This bill was last introduced in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session, which ended in March 2011.
This bill was previously introduced in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session.
Libby Davies NDP
Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)
In committee (House), as of Sept. 30, 2009
(This bill did not become law.)
This is from the published bill.
The purpose of this enactment is to require the Minister responsible for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to consult with the provincial ministers of the Crown responsible for municipal affairs and housing and with representatives of municipalities and Aboriginal communities in order to establish a national housing strategy.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition here concerning a national housing strategy.
The petitioners from Nova Scotia are asking for swift passage of a private member's bill, Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians. The petitioners and I look forward to the minister's answers.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, on the 75th anniversary of the historic “On to Ottawa Trek”, I am proud to welcome eight modern day homelessness trekkers from my riding of Vancouver East, who are here in Ottawa.
Am Johal, Diana Hart, Al Mitchell, Georges Maltais, Shawn Millar, David Murray, John Richardson and Garvin Snider left Vancouver on June 6 to re-enact the 1935 workers' protest against poor wages and abysmal working conditions in government camps during the Great Depression.
This wonderful group is also marking the end of the 2010 Homelessness Hunger Strike Relay, which I was honoured to participate in.
These groups and over 50 major Canadian organizations are calling on the government to support a national housing strategy and to vote yes to Bill C-304.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present two petitions.
I have presented many petitions on this subject. It is signed by many residents in East Vancouver and other parts of Vancouver who are in support of a national housing strategy. The petitioners are calling for an increased federal role in housing, not for profit housing, housing for the homeless and access to housing for those with different needs. They are calling for the support of Bill C-304.
Richard Nadeau Bloc Gatineau, QC
Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition to the House of Commons signed by 475 Gatineau residents urging the Prime Minister to support Bill C-304. This bill would ensure access to safe, adequate, available and affordable housing for all Quebeckers and Canadians. It is extremely important for our society to make that happen for people.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Madam Speaker, first, I thank my colleagues in the NDP caucus for speaking out so forcefully and consistently on Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill.
I wish I could say that we are joined by other members of the House as this debate continues, but it looks like we are pretty well alone, which is very unfortunate. I think of the speech that was made by the member for Toronto—Danforth a couple of days ago on Bill C-9 when he appealed to the official opposition and other members to speak out against the bill because it was a travesty. It is an almost 900 page bill. The process of what is unfolding is something, as parliamentarians, we should all be saying that we do not agree with and we are going to ensure that the bill does not go through.
We have seen the government use the 2010 budget to bring in a budget implementation bill. Under that bill, we are calling it the Trojan horse. It rams through all kinds of other significant public policy measures to do with the environment, with taxes, with privatization. The government is using the cover of a budget bill hoping no one will notice. The NDP wants everyone to notice what is taking place because this is an affront to democratic process.
On the bill itself, as many other NDP members have pointed out, we are completely opposed to many of the provisions in the bill. For example, we are opposed to the 50% increase in airline taxes for security. We are also opposed to the fact that the budget bill contains an enormous public policy issue of the divestiture of AECL, which allows for the sale of all or any part of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. It is a major issue that should be before the House in a separate bill and debated. Yet it is being rammed through as part of a budget bill. Once it is gone, it is gone and nothing can be done about it. We should all be up in arms and incredibly concerned about this.
There are other provisions in the bill. Probably one of the most significant ones for us is the tax shift from corporations on to ordinary Canadians.
Today I met with representatives of Food Banks Canada. It is so important to get that sense of reality of what is going on in local communities and what is happening to people across the country. They told me that every month 800,000 Canadians relied on food banks. The percentage of people relying on food banks increased 18% from 2008 to 2009. From 2009 to 2010, it is another 11% increase. They know that about 20% of people who use food banks either work or recently worked.
I bring this forward because it is relevant to this massive shift in taxation from corporations on to ordinary people. Because of the program that the Liberal government started, and now escalated by the Conservative government, we have a massive erosion of corporate taxes.
We believe in fair and progressive taxation. We believe everyone should pay their fair share. However, with this tax shift, by 2014, we will see a loss of $60 billion in revenue. It does not take anyone with a math degree to figure out that the loss of this amount of money will impact the kinds of services that can be provided, whether it is for health care, social programs, EI or whatever it is for the kinds of things we need to do to help unemployed workers. We see people having to rely more and more on food banks, and that is what is at the core of the budget. That is what is so wrong about it.
We also know that over the next four years the Conservative government will take in more than $19 billion than it needs to deal with EI. We know the employment insurance program is not paid for by the government. It is paid for by employers and employees. The government takes the money through the premiums. What is the government going to do? It is going to rake in billions more than is needed and then use it to pay for the corporate tax cuts. This is an outrage and we strenuously object to it.
There are also provisions in the budget bill that relate to the HST. As someone from British Columbia, there is a sense of outrage about the HST and the way it has been foisted upon the people there. The Conservative government and the Liberal government in British Columbia are working hand in glove with each other to put this on the people of B.C. The response from people has been absolutely incredible.
We have seen the most historic grassroots initiative take place, where people are signing petitions. They are saying, no, that the governments are not going to do this, that they are not going to run roughshod over democratic practice, negotiate a deal a few days after an election, not tell people about it and think they can get away with it.
This part of the budget bill as well as the tax shift is very much related to what is going on in my province. People are so angry over the Liberal and Conservative members of Parliament from B.C. who did absolutely nothing to stand up for their constituents and say that the HST was a bad tax and that it would come at the wrong time.
There are two other issues with which I want to deal. One is on the environment front.
One of the enormous issues in Bill C-9 is the budget is overwhelmingly negative on the environmental front. There are no provisions to fight climate change. There is no plan to create green jobs, something we have advocated for very strongly in our caucus. We have laid out detailed plans about how we need to move to a greener economy. Instead this budget focuses on facilitating and accelerating the extraction of oil and gas.
In a very dramatic move, it guts environmental protection by taking environmental assessments for energy projects away from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and giving that responsibility to the National Energy Board or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Both bodies, particularly the National Energy Board, as we just heard from my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, are very pro-industry. They are loaded with people who have a vested interest in seeing greater extraction of oil and gas.
It is quite shocking to see that this significant policy change on the environment, on regulations, on environmental assessment is in the budget implementation bill. The consequences of that will be felt for years and decades to come. This is one reason for the amendments before us today. We are at report stage of the bill and the proposed amendments would delete all those aspects from it. We think they have no place in a budget bill.
They should be debated separately. Members of the House should be able to look at those provisions in terms of natural resources and energy and how those assessments are done. If the government wants to change and weaken the procedures in place, then let it have the guts and the courage to do it as a separate legislation. Let it be willing to stand the test of putting that legislation before the House and then seeing whether it has the support to get it through. To do it through a budget bill is unconscionable.
I will focus briefly on the issue of housing. I, along with other members, have worked very hard for in my community for this. One thing that disturbs me very deeply is we rally saw no provisions for an ongoing housing program in the budget.
Over four million Canadians are living in housing insecurity. Up to 300,000 people are homeless in communities across the country. We would think this would be a major priority. It certainly takes us back to the statistics that I read from Food Banks Canada. Yet there is nothing in the budget that addresses this fundamental human right in our society, the right to safe, appropriate, affordable and accessible housing. I have a bill before the House, Bill C-304, that would compel the government to initiate and develop a national housing strategy.
A core requirement of a budget is to ensure people have adequate housing and incomes, whether it is through increasing the Canada pension plan, the guaranteed income supplement or OAS. Those are the fundamentals. Yet everything in the budget is getting away from that and giving greater breaks to corporations. We find that unacceptable and will vote against it.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, the same old announcements of the same old dollars will not solve Canada's housing crisis.
The minister knows full well that the Conservative government is ready to cut $500 million a year in federal support for existing affordable housing units. The FCM and over 50 major organizations across the country have endorsed Bill C-304 for safe and affordable housing.
Will the government support the bill and sit down with all levels of government to implement a national housing strategy?
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.
Bill C-304—Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act—Speaker's RulingPoints of OrderRoutine Proceedings
The Speaker Peter Milliken
I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised on April 1, 2010, by the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons regarding the admissibility of an amendment adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in its consideration of Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians. The bill containing the amendment in question was reported to the House on March 24.
I wish to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for having raised this issue as well as the hon. members for Joliette and Vancouver East for presenting their views on the matter.
The parliamentary secretary explained to the House that during the consideration of Bill C-304, the members of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities overturned a decision of the chair concerning an amendment to Bill C-304 that had been ruled inadmissible. The committee then proceeded to adopt the amendment.
He pointed out that the purpose of Bill C-304 is to create a national housing strategy and, more specifically, that clause 3 of the bill provides for the minister to consult with the provincial and territorial ministers in order to establish that strategy. The parliamentary secretary stated that the amendment, which allows the province of Quebec to opt out with full compensation, is inconsistent with the purpose of the bill. He also argued that since there was no mention of a potential provincial exemption in the bill as adopted by the House at second reading, the amendment alters the purpose and goes beyond the scope and principle of the bill.
The parliamentary secretary made reference to a committee chairman's ruling on the admissibility of a similar amendment during clause-by-clause consideration of Bill S-3, an act to amend the Official Languages Act (promotion of English and French), by the Standing Committee on Official Languages on October 20, 2005. An amendment to exclude one province from the application of that bill was moved and ruled inadmissible by the committee chair since it was contrary to the principle of the bill.
In his intervention, the member for Joliette stated that, in his view, the amendment in question is admissible since the right of Quebec to be exempted is consistent with the principle of the bill. He also provided many examples of Canada-wide programs or strategies from which the province of Quebec is exempted.
In her intervention, the member for Vancouver East made reference to a Speaker's ruling of January 29, 2008 defining the principle and the scope of the bill. She explained that the principle of Bill C-304 is to develop a housing strategy and that the scope, which encompasses the mechanisms by which the principle is attained, includes the consultations leading to the establishment of the strategy. Furthermore, she claimed that the amendment in question is permissive, not mandatory, and that it merely seeks to clarify the scope of the bill.
As the House knows, the Speaker does not ordinarily intervene on committee matters unless a report has been presented in the House. With respect to legislation, the Speaker has been called upon to deal with such matters after the bill in question has been reported to the House.
The Chair believes that it would be useful to have a look at the amendment in question. It is a new clause added after clause 3 and reads as follows:
The Government of Quebec may choose to be exempted from the application of this Act and may, if it chooses to do so, receive an unconditional payment equal to the total of the amounts that would otherwise be paid within its territory under this Act.
In the Chair's view, there are two elements to this new clause. The first is the Government of Quebec's right to opt out of the strategy, and the second relates to the right to receive financial compensation if it chooses to do so.
With regard to the first element of the amendment, the members for Joliette and Vancouver East both have given examples of Canada-wide programs and policies of which the province of Quebec is exempted. The Chair is in no way questioning that such arrangements exist in current programs or could exist in future programs within specific legislative frameworks. However, the Chair has to determine if such an arrangement as defined by the amendment in question goes against the principle or broadens the scope of this bill as adopted by the House at second reading.
The Chair refers members to clause 3 of the bill which provides elements that should be part of a housing strategy, elements that are, in fact, defining the scope of the bill. The Chair views the nature of those elements as being very different from that proposed by the amendment in question and finds that an opting out provision is a new concept which exceeds the scope as defined in clause 3.
As for the second element, that of payments to provinces, the Chair has studied the bill very closely and finds no reference to payments that could be made to a province under this Act. Payments to provincial governments are not provided for in Bill C-304, and, therefore, it is clear that this element of the amendment goes beyond the scope of the bill.
The Chair also considered a number of precedents. In addition to the example of Bill S-3 cited by the parliamentary secretary, the Chair has found an example of similar amendments submitted at report stage. In fact, when Bill C-20, an Act to give effect to the requirement for clarity as set out in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec Secession Reference, was considered at report stage, amendments seeking the exemption of the province of Quebec were submitted and were found to be inadmissible.
The Speaker then explained in his ruling of March 13, 2000 at Debates page 4375 that:
“...from a strictly procedural perspective…I remain convinced that those amendments the hon. member referred to do in fact go beyond the scope and alter the principle of the bill as already agreed to by the House.”
While the Chair appreciates the efforts to improve proposed legislation made by committees in the course of clause-by-clause consideration, the fact remains that a committee must carry out its mandate without exceeding its powers. In my view, by adopting an amendment that goes against the principle of the bill and that introduces a notion broadening its scope, a committee ventures beyond the role that the House has assigned to it.
Consequently, I must order that the amendment creating clause 3.1 adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities be declared null and void and no longer form part of the bill as reported to the House.
In addition, I am ordering that a reprint of Bill C-304 be published with all possible haste for use by the House at report stage to replace the reprint ordered by the committee.
I thank the House for its attention.
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, last August, the Conservative government asked Ascentum to organize consultations, write a report and develop a national strategy to address the problem of homelessness.
Now—surprise, surprise—this agency's main suggestions are the same as the solutions the NDP has identified in our Bill C-304.
Will the government follow the advice in the report it commissioned?
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
Madam Speaker, a strategy is action. It would force the minister to develop a strategy and to act on it.
I would note that regarding the stakeholders that the government has put forward as being supportive of the stimulus spending, of course they are supportive of it. It was the first time we had seen money for housing for quite some time, but those same stakeholders actually testified at the hearings on Bill C-304. They have come out strongly in support of a national housing strategy.
They have come out strongly in support of Bill C-304. They have called upon Canada to honour its obligation when it signed, in 1976, onto the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, saying out loud to the world that there is a right to housing in this country. Yet, we have seen no action on it. These same stakeholders are calling on us to honour our international obligations.
A national housing strategy would provide for a more productive and healthier workforce. It would provide stability for countless adults and children. It would cement housing as a right.
Why does the government continue to resist our housing strategy?
Megan Leslie NDP Halifax, NS
Mr. Speaker, I want to start this question to the government with a story. When I was a law student, I did a placement at Dalhousie Legal Aid Service doing poverty law work, and I worked with a lawyer on a case involving a young man who was involved in the criminal justice system.
Nova Scotia has an excellent restorative justice program for youth and this young man was diverted from court to a restorative justice contract where he had to fulfill certain obligations like going to school or doing volunteer work. This young man missed many of his restorative justice appointments. He was hardly ever at school. He did not even come close to completing his contract. He actually missed a court appearance and an arrest warrant was issued.
When we finally tracked him down, he did not have much to offer by way of why he could not complete his contract and he seemed resigned to the fact that he would go to jail. However, this was not the kid who we knew. This was not the kid who had made a mistake, had owned up to it and who was eager to learn from his mistake.
Eventually it came out that he and his mom had been kicked out of their apartment and they were homeless. They were couch surfing from friend's house to friend's house until she could scrape enough money together to put a down payment on a new apartment.
I think a lot about this young man, even now, years later. How was he supposed to go to school and concentrate on it when he did not have a home? How was he supposed to follow his bail conditions when he did not have a home? How was he supposed to concentrate on righting his wrongs when he did not have a home? How was he supposed to contribute positively to his community when he did not have a home?
This story is all too common. We know from a recent report of the Conference Board of Canada that 20% of Canadian households are not able to afford their housing. This means people are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. We know some Canadians spend 100% of their income on housing, forcing them to access food banks and soup kitchens in order to eat and to heat their homes with their ovens because they cannot afford heating. Heat is not a luxury, especially in a country like Canada; it is a necessity. Housing is not a luxury.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are on the brink of losing their homes. We need action. During this parliamentary session, we have the opportunity to set up a national framework that would ensure Canadians are housed. This is Bill C-304, which has been reported back to the House and awaits third reading.
This bill, introduced by my colleague from Vancouver East, would create a national housing strategy and would bring together all levels of government in order to set standards for housing across the country and ensure secure, accessible, affordable and sustainable housing for all Canadians.
The Conservatives claim they have already done enough. They cite stimulus money spent on housing as a sign that they are truly engaged in the issue. Every time we talk about housing in this place, they come back to the stimulus budget, but that is not a strategy. It is a piecemeal approach. It is visionless and it is not coordinated.
Two weeks ago we learned that only 300 housing units were promised to Inuit communities when we know the need was 1,000 units. We know what the solution is, so why should there be a shortage at all?
Time and time again the Conservatives defend their appalling record on housing. Despite having the opportunity to bring Canada in line with all other G8 countries, all those countries that have national housing strategies, they resist. They remain silent on their reasoning and they obfuscate on nothing more than ideological grounds, not based on social policy, on research, but on cementing an us versus them approach to Canadian politics.
Canadians want answers and they want solutions. They do not want their members of Parliament to refuse to see the woods for the trees. When will the government support our national housing strategy?
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to present three petitions.
The first is many pages of petitions concerning a national housing strategy. I would like to thank the staff and students at Windermere Secondary School in Vancouver, particularly Donna Lee, who collected signatures. The petitions have also come in from Victoria, Vancouver, Saskatoon, Langley, Burnaby, Kingston, Ontario, Salmon Arm, B.C., Prince Rupert, Powell River, North Vancouver, Barrie, Ontario, right across the country.
The petitioners call for a national housing strategy that will ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for all Canadians and for the passage of Bill C-304.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, I recently had the honour to participate in the 2010 homelessness hunger strike relay to raise awareness about this crisis in Canada.
The relay will conclude in June with a delegation to Ottawa by train to mark the 75th anniversary of the On to Ottawa Trek, when thousands of unemployed men rode the trains to demand fair work and wages.
I collected pages and pages of messages from people who know only too well the reality of homelessness. One person wrote, “Homelessness exists because society allows it to”. Another wrote, “No homes, no life”.
Bill C-304 for a national housing strategy is currently before Parliament and is finding strong support across Canada. In Vancouver we are on the verge of losing hundreds of shelter beds because of lack of funding and lack of federal leadership. The need for a national strategy could not be more apparent.
Many MPs have heard from their constituents on this bill, and I hope those voices will be reflected with all-party support for a national housing strategy when it comes to a vote.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill. I want to begin my remarks by commenting on the enormity of this bill. It is 872 pages long and has 24 different parts.
When one goes through the bill, whether one goes through the summary or starts looking at the bill in its totality, one can see immediately that the Conservative government has decided to use this bill as a cover for all kinds of very negative and bad public policy initiatives. We are certainly aware of that and this is one of the reasons it is very important that debate take place on Bill C-9.
I would add to the comments made by my colleagues that it is very ironic that Conservative members are choosing not to debate this bill, because it is simply enormous when one considers what is covered in it. We did hear the budget speech and we had the budget itself, but this budget implementation bill goes far beyond what was contained in the budget. It is using itself as a cover for all kinds of draconian measures. I will mention a couple.
Environmental assessment is a very important issue in terms of ensuring that the public interest is represented in dealing with environmental issues. Why is it in a budget implementation bill that the minister will now have all kinds of discretion to dictate the scope of environmental assessments of any of the projects to be reviewed? Why would it be that federally funded infrastructure projects can now be exempted from environmental assessment?
These are very serious questions which in and of themselves should be debated separately through legislation in a debate in the House, yet they have been slipped into Bill C-9, the budget implementation act. We are very concerned about that. We are very disturbed that the government is yet again using these kinds of means to try and slip important matters through the House.
The Conservatives did it a few years ago with Bill C-50, when they brought in all kinds of very substantive changes to the Citizenship and Immigration Act. They used a budget bill to do that. We see the same in this bill with Canada Post. We know that the Conservatives have tried to move a bill through the House which in effect would privatize aspects of Canada Post and affect the jobs and services that are provided by that crown corporation and federal agency.
We have held up that bill. We prevented it from coming forward. What is the response? Yet again, the Conservatives are trying to slip it through in the budget implementation bill. I am actually surprised that they did not try to include the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement and sneak that one through, too, because we have been holding that one up.
I want to reserve the rest of my comments for issues pertaining to what I think are very serious in my community and how this budget implementation bill does not deal with them.
I represent the riding of Vancouver East. It is a wonderful riding, full of activists and great neighbourhoods, and yet right now in the city of Vancouver there is a crisis taking place. The seven Vancouver homeless emergency action team shelters are slated to close by April 30.
Those shelters have been providing a safe, warm, appropriate place for people to go where there is a laundry facility, food, good management and care for about 600 people a night. There was a lot of suspicion that these shelters were put up just for the Olympics. Hundreds of thousands of people were in our city for the Olympics. We were all aware that we had a serious homelessness and housing affordability crisis in our city. These shelters were opened and they have provided support to people. That has been very important. Now they are going to close.
In fact, there has been a very public conflict going on between the province of B.C. and the city of Vancouver as to what will happen with these shelters. What is remarkable to me is that the federal government has not said one word. There is nothing about the federal homelessness partnering strategy and that maybe it could provide some assistance with these shelters now slated to be closed and the fact that there will be hundreds of people out on the street. It is just so staggering to understand what is taking place.
We are dealing with issues in my community that are deeply systemic. This housing crisis has gone on for two decades. It started with the former Liberal government that eliminated all of the housing programs. My Bill C-304 would try to get the federal government back into housing by working with the provinces, municipalities, first nations and civil society.
This crisis is incredible to me. People are out on the street in our city right now and more people will be out on the street because these shelters are going to close down.
The annual homeless count that was done on March 23 showed that the number of homeless people in Vancouver had increased 12% from 2008 from 1,576 people to 1,762 people. Those are numbers but we also need to think about this in terms of individual people. We need to think about the impact on people's lives when they do not know where they will go each night, do not have access to proper food, do not have a decent income, do not have proper shelter assistance to keep out of the cold and wet weather and do not have access to laundry facilities. These figures are staggering.
The only good news, if there is any good news, is that 1,300 of those 1,700 homeless people were in shelters. In fact, the number of people in shelters has increased, which is good, but, as I said before, these shelters will be closing.
I have to question the government with this budget implementation bill that is nearly 900 pages long as to why there is nothing in the budget that will help the City of Vancouver deal with this crisis as it tries to cope with the costs. It costs the city about $7 million to keep these shelters open when the federal government could be doing that.
The City of Vancouver, like other municipalities, relies on the property tax base. It does the best it can in stretching every single dollar. It has gone more than its distance and more than its responsibility in ensuring that these shelters are operating. It did get some assistance from the provincial government but most of that is now coming to an end.
This raises a very stark contrast. On the one hand, we see a budget that continues with outrageous tax breaks to corporations in the billions of dollars, robbing the public purse of desperately needed revenue, and on the other hand, we see communities, like the Downtown Eastside and other communities across the country, where people are destitute on the street and do not know where they will go each night.
A budget is about disclosing the real priorities and the real objectives of a government. We have had so much emphasis and focus on crime bills and little boutique bills. We have had so much overemphasis on law enforcement and tough on crime measures that will solve every problem we have, but we have deeply systemic and complex social issues in the urban environment, whether it is a lack of funds for public transit, lack of funds for housing or lack of funds for child care. People are literally struggling each month to get by.
The plight of homeless people is quite shocking but it affects a broader segment of society too. I know lots of working folks where both parents are working and making minimum wage or maybe a bit more and they are struggling to keep up with exorbitant child care costs, even if they can get into child care.
In addressing Bill C-9, the budget implementation act, I want to put it right out there that this is an outrage and a shame in terms of what the government has not done to address some of these ongoing and deeply systemic issues in our country. The gap is growing between wealth and poverty. More Canadians are falling into an environment where they cannot make ends meet.
We saw a wonder film the other night Poor no More that was premiered here on Parliament Hill hosted by Mary Walsh that showed so well in a very articulate way what is taking place for the working poor. These are people who are working, many of whom are getting a minimum wage. It showed how people are struggling and are actually living below the poverty line.
This is a bad budget implementation bill because it does not deal with what needs to be dealt with in my community and other communities. I hope that we can convince other members of the House not to support it.
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak on behalf of the constituents of Vancouver Kingsway and to offer their feedback and views on Bill C-9, the budget presented by the Conservative government.
Prior to the budget being presented in the House, I spent several months meeting with my constituents in my office and in my community in every kind of context one can imagine. I visited owners of small businesses. I went to community centres. I went door-knocking from house to house. I visited my constituents on the streets, in the markets, in the businesses and in the cultural and recreational venues of Vancouver Kingsway.
I asked them about their lives. I asked them about the federal government and about the priorities they would like to see presented in the budget. This is a particularly cogent question. As we all know, over December, January and February of 2009 and 2010, many people, including the people of Vancouver Kingsway, had to deal with a challenging economic environment. Many people, from children to seniors to working men and women, to single mothers to owners of small businesses have been struggling.
These are the priorities that my constituents overwhelmingly and repeatedly mentioned they would like to see in this budget.
They wanted to see a budget that focused on creating jobs and not just jobs as a number on a page, but good, well-paying jobs upon which someone could raise a family. They wanted to see the federal government get back into developing affordable housing in the country. They wanted to see the provision of federal funds to create a national, universal, affordable and accessible child care system.
My constituents told me they wanted to see the federal government increase its transfers to the provinces in every aspect of education, from preschool to elementary and secondary public education to universities, trade schools and community colleges of every type. They told me they wanted to see the federal government increase spending on public transit. They wanted to see the government make a clear stand, both in policy terms and in financial backup to protect our environment.
The people of Vancouver Kingsway told me they wanted to see help for seniors, whether that was providing medical, dental and transportation support. They wanted to ensure that every senior in British Columbia and across Canada could have a decent, comfortable, safe and secure place to live.
They told me they wanted to support for small businesses. They told me they wanted to see fair taxation returned to the country. On that score, the people of Vancouver Kingsway, unlike the people on the other side of the House, believe in government and believe that if we pool our resources together, we can collectively build the kind of country that will provide strong public services for every person from coast to coast to coast.
Last, the people of Vancouver Kingsway wanted to see action taken on pensions. As the baby boomers age, as the demographics in the country move us closer to retirement in ever-increasing numbers, people across Canada, including those in Vancouver Kingsway, are starting to be concerned that they will not have enough money to live decent and dignified lives when they retire at the age of 60, 65 or 70.
I submitted these submissions to the Minister of Finance and I submitted them well in advance of the budget. I am also proud to say that I submitted a number of specific requests that also emanated from direct requests from the people of Vancouver Kingsway.
They wanted us to build a mid-sized performing arts theatre in Vancouver Kingsway. They wanted to see federal help to build a Filipino cultural centre and a Vietnamese cultural centre. They wanted to see investments in affordable housing at the Little Mountain site and at the RCMP headquarters site, which will soon be vacated. They wanted to see senior stand-alone housing, public housing projects and affordable renting housing developments backstopped by the federal government.
The people of Vancouver Kingsway wanted to see the federal government make a clear stand for the children and youth of our communities and the recreational needs of our citizens by helping contribute funds to the Mount Pleasant outdoor pool, to help fund the programs and capital requirements of Cedar Cottage, Little Mountain and Collingwood Neighbourhood House
They wanted the federal government to help make sure that our community centres, such as Renfrew Park, Douglas Park, Trout Lake and Riley Park, have adequate space and enough funding for their programs.
They wanted to see increased services for new Canadians, the funding of more language training programs and more settlement and counselling services which are critically important to ensure that new Canadians can get settled and prosper in their new country of choice.
The people of Vancouver Kingsway specifically wanted to see more investment in community crime prevention programs and increased community policing in the riding. They wanted very practical environmental solutions right in the riding, things like bicycle paths and greenways in Vancouver Kingsway. They wanted to see increased tax credits and government grants to encourage the green retrofitting of residential and commercial buildings. They wanted to see the federal government lead the way in encouraging urban food production by investing in community gardens and other community food safety and security programs.
Most importantly, the people of Vancouver Kingsway wanted to see investments in our children. They wanted to see federal contributions to help us seismically upgrade our elementary and secondary schools. As we all know, Vancouver is in a seismically active area, and schools are the first places that people will go to in the case of an earthquake. We have seen earthquakes devastate so many countries in the world. I can say that the schools in Vancouver Kingsway and Vancouver are seismically unsafe.
They wanted to see capital and operating funds for elementary and secondary schools in Vancouver Kingsway, and operating funds for new and existing child care providers, because nothing is more important to the people of this country than their children.
Last, as I said, they wanted to invest in public transit to increase service levels on overcrowded bus routes, expand rapid transit in Vancouver and keep transit fares affordable.
This is what the people of my riding told me they wanted to see. But what did they see? Did they see the Conservative government deliver those priorities? Absolutely not.
We see very little new in this budget. It shows a government that has no clear vision for the economy. Even worse, it is repeating the failed policies of the past instead, policies that are based on the flawed assumption that increasing corporate tax cuts and deregulation are the way to fuel the economy of the future.
We see a budget that provided a missed opportunity to create jobs, help the vulnerable and contribute to building the strong kind of economy that will be needed in the years ahead. The truth is that none of the priorities expressed by the people of Vancouver Kingsway are reflected in the budget.
I heard it expressed recently that a budget represents the soul of the government. When we read the budget's priorities, we can see deeply into the very soul of the people who make up the government. We can tell what they think is important. In this respect we have a very clear picture of the type of soul on that side of the House, which is one that favours corporations, ignores the vulnerable and needy and does not fundamentally believe in building a strong, public system and delivery of services to all Canadians.
The budget should have included a national industrial strategy that focuses on investing in green jobs and the green economy. We would have liked to see a budget that provided high-paying jobs that are based on fostering innovation in green technology and green energy and, at the same time, adopting provisions that save families money on energy costs and that make sure that we have clean air, clean water and protect the environment for future generations.
We wanted to see a budget that was an opportunity to deliver on child care. Canadians need help getting back to work. Nothing is more important to them than their children, so what better way to invest and support working families than by making sure that when they drop their children off in the morning, they are in safe, secure, stimulating environments. Having a lack of child care disproportionately impacts women and low income families of all types. It is time we had a national child care program. Canadian families are waiting.
The budget was an opportunity to launch an affordable housing strategy. In Vancouver, housing is incredibly unaffordable, and the lack of affordable housing is a huge issue for many families. Too many Canadians have no adequate housing at all. Shamefully, in this country there are many people who are homeless.
Many people who are struggling to maintain housing, would like to purchase housing, or rent clean and affordable housing cannot do so. It is time that we had a federal government that came back into the housing file instead of leaving it to the provinces and cities. Without federal government participation we simply cannot provide acceptable affordable housing for everyone.
My colleague from Vancouver East has Bill C-304 before the House right now and it is time that we all got together and supported it.
I could go on, but I will conclude by saying that the budget needs to be rejected by members in the House. We need to replace it with a budget that works for everyday Canadians based on the priorities that have been identified by my constituents.