that it had been asked to wait until February or until a budget came forward that would actually cement in place some of the excellent policies that were coming forward with the then Liberal government, such as a national housing strategy, a national child care program, the Kelowna accord, and all of those would have been enshrined in the budget, the NDP put at risk and eventually allowed the cancellation of some extraordinary programs. One of them was for students, as we can see.

Now we have proposed legislative changes, for instance, in the bill to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It is buried in a budget implementation bill. I put it to the House that this is a way of bypassing due process that would have allowed real input by the Canadian public, by trade unions, by trade councils, by business communities, and all of these stakeholders and players. We would have been able to look at where we need to go as we are poised on the brink of 2011, a year in which we are told we are going to be dependent for 100% of our net labour force on immigration.

Everyone knew this was coming. The last Liberal government, over the course of two years, had begun to plan with the provinces on how to deal with this and what the essential costs of changing the system would be, so that we could deal with the need for a labour force, at the same time remembering that immigration is far more than merely a tool for accessing a labour force.

However, we had put in an effective strategy. We had talked to the provinces. A plan was in the works. The then immigration minister had put in $700 million to help with integration, to help with retention of people in areas and helping to deal with cutting down the long waiting list, which as we hear is the reason why the bill was hastily pushed into a budget implementation bill without due process. All of those things were there. They were in the works. What happened to that? What happened to the $700 million.

The minister is putting in $60 million. Great. We used to have $700 million targeted. What happened to the other $640 million? Where did it go? These are questions that we really need to ask.

If the government really cared about the issue of labour force, if it really wanted to look at how immigration in Canada could actually be preparing Canada for the 21st century, then we would have done it the right way. The Conservatives would have been able to bring this forward as an appropriate bill under the appropriate minister. They would have been able to let the bill go to the citizenship and immigration committee. There would have been the usual travelling of the committee, getting input, getting information from all of the players, so that we could have had a substantive bill that would have been a vision implementation, building for perhaps the next 20 years in terms of a solid way of looking at immigration and refugees in this country.

However, that was not done. What we now have instead is this little fly-by-night thing, an edge through, put in with the right words and put into a sort of trap in which it is left in a confidence motion in the budget, so that nobody really has any input, but with the threat that if we do not pass this, then we will bring down the government.

This is a sort of cheesy kind of flouting of the democratic process that actually bothers some of us across the aisle because it really is not about something substantive. It is really just about cheap political tricks.

I want to speak a little bit about why the government did not go through the process. Why did it not do the proper consultation? One of the things we see is that the minister would now be the only person, the point of entry and the point of exit into the system.

The department will be the only place people can go if they seek to come here as immigrants to this country. Everyone used to know what the rules were. They applied according to the rules and then they went through a process. There were appeals built into the process. That is now gone. There is one judge and one jury, and that happens to be the minister, who will decide who will get in, with no accountability.

Again, we see, and this is a problem surfacing every day in the House, a lack of accountability of the government for the things that it intends to do, a lack of process and structure that would allow the Conservatives to explain to Canadians what they are doing and why they are doing it, and then to be accountable for whether it worked or it did not work. That has gone.

What we see now are some problems that will create issues. Suddenly we bring in labour market immigrants. They come in and they are unable to have access to jobs because it is not just getting into the country that allows a person access to a job. There are many barriers in the way and there is nothing put in place to deal with those barriers.

This is what I felt was very interesting. Currently, we have about 500,000 internationally trained workers in this country who are unemployed or underemployed with regard to work in this country. It is not because no one cares.

In 2004 I was given the job by the then prime minister to set up an immediate medium and long term plan to deal with the internationally trained workers, not only the people who were here and who could not get jobs, but the people who would come into the country in the future.

We recognize that there were a number of barriers. It was not a one shot deal. People walk in and what happens? They get a 1-800 number to call, which is the government's answer to an internationally trained worker. Give people a 1-800 number, call the government, and what will it do?

The point is, it cannot do anything because it is multi-jurisdictional. When we set it up, and we did set up a long term plan for this in 2004, we put money into the top priority, which was getting internationally trained physicians to work in this country because we realized that was a crisis situation at the time. In 2005 enough money was put in to deal with the other issues, and what were the issues?

First and foremost, the government cannot make someone have a job. One must become accredited and have one's papers assessed. This is a provincial jurisdiction. One has to work with the provinces. One has to be able to work with the credentialing bodies under provincial legislation. Do those bodies believe that the person has the right skills, has the right education to be able to do the work according to Canadian standards? These are questions only credentialing bodies can answer, so one has to work with the credentialling bodies.

Second, in some sectors language is a huge issue. If someone does not have an enhanced or an expanded access to language and an understanding of the depth of language, like a physician or a nurse or a social worker, they cannot actually deal with the Canadian population in English or in French. Language training was a huge problem and our government put forward $20 million a year under the minister to give access to that kind of enhanced language training.

What is happening to that? Where is that money? Is it happening?

The third problem that we found was that immigrants came to this country and they went to three cities: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. The jobs were not there, yet the immigrants stayed there. They could not get the jobs and we tried to get them into other provinces, working with the provinces as we did. We tried to get them into rural areas where they would leave at the end of a year, and so retention became a problem. The former Liberal immigration minister had put in a substantial amount of money to deal with the problem of retaining people in areas where they were needed.

Finally, there is the issue of apprenticeship. Some people who come to Canada may have the on-paper training, but they do not have the Canadian experience. In our plan, that the Liberals tabled, we were going to give them apprenticeship training, help them to work in areas where they could get the kind of Canadian experience that they needed.

This was not a simple thing. It was a complex plan. It took us a year to set up and we began to roll the plan out, and I am asking this question. What is the minister going to achieve by allowing internationally trained workers to come into this country without a plan that was an extremely costly plan when we put it forward?

It was the beginning of a five year plan. Without that plan in place, people would just be left, as I said earlier on, calling a 1-800 number and nothing would be solved at all, because this is not something that the federal government can do alone.

My question is this. Where is our plan that we tabled and where is the money that we had put in, in the first two years to implement that plan? We do not know where it is. Therefore, we have again this sort of sleight of hand, of bringing in what sounds like a choice piece of legislation or amendments into an act which does not really deal with the problem at all and which is done by stealth, putting it into the wrong bill.

Not only that, we talked about the labour force, which we all know is an issue that we need to deal with. However, how could the minister bypass the provinces that have a provincial nominee program, and that have been involved in deciding what they need in their diverse areas for their workforce? That has not been done. Suddenly, the federal government has taken it all over and there has been no consultation with the provinces and no ability to work with the provinces.

All the work that had been done by the Liberal government has been thrown out the window and we are starting from scratch with no plan and no money.

At the same time, immigration is not only about the labour force. Many of us who have come to this country over the last 300 years came here not merely to find work but to find freedom, to find opportunity, and to build a nation. Immigration is about nation-building and when all we do is set it up to be something that is an in and out scheme to get workers in and nothing more, we do not take into consideration that if people are going to put roots down, grow families and build a nation, they are going to need a family class. They are going to need to be able to bring their families and have a vision for this country, and truly belong.

None of that has been taken into consideration in this immigration amendment that we see.

I said that I would talk about the things that concern me. Those are some of the things that concern me, but I also want to talk about the things that are absolutely not present and that should have been done.

We know that productivity and competitiveness is a huge problem right now in this country. There is no vision for this. We see manufacturing jobs being lost. There was an opportunity here. The government had three budgets in 2006, 2007 and 2008 to set down a plan for productivity and competitiveness, for the forestry sector a real plan, an action plan, not merely words that have not really resulted in any change at all.

Workers in the automobile and manufacturing sectors are losing their jobs. Not a single idea has been put forward. There was an opportunity to do it in the budget. The opportunity was lost.

The Minister of Health stood in the House and said he was concerned about the rising epidemic of obesity in the country. In fact, the minister then said that the government had put forward a $5 million plan. The $5 million came out of the money that the Liberal government had allocated to deal with community participation.

In a $140 million budget, $5 million was taken out of it for ParticipAction. ParticipAction, as devised by the government, is a television ad and that is it. We found out that the reason young people were not participating, even though there was community program money for them to play sport, was they needed places to play. It is called sports infrastructure, like gyms, having coaches helping children to learn to play a sport that would result in better physical activity and better health for the children.

None of that was put in the budget. Our Liberal government had in place an infrastructure fund specifically for community sport infrastructure. Where is that money? Where did it go? A $5 million TV advertising program does not even hope to touch that.

Talking about immigration and the international trade worker initiative, we read in the newspapers that more and more Canadians are having less and less access to health care. We all know the Canadian Medical Association and other bodies have studied this. They tell us the reason people are being denied access to health care is the lack of health human resources such as doctors, nurses and lab technicians.

The government had a huge opportunity to deal with the health human resource crisis, with the lack of physicians. In 2005 our government had allocated money to bring in 1,000 new family practitioners. What happened to that money? Where did it go? What happened to the 1,000 new family practitioners? What happened to that plan? No wonder there is no access almost three years later and things are going downhill. It is about opportunities missed.

Government is about a vision for a nation, not just little one-shot, one-off deals where the government thinks it can fool the people of Canada. The people of Canada are too smart to be fooled. They see the results of a lack of a plan and vision. This is what we are talking about, opportunities missed, opportunities lost on the ability to build a nation, to look to the future, to protect jobs, to find new creative and innovative ways of bringing Canada into the 21st century and to compete in a global marketplace. None of those things have been in any of these budgets. In this budget there was a hope something would to deal with some of these issues, but was nothing.

We talk about all the little pieces of programs here. Government is about vision and looking to the future. With only 32 million people in our country, we do not have the ability to compete in numbers with Asia, China, India and other populous countries, countries with large populations like Europe and even the United States to the south of us. Even if we double our population by some magic figure in 10 years time, we will still be a small country, so we need to have the best, brightest and most trained workers.

We have to foster innovation and creativity in the country so companies want to come here because they can get good workers and people who think outside the box. It should be about looking at ways to deal with energy, the environment and creating a Canada that can stand tall in the world.

In 2004 we were number one in the world. We had taken a country that was almost a developing country with a huge $43 billion deficit, with no jobs, with people losing their mortgages and we built it with a vision, not just with one-shot deals, into a nation that was holding its head high above the world. We had nine balanced budgets and a huge surplus. We are now looking at a deficit and the possibility of a recession. Jobs are being lost. This is what happened in two years under the Conservative government and that is because it has no plan, no vision and it does not even understand what our country is about.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, 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, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think you like I and so many of the young people who are watching this debate cannot help but have been impressed by the eloquence and the precision of the member for Vancouver Centre in elucidating the main elements of the budget bill.

She said that the bill had to be considered as a vision statement and therefore had to be judged accordingly and that all the items enumerated in the bill deserved close scrutiny. They deserve close scrutiny in the context of what the bill hopes to accomplish for all of us and for all the young people, who are here today and out there in TV land, in terms of the kind of programs that would be in place for all of us.

I was the minister of immigration and I worked closely with the member for Vancouver Centre, who was also a minister. She raised some absolutely important questions with respect to one central issue. Where did the Conservatives put the money that the previous government allocated to programs to bring life to the vision? What did they do with the $700 million designed to make the system efficient? What did they do with the $88 million designed to integrate people in terms of their credentials earned abroad? What did they do with the $1.3 billion designed to integrate and retain people whose talents were obtained in other parts of the world and brought to Canada to build a nation of which everyone could be proud? What did they do with the opportunity that was presented by my colleague and the government of which she was a part? What has the Conservative government done with the vision for Canada that seemed to be so promising and yet today seems to be begging for direction, for leadership and for attention?

Could the member give us a few more moments of her thoughtful insight in to the way the country could develop, should develop and the way it is being abandoned?

Democracy is a great thing and Canadians have a government that they do not deserve. There is an election coming up. Could the member give us the opportunity to see what we missed—

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I will stop the hon. member there.

The hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that was an extraordinarily important question.

The question of transparency and accountability is at stake here. We have to ask ourselves some questions. What happened to the plan? Where did the money that was set aside to deal with something go? What happened to it? Was it moved? What was it spent on? We deserve answers, but we have not had any. We have been asking these questions for three years. It is the government that ran on the issue of accountability. Accountability means we have to be accountable for what we do.

What is the evaluation? What occurred when the government did this in 2006? What are the results? Did it result in any difference? Were there any changes? What are the objectives? These are clear questions.

My profession was based on evidence. Was an objective set to achieve such and such a thing? Evidence based analysis has to be done on how to get where we want to go, and then we check to see whether we got there. Were the results achieved? That is accountability. That has not occurred here. Where is the money? Where is the plan? What happened to all of it?

How can we let people into the country without giving them the tools they need to get a job? We already have 500,000 immigrants who trained somewhere else, but they cannot work in Canada. Are we going to increase the number of people who cannot work here to one million? They will come to Canada, but they will be unable to work.

Those are the questions we have to ask when we see the shallow kind of budgets that we are given by the Conservative government, a one shot deal.

We only have to read the books out there, which state the original objectives of the government ought to be: win an election, look moderate, fool the people with shiny objects. When the Conservatives get a majority government, then they can do what they want, which is to dismantle the federation, get rid of any vision and leave people to their own devices.

Government is not about that. To be in government means using the tools of government to help citizens live better lives, to give them opportunities. Governance is about that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was very interested to hear the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. It is interesting to hear a rehashing of the program of the Liberal government. It is something that I was critical of in my day, and I could be today as well. However, that is not where I want to go with this question.

The member was rightly critical of the direction of the Conservative government on issues of immigration. She went through a number of them. She has been supported by the former minister in his question a moment ago.

The Liberals say that there are no answers to the questions they raise, that there is no program from the Conservatives, that there is no money, that the money dedicated to important programming under their plan has somehow disappeared, but they have no plan. Yet, when push comes to shove, the Liberals are not prepared to hold the government accountable for not having a plan, for not having any money for these things, for not having any programs. Yet the moment when accountability, which is the job of the official opposition, comes to the fore, they disappear and do not vote to bring down the government.

If immigration is so important to the Liberals, why do they refuse to hold the Conservative government accountable for all these missteps, for this lack of progress and for this terrible bill before the House of Commons?

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. If people believe a government is on the wrong track, if they believe the vision is not there and if they believe the decisions being made are not good ones and do not wish that government to remain, then new government should be brought in to do the right things.

It is not about what NDP members did in the last session, when they brought down a government in such undue haste that they undid all the things they said they wanted. It is not about hastily calling an election. It is about a strategy to ensure there is going to be success. On this side of the House, we think that is a government with no vision, with no plan, with no ability to move the country forward at a time when it is on the brink to be the most competitive nation in the world, given such a small number of people.

It is not about the cheap shots of saying “let's quickly call an election” without thinking of the consequences. One has to have a plan that will succeed. What is the point of having a plan of action if it is only about an empty shell, a piece of political rhetoric, which does not achieve the objective that we want?

We will achieve our objective in our time.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the 2006 election one of the promises made by the government had to do with guaranteed wait times. That seemed to fall by the wayside. There has been a lot of hemming and hawing, yet the Conservatives continue to take credit. Even today in question period, the Minister of Health made a statement about “we delivered on wait times”.

Could the member advise Canadians what the real situation is in terms of health care wait times for Canadians.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as a physician, I can say that wait times was a priority for us. We did move in our government to look at bringing forward, within about two years, 1,000 new family practitioners.

Five million Canadians do not have family doctors. This is the heart of health care access. If people cannot see a physician, they cannot have access into the system. The government has been repeatedly told that health human resources is a huge issue and it is a problem that must be resolved.

We had that in our wait times initiative. In 2004 we had agreements with the provinces of bringing in health human resource changes, of bringing in the physicians, the nurses, the technicians and the technologists who would allow access to the system to occur. Again, I asked a question on what happened to that plan and the money that was set aside for it.

When the Minister of Health stands up and says that the government has been doing something, it is like his argument—

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I advise hon. members that we are now entering the portion of the debate where the speeches will be 10 minutes with 5 minutes of questions and comments.

The hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will have to compress my long and witty speech into 10 minutes now.

We are debating the budget implementation bill, Bill C-50. It is a bill that would implement the recent budget, but it also has some other legislation piggybacking it in a way that, for the most part, the official opposition objects to, and I will explain why.

Taking a broader look at the economy, there has been a lot of talk about whether the economy is doing well or not. I am actually a bit more positive about the economy. To be sure, there is a huge difficulty involving manufacturing. In central Canada it has severely impacted a number of localities and there may be more impacts. Generally across the country, however, the country is making jobs.

I took a look at the economic data for the area I represent in the greater Toronto area and Ontario and the statistics are pretty good. For the last month that we looked at, employment was up; the participation rate in employment was up; the unemployment rate was down; the number of social assistance cases in the greater Toronto area was down; inflation is down; the prime rate is 5.75%; commodity demand, all up. For a buyer that is not so good. For a seller, and generally Canada is a seller of commodities all around the world, those prices are up. There are a lot of good things to say about the economy.

I am not a doom and gloom type speaker at this point in time, but I will say that at this time of low interest rates and low inflation, it is absolutely the best time for the government to be showing leadership in investment and reinvestment in our economic sector, particularly the manufacturing sector. I am not seeing any leadership at all with respect to this particular issue.

The bill has provisions governing capital cost allowance. This is an incentive for business generally to reinvest in plant and equipment, but there is no leadership being shown by the government. There is no focus being brought to bear. It is simply scattering the crumbs across the barnyard and saying, “Here. Fend for yourself”.

I accept that our business does well when our entrepreneurs, our business leaders and our workers get together, focus themselves and bring about those good economic investments and impacts. However, there has hardly ever been a time in this country when the Government of Canada did not show leadership in this envelope. All of our major economic activity centres today bear the thumbprint of government leadership at some point in our history, whether it is transportation, or communications, or pharmaceuticals, or electronics, or technology, or research. All of these economic activity areas have had specific government leadership in the past that have made them successful and what they are today, and I do not see that leadership now.

The second thing I want to talk about in this bill is the Canada employment insurance financing board provisions.

I have heard in this debate, incessantly, the New Democratic Party trying to tell us here and Canadians that somehow our governments have been whacking away the money that has been contributed into the EI fund by workers and employers. I point out that the fund is not owned by, but was contributed to by, employees and employers. In fact, employers have put in a slightly greater share of that money. That fund is there; it is intact.

I am very disappointed to hear the New Democratic Party incessantly suggest to Canadians that somebody somewhere in government has stolen this money, so I thought I would look at the Public Accounts of Canada just to check. I am just one MP. There are 300 or so of us here. The taxpayer allows us to spend all this money on printing every year so that we can see the Public Accounts of Canada. There are three volumes. I thought I would go back nine years to 1999.

Where is the fund? How much money is in it? Does it exist? Did somebody steal it? How was it managed? Those who are interested can go to page 4.19, the Public Accounts of Canada, Volume I, 1999 and there it is with a surplus shown in the prior year, 1998, 10 years ago, of $13 billion and change. In 1999 it is $20 billion and change. I looked at the notes to the financial statements just to make sure it was the way it looked. There is was. It even talks about the Government of Canada paying interest into the fund at 90% of the T-bill offering rate. Every year the government under the watchful eye of the Auditor General of Canada accumulates the money in this account. It is a conceptual account but it is real. The government pays interest every year on the EI account as it accumulates. That was 1999.

I thought maybe it had changed in the interim years. I looked at 2005 and there it is, the same fund, alive and well, moving up to $48.5 billion with the same interest being paid every year. It shows the interest being paid. It shows the money being paid out in premiums and the money being paid out in employment programs. There are revenues and expenses to the program and a balance of $48.5 billion.

Then I went to last year. The NDP members have been talking about this. I thought, they have to be misleading us; this is not correct. There it is again, the EI fund. The surplus has moved from $50 billion to $54 billion with all that interest being paid every year. The interest paid in 2007 was $1.9 billion. The Government of Canada, the taxpayers of Canada, have allocated $1.9 billion to be added to this fund.

I am saying to the House that members can simply not accept the NDP members' statements at face value. They are weak on facts. It is misleading. There it is for everybody to see. That again is in chapter 4 of the Public Accounts of Canada, in case anyone wants to look at those.

I still say that this is the perfect time for the Government of Canada to be investing in employment programming, training and in manufacturing, to be leading in that for the benefit of Canadians.

The next thing I want to address is the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act sections. I am one who believes these provisions should not have been piggybacked on the budget implementation bill. There are four sections. There are a couple of legislative tweaks which I will not go into because they are fairly technical, but the ones that have caught the most attention have to do with the desire of the government to give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the legal ability to issue what are called instructions. I have served in the House for 20 years and I have never seen anything called an instruction. It does not exist. What is an instruction? Is it a letter? Is it a phone call? is it a communication? Is it an email? Is it a text message? We do not know but the government, with the collaboration of the department, wants to use a new statutory instrument called an instruction.

I have only one minute left. The time has gone far too quickly, so I will cut to the chase here and say that the government has chosen a very poor form. It is not a statutory instrument. It is not a regulation. It is not pre-published. It is not reviewed by any of the committees of the House as a regulation and it is not consulted on before it is done. It is a huge variance from the rule of law, a huge variance almost to the point of impinging on what is called the pretended power of dispensation which is part of our early parliamentary and constitutional law. The government is at huge risk in using this instrument, and so is Parliament and so are Canadians. I certainly oppose those sections of the bill.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleague on fulfilling what he indicated he would do and that is to speak with wit and wisdom. I want to touch on a couple of things so that he can continue to complete his thoughts. I am glad that he pointed out that the NDP, that never-ending disseminator of poo, has been unveiled for what it really is. I compliment him on pointing out just what the EI fund does and how it is accumulated.

I have been here with him for many years and I share his concern about the fact that this is a most opportune moment, given the economic climate, to make investments in those areas that render both short term and long term benefits in the research and development area. Specifically, I think he mentioned the pharmaceutical sector, the aerospace and auto sectors, and of course the transportation sector. All of them are absent from the budget.

He touched on something else as well. He went from the substance to the process. The process is there are changes to the way we govern that are encouraged by this bill and which should never see the light of day in a parliamentary environment. I wonder if he will take whatever is left of his time to illustrate that matter further and to do it with the kind of expertise that he has on parliamentary process.

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

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the member's comments, he referenced the parliamentary procedures involved here. I take such strong objection to the use of “instruction” in this bill, I would almost stop at nothing to nuke it. I will also say that in another bill, Bill C-10, which passed late last year, there was another device called a “direction” which the government could give. This had to do with directions involving the production of Canadian films under the Income Tax Act.

With this whole business of finding these little directions and instructions, what is next, a phone call, or a message, or a letter? What other device is the government going to invent so that the rule of law scrutiny of the regulatory process is avoided? This is a very unfortunate step and the record ought to show that very clearly.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member is an expert in parliamentary process and I want him to speak in stronger terms about the government's sneaking immigration issues into the budget implementation bill. This is an affront to democracy. What is a budget? The money that is needed to run the country. Are we going to be able to stop that? The country has to run. So, if the government wants to make a policy change that is unacceptable to most Canadians, the government sneaks it into a bill where the people have to vote to run the country. This is unheard of. It is unparliamentary. There were no excessive details in the budget, just a very veiled reference in the budget. Then the budget implementation bill came out. To me that is just not kosher.

I know the member takes great pride in process and I would like him to comment on that further.

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

Mr. Speaker, arguably, the process being used here is insidious. First of all, the government is burying this new concept called an “instruction” in a budget implementation bill. It is burying it in this bill. Second, if this provision is implemented, the instruction is going to be something maybe on a piece of paper sent out overnight. We do not know. This provision will give the minister authority to bury the instruction.

It is true that the bill says the instruction will be published in the Canada Gazette, and that is pretty public, but that happens after the event, not before, not even simultaneous with. The government is burying the proposed new procedure, which is unprecedented, in a budget implementation bill and then it has invented this cutesy little instruction which is going to be flown by night courier to immigration posts wherever immigration applications are being processed. No wonder immigration applicants are a little nervous right now. No wonder they are fearful that the government has a hidden agenda. These devices, these concoctions developed in this bill do not say what they really are or what they are really intended to do.

When we in this House have to look at the actions taken under these new provisions after the fact, we have to try to infer why Parliament gave this authority in the first place and what it is being used for. There actually is no mechanism because under the bill, once an instruction has gone, that is the end of the story. That is not a very good way to run a country. That is not the rule of law.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on the budget, Bill C-50.

When I became a member of Parliament in 1993, the new Liberal government inherited, to be quite frank, a fiscal mess. The expenses exceeded the revenues of the government by some $42 billion in that year ending in March 1994.

It is a situation that members will know. The accumulated deficits of the country had built up to some $500 billion, actually peaking at about $524 billion. It was untenable. We were basically compared to third world countries in terms of our fiscal health.

As debt increases, the cost of borrowing increases and that means that the ability to meet the needs of Canadian citizens is put under pressure and services have to be cut. It was very important and, for the Liberal Party, our first priority was to get our fiscal house in order.

That took some pain. Canadians will remember that there were very significant cuts, not only to the operations of government but cuts in programs, important programs that Canadians needed, but there were some cuts. Everybody had to bear that burden. It was a tough decision to make but governing is about making tough decisions.

Finally, in 1997 we had whittled down that $42 billion deficit and finally balanced the budget. Throughout the 13 years, it was a tough governing period but we continued to pay down debt, to restore the level of services and, in fact, start increasing the level of services provided to Canadians, to the point that when the 2006 election came around, there was fiscal room to meet the need of paying down debt, to meet the need of providing additional services and programs to Canadians, particularly looking at areas of health care and the needs of seniors, of our aboriginal and first nations people, some very important areas, areas of poverty and areas to do with children.

Those were important programs and those were the kinds of things in which we were investing in.

However, just like people who have a house with a mortgage, Canadians expect to continue to make regular payments on that mortgage and save interest.

I can recall when some 40% of every dollar collected by the government in taxes was used to pay down the cost of borrowing money to finance the excess of spending over revenues of the government.

When this budget came out, it made me reflect on where we were back in 1993 after almost nine years of the Brian Mulroney government, where not one year was a balanced budget. Every year, year after year there were deficits. The debt was being built up and Canadians let the Conservatives know how they felt about the fiscal mismanagement in that election in 1993. They reduced that party from a majority government to only two seats in the House of Commons.

That is how significant this matter is in terms of how Canadians feel about whether or not a government can be a good fiscal manager, because if we do not take care of the finances of the nation, we do not take care of the people of the nation.

We saw in the budget that there was, as a result of inheriting the fiscal position that we had, a good, healthy position, that the government enjoyed a $13 billion surplus in its first year. It has gone down a little in terms of the projections, but what concerns me is that two major decisions were taken by the government and they were on the same item. It was the cut to the GST.

Providing Canadians with tax relief is always important when it is earned, but we must remember that there is a difference between giving someone something once and giving to people year after year the same amount.

If we take some $5 billion to $6 billion a year for a one percentage cut in the GST and then we do a second cut, all of a sudden, $10 billion to $12 billion of the annual surplus that we were enjoying to be able to pay down debt and to invest in Canadians, is gone. In two years out, looking from that budget, the surplus projected by the government will be less than $2 billion.

All of the hard work was to establish the security that we need to deal with fiscal challenges that are unforeseen. A prudent government says that we should not play with a zero balance in our bank account. We need to keep some savings there. We need to ensure there is a bit of latitude to deal with the ebbs and flows of the economy.

Now we are facing situations where it appears that we have already had one quarter where we had a decline in growth. It appears that Canada may very well go into a recession.

We have seen it, particularly in terms of the manufacturing sector. Jobs are being lost and people are becoming concerned. The confidence level in the government is dropping and it is all because of economic certainty or uncertainty. People care about their jobs and they care about paying for that next bill.

The government had better be there to take care of those needs because we do not know how protracted an economic downturn may be. We do not know what will happen in the U.S. but we do know that we are inextricably linked to their economy.

When we take over $10 billion out of the financial flexibility that a government has, we have no flexibility and no latitude to deal with the unexpected.

The government has not used prudence in its forecast. It has not used a contingency fund to provide for the eventuality of a thing like a SARS epidemic, which cost a very large amount of money.

I wanted to make that point only from the standpoint that it appears that we have come from a period of the last Conservative government that was in power up to 1993, passing off a $42 billion annual deficit, spending $42 billion more than it took in.

We came back with financial health under the Liberals and now the curve is going down again. It appears that we are going back to being at risk of going into deficit yet again. This is of concern to Canadians and it should be of concern to all parliamentarians.

The other matter I would like to briefly talk about is an item in the last budget called the tax-free savings account. My first reaction as a chartered accountant was that this was another administrative burden, a tax gimmick, that sounds good but that will not translate or deliver what it seems to be.

The Conservatives say that this tax-free account will allow people to put $5,000 a year into the account and anything they earn on that, whether it is interest income or dividend income or whatever, they will not have to pay tax. It will be a tax-free account. That sounds really terrific, $5,000 tax free. However, that $5,000 is not tax free because that is tax paid money. A person has to earn the money and have $5,000 of tax paid money to put into the account.

However, because this program has special conditions attached to it, every Canadian who wants to participate in the program will need to open a new bank account. The banks, however, will not do this for nothing. They will charge service charges on a monthly basis. If people want to do a transaction, such as buy stock, commissions are involved. It will be the same for term deposits. Does anyone think these agencies, whether it is an investment house or the bank itself, will provide all these services for nothing? That is not the case.

I just took a very simplistic example. Let us look at a basic savings account where someone was able to invest through the bank in a $5,000 term deposit that earned 5%, much more generous than we could earn today, but as an example, 5%.

If someone was earning $35,000 a year, making 5% on $5,000 would actually save the person $61 in tax on the interest earned. The person's taxes would go up. If the person made $70,000 a year, the person's savings on the same amount would be $88. If the person made $100,000, it would be $108. Those examples are to illustrate that the higher the level of income the more a person can benefit from this instrument.

I believe the instrument missed the target because it skews the benefits to those who have money, not providing a savings opportunity and a tax savings opportunity to Canadians who really could use the help.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member to continue his comments on the general fiscal mismanagement of the government, which is so surprising to Conservatives across the country.

We have a government that talks about reducing the deficit so Canadians pay less interest and talks about reducing the national debt, and then it pushes us to the verge of going into deficit.

It is not as though there were not crises such as this in the past. The Liberal government faced a number of crises but it had the contingency fund, a surplus, to deal with each crisis.

The Conservative government has been Canada's largest spender. Conservatives across the country cannot believe that they have the largest spending government in Canadian history which has put the country in jeopardy.

Furthermore, after the Liberal government had the largest tax cut in Canadian history of $100 million, the Conservative government actually increased income taxes. We all remember that from our income tax form. It took the government two years to get it back down to where the Liberals had it before the Conservatives came to power.

This total inconsistency in values and actions has put the government in this position of jeopardy. Canadian families that rely on manufacturing jobs are now in a position of jeopardy because there is no room to manoeuvre. I would like the member to comment on that because I know it is very important in his constituency.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. I think this economic situation will be with us for some time. I think it will be with us for the rest of this calendar year because history has shown that as the economy gains momentum there will be some consequences.

We have had some job reductions and a net job loss. We understand that in some of the provinces where they are heavy in resources, they will continue to flourish and do extremely well. We have record high prices for petroleum and oil, which means there will be a lot of revenue and a lot of wealth in resource provinces.

However, we need to realize that 60% of our economy is in Ontario and Quebec. Those two provinces, which represent two-thirds of the population of the country, are the two provinces being hit very hard by the fiscal pressure.

I would indicate that this is not the time to be an alarmist. This is the time to be responsible. Fiscal responsibility needs to be the hallmark.

I think that whichever party forms the next government will be the party that demonstrates fiscal responsibility on behalf of the best interests of Canadians.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have sat here and listened to an hour of this tirade. We will not continue to sit here and listen to the opposition bash the economic engines of our country.

Alberta represents 16% of the manufacturing jobs in Ontario and 1% of the net wealth of Ontario comes directly from the oil fields and the hard-working men and women in the oil fields of Alberta.

My question for the member is very simple and it is in three parts. First, will he vote with the government on the budget implementation bill? Second, will he and his colleagues stick with what apparently they believe and vote against our budget implementation bill? Third, will they, as they have traditionally done, not show up for work and abstain, as they have done over the last six months?

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we want to talk about bashing, we just need to think of the most significant example. It really is embarrassing for all Canadians to have a finance minister who not only would bash a province, but his own province, and tell prospective investors not to invest in that province--

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

You are contributing to the unemployment numbers, Paul, by not voting.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

When I hear those members trying to shout me down, Mr. Speaker, I know I am on the right track.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

It would be the first time.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Those members really are the most disrespectful people I have seen in a long time. If they do not respect a member's right to speak in the House, and if they want to yell me down, that is okay. I can take it. I am a big boy.

However, I can tell members that I was very concerned when the finance minister of the Government of Canada told prospective investors that if they wanted to make money not to invest in Ontario. His admonition to investors has paid off. It is not happening in Ontario. Another 1,000 jobs were lost in the automobile sector.

I have a feeling that we know what is coming next in Ontario. It is going to be tough times and it is going to be because of the Conservative Party of Canada.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents of Brampton—Springdale and also in my capacity as the social development critic, I rise today to speak about the budget implementation bill, which has wide-ranging ramifications for the vulnerable in our society.

I rise today to speak on behalf of vulnerable people: those who are homeless, those living in affordable housing projects, the single mothers, those in the aboriginal community, and many newcomers to Canada.

When people look at Canada, they see our nation and country as a symbol of hope. We are a symbol of hope for many nations throughout the world. When we look at our country, we realize that the hallmarks of equality, acceptance, tolerance and respect are the very champions which have allowed us as a nation to become that symbol.

When we speak of the budget implementation bill, it is unfortunate that the agenda of the government has come forward. We realize in reading this budget implementation bill that the most vulnerable in our society, those who perhaps need government most, have been ignored. They have actually fallen off the agenda and the priority list of the Prime Minister and the Conservative government.

There have been absolutely no investments in terms of social justice in this particular implementation bill. There have been no new investments in affordable housing projects, the health care sector, the homeless or aboriginal people, so many of the people who live in my constituency of Brampton—Springdale.

Let us look at what has been attached to Bill C-50, the budget implementation bill, and has been brought forward through the back door. Canada has always been a world leader in developing immigration policy. When we talk about our nation being a symbol of hope, we realize that we are a country in which so many people from so many different parts of the world live in harmony.

Our country has always been a pioneer in an open and transparent process, which has invited people like my parents to come to Canada in the 1970s. We are proud of this heritage in our country and also proud of our reputation of having a fair and humane immigration system.

However, it is unfortunate that the new reforms being proposed by the Conservative government, in particular the amendments that have been made to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, are going to threaten our international reputation and threaten our nation's status as a symbol of hope.

It is these amendments being put forward by the Conservative government that are going to give the minister the unprecedented power of selection. The minister will be able to pick and choose the number of immigrants who come to Canada, the type of immigrants who come to Canada, and the category of immigrants who come to our country. The bill is also going to give the minister the ability to restrict the right of failed overseas refugee applicants to bring forward appeals.

What is even more disturbing is the fact that these changes are being brought forward through the back door without consultation with many of the people that this bill and these amendments are trying to help. They are being brought forward without the consultation of community groups and advocacy organizations. These issues are being brought forward in a secretive manner with a hidden agenda.

The government is desperately trying to paint these changes as improvements. I have travelled across the country and have met with constituents in my riding of Brampton—Springdale and with many Canadians, immigration and advocacy organizations and Canadians from particular ethnic groups. I can say firsthand that they are deeply worried and frustrated by the fact that the government has shut the door on them and refuses to listen.

The government paints a picture of how we need to reduce our country's backlog of 900,000 immigrants who want to come to Canada. However, it is very clear when one reads the fine print and the details of these proposed changes that all of the amendments and changes being brought forward are going to be effective starting on the date they are brought forward and will not have any impact or effect on reducing the backlog in this country.

As for the amendments that are being brought forward, there is a state of reluctance and frustration out there among the community groups and organizations. They do not really know what they should do or how they could get involved in the process. What we see is a government that wants to centralize powers in the hands of one individual, allowing that one person, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, to pick and choose and perhaps insert politics and a bias into her decision making process.

It is this discretion, which we hope will not turn into discrimination, that is going to be at the minister's fingertips. We all know that in the 1900s our nation's immigration policies were at times discriminatory, exclusionary and even racist, which impacted many community groups across the country. As a nation, we have come so far. Our nation is a symbol of hope. I would hope that we will never ever go back.

We need to ensure, in this time of surplus and prosperity in our nation, that the government realizes that effective and efficient changes need to be made to the system. We must actually provide investments to ensure that there are additional officers placed at some of the busiest consulates and embassies throughout the world. That is what will make sure that we actually start to reduce the backlog of immigrants.

Our nation must realize that when we invite these individuals into our country they are coming here with their hopes, dreams and aspirations. However, upon coming to Canada, they very quickly find that their degrees and their qualifications are not recognized. They cannot be accredited. They are not allowed to enter Canada's workforce for lack of experience.

We must ensure that government surpluses are invested in programs for foreign credentials recognition. We must ensure that when we invite the best and brightest into Canada they have an opportunity to succeed and achieve their dreams. There is absolutely no reason why investments of this nature cannot be made.

Again, perhaps the greatest shortcoming of this bill, the budget implementation act, is a disregard for the most vulnerable of our nation. I can speak on behalf of those who live in affordable housing projects and those who are homeless in this country. We need only take a look at the statistics to realize that in this time of economic prosperity there are over 1.5 million Canadian households with a core housing need. They are spending over 30% of their income on home rental.

Having a roof over one's head is a basic fundamental human right. All of us as Canadians have to ensure that everyone in our country has a roof over his or her head and is in secure housing. It is a matter of dignity. It is a matter of pride. This budget has failed to address this crisis we have, a crisis that really knows no boundaries and has no barriers in this nation.

The fact that the government has thrown the issues of social justice off its agenda and off its priority list is really an insult to the many families and individuals who live without the basic means of survival. More than half of social housing applicants spend more than 50% of their income on housing. It is a tremendous burden for those who are in a low income bracket, which is a growing segment in our communities. That includes seniors, single parent families and immigrants.

We need only take a look at the waiting lists, even in an area like mine. In Brampton alone, there are approximately 30,000 people on a wait list to get into an affordable housing project. There is a wait list of over 21 years for some of these individuals.

There are regions like Peel, which has started a program called “Home in Peel Affordable Ownership Program”, which is going to provide some assistance, given the increase in population, the housing shortage and the market increases. Owning a home is no longer affordable for many Canadians across the country. We need the government to show some action. We need the government to show some leadership to ensure that these vulnerable people in our society have that chance and that opportunity.

When we take a look at national housing across the country, we see three major programs: the homelessness partnership initiative, the housing program, and the residential rehabilitation assistance program. All three are major federal programs that have provided resources and support for many of these community organizations in order to help the vulnerable in society. All three of these programs are due to expire at the end of this fiscal year. These groups and organizations are crying out, but what has the government done? Absolutely nothing.

Whether it is on child care, health care, affordable housing or dealing with immigrants in this country, we have realized that social justice has fallen off the map. We need action. We need leadership. We need a government that is going to care about the vulnerable in our society.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member. She listed some of the things of concern to her. She says that she is the critic for social justice, I think, in her caucus, but I am not sure.

As an example, I was pleased last month to stand on a stage with the Assembly of First Nations and announce the market housing fund, for example, something it has been asking for, for a long time. It was this government that actually brought that in and announced it with the AFN. It was a pleasure. We announced hundreds of millions of dollars for housing both on and off reserve, both in the north and in the south.

We also announced increased funding for shelters for aboriginal women, victims of violence, including money for five new shelters, because we realized there was a need for that. So, we have moved to fill that need.

She says there is nothing for aboriginal people, or aboriginal women I think she said, but that was a gap that we inherited. That is just one specific thing as an example.

She mentioned the immigration issue at length. There are dozens of organizations representing immigrants across the country that have come out in support of the amendments in this bill. Who are not in support are the lawyers. The lawyers loved the status quo, and the reason is because there are almost a million people in the queue.

This is the Liberal answer to the problem: create a system that leads to 800,000 or 900,000 people in the queue, all of whom must be processed and most of whom will not get a chance to come to Canada. That is not fair to the immigrants. Worse yet, it means that most of them will end up hiring an immigration lawyer and paying big bucks to get into a queue that will never get them Canada.

We want to make sure people come to Canada. That is the whole reason for the changes. That is why immigrants themselves say these are good changes.

Finally, she says all these things are wrong with the bill, that it is a travesty, that it is an awful thing, that the Government of Canada has lost its way and everything, and she says she speaks on behalf of these people.

However, her actions speak so loudly that we cannot hear her words because she will not stand in her place and vote on this bill, mark my words, and we will all be watching as will her people back home who will be saying, “Boy, you feel passionately about this. You feel strongly about this. I expect you to be there, if you feel like that, in the House of Commons to vote against it”. However, she--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I am sure the minister, as a former deputy speaker, will realize that I need to share the time with the member who had the floor.

The hon. member for Brampton—Springdale.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of talk from that side and, again, no action.

If the minister actually takes a look at previous records, I actually did stand in this House and did vote against this very immigration proposal and amendments that are being made.

I do not know which Canadians the minister has been speaking to about these changes, but he should definitely come out to my constituency, and he is invited. In Brampton—Springdale, which has one of the highest ethnic demographics in the country, I can tell members that people are extremely fearful. They are frustrated and they are upset with the fact that these changes and these amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are being brought forward through the back door, without any type of consultation.

Ethnic communities and Canadians across this country no longer want to be used to score cheap political points. They need to have a system which is fair, which is effective, which is efficient, and which is going to ensure that when they submit an application to come to Canada it is going to be given the due diligence that it deserves, it is going to be processed in a timely fashion, and that when they do come here, there are going to be opportunities for them, there are going to be resources for them.

One only needs to talk to some of the most vulnerable in our society to realize that they feel ignored by the government. The government has a responsibility to provide that leadership and to show some action on behalf of all Canadians in this country, not just its voter bank.

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate this afternoon.

I, like a majority of Canadians, when I get up every morning and I read the newspaper I see what is going on. I have certainly come to the conclusion that this country is very much headed in the wrong direction.

It is my view, it is my vision, that the only way this country is going to work is with a strong central government speaking for every region, every province, and every person who lives in this country. That is not what we are seeing right now. We are basically seen as a phrase from another prime minister. This government is basically not even a head waiter. I would call it an ATM or a butler to the other provinces in Canada.

What we have is ill-conceived tax cuts. We have the highest spending government of any government ever elected in this country. We seem to have a lack of direction, a lack of leadership, and it would appear to me that we have lost our way.

This is said because it has happened in a short period of time. We all know, as Canadians, that we went through a very rough time, beginning in 1993. When the Conservatives were kicked out of office in that year, we all know that the annual deficit was $45 billion. We know that interest rates hovered around 11%. We know that unemployment was over 10%. We know that the debt to GDP ratio was 73%.

Decisions had to be made both monetary and fiscal. These were not easy decisions. These were decisions that took a lot of leadership, but these were decisions that were done. They were done by a strong central government.

As a result, we had 10 consecutive surpluses. There was a $100 billion tax cut. The debt to GDP ratio decreased to somewhere in the vicinity of 37% and all Canadians in the House, all Canadians in every province, and all Canadians in every region have every reason to be very proud.

However, if we do not pay attention to history, history will repeat itself and that is what I think is going on right now. Last week, Statistics Canada reported that in the first quarter we are back into negative growth after a long period of time. Every day we pick up the paper there are more job losses. We have a finance minister who is in a full frontal attack on the province of Ontario, stating that that province is the last place in the world where anyone should invest.

Confidence is such an important matter. It drives business. If there is no consumer confidence, consumers will not spend. If there is no business confidence, businesses will not invest. It is so important.

If the finance minister of this country does not have confidence in the province of Ontario, how do we expect General Motors to have any confidence? How do we expect any other business to have any confidence in this particular province?

When I looked at the budget, I was hoping to see initiatives that would be indicative of a strong central government, such as the productivity agenda, innovation, and the need, and I will admit there is some work being attempted on this, of a national securities regulator.

We want to see smart tax decreases, ones that encourage investment and savings. We would like to see something in affordable housing. We would like to see something that would try to eliminate or at least attempt to eliminate the interprovincial trade barriers that we see across Canada. We would like to see something in early childhood education, skills training, post-secondary education, research, especially research done by our important post-secondary institutions, and climate change. We would like to see something on Canada-U.S. relations.

To speak of Canada-U.S. relations, the worst that we have seen is the Conservative Party interjecting itself into the Democratic nomination process about a month ago, leaking information to the press about one of the candidates, Barack Obama. I just shudder to think if Mr. Obama becomes the president of the United States, what that will do to the relationship between Canada and the United States.

The reason why we are not seeing that is because these are so-called provincial jurisdictions. It is not our business. It is not our concern. Again, that disturbs me. I find it troubling and we have to question where this thinking comes from, who is developing this agenda, whose vision is it? When I talk to people from every part of Canada, that does not seem to be their thinking. We are a large geographical country with a relatively small population. People are looking for a strong central government with a pan-Canadian vision speaking for every person in every region of this country.

Where is this vision coming from? Who is developing it? I would suggest it is coming directly from the Prime Minister and maybe to a lesser extent from the Minister of Finance. He set his vision out a year or two before he was elected prime minister in this so-called firewall letter. He urged and pleaded with the then premier of Alberta to get out of medicare, get out of the income tax system that we have in the Canada, and get out of the use of the RCMP. He said to put a firewall or a moat around the province and go on its own without Canada.

The people I talk to from Alberta do not associate themselves with that vision. I do not associate myself with that vision. Most people in this House, I would suggest, do not associate with that vision or that agenda for Canada. People are looking for a strong central government and they do not see that at all.

One of the biggest issues facing Canadians right now is the need for action on climate change. We waited for the government for the last two and a half years. There has been nothing. It views it as a communications issue, not a real issue. We had the spectacle of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec coming together to their great credit and coming forward with a plan. Of course, we know what happened. Once that plan was announced, it was attacked by the federal Minister of the Environment.

They would not have had to do that if the Government of Canada took this seriously and did something, but that is not happening. Then, of course, we have the fight between the Minister of the Environment and the premiers of Quebec and Ontario. That will go on for quite a while I would assume and, of course, nothing is going to happen certainly from a pan-Canadian basis on the whole issue of climate change.

As one member of Parliament speaking in my little corner here, I find it disturbing. I find it troubling. I come back to the situation which I find a troubling spectacle with the Minister of Finance attacking the families, the workers, and the companies that live, work and invest in the province of Ontario.

Again, it is destroying confidence. I find it troubling that no other Conservative members of Parliament from the province of Ontario will get up and disassociate themselves with those remarks. They just clap when the Minister of Finance makes these statements. I am over here just shaking my head because I do not know how long this is going to go on. I am deeply concerned as to the further erosion of confidence from the remarks made by the Minister of Finance. I do hope they stop soon.

I want to add my words to the debate. I believe the government is going in the wrong direction. It is on the wrong path. It has lost its way. When we look back at history, this was not the vision of previous Conservative governments. It was not the vision and agenda of Sir John A. Macdonald. It certainly was not the vision and agenda of Brian Mulroney. It was not the vision and agenda of Joe Clark and I believe Canadians understand that.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did want a chance to participate in this debate and appreciate very much the chance to do so in the 10 minutes available to me. Given your position in the chair, perhaps you will understand that the theme of my remarks is based upon the words of the epistle of St. James to Oshawans. In that epistle, he said, “If I was an investor, the last place I would invest is in the province of Ontario”.

In commenting on this text, it seems to me it is very important for us to keep coming back to the Minister of Finance and reminding him of these words, reminding him how damaging they are and how damaging it is to have a Minister of Finance launching an invective and an attack on a single province, which happens to be the heart of our manufacturing sector in Canada.

I am very proud to associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues from Scarborough and my good friend, the member for Charlottetown. The vision of Canada and of the federal government, which has been expressed by the member for Charlottetown, is a vision I share entirely.

We need to have a federal government that is capable of exercising leadership. We need to have a federal government that is capable of providing Canadians with a sense of hope and with a sense of opportunity. Instead we find a federal government with a very narrow view of its jurisdiction, with a very restrictive view of, first, what any government can do and, second, in particular what the federal government can do. I want to make it very clear that I reject that vision of the country and I think the majority of Canadians also reject it and do not want to see it.

However, we come back to these words. Why would a Minister of Finance say such a thing? Why would a federal minister, from Oshawa, say to his own people, to his own constituents, that the last place he would do business as an investor is in the province of Ontario?

[Gary Goodyear]

Because he was honest.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

A colleague across the way says, “Because he is honest”, so it was not a mistake. I heard the heckle and I am picking up on the heckle and saying that is what the Conservatives actually believe. The member for Cambridge is only endorsing those comments.

Cambridge is a key element in the manufacturing sector of Ontario and he has associated himself now with this epistle from St. James to the Oshawans, saying that the last place to invest is the province of Ontario.

I want to indicate to the members of the House what would happen if this were said about virtually any other part of the country, if a prime minister or a first minister said that about the province of New Brunswick, or the province of Newfoundland, or the province of Quebec, or any other province.

If that had been said about the province of Quebec, if the Minister of Finance had said that Quebec was the last place he would invest, there would have been an open and not-so-quiet revolution in Quebec. It would not have been a quiet revolution, but a real revolution, because people would not have accepted that.

On behalf of the people of Canada who live in Ontario, we do not accept being singled out by the Minister of Finance for opprobrium and attack and we do not accept that we are somehow second class citizens. For the Liberal Party, our Canada includes Ontario and Ontarians, and that is what we believe. We believe in that economy.

With the increase in the value of the dollar having gone up 50% in the last three or four years, with the impact of higher oil prices and higher energy prices, of course competitiveness has been affected in the province of Ontario. Much of our exports and our manufacturing has had the benefit of a truly competitive economy and now we are in a more difficult position.

This is not the moment for meanspirited partisan attacks. This is not the moment for the Minister of Finance, because the government of Ontario happens to be a Liberal government, which defeated the government of which he was a member, to suddenly turn around and attack not only that government, but attack the people of the province and the business climate of the province and hold out to foreign investors the idea that Ontario is a place where business should not be done. It is shameful.

Let me remind the House once again of the words of the epistle of St. James to the Oshawans, “If I was an investor, the last place I would invest is the province of Ontario”. It is shameful.

I can assure members opposite that those words will not be forgotten. Those words will not be lost in the course of a parliamentary debate, because those words were spoken aloud by the Minister of Finance in a deliberate way.

[Gary Goodyear]

We care about Ontario. We have to make decisions.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Judging from the heckling from the member for Cambridge, they were made in a way that is shared by members opposite.

When we look at the conditions being faced in our manufacturing sector—

[Gary Goodyear]

We were worried. The last time you were in charge of Ontario something bad happened.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

I have livened them up. They are awake. They are alive, even at ten to six in the afternoon.

In a very direct way for members opposite, they will never get anywhere by running down the neighbourhood. They will never get anywhere by running down the place where they live. They will never get anywhere by running down the people who work hard.

I am proud to say that all of Canada is a good place to invest. I am proud to say that every province is a good place to invest. I will always say that whether I am in opposition or whether I am in government. Canada is the best place to live. Canada is the best place to invest. Canada is the best place to bring up children. Canada is the best place to be. Every province can claim the same thing.

We will never succeed as Canadians if we have the attitude that somehow when we get into office it simply becomes a chance for us to make partisan hay each and every day. That is what we see in the House of Commons every day. It is a sad thing.

I read the farewell speeches of the former member of Ottawa Centre, Ed Broadbent, and my predecessor, Bill Graham, who was the member for Toronto Centre. Both of them commented at the end of their time that they could not believe the lack of civility in the House of Commons and the way, from their experience, it had gone down.

I do not want to wait until I leave to make those remarks. If somebody asked me what the big difference between what life was like in the old days when I was first here and today, I would say it is the absolutely barbaric way in which debate takes place in the House of Commons. It is not a reasonable exchange. Every time someone asks a question, all the Conservatives say is the equivalent of “Your granny wears army boots”. That is the thoughtful response we get from the government each and every day, each and every step of the way.

We on this side have a principled difference with the government. We do not agree with its vision. We do not agree with its direction. We do not agree with its policies. We have a principled division, but that does not require us each and every day to simply refuse to answer questions or refuse to deal with the nature of the House.

I was on television today with a member of the Conservative Party who said the reason the Prime Minister would not appear before a committee was because he knew it would be a circus. What is he saying about Parliament? Parliament is a place where we are supposed to do the public business. Our committees are supposed to be the place where we do the public business. It is a sad commentary that this is what has happened to the institution which we are supposed to revere.

I disagree strongly with the comments that were made by the Minister of Finance because they are harmful to my province and to my country. I believe he should stand up and correct the record. I believe he should say that he may have differences from time to time with other governments, but he should never say that this is a bad place to invest or a bad place to do business.

We need to have that capacity as a public place in Parliament where we recognize that each and every one of us has limits to what we can and should say about other places and other members.

When I see the government in action, I see a government that is consumed by a partisan interest. It is a government that, in a sense, is still an opposition party that has suddenly found itself in government.

The Conservatives do not think like a government. They do not act like a government. They act like a group of people who have temporarily taken over the government and who cannot resist taking partisan, nasty, brutal shots at everything that gets in their way, whether it is a provincial premier or a mayor they do not like, or a member of the opposition they do not like. Whatever it is, they throw the ball and their heads to see how they respond.

Some of us who have been around can handle it and we will deal with it. However, we will continue to deal with it in a way that speaks profoundly to the need for us to share the great values we have as Canadians, the great values we see going forward and the great need for us to have a federal government that has the capacity to serve the interests of the entire country.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to what the hon. foreign affairs critic had to say.

He talked about the nobility of this place and the need to restore the demeanour of which all Canadians can be proud. I know he is like that, personally, because today during question period, for example, when pressed a little, he said that the members opposite spent their spare time pulling wings off butterflies. He is a noble man. He would not stoop to gutter politics. He would not say something out of line. He keeps the debate very highbrow so the people in Rosedale will understand it, even today, during question period.

Let me interpret for people watching. When he says he wants a government with enough capacity to give direction, what he means is he wants a big, big government. We know what that means. Look out for the taxes, because the taxes will go up. He says he wants to make a difference with the federal government. The interpretation is he wants to intrude in provincial jurisdiction. We should keep our eyes open.

There is a reason that support for separation in Quebec is at the lowest in our lifetime. Why? Because the government on this side of the House believes in respecting provincial jurisdiction. On that side of the House, they do not.

To get back to James, whom he quoted. There is a quotation from another book of James that he will remember. It starts with “Consider it all joy...when you encounter various trials”. If the Liberals were ever in power, we would have a pervasive carbon tax that would hit low income people the worst. We are talking about a leader who says that if we have a problem in Afghanistan, the way to solve it is to invade Pakistan. That will get things smoking for us.

If we want to encounter various trials, if we want to look for trouble, look to the—

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to focus on one aspect of the comments of the member opposite, because it is a real difference of opinion.

I spent 15 years in the provincial jurisdiction. I know pretty well what a provincial jurisdiction is all about. The key challenges we face in our country are areas where both the federal government and the province have to learn how to cooperate and work together.

Is the question of urban transportation a municipal issue, a provincial issue or a federal issue? It is all three. It requires the cooperation of all three levels of government. There are no watertight compartments. There are no firewalls between municipalities, provinces and the federal government.

The key challenge of governance today in Canada, and this is a real difference that we have with the Conservative Party because it has this very narrow, locked-in view of what the responsibility of one level of government is and of another and never the twain shall meet, and that is a ludicrous—

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

It's called the constitution.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

It is not called the constitution. It is a ludicrous proposition. If we had that idea, we never would have had unemployment insurance and then employment insurance. We never would have had health insurance and health care and a national health care program. We would have had none of these programs. We never would have had Central Mortgage and House. We never would have had any of the institutions that have made a real difference in the lives of families.

Yes, I believe there is a role for the federal government in terms of providing leadership. I believe there is a role for provinces and for municipalities. The key challenge in the future of our country is how to make sure these governments can work effectively together. If they are captured and ensnared by the philosophy or the ideology of the Conservative Party of Canada, the condition of all the people in the country will deteriorate for sure. That is why I am so strongly opposed to it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member used the term “principled position”. How is it that there is any principle involved when in Bill C-50 there is the theft of $54 billion of workers' money that they will need if they become unemployed? We know that Ontario is in trouble. We talked about that earlier. A lot of the unemployed manufacturing workers and their families will need this fund, yet this bill only puts aside $2 billion to set up a crown corporation.

How could there be a principled position when 92% of Liberal members refuse to vote on this issue? Tell me.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we were to treat employment insurance as real insurance, what would that mean? It would mean that the workers who have the highest rate of unemployment would have to pay the highest premiums and that the industries that have the highest rate of unemployment would have to pay the highest premiums. It would be a complete disaster for working families across the country.

I do not know why the New Democratic Party and indeed many of my friends in the labour movement continue to persist in this notion that somehow the answer for everything is to get back to the idea of employment insurance being real insurance. They are not serving the interests of working families when they do that, because they do not understand that the experience ratings that would apply would absolutely clobber working families.

Ironically, it is the New Democratic Party that has contributed to one of the most inane aspects of Bill C-50, which is the creation of this crown corporation. The NDP members got their wish and they will come to regret it.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, thanks to the opposition, the House had the opportunity to debate two specific aspects of Bill C-50, namely immigration and the creation of an employment insurance financing board, or parts 6 and 7 of the bill. I had the opportunity to speak about these subjects in the House on Monday. Today I will be challenging the bill in its entirety. I will bring up various points.

Bill C-50 deals with the implementation of the intentions the government laid out in its 2008 budget speech, a speech that I criticized then, on April 9, for reasons that I would like to restate today.

Although the budget speech included some timid measures, it had nothing to offer in terms of redistribution of wealth and government management of the common good.

The bill's preamble concerns me a great deal because it talks only about global economic uncertainty when there is real uncertainty in all regions—mine in particular—about economic development; we know that. And the government should be concerned.

What has the government done in this time? I am sure everyone will recall that it created this trust fund, which, at the time, was linked to the budget. We managed to stop it, after some citizens demonstrated their dissatisfaction.

Although the trust fund, totalling a billion dollars over two years, was removed from the budget, the government did not really address the crises currently facing our communities. The agricultural and forestry sectors are in crisis. Of course, there is also a crisis facing non-profit organizations, which saw their funding suddenly slashed by the Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec.

Although he says he will space it out over two years, we all know what this means in Rimouski, for example, and in eastern Quebec for all non-profit organizations in the marine sector. We have a research centre. We are the hub of marine technology, and this will have a major impact. In that sense, the government has set us back. I will never accept this kind of thing.

The government created a savings account, known as a TFSA, and would have us believe that they have reinvented the wheel. In reality, it will not help modest to middle income earners. It will only help those who are already well off.

Speaking of the less fortunate and of the poor—and I will probably wrap it up here—I want to say once more that the government had an opportunity with this budget to help our seniors and to bolster the guaranteed income supplement. Instead, it put $10 billion towards the debt and decided that only the first $3,500 earned by seniors who choose to work would not affect their benefits.

The government should have accepted motion M-383, which I moved and which was adopted by a majority in this House. It would have allowed seniors to not be penalized had they wanted to work up to 15 hours per week at the average wage in their province of residence. This would have been a significant gesture that would have helped seniors currently living below the poverty line and who, obviously, want to work. I am not suggesting that all seniors should go back to work. Far be it for me to suggest that.

However, there were some relatively easy and practical ways to help our seniors and other disadvantaged groups, as well as to fight poverty. Instead, the government cut corporate taxes for companies that are already making obscene profits, such as banks and oil companies.

I see no sign, in the government's vocabulary or ideology, of the will to concern itself with the common good and the redistribution of wealth. They are focused solely on looking after companies that are already doing very well. Their tax cuts will not help those who have little or no income—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. It being 6:05 p.m. the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The member will have five minutes to finish her speech.

The House resumed from June 4 consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, 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, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

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

Mr. Speaker, we know the immigration system is broken and that it needs to be fixed. We also know we have a serious problem when 925,000 applicants are in the backlog. Unfortunately, the direction in which the government is heading is the wrong direction.

I first want to tell the House why there is a problem. During the immigration committee hearings, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business came before us and said that there was a complete mismatch of the people coming into the country and the kind of skills that we need. It said that at least 42% of our immigrants needed to be skilled in the technical category. However, when we look at the number of immigrants coming to Canada with skills in that category we see that only 19% of them were in that category.

If we look at professional and managerial occupations, it accounts for only 8% of the labour shortage and yet 74% of the immigrants coming into this country have that skill set. We are bringing in a lot of people whose skills are mismatched with what we need.

Instead of doing what the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is doing, we need to set up a system where we bring in the skills that Canada needs, rather than what is happening now.

Recently, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration said:

We said publicly it isn't our intention for the bill to negatively impact on family reunification but I can't categorically say it won't. What I can say is that I won't.

The minister is saying that if she remains the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration she will not do anything to harm family reunification. However, the bill in front of us would allow any minister to change the category so much that a lot of families will not be united in Canada.

We understand that we need to find people who come to Canada with the skills we need. We can look at the kind of system Australia has and the number of immigrants entering that country. Its work rate is 81%, which means that unemployment for immigrants has dropped. For the families entering the country, 69% of them have decent jobs.

In Canada, however, only 60% of our immigrants have the kind of jobs for which they have the skills and only 60% of them are employed. For families, it is only 39%, which means that we have a lot of unemployed immigrants in this country because they do not have the kind of skills this country needs.

How did Australia manage to increase the employability of its immigrants? It transferred the onshore processing of most of the applications and it changed its point system. It frequently updates tracking for occupations in demand and it gives points for immigrants who have families in Australia, which is divided into four main categories: skilled labour, family, business and humanitarian.

As a general rule, it only takes 6 to 18 months maximum for immigrants and their families to get into Australia. It has a processing centre called Adelaide Skilled Processing Centre that looks at the skills Australia needs and then it gives points accordingly.

In Canada, we have a human capital model that was brought in by the previous government in 2002. It points to immigrants according to the kind of education level they have, not necessarily the kind of skills that we need in Canada.

Australia has a very centralized processing system that looks at best practices around the world. It also has electronic filing. Last night I went on its website and looked at its immigration section. Its e-filing is incredible. If people want a visa, whether they are a visitor or skilled labour, they can file online. They can also check online what is happening with their applications, how long they must wait and what kind of documents they need.

We have no e-filing in Canada. Half the time, a lot of people who have been waiting to come into this country go to the office of a member of Parliament, so we all become immigration officers. We send faxes and e-mails to visa offices asking for status updates. It is like a make work situation, whereas Australia has an e-file system where people can go online and find out what is happening with their applications.

One can just imagine the resources, the efficiency and how effective it would be to have that kind of system. The former Liberal government, five or six years ago, agreed that we needed to move immigration filing online and wanted to contract a company to do so. However, that did not work.

The Conservative government, instead of investing in technology, best practices and in a skills centre to update skills, it has put it all in the hands of one person, the minister. The minister will make decisions, based on what criteria we do not know. How will it speed up the situation if the department does not have the infrastructure?

To make this worse, the immigration section of the Department of Citizenship and Immigration has had a reduction of 32% in its budget between 2008 and the coming year. How will everything be fast-tracked if we do not have the electronic capacity, a decent website and a skills centre to test what kind of skills we need in this country? We do not even have cost effective quality control in terms of caseloads.

On top of that, if a visitor's visa is being denied, there is no appeal process. People would need to go to their member of Parliament who would then need to go to the minister and ask the minister to please allow the person into the country to attend, let us say, a funeral. In Australia, within 28 days people can have an appeal tribunal so that all the decisions are based on law and fact rather than sometimes inconsistent applications of the law.

We have so much that is wrong in our immigration system. We can do a lot in terms of changing our point system, having the electronic capacity to streamline, work with the visa offices, train the staff better, give the right resources and give the right targets.

However, what the government is doing is it is centralizing the sweeping powers in one person's hands, making the minister above the law. Parliament would not have any say over how to reform our immigration department. That is really a shame because we can study the situation and improve on it. Instead, we are going in the wrong direction.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trinity—Spadina for speaking for all of us in this room about the difficulties we have in trying to service the thousands of immigration cases that come to our office out of sheer desperation. People do not know where else to go. They are desperate by the time they come to an MP's office because they have tried and failed to get basic information from a system that is so clogged up, so bottlenecked and so dysfunctional that they feel they have no avenue of recourse.

People watching at home might be wondering why, in the context of a budget implement bill, we are talking about the Canadian immigration system and its foibles. They should be made aware that this budget implementation bill has a key element to it to reform, in a radical way, not improve, but change the immigration system.

The basic unfairness, as my colleague points out, is that we, as representatives of Canadians, will not get an adequate chance to debate properly the immigration changes while we are debating the budget implementation bill because it does not properly belong here at this time.

However, if the bill passes, and I have a hunch it will pass, immigration law and practice will change for the worse, we argue, in a very dramatic and significant way.

My colleague pointed out that the changes contemplated to the immigration act in Bill C-50 would actually enhance the discretionary powers of the minister. Did I understand her correctly? Will the minister be, more than ever, able to make arbitrary rulings on things that should properly go to a tribunal, a panel or some due process? Is this one of the hazards that she is alerting us to today, the enhancing of the discretionary power of the minister at the expense of due process, as most Canadians would understand it?

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

Mr. Speaker, an objective system would have points and people who want to immigrate to Canada would be able to go online to look at the criteria and see if they have enough points to qualify. After doing the calculation to determine that they do have enough points to qualify, they could apply and, of course, be approved, which is the objective of the system.

Under the proposed change in Bill C-50, even if applicants have all the points, completely qualify, have submitted an application and have waited for several months or a year, their application can be returned. It would not even be processed or considered. The applicant would just be told to come back another time.

Applicants would have no right to appeal and no rights under any law to argue that they had qualified so why was their application not processed or even considered. That is what is alarming the Canadian Bar Association and various immigrant communities all across Canada, because it is arbitrary. It does not tell people whether they fit the criteria or not. I understand that we need skilled labour but this is not the right way to proceed.

Instead, we in the immigration committee should study the point system again and say that in 2002, Canada made a mistake. We changed the existing point system to a human capital situation and it is not working. We are not giving immigrants a head start in Canada. Many of them come into this country and become unemployed. We need a better system, with better tracking and a better match. The way to do it is to fine-tune the point system and actually look at the skills.

In Australia, for example, people are given extra points if they have relatives in the country. It does not necessarily have to be immediate family members. We should probably do the same. The system used to be like that. Under assisted relative class, people were able to get extra points if someone was willing to sponsor them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak today about Bill C-50, which, in part 6, seeks to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The first point I would like to make is this is a bill that actually is hidden in another bill, which is strictly against the kind of Parliament that we have had in the past. The budget implementation bill is a budget bill. Although an immigration bill also has budget implications, the kind of immigration bill that has been presented by the Conservative minister here is of such importance to Canada and Canadians that it should be a stand-alone bill.

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration should have full powers and as much time as it requires to study the bill and its implications and add whatever amendments it decides are necessary. With the way the Conservative government has presented this legislation, that is not possible.

We are stuck with a bill for which the government has told us that it will not accept any amendments. The immigration legislation has been hidden inside a budget bill, thereby forcing our hand. This is very much against the kind of parliamentary tradition that we have always lived under since Parliament was founded.

The bill also would give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration unilateral power to decide on preferences in the treatment of applications for immigration and refugee status.

Under the system we have at present, all applications for immigration are examined. Once they have been examined, claimants receive a positive or negative response. However, all applications are examined, which allows a claimant whose application has been denied to appeal, because that person's application is on file.

Under the new system, however, the immigration minister can tell his officials that he is going to change the order of priority of immigration categories. The minister can decide at any time that, for this year, the largest number of immigrants to be accepted will be in the independent category, for example. That would not only lower the priority of the other categories, but also reduce the number of immigrants in those categories who would be accepted, because in a given year Canada accepts a fixed number of immigrants that is approved by the Parliament of Canada.

This decision by the minister will therefore have a significant impact on family reunification, something that concerns me a great deal, and also on not only the number of refugees we accept in Canada, but the number of refugees we seek out in refugee camps around the world.

Perhaps even more important is the fact that the minister can make this decision without consulting with NGOs that work with immigrants, with the business community or with this Parliament. In other words, the minister can make a completely unilateral decision without having to answer to the Parliament of Canada. This is extremely serious. Since 1867, and even earlier, with the Parliaments of Upper and Lower Canada, Parliament has always been accountable. “Accountable” means that cabinet ministers are accountable to Parliament and consequently to the Canadian people.

Now, with this immigration bill, the minister will no longer have to answer to Parliament because he will no longer have to consult Parliament. He will not be accountable to Canadians. Something very serious is happening here. It is more of what the Conservative government has given us for two years now: a government that acts in secret, does not answer questions in the House, refuses to talk to the media and, now, refuses even to be accountable to Parliament and Canadians.

What is going on right now is a serious matter. I hope Canadians are watching this very closely because having such a secretive government that keeps information to itself is unprecedented in Canada.

The Prime Minister promised Canadians an accountable, honest and scrupulous government. The more time goes on, the more we get to know this government. We are seeing the Conservative government for what it is: a government that does not want to be accountable to anyone, not to Parliament and not to the Canadian public.

This also means that the immigration minister and officials responsible for applying the legislation would have carte blanche with respect to processing applications. Their first decision would be on which applications to examine. A large number of those applications will likely be rejected. Some will be returned to the claimants without even being looked at. That means that the large number of claimants whose immigration applications are returned to them will have absolutely no recourse. They will not be able to come back to see an immigration officer. They will not be able to ask why or how. They will not be entitled to an appeal since, for all intents and purposes, their application no longer exists, as it was not accepted and examined.

Again, this is an attempt to limit judicial review of the decisions made by immigration services. Under the bill, immigration and refugee status officials will have to follow instructions from the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration before examining claims and, when they do examine them, they will have to prioritize them by category of immigration.

This bill eliminates the right to equal opportunity in the processing of claims. Equal opportunity is a fundamental principle of our Canadian society: equal opportunity in employment, housing and in the possibility of immigrating to Canada. A number of us sitting here in Parliament have benefited from this equal opportunity.

I find it especially hard to accept that some members opposite, on the government side of the House, who came to Canada as immigrants through this equal opportunity, are now closing the door behind them in a way by voting with the Conservative Party. They came to Canada and now they are saying too bad for those who want to come behind them. They are closing the door.

This bill could reduce the number of new immigration applications accepted by the federal government and, as I said earlier, notably those applications for family reunification and permanent residency on humanitarian grounds. Giving one category priority will only serve to reduce the number of applications in other categories because there is a limit to the number of immigrants accepted in any one year.

The government would go ahead with a subjective selection of applications without imposing any limits on the minister. It would also focus its attention and resources on economic immigrants, those who are wealthy and more qualified.

Obviously, there must be a focus on qualified immigrants. In fact, before its defeat, the Liberal government organized a number of major projects with the provincial governments as part of bilateral agreements with each province. The federal government would ask each province to submit the number of immigrants they would like in each of the trade categories, for example. That is something very important that my colleague across the way did not mention. Agreements already exist between the federal government and each of the provinces that allow them to make their needs known in terms of qualified immigrants.

On this side of the House, we ask that qualified immigrants be able to continue to enter the country and meet the needs of the provinces. More importantly, we ask that family reunification not be forgotten.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague for an excellent presentation on the bill. I would like to ask her opinion on a couple of issues.

If the bill is so important, as the minister claims, why is the minister trying to hide this bill under a budget implementation bill? Why is this bill not going to its respective committee? Standing committees have been established under the democratic process of this Parliament so they can review bills thoroughly. Why is the minister trying to hide this under a budget bill and force an election if the bill does not go through?

Why does the minister want the power to choose? What is the minister's hidden agenda? If she wants to choose the people and instruct the people, why is she bypassing those bureaucrats who make the decision to choose and review because they have been given the tools to do so? Why is the minister trying to take on that power?

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

Mr. Speaker, obviously I do not know the reasons why the minister has done this, but the way that we interpret it and the way that I interpret it is that the minister does not wish to have a full debate on this question. As I mentioned in my speech, the question is an important one for Canadians. So many of us have immigrated from other countries, and if we ourselves did not immigrate, our parents or our grandparents did.

What the minister is trying to do is to hide this bill, knowing that the bill goes against what Canadians want. Canadians want more immigration. Canadians have learned their lesson from the terrible immigration of the Chinese in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where families of Chinese workers were not allowed to come into this country. These Chinese men, for the most part, stayed in this country alone without their own families and were not able to integrate.

We learned our lesson and after the second world war, we opened our doors to family reunification. The Greek families and the Italian families who came, came as families, and they are now fantastic citizens of Canada. They have changed the economy of Canada. They have changed the face of Canada. This is something that the immigration minister and the Conservative government do not understand or perhaps refuse to understand. Families are important.

The second reason, I think, that the minister and her government are so secretive is that instead of coming forward and saying “This is what we believe, this is what we want, let us discuss it, and let us debate it in Parliament”, they are hiding bills under the guise of other bills so that we do not notice what is going on.

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

Mr. Speaker, the damage that this bill would do is irreversible. I have listened very carefully to the hon. member's speech. She talked about the dark history of what we experienced in the past. However, once we turn an immigrant away, once we turn a group of immigrants away, those immigrants will then be denied the right to come into this country. The damages would be irreversible.

How can it be that 92% of the Liberal members were absent the last time there was a vote in this House, only a few days ago, to delete the immigration portion from this budget implementation bill? If we were able to delete the immigration portion, then we would not have to face this kind of situation. Why is it that the member would not stand up for her principles?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think I am standing up. I did not realize that I was sitting down. I am standing up for my principles. Everyone knows exactly what my principles are regarding immigration, in particular, and the rights of people, not just the rights of Canadians, but the rights of human beings, in general, around the world. This is what I have always done, and this is what I will always continue to do.

It is not irreversible. What we are hoping, what I am personally hoping, is that we will have an election soon, that our leader will call an election. We hope to have the support of the NDP across the way, as well as other parties. When we win this election, then we will be able to revert back to a fair law of immigration that accepts people no matter where they come from, no matter their skills, particularly families and refugees.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak here today on behalf of the Bloc Québécois regarding Bill C-50, the 2008 budget implementation bill. I am especially pleased that the Bloc Québécois's judgment has always been irreproachable in its analysis of Conservative government budgets.

I will list the reasons why budget 2008 and Bill C-50 should be defeated.

We all know that Quebec and part of Ontario are currently facing an unprecedented crisis in the forestry and manufacturing sectors. Yet this budget offers no direct and immediate assistance to those sectors. The problem will not be solved by announcing a diversification program.

Ultimately, what the Conservatives want to do, despite the fact that the forest continues to grow, is to rid that economic sector of its expertise and try to force workers into doing something else. That is what the government proposed in its budget, which offers no direct assistance, no programs to modernize businesses, no programs for refundable tax credits.

I do not need to remind the House that in order to benefit from tax credits, one must first be able to pay income tax. But businesses in the forestry and manufacturing sectors are declaring deficits and losses. Therefore they cannot take advantage of tax credits, unless they are refundable. The Bloc Québécois has always defended such a measure, proposed by the industry itself, in this House.

Once again, the Conservatives have decided to ignore the appeals from people in the industry. Yet they are the ones best suited to analyze the situation. The Conservatives, however, decided as always, based on their philosophy and ideology, to let free competition run its course and let market forces prevail. That is the Conservative way. Of course, in a market left to its own devices, usually, the big fish swallow the smaller ones, but the Conservatives do not seem to realize that this time the big fish are swallowing each other, and even the big ones cannot survive.

This is yet another example of the right-wing ideology that is still not working. When an entire sector is in crisis and does not receive help, it will disappear. What the Conservatives have proposed in the budget is to change the economy. The economy is being diversified and the fate of the manufacturing and forestry sectors is being decided. They want to create call centres and retrain the employees. For example, they will be asked to learn about computers, regardless of their age. That is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable for the regions. We cannot take all the workers in a region and send them elsewhere. The Minister of Labour even had the gall to say—although he later retracted his statements—that there were jobs to be had in western Canada, in the oil industry. When the oil companies, nuclear power plants and our military need help, the Conservatives are there; there is no problem. But when it comes to helping the manufacturing and forestry sectors or seniors, the Conservatives are nowhere to be found, because those matters are not important to them.

This brings me to the second part of my speech. The budget did not provide for any assistance for workers or for an older worker adjustment program, such as the one abolished by the Liberals, which ensured that workers over the age of 55 would have an income until they retired. This program provided compensation for workers by helping them find a new job and retrain. The program always covered the salary they were earning up to a certain percentage—70% or 75%. The difference was covered until they turned 65. This program cost only $70 million.

Once again, the Conservatives told us that there were jobs available elsewhere. That is basically what the Minister of Labour came out and said. Workers are being asked to move and go work in areas were jobs are available. But if workers do that, it will empty out the regions of Quebec, and the Bloc Québécois will never agree to that.

Once again, no measures were proposed to help seniors. There was a vote concerning the guaranteed income supplement program. The member for Repentigny introduced a bill here that was passed by a majority of the members. The bill sought to return to seniors what had been taken from them, but the Conservatives, once again, did not support it. Those entitled to the guaranteed income supplement were granted just 11 months' retroactivity, but we asked for full retroactivity because the government has owed that money to seniors from the time the supplement was first paid out.

It is just like income tax. When people owe money to the Canada Revenue Agency, the agency can go back as far as it wants, any number of years, if money is owing. We wanted justice and equity, and we wanted the government to increase guaranteed income supplement payments by $100 per month. Seniors certainly deserve it, because everything—drugs, insurance, fuel and groceries—is costing them more and more. The price of everything is going up.

We wanted the guaranteed income supplement to go up by $100 per month, but once again, there is nothing in this budget for seniors.

Worse still, the government has taken advantage of this bill to sneak in a measure giving more power to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration to reject applications without having to provide any justification for doing so, and to prioritize certain classes of immigrants. They want to bring in economic immigrants to develop some parts of the country rather than others.

That is the Conservatives' way of doing things. They like to dispense patronage. They managed to do that with immigration. Now they are planning to engage in even more patronage in the sector. They are governing just like the old Conservatives did. As it turned out, the old guard disappeared from the political landscape because citizens were sick and tired of having masters of patronage in power. That is the truth.

Just as unacceptable is the fact that the Conservative Party includes members from Quebec who, quite simply, have poor judgment. The member for Beauce, the former minister of foreign affairs, who was a rising star in the Quebec wing of the Conservative Party, proved that in spades. Imagine what the others are capable of. He lacked judgment, so what does that say about the other members from Quebec who have seats here? It says that all of those members lack judgment and toe the line without considering Quebeckers' values and interests. That is what it means to be a Conservative member from Quebec.

Therefore, this is not of interest to us. Obviously, it is no better being a Liberal member. I was listening to the member for Laval—Les Îles grandstanding earlier about immigration measures being introduced through the back door. Quebec's Liberal MPs simply have no judgment because they simply will not vote. It is fine for them to talk and do what they want, but then they are going to let these measures through. That shows either a clear lack of judgment or that their decision-making is driven by monetary concerns. They do not have the money to head into an election and the leader does not have the money to repay the debt incurred in the leadership race. Thus, they let bills pass that run counter to the interests of Quebeckers. We, on the other hand, defend our citizens. The member for Laval—Les Îles said that she would stand up in the House. Well, she will stand up, but she will not vote.

We were elected to exercise the right to vote and to use that right to the fullest as the representatives of the voters in this House. They did not elect us so we would stay seated and wait for our party to have the money and our leader to have repaid his debts to run in an election. That is the reality.

The New Democrats are no better, because they wait before making a decision. They wait to see what the Liberals will do. If the Liberals oppose a measure, they support it. If the Liberals are in favour, they vote against it. That is no better.

All that to say that the only party representing the interests and values of Quebeckers is the Bloc Québécois. We are not afraid of elections. We are not afraid of anything at all. We are not even afraid of power because we do not want it. The only power of importance to us is the power entrusted to us by the citizens who elected us. We are proud to rise in this House to vote against Bill C-50, which runs counter to the interests of Quebeckers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out some facts about what the Bloc members have done in committees.

New Democrats want both the immigration committee and the finance committee to go across Canada, including Quebec, to talk to workers who are unemployed and are seeing their EI funds being taken away, or immigrant groups that have serious concerns about the legislation in front of us, Bill C-50. We moved those motions, yet the Bloc members, along with the Liberals and the Conservatives, at both committees said no to public hearings.

In the finance committee we said that we have to speak to these issues. When we were about to deal with clause by clause consideration of the bill in the finance committee, the Bloc was silent. Bloc members did not speak out in the finance committee to say why they are opposed to the immigration portion of Bill C-50, and why they are opposed to setting up a crown corporation which will only be provided with $2 billion, instead of the $15 billion that is needed, as the Auditor General said. They said nothing. There was no response, complete silence.

If the hon. member's party is so concerned about this bill, and I am glad that unlike the Liberals at least Bloc members are standing up, why is the Bloc afraid to agree to conducting hearings across the country, especially during the next few months when we have a bit of time? Why rush this bill through? Why was the Bloc silent in the finance committee where this bill was considered only a week and a half ago before it was reported back to the House? Why the silence?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is simple enough. The Bloc Québécois represents the interests of Quebeckers. We have represented the majority of Quebec ridings here in the House since 1993. We are well aware of Quebeckers' opinions. We do not need to tour Quebec or Canada to be able to express our views.

If the NDP needs to tour around Canada to decide on its position, then it can go right ahead. I know that there are not many New Democrats in this House, and I have a feeling that that will not change after the next election, given that they do not know their Canada, and they definitely do not know Quebec.

If they want to do a tour, then they should do it, but we will not do it with taxpayers' money. We know the position we want to defend and it is the position of Quebeckers. That is why we have been representing them in this House since 1993.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to take a deeper look at budget 2008 and Bill C-50, the budget implementation bill.

In the normal course of parliamentary debate a budget discussion would ordinarily reflect a thorough examination of the government's fiscal policies and state of the nation's finances. However, for some strange reason the Conservative government has chosen to depart from this parliamentary tradition and to effectively attempt to sneak through a major shift in immigration policies, literally through the back door. This is a strange course of events.

Our parliamentary tradition calls upon the government to introduce legislation according to departmental responsibility, which is to say, a transportation bill would be proposed by the Minister of Transport, or a defence bill would be proposed by the Minister of National Defence. On what grounds does the government justify lumping an immigration bill with a budget implementation bill? If the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration is so convinced that her proposal is of vital importance to the country, why is she so afraid to introduce a separate act and face the scrutiny of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration?

Under normal circumstances a proposed act is debated separately for the simple reason that respective parliamentary committees, for example, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, or the Standing Committee on National Defence, will have an opportunity to review the proposed legislation according to the committee's area of responsibility. This is how a democracy works.

We are in a democracy. We are not in an autocracy. We are not in a dictatorship. We are in a democracy. Therefore, democratic institutions have to be respected. There are long-standing established processes within Parliament that are available to the minister. Those are what she should be using. It is quite straightforward.

Canadians are not gullible. They are well aware that the Conservatives are attempting in an underhanded way to force an election on the backs of immigrants. The Conservatives have been putting advertisements in the papers trying to justify their stand. They probably think immigrants are gullible. The government has been sending the junior minister out to meet with people. Immigrants are not stupid. People understand where the government is coming from.

Canada is a land of immigrants. Everyone in this House, with the exception of the aboriginal people, is an immigrant, whether one came here three years ago, or one's ancestors came here 300 years ago. It has been through thoughtful debate and discussion that our immigration policies have evolved. Immigrants are here to stay and the government cannot cherry-pick whom it wants.

In previous years immigrants were brought in for specific labour purposes and we have seen the repercussions of that. Canada, having learned lessons from its immigration policies and its stand on immigration since World War I and World War II, has become more thoughtful. As a nation we have become more thoughtful. It has been Liberal prime ministers, such as Prime Minister St. Laurent, who started the formal process of immigration from European countries. As an immigrant myself, I remember well that it was Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau who opened immigration from countries other than European countries.

Canada is a choice for a lot of immigrants. That is because we are a people who have a very good view of what it means to live in a pluralistic society. We have seen societies that cannot comprehend pluralism. Canada has been thoughtful. Canada has been respectful. I think all members in the House should understand that and should behave in that manner toward this bill.

My colleagues in the Liberal caucus are committed to make this Parliament work. We do not want to be constantly in an election. This is not the same as a hamster on a treadmill. This is not how Parliament should function.

Let us take a closer look at the immigration proposal that we now have before us. Bill C-50 proposes a series of amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act which quite frankly is regressive. Under that bill the Conservatives are seeking to abandon all sense of transparency and objectivity in the selection process and simply empower the minister with absolute discretion and the ability to cherry-pick applications at will. Previous ministers had that power but they decided not to utilize it. They decided to give away that power.

The current bill allows the minister to give instructions. What sort of instructions is the minister proposing to give to the immigrant officer abroad or here in Canada? What does the minister think she will be doing? Is she the one that will be reviewing every file? Is she the one that will be reviewing everyone's qualifications? Is she the one who has the authority to determine who comes in and who does not? Objectivity is being dispensed with so that the minister or the government of the day can be extremely selective.

Under the new legislation the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration would have the discretion to determine not only which applications will be processed quickly and which ones will be held at the visa office until a later date, but also to return some applications without any consideration at all. These are the ones that people are concerned about. The Conservatives are attempting to toss out objectivity and fairness under the guise of expediency.

Yes, there is a backlog in the application process, but any intelligent person knows that the process requires resources, not cherry-picking by the minister. The Conservatives have not made immigration policy their priority. They have been withholding funds. They claim that they have put in money, but they have actually extracted money from the immigration department.

If the government does not put resources in the right area, how can it be determined how the process will work? It is important that resources be allocated to streamline the process.

The bill also represents a major change in the way in which we choose who is to become a Canadian citizen. Yet the Conservatives feel it is okay to tuck this into a budget bill and somehow bamboozle the Canadian public, which is what it is trying to do with money from the government coffers. The Conservatives are putting forward an advertising campaign to bamboozle the immigrant population. It is not going to work because my colleagues and I, as we have stood in the House, have been standing to fight for fairness, for equity and for transparency.

It appears that the Conservative members have a fixation on forcing an election rather than acting as a responsible government. We have seen in the weeks and months that have passed that the government has no agenda, no vision and no direction. It just wants to go on a treadmill like a hamster.

When an election is called, I can assure the House that Canadians will surely remember which party acted responsibly and in the interest of the country.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

In light of the time, I believe we will now move to statements by members, but there will be 5 minutes for questions and comments on the hon. member's speech when debate is resumed a little later this day.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, 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, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the input of the hon. member on a budget which has some very significant problems with it.

One of the issues that has been debated today, specifically, has to do with the irrational burying of an immigration provision in there. It is going to change the way in which matters are going to be dealt with as far as who is getting into our country. The issue I thought we were trying to address was a backlog situation, but it appears from the facts that this particular measure is not going to address that backlog.

I wonder if the member could advise the House on what exactly the implications of this change would be. Additionally, the hon. member may want to comment on why a significant immigration policy shift is incorporated in a financial budget.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to tackle the first question regarding why this is in a budget bill. If the issue of immigration is so critical, and if it needs thoughtful consideration, it should never be part of a budget bill, it should go its standing committee. That is part of the democratic and parliamentary process. The government chose to put it in a budget bill probably to hide it.

There is no transparency in what the government is doing. It claims that the process it has put in Bill C-50 are instructions. There is no process, they are just instructions by the minister to somehow eliminate the backlog.

If one were to look carefully at the bill, the instructions would come into effect February 2008. For the backlog, which has been there before February 2008, any person who is already in the system is not get affected. I think this is a smoke and mirror game that the Conservatives are trying to play.

Why are the Conservatives trying to play this game? I would suggest that they want temporary workers. They do not want permanent residents.

Every one of us in the House is an immigrant, whether one came here three years ago, or one's ancestors came here 300 years ago. To bring in only temporary workers is being regressive and going back to when coolies were brought in to build the railway. This is a very regressive and repugnant bill that has to be overturned by the next government.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the response of the hon. member with regard to the immigration situation and I think she was very clear.

The other significant concern I heard in the debate has to do with the fiscal health of the nation and the fact that even the budget anticipates that we will become very close to going into deficit in the second year of the projections. I am a little concerned about the fact that the government has not left very much wiggle room to take into account any contingent liabilities.

I wonder if the member can comment on whether or not public confidence in the health of the nation is probably one of the biggest priorities that we have as it relates to jobs and economic security.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague is such a well versed person in finance, I assure him that my constituents have been very concerned that the government, which inherited a $17 billion surplus, has brought the country down to the brink of bankruptcy.

The minister was responsible for a $5.6 billion deficit in Ontario. He and his colleagues were also responsible for the Walkerton crisis, for shutting down hospitals and for eliminating 7,000 nursing jobs.

Mr. Speaker, that is a--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I must interrupt the hon. member.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Laval,

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak to Bill C-50, Budget Implementation Act, 2008.

I can say right off the bat that, if this bill were a movie and an uncensored one, its title could be something like “In Search of Promises Kept”, because they are few and far between in this budget.

Take the promise made to seniors for example. Before the election, every member of the Conservative Party in this House rose to vote in favour of giving back to seniors the money owed to them in connection with the guaranteed income supplement. This is money that has been owed to them for several years now. Yesterday's vote showed that the government does not keep its promises to the people it was supposed to represent. The Conservatives were unanimously opposed. Every Conservative member in the House stood in his or her place and voted no. So, where seniors are concerned, promise made, promise broken.

One might also think of the promise made to veterans, their widows and their survivors to provide them with a more extensive support program than the current one, ensuring that all survivors of veterans and their widows would be eligible for help. Again, promise made, promise broken.

Take the promise to respect provincial jurisdictions. It is a promise that was made with great fanfare, but it still has not been kept. Instead of respecting provincial jurisdictions, the government, through this bill, is setting up PPP Canada Inc., a crown corporation that will work with the public and private sectors to support public-private partnerships. There are fears that this crown corporation will have a say in federally funded infrastructure projects in Quebec, whereas Quebec wants full control, including the power to decide on potential PPPs.

Bill C-50 also provides an additional $110 million for the Mental Health Commission of Canada, even though health and social services are Quebec's responsibilities.

The bill also provides for a $500 million fund for public transit, whereas we are calling for the block transfer of federal infrastructure funding so that Quebec can make its own choices, which it usually does quite well. All the other provinces look to Quebec, because Quebec's social programs and tax benefits are far superior to their own.

The government is still committed to setting up a common securities regulator, as we saw again last week. There were discussions about this.

Lastly, Canada would invest $25 million to help Canadians understand the impact of the environment on our health. This is a public health measure, and Quebec has its own public health agency. The government has therefore broken its promise not to interfere in provincial jurisdictions.

Despite its promise to govern with transparency and integrity, the government decided to sneak an immigration measure into Bill C-50 that would give the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration the power to decide who can enter Canada and who cannot. It is disgraceful to include an immigration measure in a budget implementation bill. I have never seen such a thing. It is really underhanded. I think that this is emblematic of this government's overall approach.

They also made a promise to correct the fiscal imbalance. This has not been kept either. Even though part of it was addressed by allocating some money, the idea of correcting the fiscal imbalance involves a lot more than just throwing money at it. We need to talk about tax points and many other very important aspects if we truly want to free the provinces from the federal government. Promise made, promise broken.

Lastly, I will talk about a promise made to women in January 2006. During his election campaign, the current Prime Minister assured women that he would do what is necessary to help them achieve true equality. He said that in January 2006. It is now June 2008 and nothing has yet been done to help women achieve true equality. On the contrary, the government has tried to muzzle women by cutting funding to Status of Women Canada, funding that has not been reinstated.

I even have some excerpts of speeches given by Kathleen Lahey and Armine Yalnizyan to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. After carefully examining the budget, they came to tell us what they thought about it, taking into account the fact that the budget must address both the men and the women who pay taxes. Women make up 52% of the population, whether my colleagues like it or not. This 52% of the population deserves some respect when it comes to measures that are to represent or at least serve the entire population.

There is nothing in this budget for women or even anything that would benefit women, let us be honest. For example, $20 million has been allocated to Status of Women Canada, but there are 16.6 million women in Canada. That means that Status of Women Canada has to assume all of its responsibilities with a budget of just $1.21 per woman or girl in Canada. This is an overall budget of $1.21 per person for the duration of the budget.

In comparison, pork producers—and I am very happy for them—are getting $50 million to help them adjust to new market realities. With roughly 14 million pigs in Canada, that represents $3.57 a pig. The 10,000 or so pig producers are getting twice as much as is being allocated to help Canada's 16.6 million women cope with the serious disadvantages they face.

We can see which is more highly valued by the Conservative government: a woman is worth $1.21 while a pig is worth $3.57. Let us not think about it for too long; it is plain to see that this budget does not offer much to women.

Of course they talk about a plan—a vague plan that will not amount to much if it is not actually developed. They can talk about a plan for a very long time. They talk about it in the budget as something to come. However, we still have not seen a single word about this plan. We have not heard the minister say anything about this plan either. It makes us wonder whether the government is really serious about implementing a plan when one has existed since 1995 that was ratified and adopted by all the countries present in Beijing.

In closing, when women are mentioned just six times in the entire budget, and one of those occurrences is to make the distinction between fishermen and fisherwomen, it is because there is not much interest in or respect for them.

I highly doubt that we can support this budget. As hon. members know, the Bloc Québécois will be voting against it. We will all rise in this House with great pride to vote against this budget. We have no need for broken promises. We need the government to keep its promises.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague.

First, I would like to congratulate the member on her work and on her support for federalism. As it turns out, the Bloc Québécois has become an excellent federalist party that is helping us with our work.

Second, there is just one thing I would like to ask the member. Her party has never been in power. That is not their fault. They are like the NDP. With that in mind, we would like to know what changes they would suggest be made to Status of Women Canada. What does her party recommend we give to Status of Women Canada?

Third, I do not really like the comparison the Bloc drew between women and pigs. I do not think that is appropriate, and such things should not be said here in the House.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we will never be in power, nor do we want to be. That is of utmost importance to us. The fact that we will never be in power is fundamental, critical even, to our freedom. That is why we can stand up for the rights and interests of the people we represent without fear of reprisals from big corporations trying to tell us how to vote. Most parties who have access to power are sometimes tempted to do as they are told.

It is all too easy for the Conservative government to lean right and do what right-wing lobby groups want. We, however, need answer to no lobby. We answer only to our fellow citizens, those who have given us majority after majority to represent Quebeckers. That is all I need to know, and that is all I need to believe. Frankly, having seen what that kind of power does to Quebec members who do nothing at all for Quebeckers, who dare not rise when they disagree with something, I want nothing to do with it. If that is what it does to a person, then thanks, but no thanks.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, as agriculture critic, it is actually with a great deal of sadness that I speak on this budget implementation bill.

Why would I be disheartened about speaking on this? It is simple. This initially new and now scandal-ridden Conservative government basically has forgotten primary producers in Canada.

Worse, as we saw here during question period today, the parliamentary secretary, the minister and the Conservative propaganda machine go to great lengths to misrepresent what they are really doing and not doing for Canadian farmers in this country.

Agriculture Canada documents show clearly that program spending is down by $1.2 billion from the last year that the Liberal Party was in power. This program spending reduction is at a time when the hog and beef industry is in the greatest crisis that it has ever faced in this country.

I will say this. On the positive side, thank goodness, prices in the marketplace are up for grains and oilseeds, but there is no question that costs are up very substantially as well. If there were a hailstorm, a flood or a disaster, it would be extremely difficult given the cost structure those farmers face.

However, on the positive side, prices are up in those industries. I say thank goodness, because if prices were not up in those industries, those farmers, just like hog and beef producers and some in the tender fruit industries, would be left to suffer financially and wave in the wind. These are people who are losing their life's work while the government basically sits on its hands and offers virtually nothing to the industry that has fed this country ever since this country was born.

The fact is, as I said, program spending is down. The fact is that the government had a family farm options program that would assist farmers in financial trouble and cancelled the program in midstream. As for those who could remain in the program, who were in the first year, this year it has paid them out at only 50¢ on the dollar.

In fact, the government said during the election that it would cancel the CAIS program and all it did was change the name. The government will not even allow hog and beef producers, after all their financial difficulties, the option of choosing between the CAIS program or the agri-invest program, whichever would suit them better.

That is why I am saddened to a great extent.

In terms of the hog and beef industry, the government talks about the loans it has put out there, and yes, it has put out loans. It has put out loans on the advance payment and general loans and has backed them up. However, officials who were before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food said that will cost the government only an additional $22 million.

I do not know about you, Mr. Speaker, but I know it is very difficult to borrow yourself out of debt. There those farmers are, trying to survive and trying to feed the world, and the government leaves them in the lurch.

I will outline what I believe could be done for the hog and beef industry yet. Hog and beef producers need the option of having the top 15% of CAIS or the new agri-invest program for at least 2007 and 2008, deferring not only interest payments but also clawbacks of all CAIS overpayments until December 2008.

The government needs to adjust the reference margin for disease, suspend the cap on safety net programs for two years, and realign Canada's inspection fees, cost recovery rates and other regulatory measures in order to be competitive with Canada's major trading partner. That is what needs to be done. It is not in this budget bill. That is very sad.

Let us take a moment and look at what is happening south of the border. The government south of the border seems to care about its primary producers in rural areas, while this government just lets ours wave in the wind.

The $285 billion United States farm bill places American farmers as a first priority and trade agreements as a distant second, which is the direct opposite of what the Canadian farm policy is under the Conservative government. Yet our producers must compete against United States farmers, both in our domestic market and in the international marketplace. We cannot continue to allow Canadian regulatory policy and agriculture policy to put our own producers at a disadvantage.

Let me give members but one example. There are many, but time is short. One example relates to Canadian agri-retailers. In both the United States and Canada, agri-retailers are asked to provide greater security for fertilizer and chemicals against terrorists. They are both requested by governments to put in security measures, including fences et cetera.

The difference is that in the United States farm bill, the United States government is offering $100,000 in assistance per unit up to a maximum of $2 million for multiple units. What is the Canadian government doing in return? It says it is not going to help.

As the headline in one of the papers in Winnipeg said, “Canadian Agri-Retailers at Competitive Disadvantage after U.S. Passes $290B Farm Bill”. The U.S. farm bill will provide U.S. agri-retailers substantial tax credits and grants for security of essential crop nutrients and protection products, while our government does nothing.

It does nothing, and that cost has to be passed on to primary producers. That is what I mean when I say the government is ignoring the reality of what is happening in rural Canada and is not there to provide assistance. This bill shorts the farm community in that regard.

Sadly, the bottom line for the farm community is much like that for the industrial sector. The government has failed to support most agriculture processing, leaving canning plants and others in difficulty due to cheap product coming in from other countries that do not follow the same environmental and labour standards as Canadians do.

As a result, the tender fruit industry in southern Ontario lost its canning plant. Many producers have now torn out their tender fruit orchards, with a tremendous loss of investment. Investments made five years ago are being torn out today. They would have provided food security for tender fruits in this country and those orchards are being torn out while the government sits on its hands and this bill ignores their concerns.

As well, beef plants and hog plants have gone under. Where capacity was built up by the previous government, the current government sits on its hands while that processing capacity closes. It has failed to act in terms of specified risk materials and the extra costs that government regulations put on those processing plants, therefore making them non-competitive.

I am running out of time, so I will conclude this way. Producers are facing challenging times and the Government of Canada must step up to the plate to be there for producers when required. As program spending shows, the government's words are cheap but its action is basically nil.

Given the discussions about global food shortages, Canada's agriculture policy becomes all the more important in ensuring we can do our part, not only in providing food for the world but also in ensuring that we have food sovereignty and a profitable farming sector at home. Government has a responsibility to do no less.

The Conservative government has absolutely failed to meet the needs of primary producers in rural Canada. It is good at messaging, but it is terrible at providing the kind of action necessary to ensure primary producers in this country have a long term future.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for the time he has put in. It seems as though he is a little confused as usual.

He talked about all these initiatives, but he did not even mention Bill C-50 and what is actually in this budget bill. He did not talk about the $500 million to help improve public transit. He did not talk about the $400 million to help recruit new front line police officers. He did not talk about the $250 million for carbon capture and storage in projects in Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia. And he certainly did not talk about the need to pass this legislation immediately so we have time to put the regulations in place so that the tax-free savings account can take effect on January 1.

I would like to ask the hon. member if he will stand up for rural Canadians. If he wants to talk about something that is going to destroy rural Canada, it is his leader's carbon tax plan. It will destroy areas, farmers and producers in rural Canada. It is worse than any other plan since the national energy program. He talks about it being cost neutral. How can it be cost neutral for farmers who have to put crops in the ground? Is the price of gasoline not high enough already for the member? How can it be cost neutral to those seniors who have to pay for increased heating costs? How can it be cost neutral for rural Canadians?

If the member insists that he stands up for rural Canadians, will he show up and vote on this budget implementation bill and support our government, will he vote against it where apparently his beliefs are, or will he do what he and his Liberal Party colleagues have been doing for months, which is to sit on their hands and run away from the issues?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my hon. colleague. I sit on the Standing Committee on Agriculture with him. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we disagree and I guess this is a moment of disagreement. Clearly the member should know why I did not talk about a lot of what is not in Bill C-50, because it is what is not there that concerns me. It is the ignoring of rural Canada, the ignoring of primary producers, the putting farmers last that concerns me. I had to express those concerns.

Earlier we heard the parliamentary secretary try to put a spin on the survey of the Canadian Wheat Board. He tried to put a spin to misrepresent the facts. That is what the hon. member did in terms of the carbon issue. We are talking about a green shift. Let me be clear that on gasoline, there will be no increase. Wait until the plan rolls out. The member will probably be jumping up and down in favour of what the leader of the Liberal Party is trying to do.

Let us look at some of the opportunities in terms of a green shift for the farm community: other alternatives, research and development, carbon sinks. The net benefit at the end of the day will be an environment where our children and our grandchildren can enjoy a future. We on this side of the House will not bury our heads in the sand like that party over there does when it comes to dealing with environmental issues. We will deal with the facts. There are opportunities for farmers and primary producers in terms of a green shift: research and development, new crops, carbon sinks, and a better future environmentally for all Canadians and indeed the world.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Stormont--Dundas--South Glengarry has room for a 30 second comment or question.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I could not resist. I believe I heard the hon. member defend the carbon tax. I would like some clarification. As he mentioned, the hon. member is on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food along with my other hon. colleague. If the hon. member can stand there and hear the carbon tax is going to devastate agriculture and the hon. member is suggesting that he believes in the carbon tax--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Malpeque has equal time.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, that is typical of that party. What I remember most of that member is his saying to hog and beef producers, “money is flowing as we speak” and then we had to pass special legislation to make it flow. The fact of the matter is the Conservatives' plan will cost $65 a tonne, carbon tax by 2018 and no relief for anyone in terms of their plan--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have one more chance at trying to convince the Liberals, who have just spoken so passionately against the government's budget, to vote against it. If they believe so strongly--

[Dave Van Kesteren]

You've got a point.

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

Absolutely. Mr. Speaker, one of my colleagues said that I have a point. Of course we have a point. How can Canadians understand and comprehend a party whose members stand day after day and speak so vehemently against the government's budget and then turn around and vote with the Conservatives by sitting it out, ignoring the vote and going off and doing whatever they want, except doing their jobs here in the House? How do they explain that?

We share one thing and that is, the Conservative budget is wrong. It is bad and it must be stopped. We are not going to be hypocrites. We are not going to say one thing and do another. We said from day one that if this budget does not deal with the needs and priorities of Canadians, and does not narrow the prosperity gap between the rich and the rest of us, and does not address the big outstanding issues in terms of health care, education, the environment, housing and aboriginal peoples, then we would vote against it.

Why can the Liberals not put their principles on the line? I guess the question is, what principles, when in fact they say one thing one day and do another thing another day and never mean what they say they are going to do. What kind of message does that send to Canadians who are trying to find some reason to have faith in this place again? Canadians have become so cynical they wonder why they should even vote, because they see nothing but politicians promising one thing and doing another, flip-flopping all over the place, never standing up for their principles with conviction and courage.

That is what this place requires today. It is not too late, I tell the Liberals, to stand up with the courage of their convictions, say no to this budget, bring down the government, and let the people of this country decide how we can deal with the big issues of the day and who should have responsibility for that. Canadians know that politics is all about power. It is the route to power. It is about who has the ability to set priorities for this country. It is about whose interests shall flourish and whose shall perish. We know that under the Conservatives that people who struggle day in and day out with a whole of range of issues and concerns are being ignored and left to perish by the government.

There has never been a more urgent situation in this country requiring a new approach, and here we are, the Conservatives are being given a majority. The Liberals are basically letting the Conservatives rule as if they had a majority, without trying to fashion some compromise, without trying to work out some concessions, just handing it holus-bolus to the Conservatives and telling them to do what they want.

They steamed today again about immigration, a concern we all raised. We are all concerned about the arbitrary powers going to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration and the way in which the government intends to cherry-pick who comes into this country without looking at balancing family reunification, economic skills and humanitarian compassionate issues.

We have those concerns. We are not going to stand idly by and give the government the latitude to proceed down this path. We say no, and we will continue to fight this every chance we get. Canadians out there are wondering what happened to a party that supposedly had immigration as part of its heart and soul; what happened to a party that believed in an open-door policy; what happened to a party that supposedly stands for giving everybody a fair shake in this country. They feel disappointed and let down by the Liberals. Mostly they feel anger and pain at the Conservatives, frustration that a party that talked so much about accountability and transparency, about openness and decency, about respect for everyone among us, has chosen in quite a deliberate fashion to completely ignore those concerns. The Conservatives are turning away from human suffering and proceeding with a budget that will take billions of dollars out of Canadians' pockets and put the money into corporate tax breaks, not into the programs that would actually help people get ahead, give them a hand up, help them to help themselves.

Nowhere is that more apparent than when it comes to health care. I get a little tired of hearing the Minister of Health talk about the great things his government has done. The fact of the matter is the government has done zilch. The budget has nothing in it pertaining to health care. There is nothing in it that deals with the burning issues facing Canadians concerning access to quality health care. Every day that passes, the situation gets worse and worse.

Yesterday in the newspaper there was a clear analysis and statement about the lack of technologists and laboratories to decipher the results of tests, make decent prognoses and help patients get the access to the care they need. Two days ago I was at a national summit dealing with diabetes and heard about the deplorable lack of endocrinologists and other specialists in the field to help those with diabetes get the services they need so they do not become costly burdens on our hospital health care system. In the last few weeks we have heard about patients trying to deal with longer and longer wait times, whether it is in emergency wards or access to prognostic tests.

I do not need to go on about what Canadians are concerned about. They expected some answers from the government to take us into the future of health care renewal. Instead, the Health Council came out with a report yesterday saying the glass, at best, in the most optimistic way is half full. That was a very diplomatic way of putting it. It is saying that the government has done nothing to take its responsibilities seriously and move us forward with the health care accord that we all agreed to back in 2004.

I asked the Minister of Health just the other day where the plan is for home care. That is part of the accord. That has been part of the Conservatives' promises. It has been on the table for years. The Liberals promised it six times over and never delivered. Where is it? What did the Minister of Health say? It is not his priority; it is not his plan; it is something that belongs in the provinces. He told me, in fact, that I should go back to provincial politics.

I moved from provincial politics to federal politics precisely because I knew that unless we had a national health care system which, through innovation, moved forward by ensuring that we had some sort of national drug coverage and some sort of national continuing home care plan and unless we started to deal with the root causes of ill health and sickness in our society, we would be seeing the death of medicare. That is what I am worried about.

While the government sits back and does nothing, privatization forces, the big corporations that want their hands on our $90 billion golden egg, the health care budget, and want to make profits off of people's ill health and sickness are allowed to get a hold over our system. What we are expecting from the government is some leadership, leadership in terms of enforcing the Canada Health Act, leadership in terms of carrying forward plans and programs that move us away from costly hospital, sickness based care to a community based, holistic health promotion and health prevention driven focus. That is not too much to ask.

We have a crisis with the shortage of doctors, nurses, technologists, endocrinologists and other professionals. We have a shortage of all kinds of workers in the health care system. There is nothing from the government, no plan, not a word, not a dollar, not even an indication of a commitment to address the problem.

I would say that if a budget does not deal with the fundamentals of ensuring our health care system lasts another generation, of helping families send their kids to school, of saving this planet, of dealing with the deplorable situation of housing on first nations communities, of dealing with the missing and murdered women on the highway of tears, then it should not be supported. If the government cannot deal with those fundamental issues, it does not deserve the support of the House, and I urge all members to join with the NDP in defeating this budget bill and bringing down the government.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about “the evil Conservative government” but she need look no further than three seats to her left, to her leader, the member for Toronto—Danforth, as the guy who enabled “the evil Conservative government” to take its place in the House. We have the member to thank for that.

I see the chairman of the human resources committee in the House today. He is certainly doing a great job on that committee, on which I have the great privilege of serving. Should the House continue to operate through next week, hopefully we will table a report on the establishment of a crown corporation to direct the rate setting mechanisms of the employment insurance program, which is a key component of this legislation.

Over the course of four to five weeks, the committee embarked on this study and brought in a number of witnesses. The minister himself appeared on two separate occasions. Maybe the Minister of Transport will thank him for that and let him know that we appreciated his input.

The establishment of the crown corporation is of great concern to all Canadians because it is a fairly significant departure.

We put in all that effort and work at the committee and we hear the leader of the NDP, who appeared before the CLC last weekend, commenting that the government was just barging ahead with this with no consultation. He said that the only attention this received at the finance committee was five minutes by the Liberals and five minutes by the Conservatives. As a member of the committee, I was offended by that comment and the NDP member should be offended as well for the effort that was put in.

We know the current leader of the NDP is certainly no Ed Broadbent or Tommy Douglas but does the member not understand that this work was done by the committee and that those comments were a total disregard for the committee, or was it just blatant politics when it comes to this particular issue?

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member opposite may be offended when we on this side of the House stand up for working people but I make no apologies for my leader or my colleagues, especially the member for Acadie—Bathurst who has been leading the charge on trying to get a responsible approach by the government toward employment insurance.

The manoeuvres by the government, supported by the Liberals, to set up a separate corporation around employment insurance and deny workers even more than they have been denied already because of the collaboration of these two parties is wrong. That is why we oppose the budget. We cannot understand how the Liberals can allow this to go on.

The only thing I can tell from the Liberal comments is that three years in opposition has not brought any of them any humility or moved them away from their position of arrogance. They still think that somebody else caused them to lose government. That is the problem and that is why Canadians are so cynical. The Liberal Party was responsible for many of the ills that led to this position today where Conservatives can build a society that has no safety net and has no fundamental values around care and compassion.

The Conservative government is building on a system, whether we are talking about EI, immigration, health care, education or the environment, that was slowly dismantled by the Liberals over 10 years. The Conservatives are now in a perfect position to execute the agenda they have had all along, which is to move any barriers to the profit making abilities of large corporations and to level the playing field, regardless of human consequences.

It is the Liberals who must bear the responsibility for the mess we are in today. If they are so concerned about what “the evil Conservative government” is doing, as the member just said, then why do they not stand up, oppose the budget and defeat the Conservative government?

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-50. I will dedicate most of my comments today to addressing the issue of the so-called immigration reforms or changes that the Conservative government is proposing within the bill.

First we need to ask ourselves a question. Why are the Conservatives introducing immigration changes or amendments to the immigration act within a budget? It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is not a budgetary matter. This is a policy matter that should have been introduced as a separate bill where the policies could have been discussed extensively, where the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration could have completed its study and examination of those proposals and offered its opinion, and then it could have been voted upon.

However, the Conservatives have chosen, under the cloak of $20 million, to introduce it within the budget bill. Many Canadians are asking why immigration changes have been introduced through the budget. That is a very good question that needs a real and honest answer.

The fact is that the Conservatives have been misleading Canadians and making things up about these changes because they are unable to explain their purpose. They claim that these changes will help reduce the backlog, which is now around 900,000 applications. However, if we were to actually read the proposed changes we would see that these changes will not take effect until February 2008. These reforms will not address the 900,000 applications that are already in the backlog. They will still need to be dealt with using the existing rules.

The government claims that the minister will not use this power, which the bill would give her, to limit the number of applications the government receives. How can the government draw that circle when it says that it will expedite economic immigrants but that it will not slow down family reunification? It also says that it will cut the backlog, that it will be transparent and that it will do everything by the book, but that it is important to give the minister unchecked discretionary power in order to implement these changes.

The fact is that if the government tries to expedite economic immigrants and keep the target of immigrants the same, this will happen at the expense and on the backs of family reunification, and that is of concern to many Canadians.

Many Canadians are keen that we attract economic immigrants who address our economic needs. Nobody is arguing against that. Also, nobody is arguing that the immigration system needs reform. However, to assume that the only way to fix these issues is to give the minister of immigration these powers, regardless of who the minister is or which party is in power, is a shortsighted solution and it will not help. In fact, it will only introduce powers where a lot of questions can be asked when they are applied.

What we need to do is fix the immigration system in a systematic and comprehensive way. We need to see where the issues are and apply more resources. We need to be wise and thoughtful about how and when we process our immigration applications.

This disingenuous proposal that by giving the minister unchecked discretionary power we can solve the backlog problem, does not stand up to scrutiny. The reality is that this is an ill-advised, ineffective, short-sighted proposal on which it makes it very tempting to bring down the government. I would like to see the Conservative government go yesterday before today. I do not believe it has the best policies for this country nor do I believe it is able to come up with thoughtful, reasonable, practical and pragmatic policies.

However, this is the choice we have. Let there be no doubt that we disagree and oppose these immigration changes. The question that remains is when should we have an election. I know the Conservatives will not like it, but we will choose that timing.

I am quite disappointed with the NDP. If it had been up to the NDP, we would have had 17 elections by now, even though it is the party that claims it wants Parliament to work. The NDP is the reason that we lost the child care agreement with the provinces and the reason that we do not have a Kelowna accord.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Because you are a bunch of crooks and the Canadian people threw you out.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

The NDP is the reason that we had a Christmas election.

We will choose when the election takes place and, when it does take place, the NDP will need to explain to Canadians why, if it is such a progressive party, it did not work with the Liberals on criticizing and holding the Conservatives in check. The NDP appears to spend most of its time criticizing the Liberals because it knows they are--

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am fascinated by what the member has to say but I cannot hear him very well over all the noise coming from the New Democrats. I wonder if they could keep it down.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Is the hon. member for Halifax rising on the same point of order?

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, actually I was going to rise on a point of much greater importance and ask the member a question, but I will wait my turn.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Mississauga—Erindale still has three minutes and if we are all patient we can ask questions of him afterward . There will be five minutes of questions and comments and if we keep our questions short we can get more questions in.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the question the NDP will have to answer for Canadians is why it is spending so much time attacking the Liberals. Instead of doing its job, it expects progressive parties to attack and criticize the Conservatives.

It is very transparent that the NDP is obsessed with its own political gains. We will see what its gains are in the next election because it plays no role when we have a Conservative government. It could have been playing a much more effective role acting as a progressive voice and standing up to the ideological Conservative policies but instead it is obsessed with its own political standing with Canadians, which, by the way, is very transparent and Canadians are not buying it.

I do not agree with the immigration reforms and I do not support the immigration reforms, and when the Liberals gain the government after the next election, we will reverse these changes. The issue now is when we should have an election. The leader of the Liberal Party will choose when to have an election and we will ask Canadians to choose between the bad old Conservatives and the new, reintegrated Liberal Party.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member asked several questions and deserves answers.

Why is the New Democratic Party attacking the Liberals for what they are doing in this House? Why are we not attacking the Conservative government for its draconian policies?

Let me set the record straight. On 23 or 24 occasions, with the most draconian policies being the subject of votes in this House, the New Democratic Party has voted against them. On those same 23 or 24 votes, the Liberal Party either has failed to vote at all or has had seven or eight members sit in their seats while the rest hid behind the curtain or stayed out in the lobby. To me, the most cynical manoeuvre of all is to put up seven or eight or nine or ten token votes knowing that they are insufficient to have any effect in actually calling the Conservative government to account.

Personally, I would rather know how draconian the Conservatives are. Then I can vote against them, rather than do what that Liberal Party and its Liberal caucus do, which is to pretend they are opposing them but not use the power, responsibility and mandate they were given to come in here and stand up against those policies. The Liberals have hardly done that once since the Conservative government was elected.

Now I have a quick question. Does that member not understand that it is not only the 30 New Democrat members of Parliament who are offended by what the Liberals are doing in fraudulently posing as the official opposition? Does he not understand that Canadians are aghast at the self-serving cynical politics of convenience the Liberals are demonstrating, when they want these policies stopped? The worst policies of the government are its budgetary policies, with the immigration policies and the EI changes the government is sneaking in as part of the budget, on which Liberal after Liberal has stood up and screamed and yelled--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

If the hon. member for Mississauga—Erindale takes equal time to respond, there will not be enough time for a second question.

The hon. member for Mississauga—Erindale has the floor.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member who asked the question for her service to the House of Commons and to her constituents. She has announced her retirement. I have great respect for the hon. member and I accept her questions.

The hon. member talked about cynicism. I wish she would stand up and answer why her party abstained on the softwood vote when we in the House of Commons voted on it. The NDP abstained on that vote. While the NDP members spoke so much in opposition to that vote, they abstained.

The NDP is irresponsible and irrational, but they are good at pandering, I have to admit. They are extremely good at pandering and extremely good at saying whatever they think they can say, but their policy and their irresponsible behaviour ended up causing us to lose the child care agreements that were signed by the provinces and caused Canada to lose the Kelowna agreement. When the Liberals were in power we were working with the NDP, but its members' irresponsible behaviour and irresponsible politics have put us where we are today.

As the Liberal opposition party, we are much more responsible and much more thoughtful. With our policies and with our leader, we will show Canadians that we are the right choice for Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division stands deferred until Monday, June 9 at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment.

The House resumed from June 6 consideration of the motion that Bill C-50, 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, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It being 6:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at third reading stage of Bill C-50.

Call in the members.

Before the taking of the vote:

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, there has been consultation between all parties and I think you will find unanimous consent that this motion be deemed carried on division.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

Is there agreement?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to)

The next question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #142

[The Speaker, Peter Milliken]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)