Bill C-10 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2009

An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and related fiscal measures

Part 1 implements income tax measures proposed in the January 27, 2009 Budget. In particular, it
(a) increases by 7.5% above their 2008 levels the basic personal amount and the upper limits for the two lowest personal income tax brackets, thereby also increasing the income levels at which income testing begins for the base benefit under the Canada Child Tax Credit and the National Child Benefit supplement;
(b) increases by $1,000 the amount on which the Age Credit is calculated;
(c) increases to $25,000 the maximum amount eligible for withdrawal under the Home Buyers’ Plan;
(d) introduces amendments to the rules related to Registered Retirement Savings Plans and Registered Retirement Income Funds to allow for recognition of losses in accounts between the time of the annuitant’s death and final distribution of property from the account;
(e) repeals the interest deductibility constraints in section 18.2 of the Income Tax Act;
(f) extends the mineral exploration tax credit for one year;
(g) increases to $500,000 the annual amount of active business income eligible for the 11% small business income tax rate and makes related amendments;
(h) clarifies rules relating to timing of acquisition of control of a corporation; and
(i) creates cost savings through electronic filing of tax information.
In addition, Part 1 implements income tax measures that were referenced in the January 27, 2009 Budget and that were originally proposed in the February 26, 2008 Budget but not included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2008. In particular, it
(a) clarifies the application of the excess corporate holdings rules for private foundations;
(b) increases the amount that corporations will be able to pay as “eligible dividends”;
(c) enacts several regulatory amendments that complement and complete measures enacted in the Budget Implementation Act, 2008;
(d) introduces minor adjustments to the Tax-Free Savings Account rules and the scientific research and experimental development investment tax credit rules included in the Budget Implementation Act, 2008;
(e) implements rules in respect of donations of medicines; and
(f) reduces the paper burden on businesses by allowing a larger number of government entities to share Business Number-related information in connection with government programs and services.
Part 1 also implements other income tax measures referred to in the January 27, 2009 Budget that either were themselves previously announced or flow directly from previously announced measures. In particular, it
(a) implements technical changes relating to specified investment flow-through trusts and partnerships and new tax rules to facilitate the conversion of these entities into corporations;
(b) contains amendments to take into account financial institution accounting changes;
(c) extends the general treatment of capital gains and losses on an acquisition of control of a corporation to gains and losses that result from fluctuations in foreign exchange rates in respect of debt denominated in foreign currency;
(d) enhances the carry-forward for investment tax credits;
(e) implements amendments relating to the computation of income, gains and losses of a foreign affiliate;
(f) implements amendments to the functional currency tax reporting rules;
(g) implements minor tax amendments relating to interprovincial allocation of corporate taxable income, the Wage Earner Protection Program and the Canada-United States tax treaty’s rules for cross-border pensions;
(h) provides for an extension of time for income tax assessments that are consequential to provincial reassessments;
(i) ensures the appropriate application of the Income Tax Act’s trust rules to certain arrangements and institutions under Quebec civil law;
(j) enacts regulatory amendments relating to prescribed amounts for automobile expenses and benefits, eligible medical expenses, and the tax treatment of foreign affiliate active business income earned in a jurisdiction with which Canada has concluded a tax information exchange agreement;
(k) introduces rules to reduce the required minimum amount that must be withdrawn from a Registered Retirement Income Fund or from a variable benefit money purchase pension plan by 25% for 2008, and allows related re-contributions;
(l) extends the deadline for Registered Disability Savings Plan contributions; and
(m) modifies the provisions relating to amateur athletic trusts.
Part 2 amends the Excise Act, 2001 and the Excise Tax Act to implement measures to reduce the paper burden on businesses by allowing a larger number of government entities to share Business Number-related information in connection with government programs and services.
Part 3 amends the Customs Tariff to implement measures announced in the January 27, 2009 Budget to
(a) reduce Most-Favoured-Nation rates of duty and, if applicable, rates of duty under other tariff treatments on a number of tariff items relating to machinery and equipment imported on or after January 28, 2009;
(b) divide tariff item 9801.10.00 into two separate tariff items pertaining to conveyances and containers, respectively, and make two technical corrections, effective January 28, 2009; and
(c) modify the tariff treatment of milk protein substances, effective September 8, 2008.
Part 4 amends the Employment Insurance Act until September 11, 2010 to extend regular benefit entitlements by five weeks. It also provides that a pilot project ceases to have effect. In addition, it amends that Act to provide that the cost of benefit enhancement measures under that Act, provided for in the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009, are not to be charged to the Employment Insurance Account. Finally, it sets the premium rate provided for under that Act for the years 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2010.
Division 1 of Part 5 amends the Financial Administration Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to take, subject to certain conditions, a number of measures intended to promote the stability or maintain the efficiency of the financial system, including financial markets, in Canada.
Division 2 of Part 5 amends the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act to provide the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation with greater flexibility to enhance its ability to safeguard financial stability in Canada. The Division also adds Tax-Free Saving Accounts as a distinct category for the purposes of deposit insurance. It also makes consequential amendments to other acts.
Division 3 of Part 5 amends the Export Development Act to, among other things, expand the Export Development Corporation’s mandate to include the support and development of domestic trade and business opportunities for a period of two years. The period may be extended by the Governor in Council. Division 3 also increases the Corporation’s authorized capital.
Division 4 of Part 5 amends the Business Development Bank of Canada Act to increase the maximum amount of the paid-in capital of the Business Development Bank of Canada.
Division 5 of Part 5 amends the Canada Small Business Financing Act to increase the maximum outstanding loan amount in relation to a borrower. It also increases individual lenders’ cap on claims. These amendments will apply to new loans made after March 31, 2009.
Division 6 of Part 5 amends a number of Acts governing federal financial institutions to improve access to credit and strengthen the financial system in Canada, including amendments that will
(a) provide new authority for further safeguards to promote the stability of the financial system;
(b) enhance consumer protection by establishing new measures to help consumers of financial products; and
(c) implement other technical measures to strengthen the financial sector framework in Canada.
Division 7 of Part 5 provides for payments to be made to provinces and territories, provides authority to the Minister of Finance to enter into agreements respecting securities regulation with provinces and territories and enacts the Canadian Securities Regulation Regime Transition Office Act.
Part 6 authorizes payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for various purposes, including infrastructure and housing.
Part 7 amends Part I of the Navigable Waters Protection Act to create a tiered approval process for works in order to streamline the approval process and to exclude certain classes of works and works on certain classes of navigable waters from the approval process. This Part further amends Part I of the Act to clarify the scope of the application of that Part to works owned or previously owned by the Crown, to provide for the application of the Act to bridges over the St. Lawrence River and to add certain regulation-making powers.
Part 7 also amends the Act to clarify the provisions related to obstacles and obstructions to navigation. The Act is also amended by adding administration and enforcement powers, consolidating all offence provisions, increasing fines and requiring a review of the Act within five years of the amendments coming into force.
Division 1 of Part 8 amends the Wage Earner Protection Program Act and the Wage Earner Protection Program Regulations to provide that unpaid wages for which an individual may receive payment under the Wage Earner Protection Program include unpaid severance pay and termination pay.
Division 2 of Part 8 amends the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act to, among other things,
(a) require the Chief Actuary of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions to report on financial assistance provided under that Act; and
(b) authorize the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to suspend or deny financial assistance to all those who are qualifying students in respect of a designated educational institution.
Division 2 of Part 8 also amends both the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act and the Canada Student Loans Act to, among other things,
(a) terminate all obligations of a borrower with respect to risk-shared loans and guaranteed loans if the borrower dies;
(b) authorize the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to require any person who has received financial assistance or a guaranteed student loan to provide that Minister with documents or information for the purpose of verifying compliance with those Acts; and
(c) authorize that Minister to terminate or deny financial assistance in certain circumstances.
Division 3 of Part 8 amends the Financial Administration Act to provide express authority for agent Crown corporations to lease their property, restrict the appointment of employees of a Crown corporation to its board of directors, require Crown corporations to hold annual public meetings, clarify Treasury Board’s duties to indemnify Crown corporation directors and officers, permit more flexibility in the frequency of special examinations of Crown corporations, and require the reports of special examinations to be submitted to the appropriate Minister and Treasury Board and made public. This Division also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 9 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to set out the amount of the fiscal equalization payments to the provinces for the fiscal year beginning on April 1, 2009 and amends the method by which fiscal equalization payments will be calculated for subsequent fiscal years. It also amends the method by which the Canada Health Transfer is calculated for each fiscal year in the period beginning on April 1, 2009 and ending on March 31, 2014.
Part 10 enacts the Expenditure Restraint Act. The purpose of that Act is to put in place a reasonable and an affordable approach to compensation across the federal public sector in support of responsible fiscal management in a difficult economic environment.
It sets out rules governing economic increases to the rates of pay of unionized and non-unionized employees for periods that begin during the period that begins on April 1, 2006 and ends on March 31, 2011. It also continues certain other terms and conditions at their current levels. It preserves the right of collective bargaining with regard to other matters and it does not affect the right to strike.
The Act does not preclude the continued development of workplace improvements by employers and employees’ bargaining agents through the National Joint Council or other bodies that they may agree on. It also permits bargaining agents and employers to agree to the amendment of certain terms and conditions of collective agreements or arbitral awards.
Part 11 enacts the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts. The purpose of the Act is to ensure that proactive measures are taken to provide employees in female predominant job groups with equitable compensation.
It requires public sector employers that have non-unionized employees to determine periodically whether any equitable compensation matters exist in the workplace and, if so, to prepare a plan to resolve them. With respect to public sector employers that have unionized employees, the employers and the bargaining agents are to resolve those matters through the collective bargaining process.
It sets out the procedure for informing employees as to whether an equitable compensation assessment was required to be conducted and, if so, how it was conducted, and how any equitable compensation matters were resolved. It also establishes a recourse process for employees if the Act is not complied with.
Finally, since the Act puts in place a comprehensive equitable compensation scheme for public sector employees, this Part amends the Canadian Human Rights Act so that the provisions of that Act dealing with gender-based wage discrimination no longer apply to public sector employers. It extends the mandate of the Public Service Labour Relations Board to allow it to hear equitable compensation complaints and to provide other services related to equitable compensation in the public sector.
Part 12 amends the Competition Act. The amendments include
(a) introducing a dual-track approach to agreements between competitors, with a limited criminal anti-cartel provision and a civil provision to address other agreements that substantially lessen or prevent competition;
(b) providing that bid-rigging includes agreements or arrangements to withdraw bids or tenders;
(c) repealing the provisions dealing with price discrimination and predatory pricing, replacing the criminal resale price maintenance provision with a new civil provision to address price maintenance practices that have an adverse effect on competition, and repealing all provisions dealing specifically with the airline industry;
(d) introducing an administrative monetary penalty for cases of abuse of dominant position, increasing the maximum amount of administrative monetary penalties for deceptive marketing cases, and increasing the maximum fines or terms of imprisonment, or both, for agreements or arrangements between competitors, bid-rigging, criminal false or misleading representations, deceptive telemarketing, deceptive notice of winning a prize, obstruction of Competition Bureau investigations and failure to comply with prohibition orders or production orders;
(e) clarifying that, in proceedings under section 52, 74.01 or 74.02, it is not necessary to establish that false or misleading representations are made to the public in Canada or are made in a place to which the public has access, and clarifying that the “general impression test” applies to all deceptive marketing practices in sections 74.01 and 74.02;
(f) providing that the court may make an order in respect of cases of false or misleading representations to require the person who engaged in the conduct to compensate persons affected by the conduct, and may issue an interim injunction to freeze assets if the Commissioner of Competition intends to ask for such a compensation order; and
(g) introducing a two-stage merger review process for notifiable transactions, increased merger pre-notification thresholds and a reduced merger review limitation period.
Part 13 amends the Investment Canada Act so that the review of an investment will be applied only to the more significant investments. It also amends the Act to allow more information to be made public. This Part also provides for the review of foreign investments in Canada that could threaten national security and allows the Governor in Council to take any measures that the Governor in Council considers advisable to protect national security, such as prohibiting a non-Canadian from implementing an investment.
Part 14 amends the Canada Transportation Act to provide the Governor in Council with flexibility to increase the foreign ownership limit from the existing levels to a maximum of 49%.
Part 15 amends the Air Canada Public Participation Act in relation to the mandatory provisions in the articles of Air Canada regarding constraints imposed on the issue, transfer and ownership of shares. It provides for the repeal of the provisions requiring that the articles of Air Canada contain provisions imposing limits on non-resident share ownership and the repeal of the provisions requiring that the articles of Air Canada contain provisions respecting the enforcement of these constraints.

Opposition Motion--Municipal Infrastructure

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the transit system across Canada carries 1.76 billion passengers per year. Any investment in public transit dramatically affects the quality of life for millions of Canadians. Any investment impacts on their cost of living and it greatly impacts on the environment.

According to many sources, including CUTA, there are 167 transit infrastructure projects across Canada that would stimulate the local economy of various Canadian communities while improving local transit networks. They are shovel ready. They are ready to go. For many years, different transit commissions and different mayors have been saying that we need the investment now.

What is cruel about this budget and cruel about this motion in front of the House today is that the municipalities or the commissions have no money to match the federal dollars that are being dangled in front of them. Why? Well, let us look at some facts. Of all the G8 countries or even G20 countries, Canada is the only country that contributes nothing to the operation of public transit.

Last year the total operating costs of public transit was $44.5 billion of which 60% was generated from fare revenue, 29% from municipal governments, and only 6% came from provincial contributions. What kind of money does the federal government contribute? Nothing. Zero. Not one penny.

When we look at transit capital costs, in 2006 it was $1.68 billion, and 37% came from the federal and provincial governments. Actually, to be precise, most of it, the majority of it comes from provincial contributions. In the city of Toronto, for example, what was the total federal grants to municipalities? It was 2% of Toronto's $8.7 billion budget. So there is nothing there to be applauded. Twenty-three percent came from municipal governments.

Municipal governments are trapped in high property taxes and high debt because they, alone mostly, are carrying the operation of the transit system. In Toronto, for example, a budget that I am very familiar with, it already has a $1.6 billion capital budget. This year the property tax increase is 4%, and 2% of that 4% is actually a direct result of the Conservative government not being able to change the employment insurance program so that not one extra unemployed worker is going to get employment insurance. They are going to go on the welfare system, therefore increasing the welfare roll in Toronto by 20,000 people. That will cost $38 million, and guess where that money comes from? Property taxes. There is not a chance that many of the municipalities have the funds to cost share this budget proposal, the money that is in front of us.

What is happening across Canada is that there is real ridership growth. Canadians want to take public transit. They want to help Canada decrease its greenhouse gas emissions. They want to reduce their carbon footprint. If we look at transit systems across Canada, there has been a 15% increase in a five year period.

Interestingly enough, the biggest growth in ridership comes from Canada's smallest municipalities, such as Middleton, Charlottetown, Welland and Yellowknife. The greater Vancouver transit link saw an increase of 7 million new trips in the last year or two. Canadians want to take public transit. They want to do something for the environment. For municipalities, more riders means more costs. When a transit system has no funding and not a penny of operating costs from the federal government, municipalities have no choices.

If there are more riders, they either increase property taxes or transit fares. Neither of those are good things to do to stimulate the economy. Municipalities are stuck. In the meantime, there have been reports, including a groundbreaking economic study conducted by HDR Decision Economics, that said that Canada needs a 74% increase in more transit services to unclog roads, save on commuter time and increase productivity. In total, CUTA identified $40 billion of investment needed for the period of 2008-12. This includes the expansion of subways, streetcars and buses, and the maintenance and upkeep of the current system to accommodate more riders.

Unfortunately, the motion in front of the House of Commons is meaningless. The Liberals have the opportunity to amend the budget that is being debated in Parliament right now, whether it is in committee or at report stage tomorrow, by inserting two small clauses. We should allow the funding to flow without cost sharing and have it come through using the gas tax formula so that it is not tied up with red tape, so it is block funding, and so that municipalities and provinces will know in a very assured way that the funding will flow. This instead of the building Canada formula of project-by-project approach, which ties it all up with different legal agreements and various project negotiations that are totally unnecessary.

It reminds me of a short story. A young man, let us call him Mike, walked by and saw a boat sinking. There were 77 people drowning. He could have thrown some rope or helped out, but because he was wearing new shoes he refused to do anything. He refused to help the people who were drowning out there. He went on his laptop and wrote out a perfect plan of how to rescue the 77 drowning people, but he would not do anything. That is what we are facing today. There will be a budget debate tomorrow. The House is debating this right now and we have this motion in front of us. Why should it not be inserted into the budget debate tomorrow?

I move the following motion: That the Liberal opposition motion be inserted into the report stage of the budget implementation bill, Bill C-10, being debated currently in Parliament, and inserted as an amendment.

I hope the House will consider this amendment.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Minister of State (Transport)]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to contribute to the debate on this motion from the hon. colleague. I would like to share my time with the hon. member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont.

I think we should start the debate by talking about why we are in the situation we are and by understanding what is happening globally, because if we do not understand that and deal with this motion in that context, we are going to miss exactly what we are trying to do. We will get into the gutter and start playing politics, as petty as they can become in the House.

Let me try this out for a bit. We have to understand how the banking system in the Unites States has failed and how the asset-backed commercial paper and mortgages in the United States have collapsed and brought us into this situation. It is not only in the United States; it has rippled into the banking systems in Europe and Asia. We are not immune to it, because America is our largest trading partner.

This is a global slowdown. It is not something that has happened just to us. It is not something we caused or asked for or had any part in promoting in any way. However, we nonetheless have to deal with it. We have to deal with it collectively, because any stimulus money that is put into the American, European or Asian economies will not spin us out of the global slowdown if it is not done collectively. It is only if we put our collective efforts together as the G20 and do it respectively in each of our countries that we will see Canadians, Americans, Europeans, Asians and so on go back to work. Then we will spin our way out of this situation.

Failing to do this, we will see a repeat of what happened in the 1930s. Hopefully we have learned from history and we will work collectively to get out of this slowdown. We have to look at the stimulus package in that light.

It is not that this is our first stimulation package. This is the second one. As the world economy was slowing down, the first package we saw started in the fall of 2007 with a $200 billion stimulation package. This package included lowering the GST from 7% to 5%, implementing child tax credits and putting $100 per child into the hands of ordinary Canadians for child care, lowering corporate taxes to 15% and lowering small business taxes to 11%. These agendas were started long before we got into what was recognized by the world as an international economic slowdown.

We have to understand that what we are trying to do with the infrastructure and stimulus funding is actually twofold. First of all, we have to put Canadians back to work with their own money. We have to do it now, because they are losing jobs at the present time. However, we have to do more than that. We have to build an infrastructure that will prepare us to compete and be productive long into the 21st century and long after the current economic slowdown has passed.

That is why we are putting money into transit which is green. It not only improves the quality of the systems that get individuals to and fro in our major urban settings, but it is also environmentally friendly and it allows us to breathe cleaner air. We are also putting money into waste water, making sure that we have cleaner water. We are also making sure that we have green projects, that we have the very best of municipal waste disposal systems in the world, the best coal-burning and biofuel facilities in the world and the ability to create energy from those cellulosic and forest sectors and other opportunities that we have.

If we can do that with our infrastructure money, we will not be playing that petty game of who gets the most, which municipalities win and which municipalities lose. This will sustain us well into the 21st century. Everyone in Canada will win and we can be very proud of the technologies we design and the progress that we make.

We started this stimulus package three years ago. We came into power with the understanding that the infrastructure across the country was deteriorating and we had to do something about it. We put forward a $33 billion infrastructure program. That program is being built on with our action plan, which is another $12 billion. That $12 billion is split up a number of different ways. We have $4 billion in infrastructure stimulus funding.

One of the magic parts of this economic action plan, which I appreciate the opposition supporting, is the concept of use it or lose it. If we are going to stimulate the economy, we have to do it now and create the jobs when jobs are being lost. If we do not include the concept of use it or lose it, the money will go out beyond the time when it would be of appropriate use, not on the infrastructure side but on the stimulus side. It has to be done now and it has to be in new projects.

We are not prepared to put money into the hands of the municipalities or give them blank cheques and tell them they can spend whatever they want, because they would just balance their books on the backs of the federal government. They would not use the money as a stimulus for creating new projects. This money has to be used to stimulate the economy, to put Canadians back to work and to create jobs that would not normally be there.

Also, there is $2 billion to accelerate the construction of colleges and universities across the country. Canada has nothing to hide or to be ashamed of when it comes to post-secondary education. We are number one in the world when it comes to post-secondary graduates, but we can do better. We can keep on top of this agenda. When our young people are educated properly and have the best facilities to obtain that education, we will win in the 21st century. We have to put money into the high tech part of it and make sure our universities are creating the very brightest and best. Our future is based on the strength of our educational system and our youth. We are very pleased to be able to put $2 billion into that.

There is another $1 billion for the green infrastructure projects. This goes right to the visit of the President of the United States, who was here last week. He told Canada that he is very interested in the carbon capture and sequestration programs. We have to make sure that we are not only using fossil fuels in the cleanest way possible, and developing technologies that we can sell internationally, but that we are also working together to make sure that technology works.

As well, dealing with coal, which is another source of energy, we realize that if we are going to keep our GDP growing and our economic growth the same in the next 30 years as we have in the last 30, we have to double the amount of energy in that time period. Doubling the amount of energy in a clean, environmentally effective way is no small task. It is something that all of us have to look at intelligently. We have to do it in a way that understands the politics of the world. A lot of the fossil fuels come from unstable political regimes such as in the Middle East, Venezuela and so on. These are the challenges of North America and we can meet those challenges.

There is another $500 million in support for construction of new community recreational facilities. We were very proud, as were all Canadians, when a lot of these rinks were built for our centennial anniversary in 1967, but they are getting old. They need refurbishing. This infrastructure funding is there to help build centres for cultural and other activities in the small communities across the country, from one coast to the other. We are very proud of that and it is something that is needed to sustain the infrastructure in the local communities.

We are going to do it, which goes to the essence of question in the motion before us that we are debating. How are we going to get the money out? How are we going to do it effectively? We are going to be working with the provinces to be make sure that we fast-track key infrastructure projects.

For example, part of the infrastructure project is a base fund of $25 million over a five year period. Every province gets the same: $25 million. That is $175 million over seven years per province. We are not going to wait for seven years before we spend it. We are going to accelerate that so the provinces can spend that $175 million right now. They can do it on good projects that are based on criteria set by municipal and provincial governments. It is leveraged three to one, so we are going to see not only federal money but also municipal and provincial money going into those accelerated funds to build capacity for more employment and more infrastructure.

It is timely, very important and smart to do this kind of spending at this time because there is better competition in the bidding process for the jobs that are out there right now. I was talking to a number of the premiers. I was talking to one premier's office last week and I will be talking to another one this afternoon. What I am hearing right across the country is that the competitive bidding process is better today than it was a year ago. In fact some are telling me it is 25% to 30% better. Our dollar is going to go much further and we are going to be able to build more infrastructure because of the way we are doing it and the time in which we are doing it.

Let us do it smartly. Let us clean out some of the hindrances that we have seen. That is why in Bill C-10 there is a portion dealing with the Navigable Waters Protection Act to make sure that we get a lot of the bureaucracy out of the way, deal with the appropriate places where the environment is compromised, and not be so phobic about some of the things that are ridiculous under the act. We are going to change the definition of navigable waters. We do not want to duplicate environmental studies. We want to make sure that we do the appropriate study on that.

This government is building a tremendous amount of infrastructure projects at the present time and we are going to continue to do a lot more. I ask all members to please stay tuned.

Finance

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

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Finance in relation to Bill C-10, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on January 27, 2009 and related fiscal measures.

The Economy

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister can bluster or indeed move over as far as he wants in talking to it. It will have no effect.

The simple fact of the matter is that in the survey of business, which was contained in The Globe and Mail on Monday, the universal view of business leaders was very clear. That universal view was their main concern, their principal preoccupation, was the absence of credit. It is the lack of credit which is choking our system.

The simple question is this. Why are the credit measures that he talks about, that he blusters about and throws in front of us, not contained in Bill C-10?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Around the world business leaders are indicating that the key issue for them is credit. Last night the President of the United States repeated this point when he said that the lifeblood of the new economy was credit.

Could the Minister of Finance please explain to us why there is no reference to this question and why did the government not deal with this question in Bill C-10?

Automotive Industry

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gets worse. There is no leadership from the government today and yesterday the Minister of Finance demonstrated that he does not understand his own budget.

It is clear the Canadian secured credit facility is not in Bill C-10 but it can and must be implemented by the Conservative without further delay. It did it for the banks last November. Why can it not do it now for the auto sector and consumers? Canadians will lease or purchase cars if they have access to credit, which is the other side of the auto industry solution.

Will the minister commit to the immediate creation of this credit facility?

Opposition Motion—Securities Commission and Equalization

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

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated the speech by my colleague from Trois-Rivières, who is as clear as ever. I have one brief question to ask her. Is it not a little surprising that it has been decided to include in Bill C-10 implementing the budget a clause establishing a securities commission?

Is this not the vengeance or influence of the Ontario lobby, which will have the support of the Conservative members from Quebec? In the end, there was no connection to the economic crisis, as was recognized by the OECD and by the person responsible on the committee that introduced the bank papers solution. Are we not faced here with a situation where the federal government, both Conservatives and Liberals, has decided to take advantage of a budget implementation act to propose a centralizing motion? Is this not a very concrete example that here only the Bloc Québécois is defending the real interests of Quebec?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would first of all like to congratulate my colleague from Saint-Maurice—Champlain on his speech, but also to thank him for having presented this motion which is today before the House, because the subject is very important for Quebec and Quebeckers.

To begin, we have here with this motion another demonstration of the effective role played by the Bloc Québécois. For proof of this, what party is focusing on this situation brought about by the Budget Implementation Act, 2009 which will substantially penalize Quebec as well as the entire population because of the services that this province has to provide to the citizens we represent?

Under the calculation of equalization, Quebec would be penalized $991 million. That is no small amount. And what is that money being used for? By the way, we will not be guilty of the same paternalism we often encounter from the Conservatives, who say we have voted for a budget with billions and billions of dollars in infrastructure programs. They would almost have us believe that this money is coming out of the pockets of the Conservative ministers and members. Hold on there. Quebeckers pay $54 billion in income taxes to Ottawa every year. When the federal government invests in Quebec, I hope that no one here—among those listening to us and those in the gallery—thinks that the federal government is giving us any gifts. That is our money. This is precisely what Maurice Duplessis, in his time, was saying when he referred to federal encroachments in fields of provincial jurisdiction: give us back what is ours. That is what this motion means.

Which party is defending the consensus of the National Assembly at the three-day special session in January? Not one Conservative member has risen on this subject, nor one member of the Liberal Party. Only the members of the Bloc Québécois have addressed this. Our objective and our role, our reason for being, is to defend the interests of Quebec. This we demonstrate on a daily basis, not just during election campaigns, as we saw on the trailer of the former senator and minister Michael Fortier, which announced that the Bloc is unnecessary, that it has cost so many billions of dollars.

One thing: when you lie, your lie must not be so big that no one will believe it. If you tell a little lie, something a little more restrained, it raises a doubt, and people will say, yes, maybe it is true, maybe it is possible. They said that the Bloc had cost $450 billion because we were in the opposition. Hold on there. From 1900 to 2006, over 106 years, the Conservative Party was in opposition for 62 years. That means that, when the Conservatives were in opposition, that cost money, billions of dollars, and they did nothing? That is patently ridiculous.

When we say that the Bloc is here to defend Quebeckers' interests, it is because we can back up that statement. We raised this issue here in the House. The House is going to vote. Members from all parties will have the chance to say yes to Quebec, yes to the National Assembly consensus, or else to trample on that consensus. By the way, when we refer to the National Assembly consensus, we are talking about a unanimous motion passed by all three parties represented in the National Assembly, not just the Parti Québécois. There is also the Liberal Party of Quebec, headed by Jean Charest, and the Action Démocratique party, which was then led by Mario Dumont, who should be leaving political life today. That is the consensus we are talking about: a unanimous motion passed by the National Assembly.

Two provisions of the budget implementation bill clearly penalize Quebec: the new method of calculating equalization payments and the creation of a centralized securities commission in Toronto, even though the current system works well and Quebec and the provinces have their own commissions.

Quebec's Autorité des marchés financiers plays its role fully. Why does the federal government still want to stomp on the provinces' jurisdictions? Why are this Prime Minister and this Conservative government, which kept on saying they were going to practise open federalism, throwing everything out the window and slapping Quebec in the face at the first opportunity? This is totally unacceptable.

I call on the elected members of the Conservative Party from Quebec. I am a member from the Quebec City area. I call on the members for Beauport—Limoilou, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, Lévis—Bellechasse and Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière. I could also mention the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is the member for Pontiac. I challenge them. What do they think of the consensus reached by the National Assembly of Quebec? Do they agree to vote with the Bloc Québécois for this motion, which only confirms that consensus?

That is the difference between a Bloc Québécois member and a Conservative Party member from Quebec. My colleague from Saint-Maurice—Champlain has brought that difference to light by putting this motion before the House for debate so that the masks come off and we see who is really defending Quebec's interests in this House.

Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome those questions from the opposition House leader.

In a few moments we will be voting on the second reading stage of Bill C-10, the budget implementation act. Also, the House will approve supplementary estimates (B).

I would like to take this time to thank all members for their cooperation in accelerating the consideration and approval of supplementary estimates (B) including and especially my cabinet colleagues who responded with little notice to invitations from the various committees to study these estimates.

After the votes, we will continue with the debate on Bill C-4, not-for-profit legislation; followed by Bill C-9, transportation of dangerous goods; Bill C-5, Indian oil and gas; Bill C-11, an act to promote safety and security with respect to human pathogens and toxins; and Bill C-3, Arctic waters. All these bills are at second reading.

Next week is a constituency week when the House will be adjourned.

As the House is also aware President Barack Obama will be visiting Canada next week. Since the House will not be sitting, I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all members of the House, to welcome the President to Canada. We hope he has a productive and enjoyable visit here in our nation's capital.

When the House returns from the break, we will continue with the list of business I mentioned earlier and in addition to these bills Tuesday, February 24 and Thursday, February 26 will be designated as opposition days.

Status of Women

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

Mr. Speaker, it was his leader, the Prime Minister of this country, who said back in 1998 that the federal government should scrap its ridiculous pay equity law. With Bill C-10, the government is doing exactly that. It is scrapping pay equity.

If the President of the Treasury Board wants to take a page from the Manitoba government, why does he not drop the fines against unions, allow the complaints procedure under the Canadian Human Rights Commission and appoint a pay equity bureau like Manitoba did to help women close the gap once and for all?

Budget Implementation Act, 2009

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Minister of State and Chief Government Whip]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations and I believe that if you were to seek it, there would be unanimous consent for the division on Bill C-10 to be the first division put to the House at 3 o'clock.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for standing up in opposition in a constructive and critical way. It is important for us as members of Parliament to understand our role, and our role is to be critical when necessary. We are not always critical. We have been constructive in our criticism and have put ideas forward. It is important to make that statement to begin with.

Before I get into the substance of my comments on the budget bill, I want to take a moment to pass on condolences from the Ottawa community and my caucus to the family of Madame Michèle Demers on her sudden and tragic death. Madame Demers was the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. She was a leader not only of her union and for the people she worked for, but also for the Ottawa community. We are saddened today for her family and quite frankly for the labour movement. I had the opportunity to meet with Ms. Demers on many occasions. She was always clear in her convictions about what she was doing and served her members well. We will all miss her greatly.

If we look at the trajectory of the budget, we have to look at the fiscal update, of course. Three components in the fiscal update were obviously not satisfactory to all members of Parliament, save the government. Included in the fiscal update was the well-known political financing issue. My colleague spoke of poison pills. The political financing issue was a large dose of poison.

However, that was not the focus for us in the NDP. We focused on the fact that the government wanted to ban the right to strike by public servants the day after it had just negotiated a contract with one of the public service unions.

In both the economic statement and Bill C-10 the government wants to take away the right of women to have pay equity. It also wants to take away the right to challenge if they do not receive equal pay for work of equal value.

In the fiscal update there was also a $10 billion assumption. It was a whopper. It was that the government was going to find savings in government operations by selling off enough assets to gain $10 billion.

In his own comments, the finance minister admitted that his numbers were a bit rosy. We will have to give him the new nickname of “Rosy”. Actually, I think “Rosy” is being polite.

Every single economist who looked at that $10 billion assumption, and this is especially for our friends who used to be reformers, thought it had no credibility. The finance minister was also criticized by the government's own parliamentary budget officer. The Conservative government pretends that it knows how to manage a lemonade stand, but it has a $10 billion assumption that was laughed at from every corner.

The government grabbed onto power and prorogued the House. Then it did a Hail Mary pass, which is the budget. The Hail Mary pass is sadly being caught by the official opposition, as those members like to call themselves.

The rosy $10 billion number from our rosy Minister of Finance came back in the budget in front of us as $8.7 billion. The government has managed to figure out some of the math. However, the government forgot to tell us where the money is going to come from.

This year in the budget--and I say this to all those who purport to be fiscal conservatives, be they in the official opposition or be they on the government benches--the government is going to get $4 billion from the sale of government assets and from finding government savings.

We all know what the game is. The game is that the Conservatives are going to have to do one of three things: increase the deficit, not spend the stimulus or have a fire sale of government assets in a buyer's market. Does anyone find that credible? I certainly do not. That is what bothers me most about this budget.

My colleagues have underlined the importance of looking at what this does for people, and I applaud that. It does not do much for people. What gets me more than anything are the assumptions made and the rhetoric put forward by a government that pretends it actually knows what it is doing when it comes to managing the nation's finances.

I will give another example. A couple of years ago the government said, and I go back to its assumptions in this budget, that it was going to find $2 billion through savings in government operations and through selling off assets. It was going to find $2 billion that was booked by the previous government, I might add, in government operations.

What it did was a real whopper. It hired a consulting company by the name of A.T. Kearney out of Chicago. The company has a branch office in Toronto. The consultant racked up a bill, and I know my friends know this one well, of not $1 million, not $2 million, not $10 million, not $15 million, not $20 million, but $24 million. Does anyone know what the government got for it? It got zero.

Public works had the blessing of the cabinet. The former minister of foreign affairs is nodding and smiling. He knows it well. The government got shaken down for $24 million by A.T. Kearney. The problem is that we were shaken down.

One member looks as if he does not know what this is about. He should look it up. I am going to send it to him, actually, because he is a minister now in cabinet. He is walking away now, and he should. He is hanging his head in shame, I hope. A sum of $24 million was spent, and we received zero value for the money.

These are the people who are now responsible for bringing us out of the recession. God help us all. What we need right now are people who understand how finances work. That is why I will not only be opposing this budget, but doing so vigorously and with clarity.

The government wants us to believe it has the best interests of the country in mind. When a government signs on for a $24 million contract with a consulting company from Chicago and gets zero value for the money, I am sorry, but I do not trust it, my constituents do not trust it and neither should anyone in the House, including its own members.

In the time I have remaining, I want to talk about some solutions.

It is interesting to note that south of the border there is an entirely different situation. There are people who actually listen to those who want to pull us out of the recession by investing in people and communities. One of the most exciting things happening south of the border is the green collar momentum. It is a move toward taking us from this economic recession and transforming our economy to one that is not only environmentally sound but also sustainable.

One of the alliances is different from the alliance we see in the House. It is called the Blue Green Alliance, an alliance in which labour and those pushing for environmental change have come together. They have said they need to come together to provide stimuli and solutions for the economy. We see this being applauded, lauded and supported by the federal government in the states.

My final comment is that instead of paying $24 million for bogus reports, we should be investing in blue-green alliance solutions similar to those we see south of the border. That is what this party will be doing, it is what we will be advancing and it is why we will not be supporting this budget.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to speak today to Bill C-10, the budget implementation bill, and make some comments about the current situation of the government.

The government has introduced a budget that contains a lot of the stimulus package and ideas that were promoted by the opposition. However, at the end of the day, we have no confidence that this budget will ever see the light of day in terms of implementation. Budgets get passed all the time but governments will underspend budgets. One member was heard to say recently that we are confident that the recession will end, that we will start coming out of the recession within three months and that we will not need to spend a lot of this money.

That is why, fundamentally, we cannot trust or believe the government. It is a Jekyll and Hyde sort of government. The sweater comes on during the election campaign and then, of course, it comes off. Now, I think it is back on again. Some of the members, such as the President of the Treasury Board, have not figured out yet that it is sweater time again. I want to take a few minutes to explain what I mean by that.

In my riding in Winnipeg, we have a serious situation where a freeway and two bridges will be closed for a year and a half, inconveniencing about 200,000 people. For whatever reason, the mayor has decided to punish that quadrant of the city by refusing to stop the closure by allowing two extra lanes to be built. These two extra lanes are envisioned to be built by the city in the next 20 years anyway. In fact, they have been costed out at around $50 million. This has been an issue for almost a year now. When I spoke to the President of the Treasury Board about this, he was really surprised. Given all the publicity on this issue, he felt that the problem could be solved if he could just get the parties together and do a cost-share on the extra two lanes, split into thirds. The federal share might then only be $17 million. He agreed that he would try to get the parties together to do that.

That was back in the early part of November. I have followed up with him since and he told me that he had talked to them but new infrastructure money could not be applied to an existing project. Any project that was on the city of Winnipeg list would be excluded because it was already being dealt with. The issue then became how we would consider this project. I suggested to him that it would be a separate project. The first project had already been approved and it was a triple P, a totally different concept. This should be conventionally financed and they should find a way to do it under infrastructure money. We all remember the shovel-ready talk that this should be done because the city already owns the land.

I have had occasion to speak to the minister a couple of times over the last couple of weeks. On the first occasion, he said that I had better vote for the budget because there would be consequences if I did not. I just attributed that to him having a bad hair day and I let it slide. About a week later, I had another conversation with him. I asked him the same question and he repeated the same thing. He said that I should vote for the budget or there would be consequences. He kept referring to consequences. I do not think that is a good approach. He is out of sync with the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister is back to the sweaters. This minister should get on side and be a little warmer and friendlier.

In the Manitoba provincial legislature, I sat beside the highways minister. This is nothing new. It has been going on forever, regardless of the party that is in power. Conservative and opposition members, who sometimes ask very good, tough questions of the government, would come up after question period and talk to the highways minister, who was sitting right beside me, and ask about the bridges and roads that needed rebuilding in their areas. We need to be able to separate these things. We did not get all excited because the guy had voted against the budget. Of course he had. He was a Conservative in opposition and that was his role. He was supposed to be voting against the budget. He was doing his job by opposing the government and pointing out things the government should be doing.

However, we never held it against the member because he voted against the budget by not giving him his road. What kind of nonsense is that?

Let us flip it back. When we were in opposition, the same thing applied. We would ask the Conservative minister of highways a tough question about something to do with roads and a few minutes later we would cross the floor, have a chat with him and he would give us the answers. That is just the way things operate.

All I have tried to do is to get these parties together. However, we have a stubborn mayor who refuses to listen to over 5,000 people have responded to my surveys. It is not as if there are people opposed to this. Ninety-seven percent of the people are in favour of providing the two extra lanes.

Do members know that last June the Prime Minister announced $70 million, which is a third of the money, would go toward a bridge in Saskatoon? That bridge in Saskatoon carries only 21,000 cars a day. Our Winnipeg bridge, which is 50 years old and falling apart, carries twice as many. It carries 40,000 cars a day and the mayor says, no, that the city will wait the 20 years to add the extra two lanes and the 200,000 people up in that quadrant can just suffer.

I want to make it very clear that it is not the minister's fault that this has happened. I do applaud him for trying to take a leadership role in this, but he should follow through. He should try to convince the mayor that there is money available for these extra two lanes, that if he will put in his third, which he seemed very agreeable to do in the beginning, then we could continue this project and get it done. However, he seems to now have double-shifted back and is saying that it is all contingent upon how we voted for the budget, which is just not the way to do it.

The Conservatives have a new-found alliance with the Liberals but they have to be pretty confident that will last. As the leader keeps moving up in the polls, the Liberals may not pass that big report card the Conservatives need to answer to in a few months.

One would think the Conservatives would get those sweaters back on and be a little extra friendly with all the members over here in the opposition because, guess what, they might need our help some day.

In any event, I would once again appeal to the minister to find a way to get the infrastructure money out to deal with this issue that we are talking about in Manitoba.

We talked yesterday to the municipal people who told us that the infrastructure money was really not there for bridges anyway. They said that it was for shovel-ready projects that had to be finished within two years. They have a list of projects that might apply and those are basically renovations. If a community centre needs a little bit of renovating and it can be done in two years without any environmental assessment, then that is the project that will be funded.

Why, in this omnibus bill, is there a provision dealing with environmental assessments? Just what kind of environmental projects do the Conservatives think will qualify under their rules for the infrastructure money? The answer is, none. There are no environmental projects that will apply here because they will not be able to get their assessment done in time to get the project done in the two year allotment.

Once again, I made the argument about the two lanes. I said that because we already had the land, we probably would not need an assessment because it was already in the plans. I said that this project should be considered as a separate one-off project to avoid people suffering an inconvenience. It is not only me who will be inconvenienced. The member has a colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul who is also in the affected area. Conservative councillors in the area are all in favour. Every elected official, at all levels, is in interested in solving this problem. It is simply the mayor of Winnipeg who is the intransigent one in this particular project.

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

Madam Speaker, speaking of comical, it is the glib response that we saw from the Conservatives when they saw the storm clouds coming, everyone saw this technical, this synchronized recession or whatever the words were that they used, they saw it coming for a long time. What did they do throughout that period? They stripped the fiscal capacity of the country to respond.

They were coming with one tax break after another, which were absolutely useless tax breaks in terms of GST, stripping the country's capacity to be ready at a time of crisis. But that speaks very much to the typical attitude of the neo-conservatives, the attitude of what we saw in the United States, and what we saw in Europe. They created this situation that we are in now.

We are dealing now with the government's response. It is supposed to be 500 pages of economic stimulus. However, the government in November told us that we had missed the recession and the recession was past, then Conservative backbenchers said they had already done their economic stimulus the year before. That was their tax cuts and in fact they were so smart they were ahead of the economic stimulus package. Then, of course, we found out that 130,000 jobs were lost in January and 250,000 since they were making such glib comments. Now they have settled down their tone somewhat.

However, within Bill C-10 we see the real direction of the Conservatives. They are not all that interested in an economic stimulus. They are looking to create the old Reform Party pinata. If we smash this like a pinata, we will find all the ugly little slugs of the Reform ideology start to fall out, for example, their attack on the human rights code. It is right there. What does it have to do with budget implementation? Zero, but the attack on the human rights code is laid out. The attack on environmental protection, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, is in there. What does that have to do with economic stimulus? Zero.

The attack on student loans is absolutely appalling. We have student debt that is crushing middle class families across Canada and yet we see the government adding brass knuckles in its budget implementation bill to attack students who are suffering from student loans. What does that have to do with economic stimulus? Absolutely zero.

Then of course we see the move to strip Canada's foreign investment rules. What does that have to do with economic stimulus? A great deal, if one is a foreign corporate raider and dealing with a Canadian company that is on weak legs, the government has just made it easier.

Let us put all of this in the context of the times. Right now we have the situation of Xstrata in Sudbury, an absolute debacle in the community. It has hit the region like an economic neutron bomb, but it is not just an isolated plant closing. This is the result of the twin pillars of Conservative ideology, which are indifference and incompetence, in addressing the economy.

Let us back up two years to the former industry minister. Some day it will be a Trivial Pursuit question to ask: who was the minister at the time when we lost the two great mining giants of Canada overnight?

I am sure many of the listeners back home will be wondering. I will give two clues: Julie Couillard, the whole “Mom” Boucher thing. That famous member. He was the industry minister. At that time Falconbridge and Inco were attempting to get a merger so that we could make the synergies of the industrial basin of Sudbury actually come together. Inco was having problems with its regulatory approvals and the industry committee, not just the New Democrats but the industry committee said, “Hold off on the hostile takeover by the corporate raider Xstrata until we can ensure that at least there is another bid on the table”. It was not to say, force Falconbridge to marry Inco, but to give Canadian companies the chance because they were being held up by international regulatory approvals.

The minister did nothing because it was not the role of the Conservatives to be involved in the economy in any way unless it was to sell off the great assets of Canada. Therefore, overnight we lost the twin jewels of Canadian money. Falconbridge went to Xstrata and Inco went to Vale of Brazil. We lost the synergies in the Sudbury basin.

At the time there were guffaws from the government side because it was the good times. In good times any idiotic company can make money. That is not a problem. In good times no one is worried about who is paying the bills but the question we asked again and again is what happens when the bust comes? What happens when the bust comes because nickel mining is cyclical? Now the bust has come. The only thing that the people of Sudbury had to protect them was an assurance by the government that a contract had been written to say that Xstrata would agree, in exchange for taking one of the key assets of the Canadian mining industry, that there would be three years without layoffs.

We have not even reached the three years. Now we have heard the industry minister claim, “Oh, don't worry, I stepped up to the floor and got Xstrata to offer some new money”. That is a lark. That money was on the books from Xstrata because it is simply moving ahead with what it planned all along.

If anyone knows nickel mining in Sudbury they will say at $5 a pound, nickel can be mined profitably. Nickel is about $5 a pound. What Xstrata is doing, as part of its corporate plan along, is to move away from the lower grade deposits, move to the nickel rim mine which is a phenomenally rich mine, which will allow it to continue to high grade the assets. Officials knew that if they simply ignored the agreement that they had a toothless, indifferent and incompetent government on the other side of the floor that would do nothing to make them stand up to the signed agreement with the Canadian people. That is exactly what happened.

For the people of Sudbury and all of the northern Ontario economy, the loss of 700 jobs is going to have an impact with long-term implications because anyone who has less than eight years seniority is gone. So sure they will be getting the bus ticket to Fort McMurray, but we are losing the new generation of miners. We are seeing families who do not have this extra six months. Whatever payout they get they are going to have to spend it and lose it before they ever get employment insurance.

In the 500 pages and all the talk we have heard from the Conservative Party, there is not a single provision anywhere in the budget for one extra family in Canada to be allowed access to employment insurance. Nothing. That has profound implications because Canadians pay into these systems. They believe, because they are working, that they do not have to worry about it, that if things go wrong that their government has a system in place.

The surprising fact for the people of Sudbury, Abitibi, and for the people all across my region, is that they have come to realize that the government has complete indifference toward those who are falling through the cracks. The only model applied for employment insurance is the Minister of Human Resources saying that the government did not want the benefits to be lucrative because it wanted to ensure that a hungry belly would ensure that people would get up off the couch and went looking for a job. That is absolutely intolerable.

It is intolerable that we have an indifferent government that has allowed such key resources, such as Falconbridge deposits, to be so cavalierly wasted. It is appalling that we have a government that will not make this foreign corporate raider stand up to the commitments that it made to the Canadian people when it acquired Falconbridge in the first place.

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

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to rise on the issue of Bill C-10 and its implementation.

The context in which we have to discuss this issue today is the root causes of how we came to this international economic catastrophe, how the Conservatives completely failed to understand the implications, and the implications of what they are doing now on the long term, because they all fit together in a very straightforward pattern.

I am sure members will remember the glib comments we heard from the other side of how we avoided a recession. When we saw the U.S. housing market collapse, there was a belief from Mr. Magoo of finance that Canada would not be in any way impacted by a downturn in the United States, even though that has never, ever happened--