Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery Act

A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures

This bill was last introduced in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session, which ended in March 2011.

Sponsor

Jim Flaherty  Conservative

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill.

Part 1 of this enactment implements a number of income tax measures proposed in the March 4, 2010 Budget. In particular it
(a) allows for the sharing of the Canada Child Tax Benefit, the Universal Child Care Benefit and the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax credit for eligible shared custody parents;
(b) allows Registered Retirement Savings Plan proceeds to be transferred to a Registered Disability Savings Plan on a tax-deferred basis;
(c) implements disbursement quota reform for registered charities;
(d) better targets the tax incentives in place for employee stock options;
(e) expands the availability of accelerated capital cost allowance for clean energy generation;
(f) adjusts the capital cost allowance rate for television set-top boxes to better reflect the useful life of these assets;
(g) clarifies the definition of a principal-business corporation for the purposes of the rules relating to Canadian Renewable and Conservation Expenses;
(h) introduces amendments that are consequential to the introduction in 2011 of new International Financial Reporting Standards by the Accounting Standards Board; and
(i) amends the Canada Pension Plan, the Employment Insurance Act and the Income Tax Act to provide legislative authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to issue online notices if the taxpayer so requests.
Part 1 also implements income tax measures that were previously announced regarding:
(a) rules to facilitate the implementation of Employee Life and Health Trusts, released in draft form on February 26, 2010;
(b) indexing of the working income tax benefit announced in the 2009 Budget;
(c) technical changes concerning TFSAs announced on October 16, 2009; and
(d) an amendment to the rules regarding labour sponsored venture capital corporations that are consequential to the introduction of TFSAs.
Part 2 amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act, the Excise Act, 2001, the Excise Tax Act and the New Harmonized Value-added Tax System Regulations to provide legislative authority for the Canada Revenue Agency to issue online notices if the taxpayer so requests.
Part 2 also amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act, the Excise Act, the Excise Act, 2001, the Excise Tax Act, the Brewery Departmental Regulations and the Brewery Regulations to allow certain small remitters to file and remit semi-annually rather than monthly.
Finally, Part 2 amends the Air Travellers Security Charge Act and the Excise Tax Act to extend the protection from civil liability claims that is already provided under the Income Tax Act and other federal statutes to agents of the Crown who collect the Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax and the air travellers security charge in intended compliance with their statutory obligations.
Part 3 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to facilitate the sharing of taxes under Part I.01 and Part X.5 of the Income Tax Act with provinces and territories.
Part 4 amends the Bank Act and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act to require that banks belong to an approved external complaints body and to authorize the Governor in Council to prescribe the approval requirement for that body. The amendments also assign the responsibility for managing the approval process and supervising the approved external complaints bodies to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.
Part 5 amends the Canada Disability Savings Act to allow a 10-year carry forward of Canada Disability Savings Grant and Canada Disability Savings Bond entitlements.
Part 6 amends section 11.1 of the Customs Act to exempt from the User Fees Act fees that are charged for expedited border clearance programs and that are coordinated with international partners.
Part 7 amends the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act to implement the total transfer protection for 2010-11, to set out the treatment of the one-time transfer protection payment under the fiscal stabilization program, update legislative references made in the fiscal stabilization provisions and give greater clarity to the calculation of the fiscal stabilization payment.
Part 8 amends the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act. In particular, the Act is amended to
(a) harmonize the assessment of costs associated with the administration of the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 with the regime in place for the assessment of costs associated with the administration of laws governing financial institutions; and
(b) allow the Superintendent to remit assessments, interim assessments and penalties and to write off certain debts.
Part 9 amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985. In particular, the Act is amended to
(a) authorize the Minister of Finance to enter into an agreement with the provinces respecting pension plans that are subject to the pension legislation of more than one jurisdiction;
(b) authorize the Minister of Finance to designate an entity for the purposes of receiving, holding and disbursing the pension benefit credit of any person who cannot be located;
(c) permit information to be provided in electronic form, including information provided by the administrator of a pension plan to members or to the Superintendent;
(d) allow the administrator of a pension plan to offer investment options with respect to accounts maintained in respect of a defined contribution provision or accounts maintained for additional voluntary contributions;
(e) provide rules regarding negotiated contribution plans;
(f) require consent of a member’s spouse or common-law partner before the transfer of the member’s pension benefit credit to a retirement savings plan; and
(g) authorize the Superintendent to direct the administrator of a pension plan that is subject to the pension legislation of more than one jurisdiction to establish a separate pension plan for certain members, former members and survivors.

Elsewhere

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.

Votes

Dec. 7, 2010 Passed That the Bill be now read a third time and do pass.
Nov. 4, 2010 Passed That the Bill be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 4:50 p.m.


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The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin

There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed without debate to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 4:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC

moved that the bill be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to)

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 4:50 p.m.


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The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin

When shall the bill be read a third time? By leave, now?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 4:50 p.m.


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Some hon. members

Agreed.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 4:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Lawrence Cannon Conservative Pontiac, QC

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 4:50 p.m.


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North Vancouver B.C.

Conservative

Andrew Saxton ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to start third and final reading of the sustaining Canada's economic recovery act. Before continuing, let me quickly thank the House of Commons finance committee for its timely consideration and adoption of this important legislation.

The sustaining Canada's economic recovery act, which includes numerous initiatives from budget 2010, is a key element of Canada's economic action plan, a plan that has helped ensure that Canada has weathered the recent global economic storm better than all other countries in the G7, a plan that has given the Canadian economy a $62 billion shot in the arm when it needed it the most, a plan that was well designed.

As Auditor General Sheila Fraser, following her examination of Canada's economic action plan, recently concluded, “I would give the government high marks.... [T]hey paid a lot of attention to managing the risks” and they deserve “a lot of credit” for that.

It is a plan that worked and is still working.

Indeed, listen to what prominent Canadians have said about it.

Bank of Montreal economist Doug Porter exclaimed:

Canada has arguably had one of the most successful stimulus programs in the industrialized world....

Federation of Canadian Municipalities president Brock Carlton, has applauded:

the economic action plan has been very successful

Canadian Public Works Association president Darwin Durnie has remarked:

Conceived in response to the chaos of the global economic recession, the Economic Action Plan has saved jobs and generated economic activity

Likewise, our continued economic growth also clearly shows that Canada's economic action plan is working and that our Conservative government is on the right track on the economy.

Let us look at the facts: Canada's economy has grown in 11 of the past 12 months; Canada has created almost 430,000 net new jobs since July of last year; and Canada is projected to have the strongest economic growth in the G7 over the next few years by both the IMF and the OECD. Little wonder countless independent experts and observers have been near unanimous in their praise for Canada's economy.

Canadian Federation of Independent Business president Catherine Swift has noted:

Canada is currently faring better economically than most other developed countries around the world

TD Bank Financial Group chief economist Craig Alexander, has declared that Canada's “economic performance was better than any other industrial nation”.

A recent Victoria Times Colonist editorial has heralded:

far from needing a lecture on financial management or sound public policy, Canada should be delivering one.... Our handling of the economic downturn has been an example for the world.

Even the Toronto Star, no friend of our Conservative government, has grudgingly admitted:

Canada has come through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression remarkably well — better than any other industrial nation in the world.

Without a doubt, our Conservative government is on the right track on the economy and for Canadian families. However, as our government has said all along, the global economic recovery remains fragile. As witnessed by the ongoing fiscal challenges currently affecting European countries such as Ireland, we are not out of the woods yet. That is why our government's main focus has been and will remain the economy, including implementing Canada's economic action plan.

The sustaining Canada's economic recovery act does exactly that, moving ahead to protect Canada's economy and further strengthen the recovery.

Today's act accomplishes that objective in numerous ways, through a group of key steps, steps to help Canadian families get ahead, such as indexing the working income tax benefit, allowing registered retirement savings plan proceeds to be transferred to a registered disability savings plan on a tax deferred basis, allowing a 10-year carry forward for registered disability savings plan grants and bonds, implementing employee life and health trusts, and further strengthening federally regulated pension plans; steps to cut red tape, such as helping registered charities with disbursement quota reform, allowing taxpayers to request online notices from the Canada Revenue Agency, and reducing the paperwork burden for certain taxpayers; steps to close down tax loopholes, such as better targeting tax incentives for employee stock options, and addressing aggressive tax planning related to tax-free savings accounts; steps to further protect consumers by improving the complaint process for consumers when dealing with the financial services industry; and finally, steps to promote clean energy by expanding access to accelerated capital cost allowance for clean energy generation.

I would like to pause here a moment to highlight a few of the key steps in greater detail, especially outlining what they mean for everyday hard-working Canadian families and businesses.

To start, I would like to explain how the sustaining Canada's economic recovery act's proposal to index the working income tax benefit will help better ensure that Canadian families can better get ahead.

Our Conservative government has made a lot of progress to help low-income Canadians since 2006, including key investments in social housing and removing over one million low-income Canadians from the tax rolls.

We have also fought hard to make sure that no Canadian is penalized for taking a job. This has been underlined by the introduction of the working income tax benefit, or the WITB, in 2007. This benefit was designed to ensure that Canadians would be better off as a result of taking a job, and not face unintended and perverse disincentives for taking that job. Taxes, reduced income support, and loss of benefits had often discouraged individuals receiving social assistance from working, clawing back nearly 80% of their income.

WITB helps address that situation by both increasing income support while simultaneously strengthening work incentives. I am happy to report that approximately 1.5 million individuals and families benefit from the WITB each year.

What is more, since our Conservative government first introduced it, WITB has been roundly applauded.

The Caledon Institute of Social Policy has called it:

a welcome addition to Canadian social policy.... [It] fills a long-recognized gap in Canada's income security system.

McMaster University Professor William Scarth has observed that WITB:

stimulates employment rather than subsidizes people not to work. So it's a fundamental and beneficial change.

The United Way of Greater Toronto has declared that WITB is a positive change “that will help to improve the situations of low-income families”.

When we introduced it in 2007, our government also indicated it was only a first step that we hoped to build on. Indeed, we have done exactly that.

In budget 2009, we effectively doubled the tax relief provided by WITB, increasing benefits by an additional $580 million. This further strengthened work incentives for low-income Canadians already in the workforce and encouraged low-income Canadians to enter the workforce.

In the sustaining Canada's economic recovery act we propose to further improve WITB in a small but important way. Each year, certain personal income tax and benefit amounts are indexed to inflation using the consumer price index. This act will ensure that WITB amounts will also be indexed to inflation on an annual basis.

Following royal assent, WITB amounts payable in 2010 and subsequent years will be indexed to inflation on an annual basis, providing a few extra dollars to Canadian families that need it most. This is particularly important coming out of a recession where we understand that low-income Canadians have taken the brunt of the impact.

The next key step in sustaining Canada's economic recovery act that I would like to highlight in greater detail relates to cutting red tape for charities.

Supporting the good work of charities across Canada is obviously a shared goal among all parliamentarians. In that respect, we have heard from many charities throughout the years about the need to cut their red tape so they can devote more of their time and resources to actually helping others, not dealing with needless administrative paperwork.

One measure being proposed through today's act helps cut red tape facing charities, specifically significant reforms to the disbursement quota regime to reduce administrative complexity and better enable charities to focus their time and resources on charitable activities.

The disbursement quota, originally introduced in 1976, has been criticized by many as antiquated and failing to take into account the varying circumstances of charities. The disbursement quota has also been criticized as imposing an unduly complex and costly administrative burden on charities, particularly small and rural charities.

Additionally, in recent years, Canada Revenue Agency's ability to ensure the appropriateness of a charity's practices has been strengthened through new legislative and administrative tools. These tools have provided a more effective and direct means to fulfill many of the purported objectives of the disbursement quota. As a result, today's act proposes to cut that red tape overlap by eliminating the majority of antiquated disbursement quota requirements.

I note the feedback that has been received to this move has been extremely positive. Imagine Canada has applauded it for providing greater flexibility for charities as they seek to meet the increasing and changing needs of Canadians. The disbursement quota added layers of red tape and reduced flexibility in responding to the needs of Canadians and communities. It would help charitable organizations, especially smaller and rural ones, to better plan their activities to meet the real needs of their communities.

The Salvation Army has cheered it, stating:

The removal of the quota will provide The Salvation Army; one of Canada’s largest charities, with increased flexibility....

We are very pleased with this announcement. The proposed changes will allow us to better respond to the needs of the people we serve in 400 communities across Canada.

Community Foundations of Canada has enthusiastically added:

This move is a win-win situation – it has a dramatic impact on communities, making it easier for charities to serve people in need.... We applaud the government’s decision to reform the disbursement quota policy.

The next steps in sustaining Canada's economic recovery act I would like to look at in greater detail, also focused on cutting red tape. Parliamentarians often hear complaints from constituents and small businesses about the unnecessary paperwork and red tape they face around filing their annual taxes. This is especially true for small and medium size businesses, the engines of growth in the Canadian economy.

Indeed, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimates that businesses in Canada currently spend over $30 billion each year complying with regulations. Our Conservative government understands the burden unnecessary red tape places on taxpayers, and that is why we have taken important steps to reduce the administrative and paperwork burden.

Over the past few years, we have taken important steps to reduce the administrative and paperwork burden on Canadian businesses and taxpayers. In March 2009, for example, we met our target of reducing the paper burden on companies by 20%, eliminating almost 80,000 redundant regulatory requirements. This was done by streamlining regulations, eliminating duplicate or overlapping requirements and reducing excessive information requirements.

To build on our record and further reduce the administrative red tape burden on taxpayers, today's act would take another two steps. First, it would provide the Canada Revenue Agency with the authority to issue online notices, if the taxpayer so requests, for those notices that can currently only be sent by ordinary mail. This would help reduce the volume of paper to be dealt for both the taxpayers and the government.

Second, it would allow certain small businesses to file and remit semi-annually rather than monthly. With this change, many small businesses would be allowed to invest more of their time in managing and growing their businesses and the jobs it will create in our communities.

Before I conclude, I would like to highlight in detail one final item in the act: expanding access to accelerated capital cost allowance for clean energy generation.

Our country's energy supply is of vital importance to Canadians, especially promoting clean energy generation technologies. For that reason, the tax system provides incentives through accelerated capital cost allowance to help promote investment in generation equipment that conserves energy or relies on renewable or waste sources.

Today's act would expand the scope of that tax incentive to assets used in heat recovery and clean energy distribution across a broader range of applications. This extension would encourage investment in technologies that contribute to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants.

The four or so steps I have reviewed in greater detail are only a small sampling of the many steps in sustaining Canada's economic recovery act aimed at supporting everyday, hard-working Canadian families and businesses. Clearly, this act would help make certain the Canadian economy continues to move in the right direction.

With the timely and effective support of Canada's economic action plan, the Canadian economy has weathered the global recession better than our peers. As the global recovery remains tentative and fragile, Parliament must continue to remain squarely focused on the economy and provide the steady guidance needed to keep Canada on the right track to recovery.

Accordingly, I strongly urge all members to support the continued implementation of Canada's economic action plan and pass the sustaining Canada's economic recovery act.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, why is it that the whole issue of poverty never gets mentioned by the government in its speeches or in the bill that we are presently debating?

We heard last week that under the government's watch the poverty level of senior Canadians has increased by 25% over the last two or three years and that 610,000 Canadian children now living in poverty. We have very clear evidence of the close association between poverty and future health care costs, poverty and future interactions with the criminal justice system and poverty and the productivity of the nation.

Two studies have been tabled recently, one by the Senate committee and one by the House of Commons committee. They are both excellent studies that make sound recommendations.

Why is it that issue never comes to the attention of the government?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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Conservative

Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would remind my hon. colleague opposite that billions of dollars have been spent on helping those who are underprivileged in our society. We have also cut over 100 taxes putting over $3,000 a year back into the pockets of the average Canadian family. Over one million lower income Canadians are no longer on the tax rolls. We have allowed income splitting for seniors. We have doubled the age credit amount for seniors. We have raised the age for converting RRSPs to RRIFs from 69 to 71 years of age, which is a huge benefit to seniors who can now defer having to pay taxes for another two years. We have also introduced the tax free savings account and almost five million Canadians have already opened accounts. We are taking action to help those who are underprivileged in our society.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.


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NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Mr. Speaker, a rosy picture of the economy is counter to what is happening out there. Reuters just posted an interesting story stating, “Canada record-high current account gap spurs worry”. It goes on to say:

Canada entered the club of countries with oversized current account deficits in the third quarter, posting the biggest shortfall on record as its worsening trade profile heralded a further slowdown in economic growth.

This is the eighth consecutive deficit and this one is $13 billion. Doug Porter, the deputy chief economist at the BMO Capital Market, said:

Canada suddenly finds its broadest trade deficit in the company of countries that have typically been cited as extravagant over-spenders/under-savers.

Part of the problem is that our trade deficit with the United States is growing. That is part and parcel because we have a government with a petro-dollar philosophy that has pushed the Canadian dollar significantly up and is destroying manufacturing across this country. I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary about that.

How long will the government continue to fuel an artificial dollar up when it is clearly affecting so many value-added jobs in Canada, which is different than the jobs that have been added?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would remind my hon. colleague that this government believes strongly in expanding the markets for Canadian goods. That is why our Prime Minsiter made record-breaking trips to Asia last year and went to India and China. He was able to get approved destination status for Canada, something that, after 13 years, Liberal governments were unable to achieve. This will result in hundreds of millions of dollars coming to Canada through increased tourism and trade with those two rapidly growing important nations.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.


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Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia Manitoba

Conservative

Steven Fletcher ConservativeMinister of State (Democratic Reform)

Mr. Speaker, in the world today we see economic turmoil in many countries. Ireland has just recently had a major bailout in the eurozone. We see economies collapsing all over the world. However, we see Canada's economy growing, jobs increasing and a banking system that is the envy of the world. In fact, I understand the Finance Minister is ranked the best finance minister in the world.

I wonder if the member could speak a little more to why the budget has been so positive for Canadians, especially in light of the very bad suggestions that come from members across the aisle.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. Canada's economic performance and recovery during the global recession has made us the envy of the world. In fact, the World Economic Forum has called Canada's banks the soundest in the world for the third year in a row. The IMF says that Canada is leading the G7 out of the recession. As the member mentioned, Euromoney magazine named Canada's finance minister, finance minister of the year in 2009.

However, that is not all. I will give the House more quotes. For example, the Economist called Canada “an economic star”. Standard & Poor's said, “Of the other G7 countries, Canada is posting the best fiscal results. Canada also best weathered the financial crisis and is now well-positioned to continue to outperform”.

Let us not stop there. The BBC said, “Nowhere is immune, but by most key measures the Canadians are coming out of this crisis in a league of their own”.

Why is that? It is because our government has focused on helping Canadian families get ahead. We have indexed the working income tax benefit. We have allowed registered retirement savings plan proceeds to be transferred to a registered disability savings plan on a tax deferred basis. We have cut red tape. We are helping registered charities with--

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please. I will have to stop the member there. I understand there are a few more members who would like to ask questions. The hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.


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Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would not want to interrupt the hon. member's happy little litany of apparent accomplishments, which are not accomplishments in and of themselves.

He neglects to mention that under his government's watch it has run a $13 billion surplus into a $60 billion deficit,which will cumulatively over the next five years go up to $165 billion, all because the government cannot control its own spending, in part because the government has an inability to constrain its spending beyond twice the rate of inflation on an annual basis, which cumulatively over a number of years has resulted in an extraordinary deficit where there was no deficit that was necessary.

The member also neglects to mention that the most significant reason that the banking system is in such good shape is because of the good efforts of the previous government that denied the desire on the part of the banks to merge.

We can only imagine that had the Liberal government of the day consented to the merger, as the banks aspired to do, the Canadian taxpayer would have ended up on the hook for literally billions of dollars as bailouts likely would have been necessary because the banks in a merged state would have wanted to acquire other banks and those banks would not have been the most successful assets in the world.

Does the member, in his excessive litany, think that possibly his government inherited a tremendous fiscal, monetary and banking foundation on which the government has not totally destroyed?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question allows me to explain the largest debt in Canadian history measured by deficit to equity ratio was actually in 1984 after successive Liberal governments were in power. It was over 8%, compared to 5% today.

The Liberals and the opposition over the past two years have been encouraging us to spend even more money. So it is not as a result of anything they have been doing.

However, I explain what we have been investing in. We paid down $40 billion of debt prior to the recession, which placed us in a very strong position to tackle the recession when it actually happened. We cut over 100 taxes, putting over $3,000 back into the pockets of the average Canadian family. Over one million lower income Canadians are no longer on the tax rolls. We have allowed income splitting for seniors. We have doubled the age credit amount for seniors. We have raised the age for converting RRSPs to RRIFs from 69 to 71 years. We have introduced the tax free savings account which almost 5 million Canadians have taken advantage of.

I have much more if the House would like me to continue.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:15 p.m.


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Liberal

Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-47, the implementation act for budget 2010.

Canadians across the country are struggling to pay their bills and plan for the future and so obviously is the government. The government has shown itself to be so fiscally irresponsible that Canadians no longer trust it. They cannot trust it to manage the fiscal future of Canada. They are growing tired of the constant missed budget targets, ballooning budgets and reckless spending. Unfortunately for Canadians the government governs with ideology instead of facts and even then its outrageous spending is hardly conservative.

While the Conservative government focuses only on the electoral cycle and short-term progress, it fails to plan for the future of Canadian industry and for the jobs of tomorrow. Its visionless spending risks Canada's fragile economy and threatens to create even larger issues down the road. Canadians are aging and their government has no plans to help them.

The finance minister recently lectured Canadians saying, “This is not the time for dangerous and risky new spending schemes that will increase deficits and raise taxes”. However, Canadians are wondering why he does not take his own advice. Canadians are wondering why he is lecturing them and not his own government.

As the finance minister asks Canadians to tighten their belts, he continues to borrow from their already underfunded futures and recklessly spends on everything under the sun. His risky spending outlined in budget 2010 delivers deafening blow after blow to the future of our economy and our country.

To really get an idea of the lack of vision and lack of value for tax dollars the government has provided, we need only look to its record of reckless borrow and spend fiscal irresponsibility.

The Minister of Finance talks about restraint when his government has never shown an ounce of fiscal restraint. I do not have enough time to tell the House about all of the finance minister's own risky spending schemes. I would need infinite and unlimited time for that, so instead I will take this time to tell the House about some of the risky and reckless, borrow and spend Conservative schemes that are leaving Canadians scratching their heads and asking where their tax dollars have disappeared to.

Even before the downturn, the Conservative government burned through the $13 billion surplus it inherited from the previous Liberal government. The government claims to want to eliminate the deficit when the only thing it ever eliminated was the surplus.

Under the Conservative government, Canada holds the largest deficit in Canadian history, at $56 billion. The Conservative spending that led to the deficit is exactly the kind of risky spending Canadians cannot afford.

In October 2008 the finance minister said, “At a time of global economic uncertainty, no responsible economic manager would suggest experimenting with...massive increases in government spending”. He then increased government spending by 17.8% the next year. Imagine that. In fact, before the economic downturn, the finance minister increased spending by 18% over three years. He put the country in deficit before the recession. He took a $13 billion surplus and turned it into a deficit before the recession began.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:15 p.m.


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Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

It's a talent.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:15 p.m.


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Liberal

Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS

It is quite a talent, as my hon. colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood says.

That is over three times the rate of inflation the way he increased spending. It seems that even the finance minister, based upon his quote, finds his own massive increases in government spending irresponsible. Surely he must.

The Conservative, out of control, borrow and spend fiscal policy put Canada into a structural deficit. The finance minister needs to stop the government's risky spending and show some leadership when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

He said, “The record shows we take a principled, practical, and prudent approach to leadership”. What a claim. Has he looked at his own record? I do not think so. As a Conservative member himself described, one of my colleagues, has he been too busy “spending like it's Christmas”? That is what a member on that side actually said the government was doing. It is spending like it is Christmas.

Let us take some more time to look at the minister's record since he seems to have forgotten about it.

The fact is he has never been right on deficit projection in his history as both a provincial finance minister and a federal finance minister. Even now, against all logic, the finance minister is guessing there will be a $2.6 billion surplus in five years when the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that in five years there will still be an $11 billion deficit. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, or PBO, reports that by that time the government will have added over $200 billion to the national debt. It inherited a $13 billion surplus and it will add $200 billion to our country's debt. What a record.

The PBO predicts that there is an 85% chance the finance minister will break his promise to balance the budget by 2015-16, basically because the numbers are not there based upon what he has been given so far. We are not talking just a little off. There is a $13.6 billion spread between the government and the budget officer.

The government's willingness to gamble Canada's future on a 15% chance is disturbing. Does the finance minister not understand that when he is wrong, like he has been in the past, Canadian citizens will be left holding the bag and the bill?

The Conservatives talk of leadership, but they do not lead. At a time when it should be curbing frivolous spending, the government spent $10 billion on expensive Conservative consultants.

Let us just look at one of the examples of these costly consultants. While the finance minister speaks of fiscal prudence, the Conservative government paid an outside consultant $3,400 to write two simple press releases for VIA Rail and then promptly hired the consultant to work in a Conservative MP's office. Is $3,400 for 1,300 words the finance minister's definition of “fiscal prudence”?

The Conservatives have recklessly issued thousands of irresponsible contracts at a time when most Canadians are struggling to make ends meet. Budget 2010 continues the Conservative history of risky spending schemes.

Even at the height of the economic downturn, when Canadians were drowning in debt, the Conservatives continued their trend of risky spending schemes by tripling the advertising budget to a whopping $130 million, with no clear benefit or value to Canadians, a $130 million of taxpayer dollars for Conservative propaganda. The borrow and spend government added to its record $56 billion deficit by wasting $130 million on shiny billboards and flashy ads, while Canadian families struggled through the recession.

It is time that Canada's money went toward Canadian priorities instead of Conservative propaganda.

Canadians want thefinance minister to put a leash on his Conservative spendaholics and urge them to stop their risky spending schemes. Instead of helping Canadians recover from the downturn, the government was busy blowing over a billion dollars on the G20 photo op. Only that government could find a way to spend six times more on G20 security than the previous equivalent G20 summit in Pittsburgh. Only that government could recklessly borrow and spend so much on the G20 photo op, making it a priority ahead of helping Canadian families.

A Liberal government would put that money to much better use with our family care plan, which would help Canadians deal with the difficult task of caring for their ill-lived loved ones.

Has the finance minister considered his government's G20 purchase of $14,000 in glow sticks and building a fake lake responsible and prudent leadership? Canadians hope not, because they certainly do not want their money being wasted on costly photo ops for the Prime Minister.

Adding to the Conservative risky spending schemes is the ever-increasing expense of an untendered F-35 stealth fighter jet contract. The Auditor General warned us that its F-35 contract “carries significant risk of delays or cost increases. They represent it as being off the shelf or what would be a simple purchase. But this was anything but the case”.

Even the Pentagon is worried about escalating costs and delays with their F-35 contract. In fact it is reviewing its contract, yet the Conservative government refuses to review ours. Even John McCain is calling the F-35 costs “outrageous”. He has also said, “I share our allies' and friends' deep disappointment about the cost overruns and the difficulties that we've experienced in development of this aircraft”.

The Conservative government seems to be the only government that does not have a problem overpaying for things, as its fiscal record continues to show.

Originally the Conservatives falsely claimed that their prison bill would only cost $90 million when they introduced the legislation. They later amended these estimates to $2 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has priced the bill at between $10 billion to $13 billion. It started at $90 million and we know now that it is likely to be in the range of $10 billion and $13 billion. What kind of control of spending is that?

It is beyond risky for the Conservative government to ask Parliament to vote on its legislation when it grossly misrepresents the true cost of implementing that legislation. Risky spending schemes that build unnecessary, U.S.-style megaprisons for a country with a declining crime rate is not an effective use of taxpayer dollars.

Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney said that an abrupt correction in Canada's housing market was in fact possible. The Economist says that Canada's housing is overvalued by 23 points. That is 7.3 points more than it rates Ireland's housing overvaluations. Even the National Post reports that there is a housing bubble. Yet the finance minister defies them all by saying there is no housing bubble. He also said, “It's a long stretch to compare our housing market with that of Ireland”.

Unfortunately he is right because our houses, according to these experts, are 32% more overvalued than Ireland's. Let us hope that is not the case. Let us hope there is no bubble here and it does not burst, but we should be concerned about this. This reckless and risky strategy of ignoring the facts by the finance minister is what steered Canada into deficit in the first place.

As Aldous Huxley famously said, “Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored”.

A Liberal government would clean up the fiscal mess created by the borrow and spend Conservative government. I remember the challenge that faced the Liberal government in 1993 when it came into office, because I was there. I was part of the process and watched as the prime minister and finance minister worked very hard, and as Canadians sacrificed, to get us back to balanced budgets, to get us into surpluses. When the Liberal government left, there was a $13 billion surplus that the Conservative government inherited and then quickly blew.

The Conservatives have to stop ignoring the facts and focus government spending on the Canadian priorities of family care, seniors, the economy and job creation. Budget 2010 has been a complete disaster in this regard. The Conservative method of governance unfortunately is ideologically based. It is based on ideology instead of on facts. That is why they do not like information such as a census, for example.

The finance minister's arrogance in telling Canadians not to ask for things they need during the upcoming budget consultations because the government has spent the cupboard bare is disheartening for all Canadians. The Conservatives talk of restraint, but they do not restrain. It is time the government takes its own advice and stops its risky borrowing and spending and stops raising the deficit.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:30 p.m.


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Fort McMurray—Athabasca Alberta

Conservative

Brian Jean ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board. He started to talk about the capital cost allowance that had been brought in by this government on clean energy initiatives. The Prime Minister has said that we want to be a clean energy superpower. Certainly we have a lot of natural and competitive advantages to do that.

The Liberals, under Jean Chrétien, brought in the capital cost allowance in the nineties to kick-start the oil sand industry in Northern Alberta. It was very successful because it cost a lot more to develop that kind of oil than other places in the world.

What does the member think about the capital cost initiative by this government on the issue of clean energy and the clean energy initiative? What are some of the ways he sees it being utilized for Canada's advantage in the future?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:30 p.m.


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Liberal

Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that a Conservative member wants to talk about clean energy and the government's record on clean energy when we consider what has happened over the past almost five years since the government was elected. It removed the renewable power production incentive and killed the wind power production incentive. The government has had very little interest over that five-year period in anything related to clean energy. The capital allowance is finally something toward clean energy but it is not very much.

Overall, the government has shown little appetite or interest for this matter at all. Until August, I was the critic for the last year or so on natural resources and had occasions to sit in the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Natural Resources and heard from people working in this industry about how frustrated they were.

These were people working in renewable energy, for instance, assessing homes, examining the energy efficiency of a house and helping people to renew them based upon the program that existed until the end of March last year, which the government killed. They said that it had a devastating impact on an industry that was involved not only in examining and assessing the energy standards in a house and giving advice to people on how they could improve their energy use, reduce their costs and better insulate, but also on the companies that were doing the renovations to actually reduce heating costs. Those are lost jobs because of the government's action.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:35 p.m.


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NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague regarding the account gap that is growing and the trade deficit that is happening because of the petro-dollar.

We know the government has been using the oil industry to inflate Canada's dollar and now we have lost hundreds of thousands of value-added manufacturing jobs. That is important to note because some of the job creation has been through public spending, through borrowing and a lot of part-time jobs in which Canadians cannot sustain themselves. I would simply ask the member about that.

As well, it is now projected that the actual growth rate that will be announced for GDP tomorrow will be lower than expected and will create further problems.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS

Mr. Speaker, when we consider this issue, it is one that has been a real challenge for the member's ridings, I realize, but also for much of industrial Ontario, the industrial heartland of the country, when we have seen so many jobs lost in manufacturing largely because of the high dollar. We have seen the same thing in Nova Scotia. It not only affects manufacturing but also the resource industries. It affects, for example, the forestry sector, but it certainly affects the fishery. In Boston, which is a major seafood market, when our lobsters are costing more because our dollar is higher, it is harder to sell them. We end up having to lower the price of the lobsters in order to sell them. It has an impact.

By the way, in my part of Atlantic Canada, fishermen went out today. Today is the first day of the lobster fishery, the last Monday of November in much of my province. People are out on the sea and I pray and hope that they will all be safe because today is a day we all worry about. They go out with their boats fully laden with lobster pots and it can be a dangerous day. Let us hope they are all right.

It is a problem for many people, not just manufacturers. At the same time, what is interesting is that the U.S. dollar is so low. The Canadian dollar is high largely because of our oil sector. The oil sector is actually impacted by that as well because barrels of oil are priced in U.S. dollars. With the U.S. dollar being low, from what I have been reading and hearing, it has a negative impact on places like Alberta and Newfoundland. They are doing better than most places still, thank goodness, and that—

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:35 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please. I must to stop the hon. member there because I think there are a few other members who wish to ask a question.

The hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:35 p.m.


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Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the previous Conservative speaker patting his government and himself on the back. I thought at one point that he would get back strain from so much self-adulation. One of the things he was back-patting about had to do with the shape in which Canadian banks find themselves. Canadian banks are in good shape certainly relative to international banks. The most significant reason that they are in good shape has to do with the previous Liberal administration which denied them the opportunity to merge, plus set out some fairly stringent capital ratio requirements.

The finance minister, whose party opposed all of the regulations put forward by the previous Liberal government, now wanders around the world saying what good fellows they are and how brilliant they are in their management of our financial services sector. I wonder if the hon. member would wish to comment upon the hypocrisy of the Minister of Finance with respect to our financial services sector.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS

Mr. Speaker, I almost do not need to answer what my colleague has said because the words he used are very accurate. He has made the argument and the case very strongly.

However, it is an important point to restate because I cannot imagine a finance minister going around the world, as the finance minister has, taking credit for doing nothing about the banks, or actually that he and his party were opposed to the regulations that kept our banks solvent during the crisis that happened two years ago.

It is important to set the record straight in this regard, because we are thankful in this country that our banks have been secure and have weathered the recession so very well. Obviously they had some problems. There were cases where some banks had a little too much asset backed commercial paper and that was risky. It bothered me that we had banks that were holding basically paper but had not really done the job of checking out whether the loans that paper was based upon supported that value, that they paid for those.

Basically, the loans were sold between banks but the ones that were buying them were not going back and checking before they bought the stuff whether people who were being given the loans could afford to make payments. I have heard horror stories. People who might qualify in this country for a mortgage of $30,000, in the U.S. actually getting a mortgage in the range of $500,000. When we hear that kind of story it is no wonder that the system in the U.S. fell apart the way it did. However, thank goodness our banks did not have much of that and that they had regulations that made sure they had to be governed better.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 5:40 p.m.


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Bloc

Daniel Paillé Bloc Hochelaga, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to reassure the member for Mississauga South. There are days when a lot of talking happens, but I have no intention of taking as much time here in the House as he has, with so much imagination.

This bill is a perfect example of how thorough the Bloc is. Yes, we said that that we were against the overall budget speech and we voted against it. But now that it has been passed, we need to move on. That is what we are doing.

We have thoroughly analyzed this bill and our opinion is: why not? We should vote in favour of passing this bill at this stage because we have done a thorough analysis of it.

It is unfortunate that not all the opposition parties work like that. We know full well that the Liberals say they will vote against it, but when it comes time to vote, they will not be here. The NDP will vote against it because they are against it. Do not ask them why, but they are against it. At least they will be here.

Certain measures in this bill are important, and it would be proper for us to point out what we agree with. Some measures deal with personal income tax. The first measure I will talk about would allow the following benefits to be shared between parents who have shared custody of children: the universal child care benefit, the Canada child tax benefit and the GST or HST credit.

It can be a sad thing for families, but we have to accept the fact that, in Quebec and Canada, many families are blended and many children's parents do not live together. More and more parents share custody of their children. For example, the universal child care benefit is $100 per month, and as we know, it is given to parents of children under the age of six. This bill would divide that benefit between the two parents who share custody of their children. This is why the Bloc is so important. This is our hallmark. Having thoroughly analyzed this measure, how can we oppose it? The answer is clear for anyone who has done a thorough analysis. I cannot see myself telling my Hochelaga constituents that we will vote against this kind of measure because we are ideologically opposed to the government.

Another measure that we find completely acceptable is the one that would enable people to roll over the proceeds of a registered retirement savings plan to the lesser-known registered disability savings plan (RDSP), where investment income accumulates tax-free. Everyone knows about RRSPs, but RDSPs were created to enable parents to save for the long-term financial security of a child with a severe disability. These measures make it possible to save money depending on the degree of the child's disability. In many cases, parents of such children have RRSPs.

What happened when they die? These registered retirement savings plans have been taxed like any other. Now, parents and grandparents of a child with severe disabilities will be allowed to roll their RRSP, if they have one, into a registered disability savings plan, which will help meet the child's needs. If the child should pass away, it will be taxed in the usual way.

How can anyone be against such a beneficial social measure that—fortunately—will not affect very many people, but that can help families caring for a child with a severe disability get through the grief of losing a parent or grandparent?

These measures apply to personal income taxes, but there are also other measures that apply to charities. We all have charities in our respective ridings. Some of the administrative rules that were—pardon the expression—a bloody nuisance have been repealed. Everyone knows how hard the people who run charitable organizations work. These people work all day long, sometimes seven days a week, to achieve their charity's goals. Yet those organizations are weighed down by completely unreasonable administrative requirements.

Charities will now be allowed to give the Canada Revenue Agency information. That agency was already receiving information from charities, but it forced them to give information concerning the percentage of donations it had to spend in a year based on the tax receipts they had issued, for example. Thus, a charitable organization that has issued $100,000 in tax receipts for 2010 has to spend at least $80,000 the next year. Sometimes charities would not meet that standard and near the end of the year, they would have a tax problem. That standard will be reviewed and charities will simply have to fill out the information requested by the CRA, and that will be sufficient.

Charities were also obliged to spend the equivalent of 3.5% of the organization's assets every year. If a charity wanted to accumulate a certain amount of capital in a given year, it could not do so, because it absolutely had to liquidate 3.5% of its assets. That was another administrative nuisance.

The government finally seems to realize that the left hand was asking for information while the right hand—the Canada Revenue Agency—already had all the information. I do not see how anyone could be against more flexible requirements for charitable organizations.

As far as charities are concerned, there were different stories. However, we think that the government should not be saying that it was nice to charities while it is cutting funding to NGOs and development agencies around the world. The Bloc Québécois position on that is very well known: we must not stop pressing the government to give 0.7% of GDP to international development agencies. We will continue to press the government to achieve that objective, which obviously was set by the UN. Nevertheless, we must commend the establishment of more flexible administrative rules.

Other measures have to do with corporate taxation. In January, the Bloc Québécois toured Quebec. It asked the Minister of Finance to do better when it comes to taxing stock options. We said that a certain number of bonuses should be taxed more, in other words excessive bonuses should not be deductible from corporate profits as an expense. We regret that such a measure is not included.

Let us now talk about a measure related to performance bonuses. Sometimes corporations offer their employees stock options. There is nothing wrong with that. It is part of the benefits offered to the employees. However, when the stock options are issued, a loophole in the legislation allowed a double deduction, in other words, the employee and the employer could both deduct those options. That is no longer the case. The government is announcing that in 2014 and in 2015, it will bring in $400 million thanks to the elimination of this double deduction.

We agree with this measure, but it does not go far enough. The government could take this even further. What the government is showing us is that it is possible to close loopholes in the legislation and tax stock options. It is not as though the Conservatives are being adamant about not touching this. In fact, the Conservatives are handling this quite well in Bill C-47, and we are supporting them.

The measure is good, but the government could do better. That reminds us of school report cards. We have all received the comment “good behaviour, but could do better”.

The rules related to tax-free savings accounts, TFSAs, have also been tightened. Last week, my colleague from Saint-Lambert asked a question regarding the guaranteed income supplement. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour told her that the government was doing everything it could for seniors living close to the poverty line by creating TFSAs. Clearly, he did not understand the documents he had before him at all. The bill also resolves a number of issues with the TFSA. Everyone knows that someone can contribute $5,000 per year after taxes to a TFSA and that the income generated by the account will not be taxed.

Some wily investors were depositing much more than $5,000 per year into their TFSAs. They had to pay a penalty of 1%, which was not really a penalty at all considering that returns could be far higher than 1%. Now the bill will close the loophole. How? Any amount over $5,000 will be taxed at 100%. I find this interesting. What does this tell me? It tells me that this government, when it wants to close loopholes, can impose tax rates of up to 100% on excessive income. It is doing that very thing. However, last year, when we suggested a very high tax rate on extremely large bonuses, we were told that implementing such a measure would be impossible. I have been watching the government and I say that it is possible. Yes, it is possible. The government is doing that very thing and we support its actions. We are in favour of this bill because of these types of measures.

There are also clean energy measures. Very few people are interested in the phenomenon of capital cost allowances, or depreciation. Many people do not have any idea what that even means. I understand. When it does not fall within the realm of your occupation, it can be a bit of a dry topic, but capital cost allowances permit businesses or individuals who have investments to deduct the cost of an asset based on the useful life of that asset.

Naturally, when you own a business and you purchase a truck, you do not depreciate the truck over 20 years. It will not last 20 years. There are many formulas and tables used to calculate depreciation of an automobile or computer hardware, for example, over three years. However, when the goal is to help the business and to foster a form of investment, accelerated capital cost allowance makes it possible to recover the cost more quickly. This is the case for geothermal equipment.

Our colleague from Brome—Missisquoi is an expert in geothermal energy in Quebec and Canada. He could talk about it for hours. When we examined solar heating, geothermal energy and distribution equipment for district energies, we obviously agreed.

For that reason, the Bloc Québécois, which is known for its thoroughness and which examines bills one after another, says that unfortunately with regard to geothermal equipment, we agree. We have to agree.

The bill also contains measures concerning the implementation of international standards. It will allow international accounting standards adopted by everyone to be used by public corporations. We will no longer use generally accepted Canadian accounting principles. We will be using accounting principles from international financial reporting standards. Can we oppose this? Everyone uses them. Therefore, we support this measure.

This bill will also authorize the Canada Revenue Agency to issue online notices. It is about time. The time has come to issue online notices of assessment. Everything is online. Is the Conservative government behind the times? Yes. Is it far behind? Yes, but it is catching up. It is getting there, and we cannot vote against that. We must at least mark the gesture. It is behind the times but at least it is getting there in situations such as these.

It is because of these types of measures, and after thorough study of the bill, that we are making an exception and voting in favour of the bill. However, we voted against the government's budget as a whole and we were present. The Liberals were against it but they were not present. The NDP were against it, although they do not know why, but at least they were present.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 6 p.m.


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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, at committee last Tuesday when the minister and officials were there, I asked about the tax-free savings account that the member referred to in his speech. The amendments in this bill include things like: to make any income attributed, to deliver overcontributions and prohibited investments subject to existing anti-avoidance rules.

As the member laid out, there are about four or five different provisions amending the tax-free savings account regulations or legislation.

The question I had to the officials was whether or not they had considered if there would be any overcontributions when they first brought it in. Had they considered whether there would be any ineligible or prohibited investments? Had they considered the fact that, in their experience, there would be certain people who would figure out that the penalty of 1% may not be sufficient to deter overcontributions because returns greater than 1% could be received?

The response from the government officials was basically that there are these very sharp tax lawyers, et cetera, and they figure these things out.

I do not know whether the member agrees, but my point is that it would appear that in this particular case the government had not used due diligence in formulating the tax-free savings account rules and regulations. It caused a lot of grief to a lot of Canadians inadvertently. The government does not seem to have used the same kind of rigour and due diligence to make sure that proposed legislation, in the first place, was in fact given proper sign-off at all levels. That does not seem to be the case. In fact, it seems to be inept.

I wonder if the member would care to comment.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 6 p.m.


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Bloc

Daniel Paillé Bloc Hochelaga, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member, who is a valuable member of the committee. He did ask that kind of question, and we absolutely got that kind of answer. I remember making a comment, it may have been in camera, that that was the only answer the senior officials could give. That is why, in this kind of standing committee, it is a bit frustrating to ask questions to senior public officials because we know very well that although we have an excellent public service here in Canada, the officials can only give responses that correspond to what the government put in its bill or the government's tax policy.

Should the bill have some more teeth? Did the government look carefully at all the ways the law could be circumvented? We do not know. This is why tax laws have become so huge, because when a government introduces tax legislation, the main goal of tax experts, whether they are from law firms or major corporations, is to look for loopholes. That is why tax laws never last longer than a year or two. Then they need to be amended. That is how tax laws in Canada are created. Everyone knows that the goal of the vice-president of finance of a public corporation is to maximize profit, but the goal of the vice-president of finance or the CFO of a private corporation is to minimize taxes.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 6:05 p.m.


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Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia Manitoba

Conservative

Steven Fletcher ConservativeMinister of State (Democratic Reform)

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his compliments to the government on the budget.

In this debate some discussion has been made around the The Economist magazine. I would like to quote from The Economist, this week's print edition, November 25. It said:

Compared with many other developed countries, Canada has had a good financial crisis. Its banks and public finances are sound, and the economy recovered quickly and strongly from recession....

I think this demonstrates the fact that the government has dealt with an extraordinarily difficult situation better than other countries in the developed world and throughout the world. Does the member agree with The Economist and virtually every other economist, profession-wise, throughout the world?

Also, does the member agree with the strong savings measures, like the tax-free savings account, the RRSP contribution issues and so on, to make it better and easier for Canadians to save for their future?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 6:05 p.m.


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Bloc

Daniel Paillé Bloc Hochelaga, QC

Mr. Speaker, let us not get carried away. The minister said that I complimented the government. Hold on, now. Let us not jump to conclusions. All I said was that for this kind of technicality and this kind of technical bill, I was more or less in agreement. But let us not forget that the Minister of Finance was in favour of bank mergers. We should give the previous government credit for not letting banks merge. Of course, that government was later booted out of office, and deservedly so.

I also want to point out that some things are going well in Canada, such as securities trading, which works very well. Can anyone tell me why the government wants to mess with that?

Today we talked about how Quebec has been doing a good job of collecting harmonized sales taxes for the past 18 years. What does the government plan to do about that? I want to make one thing clear to the minister who asked me the question. When we say that we support this bill, he should not blow things out of proportion and say that the Bloc Québécois now supports the Conservative government. No, if the Conservative Party wants to form a coalition, it will find that other parties are much more inclined to form coalitions with it than the Bloc Québécois is. Something about that does not work.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 6:05 p.m.


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NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Mr. Speaker, there is an important point that needs clarification in tonight's debate. The banks have been used as a model and have been upheld as making the right decisions, but I was here in the chamber when John Manley and the then Alliance tried to actually Americanize our banks. It is important to point out that the stability is here today because of a campaign to push against that and prevent it from taking place.

It is important to look at the fiscal capacity of Canada and the process we are doing right now. I would like the member's opinion. Is it because of the Liberals and the Conservatives voting earlier to make large corporate tax cuts, and it is interesting that the Liberals are now opposed to this, that we are actually borrowing money to do that and paying interest on it, similar to the HST, where there were $6 billion of expenditures federally to implement this new tax on Canadians? We will have to borrow for that and pay interest on it. I would like the hon. member's comments on those two issues.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 6:05 p.m.


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Bloc

Daniel Paillé Bloc Hochelaga, QC

Mr. Speaker, the NDP member is quite right to say that Canada has a huge fiscal capacity that has not been tapped into. Some say maximum tax rates have been reached, and that is true when it comes to poor citizens, but not in the case of corporations, and more specifically, banks.

There are six major banks in Canada. As required by the Bank Act, every year, around pages 140 to 150 of their annual reports, the big banks publish a list of their investments in tax havens and the tax savings they achieve by putting money in those tax havens. In this case, the left hand knows exactly what kind of savings the banks are achieving in tax havens, but the right hand is too stupid to ask for the information and to tax the banks' holdings in tax havens.

There is indeed a huge fiscal capacity in Canada. I agree with the hon. member that borrowing more to pay for certain things is not the answer. Last year, when we proposed realigning spending—which we will do again this year—by helping the forestry industry, for example, we also proposed new financing formulas to go after more of the available tax room.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 6:10 p.m.


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NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the Bloc Québécois support the Conservative government's budget policies, but it is also a little surprising. In fact, we have often stood alongside the Bloc to denounce, for example, the theft from the employment insurance fund. Bills C-9 and C-47 are spinoffs of this. The employment insurance fund is in there. For example, they are imposing new airline security taxes, which are inflating airline ticket prices in Canada. The Bloc is supporting that. There is a new regulation concerning the harmonized sales tax. The Bloc has not done anything to obtain compensation for Quebec for the harmonization it has already undertaken in this area. We are very surprised to hear the member for Holchega kowtow to the Conservatives once again and support the government's budget policies. We are very surprised by that.

Let us take a look at what is in Bill C-47, which the Bloc is supporting, and in the Conservative government's economic policy. Everything that happen in politics happens in a certain context. I would like to read a Reuters article from today, which was written by business journalist, Louise Egan.

I will read from this article from Reuters entitled “Canada record-high current account gap spurs worry”.

Louise Egan says this on behalf of Reuters:

Canada entered the club of countries with oversized current account deficits in the third quarter, posting the biggest shortfall on record as its worsening trade profile heralded a further slowdown in economic growth.

That is today.

Statistics Canada said on Monday:

The country's eighth consecutive quarterly shortfall in the current account--a measure of transactions in goods, services and investment income--totaled C$17.54 billion...compared with a revised second-quarter gap of C$12.98 billion.

Analysts surveyed by Reuters had forecast $15 billion.

What is interesting to note is that we are getting observations from people like Doug Porter at BMO Capital Markets, who said “Canada suddenly finds its broadest trade deficit in the company of countries that have typically been cited as extravagant over-spenders/under-savers”. He also said, “This may prove to be a passing phase but it is in fact an early warning that the country may be living beyond its means”.

In the days leading up to the G20 summit of the world's leading emerging and advanced economies, the U.S. treasury proposed capping current account surpluses and deficits at 4% as a way of achieving a better balance between surplus nations like China and debt ridden importers like the United States. We are above that 4% right now.

What we have to look at is how this fits into the overall budgetary plan of the Conservatives, such as it is. That is probably more of a compliment than they deserve to even mention the word plan when discussing the tragedy that has been visited upon the Canadian economy in the past five years since the Conservatives came to power.

We occupy the second largest land mass in the world and we have only 35 million people to try to give that value. That has always required the understanding of a government that placed value on the creation of jobs, on the creation of long-term growth and on the idea that we would try to go into those sectors of the economy that were the most forward-looking and the most productive. The Conservatives will have none of that.

The Conservative ideology is that anyone who seeks to have the government take a look at the economy, to balance it out and to have it grow long-term and make sense in some way is trying to pick winners. Their central thesis is a pristine marketplace that effectuates the best choices in all circumstances.

What we have had is an across the board tax cut being proposed by the Conservatives since they arrived in power. That is their panacea. That will solve all the problems. There is one slight difficulty with that. Any company, especially in the manufacturing field, that was not making a profit had not paid any taxes, so they did not get anything from the Conservatives tax decreases. The most profitable companies received those tax decreases, companies in the oil sector. The banking sector saw the same thing.

We will see a bit later this week the most recent quarter of bank profits, but for the first nine months of this year, Canada's chartered banks made $15 billion in profit. That is not because they are clever managers. It is because they have a quasi monopoly and they can charge people basically whatever they want, especially since the Conservatives came into power. Paying 25% on a credit card is no problem. Banks gouge customers every time they go to the banking machine. No problem. Why not? As far as the Conservatives are concerned it is normal to give a tip to the bank president every time someone accesses money at an ATM.

The real problem is the Conservatives have been destabilizing the erstwhile balanced economy that Canada had so painstakingly built up since the second world war. They are doing it by giving these across the board tax cuts, blind to any notion of productivity, blind to any notion of the creation of stable, long-term jobs which would allow people to raise a family. That is a thing of the past. As far as Conservatives are concerned, the market can decide.

When companies like Encana and Enbridge get millions of dollars in windfall because they have had a reduction in their taxes, we are still hollowing out the manufacturing sector. We are superheating the petroleum sector, bringing in an artificially high number of U.S. dollars, putting increasing pressure on the Canadian dollar, something that the textbooks refer to as “the Dutch disease”. This was after the situation that existed in Holland in the 1960s where the discovery of gas meant that a large number of foreign currencies were coming into the country, pushing the guilder ever higher. All of a sudden the Dutch realized that what was supposed to be manna from heaven was in fact destroying their economy because they could no longer afford to export their goods.

When we look at today's StatsCan figures, we realize the only thing that Canadian companies are spending is on equipment coming in from other countries. We can no longer produce on a competitive basis. Our manufacturing sector is being hollowed out. It is interesting to note that StatsCan, shortly after the Conservatives came to power, almost in a defensive statement, which I have never seen anything like it from StatsCan, said Canada was not suffering from the “Dutch disease”. When somebody bothers to use a term like that and then to affirm that it does not apply, my radar is automatically starting to ping. Why is it even mentioning it if it is not the case? That statement was made in 2006.

Between 2004 and 2008, in other words in 2008 before the current crisis hit, StatsCan put out new figures that showed precisely the opposite of what it had affirmed two years earlier. Between 2004 and 2008, Canada, mostly in Ontario and Quebec the industrial heartland, had bled off 322,000 good paying manufacturing jobs. The prime reason for that was we failed to internalize the costs of the oil sands. Instead of taking the fiscal space that was available and trying to help those sectors of the economy that needed it the most, we were giving the money to those sectors of the economy that were already making the largest profits.

How did we create the fiscal space for the $60 billion in tax increases that had been given to Canada's most profitable corporations? It is not very complicated. The Conservatives finished off the job started by the Liberals. They took $57 billion out of the employment insurance account and transferred it to general revenues of the government. A lot of people would look at that and say “so what, who cares”, that it was government money before and it government money after, but there is a huge difference. Every company, whether they were making money or losing money, had paid into that EI account as had every employee. We had that $57 billion purpose built, dedicated to take care of the inevitable cyclical aspect of the job market in Canada and when the recession hit, there would be money there to pay people employment insurance benefits.

The Conservatives cleaned out the account and now there was no more money there. There is going to be a $15 billion deficit that is going to have to be paid back again by all companies. Whether they are making profits or not or whether they are paying taxes or not, they are going to have this payroll tax for every job in their companies. That is what the Conservatives did. They created that fiscal space to give the tax decreases to the most profitable corporations by looting the employment insurance account, by taking the money that was there to create the fiscal space to do it.

When we talk about sustainable development, the notion that comes most immediately to mind is the environmental aspect. That is after all the driving force behind the United Nations report by Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway. He put together this important report with a view to the Rio summit in 1992. That was a way of saying every time the government had to come to a decision with regard to a problem, it had to look at not only the environmental but also at the social and economic aspects.

As we have cleaned out the manufacturing sector in Canada, we have shovelled forward onto the backs of future generations not only the environmental debt, which I will talk about in a minute with regard to the tar sands, but we have shovelled the financial and fiscal burden onto their backs. Hundreds of thousands of people will be coming to retirement in the next decades. They will no longer have a proper pension plan. At least in the manufacturing sectors those used to be provided for. We have seen what has happened to companies like Nortel, but more generally, employers that take over companies in Canada with the complicit attitude of the Liberals especially and the Conservatives, the first thing they go after is the pension plan of their employees. That is for the social aspect.

However, let us look now at the long-term deficit with regard to the environment and how that is continuing to cause one of the biggest problems in the Canadian economy. One of the basic principles of sustainable development is we have to internalize the costs of the environment. These are basic principles like user pay, polluter pay. We have to ensure we look at the life cycle analysis of anything that is put on the market.

Right now we are as guilty as a company that is manufacturing a product that is pushing all of its garbage into a river and claiming that it is making a good profit because it can sell cheaper, the way we are developing the tar sands. Right now we have a way of developing them which means we are not cleaning up the mess, we are not including it in the price. We are not even including the price of attempts to go after carbon capture and storage. That is being left on the general tax burden on the backs of every Canadian.

We have an unusual situation. We claim that we have the strategic resource that we are exploiting in the public interest, but in fact we are leaving a huge environmental burden on the back of future generations in addition to the fiscal and financial burden.

I talked about the $57 billion looted from the EI account. I talked about the $60 billion in tax reductions for Canada's richest corporations. It is no coincidence that Conservatives have also racked up the largest deficit in Canadian history also to the tune of $60 billion, and the three are related.

If we continue like this, we will have hollowed out manufacturing sector, we will have become, for all intents and purposes, a third world country relying almost exclusively on the exploitation and extraction of resources that we pump to our neighbours as quickly as possible. That is not a figure of speech, that is literally the case.

Let us look at what we have done with the tar sands. There are projects like Keystone, Alberta Clipper, Southern Lights and we are putting in these pipelines. The Conservatives had them approved rapidly since they became government. They have scrapped the Navigable Waters Protection Act since they came to power. Just recently, they scrapped the whole environmental assessment process in Canada to send it over to the National Energy Board, which has no experience or expertise in the matter, to ensure these large energy projects get approved as quickly as possible.

Then the North American Free Trade Agreement moved in to provide its impetus in all of this. Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, there is a proportionality clause that means, essentially, that once we have started exporting the raw bitumen in such large quantities to the United States, we cannot reduce the quantities we export unless we reduce what we send to ourselves.

An independent outside analysis of just one of those projects, the Keystone project, concluded that there were 18,000 jobs being exported to the U.S. at the same time. Like a third world country, we do not even add the value here. There is no processing. Nothing is added. There is no refining. We are not doing anything with it to create permanent, long-term jobs here. It is a shameful way of destabilizing the balanced economy that we have built up since the second world war.

The government has always argued that it is not what is really happening, that those of us who say that the government can and should play a role in building a stable economy are trying to pick winners. The Conservatives have chosen their winners and it is the oil companies and the banks. People are going to pay for those lousy choices. Instead of looking at the most productive jobs and the most forward-looking parts of the economy, things that could be helping us for the future, creating a system of green renewables across the country, that is all going to be lost.

We have had an extraordinary occasion for the past five years to do something for future generations, but the vituperative, closed, narrow-minded attitude of the Conservatives has meant that they spew their venom at those who want the government to do something right with the economy. They claim to be doing a good job, but today's Reuters article, which will be in various forms in all of the economic papers across Canada tomorrow, prove just the contrary, that what the NDP has been saying for years in the House, that the Conservatives are destroying the balanced economy that Canada built up since the second world war, is in fact true.

The NDP is not alone in saying that Canada is suffering from the Conservatives' political and economic choices. It is now proven by today's statistics from Statistics Canada. That is why the NDP has no issues with saying that Bill C-47 will never receive our support, no more than Bill C-9 will, because it reflects the Conservatives' overall budget policy.

Earlier, I listened patiently to the member for Hochelaga, who said that the NDP was going to vote against, but he did not know why. I will return the compliment to my friend and colleague, the member for Hochelaga, by saying that, aside from general remarks about Bill C-47—he seems to have plenty to draw on—it would have been nice if he had told us exactly which clauses in Bill C-9 he likes. Furthermore, with everything we now know about the awful consequences of emptying the employment insurance fund, how can he support a bill that deals yet another blow to employment insurance? How can he support a bill that imposes yet more taxes on people who buy airplane tickets? How can he stand there and vote on the harmonized value-added tax without saying a word about how Quebec was the first province to harmonize its taxes? I was in the National Assembly when that happened. When the maritime provinces later did the same thing, I was there, and I saw how Bernard Landry reacted, with good reason, by saying that Quebec had already harmonized its taxes and was entitled to the same compensation the maritime provinces received.

They said the rules had changed. Even though Quebec was the first, its harmonization was not the same as theirs, so only the maritime provinces would receive compensation. It just so happens that the maritime provinces were about to vote in a federal election, and the Liberals really needed their support.

Then the same thing happened in British Columbia and Ontario. We have already spoken out against that, and we know how the story played out. Still, they said that the rules had changed again.

For all of these reasons, the NDP will once again vote against the Conservative government's budget policies.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 29th, 2010 / 6:25 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

The hon. member for Outremont will have two minutes to complete his remarks the next time this bill comes before the House.

The House resumed from November 29 consideration of the motion that Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:20 a.m.


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The Acting Speaker Denise Savoie

The member for Outremont has two minutes left for his remarks and 10 minutes for questions and comments.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:20 a.m.


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NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Madam Speaker, discussion about the budget and the Conservative government's budgetary intentions and orientation takes place in a certain context, just like everything else in this place. Today, there are more very troubling reports in the business press regarding Canada. Reuters is reporting that our performance is one of the worst of the G20 nations. At this point, it is difficult to live with the consequences of the Conservatives' decisions. They have decimated the manufacturing sector and destabilized our previously balanced economy, which we have been building since the second world war. We are now feeling the consequences.

On this side of the House, we have been trying to sound the alarm for a long time. The Conservatives' approach—giving across-the-board, one-size-fits-all tax cuts—had only one predictable result. Companies that needed relief and which often did not turn a profit, did not pay taxes. Hence they did not benefit from tax reductions. The $60 billion in tax reductions went to the companies that needed relief the least, such as banks and major oil companies. Bank profits are being published at this time.

As Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, repeatedly says so well, these decisions have resulted in an economic mess. We are going to record the worst deficit of all time. We have an employment crisis: 1.5 million people are unemployed and another 250,000 will soon join their ranks. Many people have paid employment insurance premiums for years but will not be eligible for benefits because the Liberals and the Conservatives raided the employment insurance fund in order to create tax room and reduce taxes. They never thought about productivity and the jobs of the future, or the quality of jobs.

The Conservatives say that we want to pick the winners in the economy, while they believe that the market should do that. The problem is that the Conservatives picked their winners a long time ago. They chose to back the banks and major oil companies at the expense of many communities in the forestry and manufacturing sector in Canada. The proof was published today. For that reason, the Conservatives' policies should not be followed.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:20 a.m.


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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention on Bill C-47 and more broadly on the underpinnings of our economy. He is quite right. The GDP dropped down to 0.03 from 0.06.

At the finance committee meeting where the minister appeared on Bill C-47, the minister was engaged with regard to the economic stimulus plan, particularly the reports in the press where cities, municipalities and provinces were concerned about the March 31 deadline. Last Tuesday in The Globe and Mail, the minister himself reported that there may be some movement. Yesterday, the member for Ottawa—Orléans was a little more specific about the economic stimulus and that projects were substantially completed.

This seems to be a creeping story about what is happening, but the fact remains that the government is playing coy with Canadians and with the cities and provinces. I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether or not the government has been straight with Canadians and with stakeholders, such as the provinces and cities, about making appropriate plans. It could be a very expensive proposition if the government were to download these costs on the banks--sorry, their backs.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:25 a.m.


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NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives are not in the habit of downloading costs onto the banks. The costs of the banks are being borne by people who have to give a tip to the bank president every time they use the bank machine.

On the specific topic of the infrastructure program that was put in place that was part of the measures brought in to try to stimulate the economy at a time of grave crisis, the artificial March 31 deadline has been a conundrum for many municipalities. If they realize that that date cannot be met, they could lose their funding and that could put a lot of them in the hole. The date is entirely artificial.

The danger now is that we face the possibility that the Conservatives are going to play the same partisan game they played when they were giving out the money for the infrastructure program. As we know, the Canadian press did great work during the summer to prove that the program was heavily weighted in favour of Conservative ridings. We can imagine that if it now becomes a question of discretion whether or not to extend the deadline, the Conservatives will again play favourites with their own ridings.

Following the rules of natural justice, if we do not want to have discriminatory practices that could later be challenged, the date would have to be changed for everyone. If the date goes from March 31, let us say, until September 30, that would be fine. We could do that and everybody would have those new rules.

If we start adding totally subjective criteria such as whether something is largely completed, and who is going to assess that, whether it will be deemed largely completed if it is in a Conservative riding as opposed to an NDP, Bloc or Liberal riding, those are the types of questions that should not have to be asked.

This was all done in good faith. Sometimes meteorological conditions change everything. Look at the province of Saskatchewan and the severe flooding it has had in the past several months. It is just not in a position to start filling out forms for bureaucrats. That is the type of thing that should be taken into account. A realistic assessment should be made and a new date should be determined and applied across the board so that everybody has the same chance. There has to be a level playing field.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:25 a.m.


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NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Madam Speaker, what is really of great concern to people in the region of Timmins—James Bay is the absolute disconnect in terms of the government's priorities. We see this as a government that has spent billions on prisons and billions on single-sourced contracts for fighter jets to fight the last cold war. Yet in my region, more and more seniors are falling through the cracks. Right across the region people are unable to heat their houses because of the taxes the government is imposing on home heating fuel.

The other real concern is that the government has completely abandoned seniors and working people in terms of affordable pensions and pensions they can live on with dignity.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why he thinks it is that the government will bend over backward to give the big oil companies and the big banks any kind of break they ask for, while seniors are going to food banks and losing their homes and Canadians are living with a larger affordability gap in our country.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:25 a.m.


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NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

It is a question of priorities, Madam Speaker, and the Conservatives have been very clear about what their priorities are.

Let us consider one of the examples that my colleague just raised, the $16 billion untendered contract for fighter jets. We know that there is not even a contract stipulating $1 of economic spinoff for Canada. The Conservatives have never even gone to the basics of taking care of that. They cannot even boast about it. Somehow the Bloc Québécois is voting with the Conservatives for this untendered contract for F-35 fighters.

If we took $700 million, in other words, if we took a very small percentage of the $16 billion, we could raise every senior citizen who now lives below the poverty line above the poverty line by adding to the income supplement that is available to them. That would be the right way to help people with taxpayers' dollars. Instead, the Conservatives gave a gift of $60 billion to Canada's richest corporations in the form of a tax cut that they absolutely did not need, that did nothing to produce new jobs.

The real problem, of course, with the Conservatives is failing to internalize the costs of the oil sands. They brought in an artificially high number of U.S. dollars, forcing the loonie ever higher and hollowing out our manufacturing sector.

Before the current crisis hit in 2008, from 2004 to 2008, according to Statistics Canada, we had already bled off 322,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs. Those were often jobs that came with a pension which would allow people to take care of their families now and themselves in the future.

We are not only shovelling onto the backs of future generations the highest debt in Canadian history, but we are shovelling onto their backs the responsibility to take care of a whole generation of people who are going to come to retirement without an adequate pension, and that is a shame.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:30 a.m.


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Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Madam Speaker, I am delighted the member raised the $16 billion contract.

I would like his view on a point I am not sure anyone has raised in this debate. I wonder how the thousands of union workers in government departments feel. Those workers have spent their whole career following meticulous contracts. When they want to buy a pencil, for the smallest projects, they almost have to go through a standing order or put it out to contract to ensure that we get value for money.

These government workers have had to follow the rules meticulously. They have done it to save dollars and cents throughout their whole career. How does the member think they feel when all of a sudden a $16 billion contract is let with no bid, no paperwork and no care for the government pocketbook which could lose what those workers have spent their entire career trying to save for the taxpayers and all Canadians?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:30 a.m.


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NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Madam Speaker, the member for Yukon raises an extremely important issue of government accountability.

It is worth bearing in mind that the leitmotif of the Conservatives since they arrived has been to do as they say, not as they do.

Yesterday when the Speaker of the House granted our request that a question of privilege be referred to the procedure and House affairs committee, the Conservatives recognized that taking in confidential prebudgetary information and transferring it to Conservative lobbyists was of course a breach, and now it is going to be dealt with in committee.

There has been a whole series of behaviours like that. A staffer of the Minister of Natural Resources was caught, and let us not forget that we only catch a certain number of things the Conservatives do, interfering illegally in the process of access to information. Again, it was only when that staffer was caught that they finally fired him. That is another repeat behaviour; whenever the Conservatives get caught doing something wrong, they turn around and fire a junior staffer. That is supposed to take care of the problem.

With regard to government expenses, we should also look at what happened with the infrastructure spending. People like Louis Ranger, a 35-year career civil servant, senior deputy minister of transport, were being forced and pushed. These are high-level people who understood one thing. When the Conservatives came in, they said that they were bringing in an accountability act. That meant they were trying to shove onto the backs of the senior civil service their own ministerial responsibility. It is a notion that is completely foreign to the Conservatives, the notion that is the basis of our parliamentary system of government, of individual ministerial responsibility.

The Conservatives named the deputy ministers, the civil servants, as being responsible in the Federal Accountability Act, and they are still trying to strong arm them on a lot of these files.

Taking $16 billion of taxpayers' money without even a competitive bidding process is the most egregious example in Canadian history of misspent public money. It is a proper scandal. The government should be held to account for it.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:30 a.m.


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Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Madam Speaker, Parliament is currently reviewing the contents of Bill C-47, the Conservative government's budget implementation act. The bill was tabled on March 4 and received first reading only on September 30.

This is the largest deficit spending budget in the history of Canada. The spending will occur through borrowed funds that not only this generations but generations to come will have to pay for. The debt will be growing.

What is not unveiled in this budget document is another source of income to pay for these provisions within the budget document.

Canadians were told, it was revealed in the House just last week, that a significant source of the income of the funds required to pay for this largest deficit spending budget in the history of Canada will be borne on the backs of Canadian seniors.

It was revealed just last week that a secret policy had been established by the Conservatives to strip seniors of their pensions, to do so by taking away the right to GIS, a guaranteed income supplement. This is absolutely ridiculous.

The policy dates back to May 17. There was absolutely no notice of the policy. There was absolutely no information given to any Canadian senior or any Canadian citizen. It goes beyond impacting seniors, because it also impacts any Canadian who is attempting now to put money away for future retirement through an RRSP.

We know that our retirement system is based on several key platforms or planks. One of course is the Canada pension plan; another is the OAS, the old age security and subsequent GIS benefits, which flow from it; and the other plank is private investment, where working Canadians through the course of their entire working lives try to put a few dollars away in an RRSP, in a sheltered RRSP, which by law must be converted into a registered retirement income fund in due time.

The travesty has so upset Canadian seniors, when they discovered this information through things that were revealed in the House by myself and through the hard work and dedicated work of a retired Service Canada employee. He spent his entire working lifetime helping and supporting seniors and helping them navigate and understand the rules related to Canada's pension systems, Canada's public pension system and as well trying to navigate those rules and how they work with Canada's private pension system.

It was revealed by a Mr. Gerard Lee through his own work, through his own understanding and investigations of this that secret rules were put in place on May 17 affecting a senior's eligibility for GIS, the guaranteed income supplement.

For the benefit of members on the other side of the House who may not be aware of how the GIS works, the guaranteed income supplement is a key plank, an income-tested plank in the public pension system of our country. It builds upon the old age security program, OAS, which is a near-universal public pension for seniors. The GIS, which flows from that, is actually a directed pension system, directed in particular at our lower income Canadian seniors.

How the GIS is influenced by other forms of income is very important. In order to determine eligibility, the GIS is not based on seniors' current year income. It is actually assessed on their previous year's income. In other words, the determination of whether a senior might be eligible or might be receiving a GIS supplement in 2010, a guaranteed income supplement, was made based on 2009 income. The total amount of income seniors received in 2009 would determine whether or not they were eligible in 2010.

However, because last year's income is not always a very appropriate determiner of what resources a senior has available to him or her in this year, 2010, the government when it established this program recognized that one-time or lump sum income sources can be excluded from the income assessment for the pensioner in determining eligibility for GIS.

Specifically, income sources such as employment insurance benefits, which have a finite start and stop, which were basically made available in the previous year, can be optioned out of the GIS eligibility criteria in determining this year's benefits. Workmen's compensation benefits, which have a finite stop and start, could also under existing, former and current rules be optioned out of the eligibility calculation. Certain pension benefits and annuities can be optioned out of the calculation.

Since 1957, Canada has had a registered retirement savings plan and we champion that as a source of retirement investment. We encourage Canadians to invest in RRSPs. We put it into law that any RRSP after a senior hits the age of 71, must by law be converted into a RRIF. So we encouraged investments into RRSPs by granting tax shelter benefits, tax reprieve at the time of the investment, and we guaranteed our citizens that we would not mess with it; we would keep this as a stable, solid investment in perpetuity. We want to encourage working people to invest in RRSPs so that, coupled with the public pension systems and their own workplace pension systems, they have an additional source of income to be able to meet their needs and to meet the needs of their families. That was a solemn commitment, I thought.

On May 17, in a very secret, very dishonest way, the government changed all that. Conservatives put in place a new system of rules for the calculation of the guaranteed income supplement. They did not announce one word of it to any citizen. They did not put out a press release. They did not make this information available to any seniors' organization. Conservatives said, effective this date, that for the purposes of calculating the guaranteed income supplement, when senior citizens withdraw any money from a RRIF, deplete a RRIF, that money now is calculable against their income for the purposes of whether or not they are eligible for the GIS.

Let us think of a senior citizen who puts away a small amount of money under an RRSP, by law is required to roll it over into a RRIF, thinking that is a nest egg, a safety net, a source of funds to respond to emergencies with. That senior citizen, after the age of 71, has the unfortunate circumstance of having to bury a loved one, or pay for emergency home repair or pay for unanticipated costs related to a medical illness, cancer, heart attack or otherwise. Prior to May 17, he or she could use RRIFs, could organize finances in such a way as to use some of a RRIF, withdraw those funds, deplete that RRIF and not have that money used against him or her for the purposes of the calculation of the GIS. That is no more.

Now as of May 17, the government decided, but did not tell anyone, that any senior citizens who withdraw their RRIFs in a lump sum payment or otherwise now are going to lose their GIS. Fundamentally what the government did was it took the value of their RRSPs, the value of their RRIFs, and cut it by 50% right off the top, and it is also taxable at the moment the money is withdrawn from the fund. It is an incredible assault on the well-being and the security of our seniors, and the Conservatives did not even bother to tell anyone about it.

It has been said here in this House that (a) the minister did not know anything about it, but (b), now that she does know, it really does not affect too many people.

First, let us talk about whether or not the minister knew anything about this.

In the last number of weeks, when queried by investment counsellors as to whether or not the practice had changed, the Minister of Human Resources Development Canada sent out letters acknowledging the change made May 17 and defended the policy.

Second, the minister now says that this does not affect very many seniors.

Let it be understood that there are 1.5 million eligible recipients today of the guaranteed income supplement. That is 1.5 million, by definition, lower-income Canadian senior citizens. As I said, the GIS is income-tested. Only those who have a lower income threshold are eligible for the GIS. There are 1.5 million lower-income Canadian senior citizens who are directly impacted by this.

Bear in mind that $3,500 is not an elitist amount, $3,500 a year to try to help maintain and stabilize the standard of living of a senior. However, any senior citizen who withdraws any more than $3,500 a year from a RRIF will lose the GIS or a substantial portion of it. Those are the facts.

Any senior citizen who contributed a dime into an RRSP, over 20, 30 or 40 years of a working lifetime, will be directly impacted by this decision, because as we know, an RRSP must be converted to a RRIF, by law, at the age of 71.

The minister suggests this is only a small number of lower-income senior citizens, and I would love to know exactly what the minister thinks is just a small number. Lower-income senior citizens are directly impacted by this cash assault for the benefit of paying for Bill C-47. What is it, 200,000, 300,000 or 400,000 Canadian low-income senior citizens? I guess that is a small amount.

This is an outrage. It is not only the 1.5 million Canadian seniors currently depending on the GIS system for their income who are affected. People who are now contributing to an RRSP, thinking they are developing a modest nest egg for their security in retirement, need to know whether or not they should stop doing that and start putting their money underneath their mattress.

Here are the consequences of these rules. When funds are withdrawn from a savings account, not a registered account, to pay for a cancer treatment, emergency home repairs or to offset the cost of the burial of a loved one, that is not computable against the GIS. That is a person's own money. However, withdrawing money from a registered retirement income fund, which one may have spent a lifetime trying to acquire, is computable against GIS.

In other words, the RRSP and RRIF system is now in jeopardy. Not only would one lose 50% right off the top but other benefits too.

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador, for example, and many other provinces base their social programs for senior citizens on an income-tested program. Instead of creating a second set of rules, considering the federal government's guaranteed income supplement, GIS, is income-tested and is directed specifically at lower-income senior citizens, many provinces simply model that, and a recipient of GIS will also get other benefits, such as a provincial senior citizen's drug card.

A drug card can be worth anywhere from nothing, if you happen to be fortunate enough to be in great health, to $50,000 per year, if you happen to need emergency high-cost medications and other services. All of a sudden this decision to pay for the federal budget on the backs of senior citizens in a secret, clandestine way, is not only costing senior citizens their full GIS entitlements that they worked so hard for, fought for and built this country for, but what is not known to many of them is that they are also losing their drug cards from the provincial governments as a result.

The government did not have the gumption to even bother to inform them what would happen if they made this decision. After years and years of following a particular practice and of understanding the rules a certain way, seniors acted within what they felt were the rules. It is hard to act within the rules when we are not even told what they are. In other words, if senior citizens, on November 30, 2010, withdrew RRIF funds thinking the rules were in place in a certain way, they will not find out that they just hit themselves very, very tragically in their own personal finances until next year, because GIS is not based on a person's current year's income. If we make a withdrawal from a RRIF, deplete a RRIF in 2010, the impact is not even foretold to us until Canada Day, July 1, 2011. Happy Canada Day.

That is what a secretive government does. It prevents us from knowing what the consequences of its actions are and prevents us from acting in our own best interest. That is what they did to Canada's senior citizens.

It would not be until 2011 that anyone who withdrew any funds from a RRIF, depleted a RRIF, would even know about it, because the exercise of optioning those funds would not be explained to them, or the fact that they cannot option those funds like they can option employment insurance, workers' compensation benefits and certain annuity payments. To pay for Bill C-47, the budget implementation act, the most significant deficit-spending budget in the history of Canada, what was not told to them, was not told to me, was not told to us and what was not told to any Canadian citizen is that the government will pay for this budget on the backs of Canadian seniors. The cash grab in all of this is unreal.

The minister has said that he has just found out about this and he will put a stop to processing the policy right now. He will review it, but it is still very much on the table. It is still very much on the table for him to do it down the road, and should he, by implication, agree with what he decided on May 17, 2010 after all, he will recoup an awful lot of money. He will have court judgments or whatever. He will file letters of notice that the money he is forgiving right now, he will recoup down the road.

The integrity of our registered retirement savings plan system, of our registered retirement income fund system, and of our public pension plan system requires consistency and a solid, steady hand at the administrative wheel. It does not need and will not accept a minister who decided but just got caught, so now he will give it a temporary reprieve to try to get out of this mess, but he will hold us in limbo until he figures out whether or not he will keep the policy.

Our seniors deserve better. Rescind this policy, do not review it.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:50 a.m.


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Bloc

Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the passionate speech made by the Liberal member on a single topic: the plight of seniors. I believe that this is a very important topic, one with which all parliamentarians should be more concerned.

However, I would also like to remind the Liberal member that we currently have a minority government. When the 2010 budget was presented, we could have expressed our strong disagreement with it and refused to accept a budget that was unsatisfactory in several respects.

What does he think about the fact that the members of his party did not show up in sufficient numbers to oppose it?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:50 a.m.


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Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question and I appreciate the fact that he also agrees with what I had to say about seniors.

There is not one word of anything that I spoke of in Bill C-47, except to say that this is how they are going to pay for it. There is not one word about depleting the GIS in the budget implementation act, except now we know that this is how they are going to pay for it. So although the budget implementation act speaks softly and kindly about seniors, it is not what is in the budget that matters, it is what is not in the budget.

This would have been the proper place to describe what the Conservative government did. It did not do it. The decision was made on May 17, 2010. The legislation that we are debating here was not even given first reading until September 30.

The Conservatives did this solely outside of the purview of Parliament. They did this behind closed doors, and they did it by regulation. These are the issues on which I feel all parties should have a say, which we were denied. It is not in the budget but it certainly has serious implications for it.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:55 a.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his presentation regarding Bill C-47. I want to initially congratulate him for discovering this issue and dealing with it very expeditiously, and of course, the government has responded. So it was very good that he got onto it very early and dealt with it.

This budget of the Conservative government increased the air travellers security charge by 50%, which makes it now the highest in the world. Revenues collected through the tax exceed the amount spent on security. Over five years, we have raised $3.3 billion through the tax, but we have spent only $1.5 billion on security itself.

One of the results of this is that the government is now the best friend of the North Dakota and U.S. air industry, with over 50,000 Manitobans now streaming to Grand Forks to fly on U.S. carriers because they are increasingly cheaper than Canadian carriers. So as a result, they are bypassing the use of Canadian airports. I understand, of course, that part of this has to do with the high dollar, high passport fees and other issues, but certainly increasing the air tax by 50% in the budget, when Canada already had the second highest air tax in the world, makes us now the highest taxed in the world in terms of air taxes.

Could the member comment on what this is doing to the tourism industry in this country, which is already on a downward spiral?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:55 a.m.


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Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Madam Speaker, the member and I have become colleagues in another cause, which is to protect the consumer rights of airline passengers. We have been working on this effort collaboratively, as we are in developing our tourism industry.

It is a fact that five million fewer international arrivals are occurring by air in Canada than just a few short years ago. We moved from number seven in terms of international arrivals as a destination of choice to number 15 in the world. We are losing our market share and our position.

The member rightly points to high-cost airport services as having a major implication in this. Canada has an aviation system that is high cost not only in terms of the direct ticket price, but influencing the ticket price of Canadian air travel are other ancillary costs, such as security.

The member quite rightly points out that the Canadian government today is collecting more in airport security fees than it is spending on airport security. This is adding to the cost, causing Canadian passengers to move to U.S. airports to take U.S. airlines, to take U.S. flights, rather than Canadian airports, Canadian airlines and Canadian flights to international destinations.

That high-cost factor is also causing fewer international arrivals into Canada, especially on Canadian airlines in Canadian airports. It is a serious problem. Why the government does not at least balance the books on the airport security charge is beyond me. The government does not seem to want to explain that.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 10:55 a.m.


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NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Madam Speaker, we are very concerned about the way the government is ignoring the needs of seniors across this country, particularly with the guaranteed income supplement. Our party has pushed to work with the government to increase the guaranteed income supplement so that seniors are not living in poverty. Yet the government blew $120 million on hospitality in its various departments, which was basically booze and tickets for buddies. It blew more than $600 million in a day on the G20. That would get every senior citizen in this country out of poverty.

The government seems to do anything for the large banks or for any of its friends, yet for senior citizens, the people who helped build this country and are falling further and further behind, the government has no plan for or consideration of their needs. In fact, the only plan it had was to claw back the seniors' guaranteed income supplement to help fund its other costs, whether it is building prisons or buying stealth fighter jets.

I would ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the government has abandoned the senior citizens of Canada.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11 a.m.


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Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Madam Speaker, the other question is, what is next?

The government introduced this clandestine policy on May 17 without any information, announcement or dissemination to any investment counsel or seniors organization. There was no effort to actually publicize this. The Government of Canada prides itself on informing Canadians of things they need to know. It spends $120 million a year on advertising. I think this should have been advertised.

Instead of talking about programs that have already expired, such as the home renovation tax credit, and there are still ads running about expired programs and other things, I wonder what would have happened to the government's fortunes if it actually ran a multi-million dollar ad saying, “By the way, seniors, we are clawing back your GIS and stealing from your pensions to pay for fake lakes and other ancillary expenses that we incurred in a multi-million dollar PR exercise”. I do not think Canadian seniors would be very pleased about that and the Conservative Party's fortunes probably would not have been enhanced.

Therefore, we are not seeing any of the government's tax money being spent on advertising fundamentally important changes to the pension system of lower-income Canadian senior citizens. Every year, $120 million is available to do that, spent on other things that the government wants to advertise. However, we will not see this little item advertised ever, because it is a bad news item and the government does not like to talk about what it does behind closed doors.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11 a.m.


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Bloc

Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC

Madam Speaker, Bill C-47, a budget implementation act, is at third reading.

The Bloc Québécois spoke out on several occasions against the budget presented by this government. The budget proposed by the Conservatives perpetuates the federal government's encroachment on areas of Quebec jurisdiction. The budget also clearly penalizes the Quebec government. Another source of major dissatisfaction for Quebec is the fact that this budget maintains a tax system that is extremely generous to the banks and oil companies while putting the burden of the deficit on the middle class, workers and seniors.

The Bloc Québécois's budget suggestions have always been consistent with the expectations of Quebeckers and, if the government had implemented them, they would have ensured that Quebec came out of the crisis prosperous, sustainable and green.

The Conservatives, supported by the Liberals, have continued to focus their policies on the needs of Ontario and Alberta to the detriment of Quebec. Despite all the fine Conservative promises of 2006 about a new openness toward Quebec, the Conservative budget does not satisfy the needs of Quebec's economy. Forestry, aerospace, the environment and culture are priorities of Quebeckers that have been completely ignored. What is more, Quebec's top priorities—enhancing employment insurance and the guaranteed income supplement, harmonizing the QST with the GST, and implementing a real plan to help the forestry industry—have not been addressed in the budget.

The government is also confirming its intention to create a Canada-wide securities commission despite opposition from economic players in Quebec and its National Assembly.

It is clear that the Conservative government has many priorities other than Quebec. The automotive industry in Ontario has received $9.7 billion, while the forestry industry, which is so vital to the regions of Quebec, has received only $170 million.

For all intents and purposes, the environment was ignored in the budget. However, the Conservative government has put $1 billion toward developing nuclear power, which benefits Ontario, Alberta and the oil companies. These companies already have generous tax benefits.

What I find the most upsetting in this budget is that it ignores the need to improve employment insurance and the guaranteed income supplement, which is keeping our seniors in poverty. It also ignores the need to deal with the issues of social housing and homelessness.

As for the guaranteed income supplement, an issue that is dear to my heart and concerns many of my constituents, for years now the Bloc Québécois has been calling on the various Liberal and Conservative governments—we had a Liberal government in 2004 when I was first elected—to stop pulling the wool over seniors' eyes. We have asked the government many times to take concrete action in order to help the thousands of seniors throughout Quebec who are lacking the basic resources they need to live in dignity. In 2007, I introduced Bill C-490 to make significant changes in order to allow our seniors to live in dignity.

Since coming to power, the Conservatives have gotten into the habit of being misleading and telling half-truths in order to govern according to their ideology while keeping public discontent at bay. Just recently, we saw another shocking example of their bad faith when they distributed documents congratulating themselves on increasing guaranteed income supplement benefits.

Those increases are nothing more than adjustments that have been planned since 2005. In reality, the Conservatives have done absolutely nothing since 2006 to help older people who are struggling financially, and needs remain considerable and urgent.

But let us go back to the legislation before us, Bill C-47, to implement various initiatives presented in the budget on March 4, 2010. The Bloc Québécois voted against the budget because it was unfair to Quebec, but does not object ideologically to all the measures resulting from it. The Bloc Québécois actually supports many of the initiatives presented in the bill, which our party helped to enhance. We especially support the clauses to improve the allocation of child benefits. The government agrees to pay half to each of two parents who have joint custody in order to ease the tax burden on beneficiaries of a registered disability savings plan, a plan that was designed to provide severely disabled children with financial security.

We also support the provisions to reduce the administrative burden on charities and some small businesses and tighten the rules around the TFSA in order to prevent tax avoidance, as well as those that will prevent companies from benefiting from double deductions for stock options.

However, despite our support, we also have many reservations. This bill confirms the Conservative government's intention to spare rich taxpayers at all costs and have the workers and the middle class pay off the deficit. The government will continue to treat stock options like capital gains for ordinary taxpayers. The Bloc Québécois deplores the fact that only half of the income derived from stock options is subject to federal income tax. The Conservative government could show fairness to workers and collect $1 billion in tax by cutting off this gift.

Businesses are not being asked to pay their fair share to increase government revenue, except that they have to make source deductions to ensure that employees with stock options pay their taxes. Furthermore, this bill attests to the Conservative government's inertia with respect to the environment and the fight against greenhouse gases. Only one environmental measure is included: encouraging the production of clean energy.

The government is ignoring the Bloc's urgent calls concerning equalization payments and increased transfers for education and social programs. It is ignoring our recommendations concerning income security for pensioners.

I would like to address some of the measures in this bill that affect entire areas of Quebec society. First, I want to address the measures regarding income tax on charities, as included in part 1.

The government is changing the rules on sums that have to be spent on charitable activities by repealing the rule on charitable spending, changing the rules on capital accumulation, and strengthening the rules against tax avoidance. In Quebec, we can count on the dedication of 16,000 charities registered with the Canada Revenue Agency. The Bloc Québécois believes it is vital that charitable organizations be able to focus on their activities, rather than on constant fundraising. Accordingly, we supported the campaign to eliminate the capital gains tax on donations of securities and private equity holdings to charities.

In addition, the Bloc Québécois is open to the idea of extending the tax credit for charitable donations.

In response to the 2010 budget, the Bloc Québécois deplored the fact that the government did not consider the issue of charity funding. The survival of these organizations is especially important given that the Conservative government has used terrible methods to reduce its deficit, which could lead to reduced public services. The decisions related to health transfers are one example of this.

When it comes to international aid, we cannot help but be concerned by the major withdrawal and the politics of fear imposed on NGOs by this government. This withdrawal is particularly apparent in the case of organizations whose positions are at odds with the government's viewpoints.

In budget 2010, the federal government announced its plans to cap expenditures for development assistance, thereby confirming that it would not make the effort needed to achieve its target of 0.7% of GNP.

The Bloc Québécois recognizes the important role of charitable organizations in Quebec society and around the world. They all need predictable, long-term funding in order to fulfill their respective mandates. The federal government must stop extending certain programs on a temporary basis and stop being so secretive about its intentions regarding the funding of organizations. In doing so, the government creates uncertainty among the most vulnerable, our community groups and the charitable organizations that help them.

The Bloc Québécois will also continue to call on the federal government to implement a realistic plan to achieve the UN target of 0.7% of GDP for international assistance as quickly as possible. If the federal government does not increase its budget for development assistance, it will greatly impede the vital work that is being done by charitable organizations in the developing world.

Part 3 of the bill deals with measures pertaining to federal-provincial fiscal arrangements. The purpose of these piecemeal arrangements, made at the behest of the federal government, is to facilitate tax sharing by Canada and Quebec. The Bloc Québécois believes that it is high time to come up with a vigorous mechanism ensuring that Quebec receives all taxes paid in the province. For that reason, we are asking the federal government to initiate talks with the Government of Quebec in order to create a single tax return in Quebec, on the basis of an agreement similar to that for the GST, for all taxes paid by Quebeckers.

Since 1991, the Government of Quebec has collected the goods and services tax for the federal government, which compensates it for this service. The Bloc Québécois believes that Quebec should collect all income tax. Not only would corporations and individuals save considerable sums every year, but the reduced cost of tax collection would lead to recurring savings that, in turn, would lower pressure on public finances. The introduction of a single tax return by the Government of Quebec would save hundreds of millions of dollars by reducing duplication.

Part 7 of the bill, which also deals with federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, particularly addresses total transfers, including equalization. The Quebec government is the loser with this implementation bill, as it was with the 2010 budget, because the Conservatives have maintained their decision to unilaterally cap equalization payments.

Since the equalization envelope is now capped, the total amount of equalization payments will be calculated in line with economic growth, which means that Quebec will lose several billion dollars over the coming years.

There is nothing in this bill about the formula affecting a segment of Hydro-Québec's revenue, either, which deprives the Quebec government of an additional $250 million. Lastly, there is nothing planned with regard to education and social program transfers. The Bloc Québécois is calling for a substantial increase in investments in these programs to return to the 1994-95 indexed level. Such an increase would mean that Quebec would receive $800 million more annually for the funding of its social programs.

The government is flatly refusing Quebec's urgent calls for an increase in federal transfer payments, in particular in education. The growth in health and education transfers will be compromised as of 2014-15 since the Federal Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act does not allow for any further growth in these transfers beyond 2014.

Furthermore, the bill currently before us provides no compensation for the harmonization of Quebec's sales tax. Even though Quebec has been unanimously calling on the government to provide financial compensation of $2.2 billion, this is still being denied. Total compensation of $6.86 billion has been allocated, including $4.3 billion to Ontario, and the rest to British Columbia and three Atlantic provinces.

For days there have been rumours from the office of Quebec's finance minister that Quebec and Ottawa will reach an agreement on this by spring. It is only a glimmer of hope, but if this agreement goes through, more than 20 years of injustice will finally be remedied.

The Bloc Québécois will support this bill to implement various initiatives in budget 2010, but the many reservations we have expressed about this budget and its serious shortcomings show that the Conservatives still have not understood the economic and cultural reality of Quebeckers.

The public cannot be fooled so easily, as we saw in yesterday's byelection in Quebec. The Liberal government in Quebec, which for months has been ignoring calls by the public to hold a public inquiry into the ties between the construction industry and political parties, was defeated in a riding that it had held for more than 25 years.

The fact of the matter is that Quebeckers do not identify with this Conservative government. They deplore the fact that their cultural and economic development are being hindered by this government and they are not shy to make that known at election time.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:20 a.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, Canadians have a right to be concerned, if not outraged, as their salaries over the last year or so have been frozen or reduced to pay for the $56 billion deficit that the government has run up. Meanwhile, while all this is happening, bank profits hit $15.9 billion in 2009, at a time when we have a recession. Also corporate taxes are dropping to 15%, which will put them far below that of the United States.

In light of all of this, the CEOs in Canadian banks are the highest paid. The Royal Bank of Canada's Gordon Nixon and Toronto Dominion Bank's Edmund Clark were given $10.4 million in salary and compensation. CIBC's president, Gerald McCaughey, was the lowest paid, the poorest of the bunch. He was given $6.2 million. Is it any wonder that Canadians shake their heads when they see not only the Conservative government but the Liberals before it, conducting themselves in this economic strategy of reducing taxes on corporations, meanwhile allowing corporate salaries to go through the roof.

Does the member feel it is about time that Canada look at the executive compensations in other jurisdictions around the world? I believe there are other jurisdictions in Europe, maybe Southeast Asia, where corporate salaries are confined and restricted to much more reasonable levels as opposed to the system in Canada.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:20 a.m.


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Bloc

Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC

Madam Speaker, it is true that the general public has a hard time accepting the exorbitant salaries paid to the CEOs of banks and corporations. However, it is up to the stockholders of those companies to take action to control the salaries paid to their own CEOs. Personally, I have no objection to the government introducing a bill to establish rules to prevent these abuses that are unacceptable to the public. That would be something to look into in order to have a bit more justice in our society.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:25 a.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, the government has no intention of taking action, but I believe, because of the response and reaction of shareholders to this situation in the last several months, one or two financial institutions have made available the compensation levels to shareholders. However, I do not think a great amount of detail has been given by management. I believe a global figure is being provided. I do not believe the minutia, the fine details, of each CEO's compensation has been given to those shareholders.

Clearly there is a role for the government to examine the whole area, and not take several years to do it. It should look at what has happened in the United States, where the whole financial services industry has been re-regulated. The government should show some leadership, some direction and at least set up a process to put some limitations on salaries and, beyond limitations, to disclose the corporate salaries to not only all the shareholders of the banks but the public as well.

Why do we continually have to go to the United States to get information on corporate salaries? It is not only corporate salaries, but there are many other areas where the Americans have much better disclosure rules than we have in Canada.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:25 a.m.


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Bloc

Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC

Madam Speaker, I would once again like to thank the NDP member. I want to tell him that the Standing Committee on Finance is currently examining and fine-tuning a private member's bill on the disclosure of salaries of directors of charitable organizations. The main purpose of this bill is public disclosure of the salaries paid to directors of charitable organizations, whatever they may be, beyond a certain level. The point is not to control these salaries but to inform members of the public of the salaries paid and let them judge for themselves.

We could apply the same reasoning to banks and financial institutions, which are also more or less a public service. The government should ensure that the salaries paid in these institutions are disclosed.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:25 a.m.


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Bloc

Maria Mourani Bloc Ahuntsic, QC

Madam Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. I make large donations to charitable organizations. As a citizen and a mother, I have to admit that I am sometimes very shocked by the salaries earned by some charity executives.

I will give an example. I made large donations for almost 10 years, if my memory serves me well, to an organization that is supposed to look after children abroad. I will not name the organization to avoid giving it publicity. I discovered that the CEO had an annual salary of $500,000. I immediately stopped supporting this organization. I did not know this; I had to do some digging. For almost 10 years, I supported this organization without knowing how my money was being used. It said that most of the money donated was not used for administration and that it went directly to the children.

I would like to know if this bill contains a special provision requiring charities to disclose the salaries of executives, presidents, and any other staff members, but not volunteers.

I am curious whether this bill contains provisions about that.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:30 a.m.


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Bloc

Robert Carrier Bloc Alfred-Pellan, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for asking for clarification on Bill C-47. The purpose of the bill is to give the public access to information on high-income earners at charities, and to ensure that this information specifies the names of these high-income earners.

Some organizations registered as charities pay very high salaries. For example, the conductor of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra earns over $1 million a year. It is important for that information to be officially disclosed so that the public can come to a conclusion about the salaries of the individuals working for these organizations.

The bill would also ask the Canada Revenue Agency to make this information more accessible. In principle, the information is available, but it is not always easy to find on the website. That is the goal of this bill. We do not want to put restrictions on salaries, but we at least want to give the information to the public so that they can decide for themselves.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:30 a.m.


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Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be here today to speak on the legislation before the House.

In the limited time available to me I want to raise three or four issues that are not in the legislation and that in my opinion are not being discussed in the House in the manner they ought to be. They are issues that in my opinion are near and dear to the hearts and lives of every Canadian living from coast to coast to coast.

I am not going to suggest for a minute that these are easy issues. These are issues that require a plan and require courage.

The first issue I want to talk about is the issue of poverty among Canadians. There is no mention of that issue in this legislation, no mention in the budget speech, no mention in the previous Speech from the Throne or any Speech from the Throne for that matter, or basically in any statement by the Prime Minister or his cabinet.

During the past 12 months there have been two what I refer to as massive reports from committees. The first one was tabled last December from the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. It was entitled, “In from the Margins: A Call to Action on Poverty, Housing and Homelessness”.

The second committee report was a massive report. It took a lot of time and energy and effort. It came from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. The title of the study was the “Federal Poverty Reduction Plan: Working in Partnership Towards Reducing Poverty in Canada”.

These studies and a lot of other opinions and articles certainly identify the extent of poverty that we see across Canada. They talk about the groups, the cohorts, who suffer the most: the disabled, single parents, unattached individuals, aboriginals and new immigrants. They talk about some of the reasons. They talk about where.

One important aspect that should be made very clear is that very close interrelationship between poverty and future health care costs, between poverty and future educational achievement, between poverty and future interactions with the criminal justice system and between poverty and the future productivity of the Canadian nation.

It leads to what I suggest is a democratic deficit where people are not contributing in the way they should.

Last week we had the unfortunate statistic reported that senior poverty over the last three or four years has increased by 25% under the watch of the Conservative government. There are in excess of 600,000 children living in poverty, one in nine.

On November 24 the House debated a motion basically calling upon the government to develop an immediate plan to eliminate poverty for all. The motion was debated, discussed, deliberated upon and was passed by a majority of the members of Parliament representing a majority of Canadians.

I remember when the Prime Minister was the leader of the opposition. I remember the statements that he used to make, that we cannot ignore the will of Parliament speaking on behalf of Canadians. What did he do? He totally ignored it.

This is an issue I submit that we ignore at our own peril. It is an issue that perhaps transcends the next election cycle but it is an issue that all members of Parliament should be looking at for the better future, not of ourselves but of our children and generations to come.

The second issue I want to identify that is certainly not in this budget, nor in any other budget, Speech from the Throne nor statements by cabinet ministers, is the whole issue of the environment, and specifically our inability to take any action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Our record is appalling. It is embarrassing. The history over the last five years is really appalling. Back when the Conservatives were first elected in January 2006, they eliminated any reference to climate change, they ignored any international agreements, and they basically abandoned any concept of greenhouse gas emissions or climate change.

The first environment minister, now the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, immediately announced in the House that the government would come forward with a made in Canada approach to deal with climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. She did nothing, and after three months, six months, nine months, twelve months, nothing was done. There was no initiative, no program, absolutely nothing.

After 18 months she was replaced with the second environment minister, now the present Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. He abandoned any talk of a made in Canada approach, but his initiative was that we would come forward with a turning the corner initiative, which would regulate the emissions from Canada's 500 largest emitters. It was very forcefully spoken about. It was to be a great plan with much fanfare. That minister did nothing, despite his statements, after three months, nine months, 16 months. After 22 months, unfortunately, he had to be replaced.

The government's third environment minister, Mr. Jim Prentice, stated that Canada would not have a made in Canada approach and certainly would not have anything to do with this turning the corner initiative, whatever that was, and he basically stated in the House that the government would do nothing until it saw what the United States was doing.

Unfortunately, the United States did have good intentions with the election of President Obama but now the Republicans have control of the Congress and any thought about cap and trade or anything grandiose will probably not happen. That has given that minister cover to do nothing, and after a couple of years in that portfolio he did nothing. Of course, he had the Cancun meeting coming up this week. About a month ago, he resigned both from his position as the environment minister and his seat in the House.

Now we have the fourth environment minister , the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, which is probably an instance where perhaps recycling ought not to have been used. He is there for a temporary period and there does not seem to be anything at all moving.

Unfortunately, the previous minister attended the Copenhagen conference a year ago. That was a large international conference for which there was the hope that we would reach a very good agreement. Unfortunately, as everyone knows, that did not happen. Canada went there with the obvious intention not to reach an agreement, but to scuttle any agreement from being reached. As a result it received four Fossil of the Year awards, and then it became the Colossal Fossil.

I cannot overstate how embarrassing that is to Canadians. We as Canadians want to consider ourselves citizens of the world, but when we see that going on in foreign fora, it is certainly embarrassing to this Canadian and I would suggest to the majority of other Canadians watching that spectacle.

Right now as we speak there is the next international forum going on in Cancun, Mexico. I do not believe the Minister of the Environment is there although he may attend the closing ceremonies. And this is probably a good thing for us, because I think it will avoid a certain amount of embarrassment to this country when we see our ministers going there trying to scuttle any agreement being reached.

That issue is unfortunate. It is embarrassing, but again, we are not going to hear talk about it. We are not going to hear of any initiatives. We are not going to hear of any movement. The government is just kicking the can down the road and letting the next generation deal with that particular issue.

The third issue that is not addressed in this bill or in the budget, which is disappointing, is this whole issue of pensions, which is fast becoming a very serious issue for a great majority of Canadians. Approximately 60% of Canadians are not saving enough for their retirements and this is going to cause real problems in the future.

We do have a three-pronged post-retirement income plan. The first prong, of course, is the government-funded old age security and guaranteed income supplement, which work well. The second prong of that plan is the Canada pension plan, a compulsory government plan that is employer-employee funded. It is inadequate but the structure is acceptable. It is certainly actuarially sound and will be for the next 75 years. However, the third prong, which requires government action, is the private savings part, and that is course the private plans, whether they be defined benefit or defined contribution, and the RRSPs.

What has happened, which does require our attention from the federal government, is that many of the companies have either eliminated their private, defined benefit plans altogether and moved to a defined contribution plan, or alternatively, have just abandoned any kind of a pension whatsoever. Coupled with that, we have basically seen what I consider to be the failure of the RRSP program. It has been with us many years now but the costs are twice what they are in the United States for similar types of plans. The returns just are not there and this really has failed Canadians. If a person put in $4,000 or $5,000, or 10% of his or her income for a middle-income earner, in an RRSP, basically the plan failed that particular person.

It does need a legislative solution. I am not suggesting for a minute that I have all the answers and I know it does require discussion with the provincial premiers. I know that the Minister of Finance now has started some discussion because the provincial premiers are demanding that, but again, it is a very serious issue. It is not an issue that is talked about in this House. It is not an issue that is being addressed and this is very unfortunate.

On these issues and many others, there is an overarching theme, and that is the whole issue of intergenerational equity, or intergenerational inequity. Intergenerational equity means that each generation is treated fairly and that no generation should piggyback off the next. In other words, our children should not bear our debt load, and that is playing itself out in many aspects of Canadian life right now, no more so than in the deficit.

We presently are incurring deficits in excess of $50 billion per year and these debts have to be paid off. In the last four budgets of the government, spending has increased by 39.7%. We have seen tax cuts to the wealthiest of companies, which in Canada and in a Canadian context, would most likely mean the banks, the mining companies and the oil companies.

This debt is going to be paid for by the future generation of Canadians, probably by those three pages who are sitting in front of you, Madam Speaker. We are facing a country with unique demographic circumstances. We are entering an era where there are going to be fewer workers and many more retired Canadians. These retired Canadians will rely more and more on our younger workers to pay for increased health care costs, increased costs for caring for the elderly and pension costs.

On top of that, spending is out of control. There are examples upon examples of out of control spending. Members have heard it all before. There is the $16 billion for planes through an untendered contract; $13 billion allocated for prisons; $1.3 billion for the G8 and G20 summits; $130 million for partisan Conservative advertising, some of which is showing up on sex sites; and $1.3 million for cabs to ferry ministers, who have chauffeurs, and their staff around Ottawa.

Spending is out of control and the deficit is very large, but these issues are not spoken about. The government will leave the deficit and all the other issues to the next generation. This manifests itself in many ways, and I will go over them briefly.

I have already talked about the deficit.

The environment will have to be dealt with. Some generation will have to deal with it. Unfortunately, we do not seem to be able to deal with it. That does not mean the problem is going to go away. We have serious problems not only with our greenhouse gas emissions but with other aspects of our environment that are not being dealt with by the government.

Pensions is a big issue. We are facing an aging society. The pension problem has to be dealt with. We cannot force these costs on the next generation.

There is a notion that affordable post-secondary education is a right of citizenship. That, in my day, was the great equalizer. That seems to be gone because of the downloading of the costs onto students.

The plight of our aboriginal communities, especially post-secondary support for our first nations youth, should be a big priority for the government.

A lot of this will really affect the productivity of our nation. As a result, crime rates will probably increase in the years to come. Health costs will increase in the years to come.

Another issue is unemployment. Youth unemployment is reaching record levels. Students have been particularly hit. People leaving the educational system, younger workers in particular have been hit because of the recent recession. Their future looks bleak, and I see no action on the part of the government. Again, it is an example of just kicking the problem on to the next generation. This is going to have real cogent effects on the future productivity of Canada.

If Canada's youth are not acquiring necessary skills in the workplace now, and when post-secondary costs are getting more expensive, it leaves fewer alternatives for younger people. This will have very serious consequences, especially for young men, who seem to be getting hit worse. This will lead to higher crime rates and a greater burden on all taxpayers.

These challenges are not mentioned in the bill. Nobody is talking about them in the debates in the House.

As I see it, the Conservative agenda comes down to the 3Ps, which used to stand for public-private partnership. In my opinion, the 3Ps now stand for planes, prisons and pistols. In other words, every Canadian should have the right to own a gun if he or she so chooses.

It is disheartening to see the direction in which we are heading. It is disappointing. A whole host of issues that should be dealt with are not being dealt with. The whole Conservative agenda is laden with intergenerational inequity that is going to cause great harm to this country. It is showing up these days with the trade balance and everything else. It is very disappointing.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:50 a.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, I will be very sorry to see the member leave the House. He has been on the public accounts committee for a long time and has done an excellent job both as chair and vice-chair. I knew him when I was a provincial MLA.

I listened very carefully to the hon. member speak about the pension issue. It seems that there is a growing consensus in the country spurred on by my own party and my party's critic in getting the ear of the government, the labour movement in Canada and some of the provincial premiers onside to double the CPP.

There is a recognition that the voluntary programs, as the member indicated, are not really working out. I would think that the public of Canada would be well served if we could double the CPP in the next little while. Contributions would have to be made by the employers and employees. As the member indicated, we should not be leaving debts to our children and grandchildren. The generation should take care of itself.

In terms of the voluntary part, the RRSP system, the member noted that it has not become the success that it should have been. A lot of that has to do with the fact that we are looking at front-end load, rear-end load and all kinds of service and administrative charges. Also, it is a voluntary program and only people with disposable income and means are buying into the program.

The member knows the uptake is not that high because a lot of poorer people in Canada have other things to spend their income on than concerning themselves with their retirement some time in the future. Unless we make it a mandatory program, such as doubling the CPP, we are doing a disservice to ourselves and the people in this country.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:50 a.m.


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Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Madam Speaker, I agree with the member's comments. There is a very serious issue with the present pension schemes. I am not going to suggest it is simple or that the federal government has all the levers at its disposal, but my friend identified the problem.

As I indicated in my remarks, it is a three-pronged scheme. The first two prongs are sound and are working well. However, the third prong, private savings, is not working. It has two components. There are the pension plans, and some of them are defined contribution or defined benefit, and there are the RRSPs and individual savings.

It is that third prong that is not working. We are seeing the middle class being squeezed out of the whole aspect for two reasons. One, the companies, not all but a lot of them, that used to offer defined benefit plans have abandoned them either for defined contribution plans or no plan at all. Then there is the idea of opening an RRSP. The member agrees with my earlier comments that this whole RRSP system has not worked out as well as was intended back when it was started about 50 years ago. We are seeing the results now. In Canada we do have extremely high MER rates compared to other foreign countries.

It is going to be a difficult hill for the Minister of Finance to climb. We cannot forget that the RRSP industry is controlled by the chartered banks and large financial institutions. The program generally is not meeting the original goals that were set for the program when it was first established.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:55 a.m.


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Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

Madam Speaker, I thought the member's comments would have been more cheerful given that he comes from Prince Edward Island, which recently was recognized as the happiest province.

My question is about savings and investing.

We have heard much about defined benefit and defined contribution plans. People from my generation graduated from high school, college and university with little or no knowledge of budgeting, saving and investing. It is a crime that our school systems do not at least try to educate people on this.

The member has a few years on me as far as age goes, and I wonder if he has a few thoughts on school systems, the younger generation and the issues they have with budgeting and saving.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:55 a.m.


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Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Madam Speaker, first I want to point out to the member that I am happy, but just because I am happy does not mean I am not concerned. I am concerned, as are many other people, about certain directions in which this country is going.

I agree with the member's point. A lot is taught in the curriculum of Canadian schools, but one issue that remains untaught is financial literacy. Some of the chartered banks are making an effort and the Government of Canada has made minor efforts, but I do not really think it is sinking in. A lot of financial literacy probably comes from parents, but in some cases the parents are not as well versed as perhaps they should be. This is an issue that is lacking. I do not like to refer to it lacking in the total education system but in the scheme of lifelong learning.

With respect to financial literacy, the first big decision people make, and it is unfortunate that they have to make this decision, is usually after grade 12 when they apply for a student loan. That sets in motion a lot of long-term decisions. Before that decision is made, people really should be grounded in financial literacy. Unfortunately, there are situations where people do not go to university because they are scared to borrow, or to borrow too much, and people go to school based on income, not initiative, which is unfortunate.

The member made a very good point. This is something that should receive much greater attention from all parties, provincial governments, educational institutions, the federal government, banks and people in the financial services industry than it is receiving now.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 11:55 a.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, in his speech the member painted a picture of a Conservative government that has actually become comfortable with debt. We remember when the government members were led by Preston Manning. They refused to take their pensions and Preston Manning was handing back the keys to his government car and was refusing to move into the official residence.

Now there is a total reversal. The Conservatives are taking their pensions. They are driving the cars. They are comfortable with debt. We see them trying to buy their way to electoral success by spending money. The party that had some principles has now sold out all of those principles. It acts in many ways like the old Liberal governments that the Conservatives accused of buying their way to power and staying in power at the expense of large deficits. The Conservatives are doing the same thing, albeit not as successfully as the Liberals did.

Would the member like to comment on that?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / noon


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Liberal

Shawn Murphy Liberal Charlottetown, PE

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to comment on that. I was first elected in 2000, but starting in 1995, the Liberal Party gave Canada 11 surpluses and reduced the debt to GDP ratio from approximately 73%, which was left by the previous Conservative government, to the vicinity of 31% or 32%. The Liberal Party lowered interest rates, paid off in excess of $100 billion on the debt and left a very good economy.

We have to go back to the state of the economy at that time. When the Conservatives left in 1993, interest rates were at 11%. The unemployment rate was at 13%. The debt to GDP ratio was at 73%. The debt was around $43 billion, which I think was the second or third highest ever, replaced by the recent debt.

The member is quite right. If we look at the Conservative government that ended in 1993 and the Conservative government now, there is not that much difference. They both seem to be very comfortable with debt. That does not seem to concern the Conservatives in the least.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / noon


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NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to rise yet again to speak to Bill C-47, a bill that, in an Orwellian turn of phrase, is entitled Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery Act.

Nothing would make me happier than to report to this House that people in my home town of Hamilton were actually experiencing an economic recovery. Then we, too, could take joy in a bill that claims to be sustaining that recovery. However in my home town, people are far from rejoicing in the lead-up to this holiday season. On the contrary, they are profoundly worried about their future.

The Prime Minister points to soaring bank profits and takes that as proof that the recession is over. For him, if his banking friends are out of trouble, everyone is out of trouble. However, Canadians see it differently.

One and a half million Canadians are still out of work. Six out of every 10 Canadians live paycheque to paycheque. Household debt is at record highs. Life is more expensive than ever.

Unlike the Conservative government, New Democrats will not declare this recession over until middle class families are back on their feet. A true recovery must not leave anyone behind.

That requires a fundamentally different approach to dealing with the economy than what the Conservatives have brought before this House to date. Since the Conservatives first became government, they have been destabilizing what was once a balanced economy in this country. It is an economy that Canadians had painstakingly built together since the second world war, a strong primary sector with timber and mining, a strong secondary transformation manufacturing sector and of course an important service sector.

That formerly balanced economy got skewed because of the government's tax policies. Since coming to office, the Conservatives have handed more than $60 billion in tax cuts to Canada's wealthiest corporations. Now I know that some on the backbenches of the Conservatives Party will suggest that those tax cuts went to all corporations, not just the wealthy ones, and that therefore they have simply been trying to stimulate the business climate in our country.

However that is a false argument. If a company is not making a profit, it cannot pay taxes on that non-existent profit. There is no profit to be taxed. Companies that could use a break the most are not getting any benefit from the much-touted tax reductions.

Who did get the money? It is companies like Encana, those that are piling up seas of unimaginable poisons behind the world's longest dikes near the tar sands. I do not need to remind members in this House about what happened in Hungary last month. Approximately one million cubic metres of red toxic sludge was released when a dike burst at the waste reservoir of an aluminum plant in that country.

Clearly it is not inconceivable that something similar could happen here. The poor track record of managing something as simple as protecting ducks from tailings ponds should set off alarm bells in all of us. Let us just imagine what is going to happen the day the dike breaks and who is going to be on the hook for those costs. Why, it will be taxpayers, of course.

We have never internalized the cost of the tar sands. We are bequeathing the obligation of paying the normal cost of cleaning up the mess from the tar sands to our children and our children's children. That, combined with the $60 billion debt for corporate tax cuts is one of the principle causes of the destabilization of our economy, and it is an unconscionable legacy to leave to future generations.

Now before government members jump all over me, let me be clear. I know that the tar sands are an important source of wealth for our country, but that does not negate the need and indeed the responsibility for that resource to be developed in an environmentally, economically and socially responsible way. That is what sustainable development is all about.

What is happening now is not sustainable, because the true costs of extracting oil have not been internalized. We are selling oil at artificially low prices. That brings in an artificially high number of U.S. dollars. That, in turn, pushes our Canadian dollar higher, which then makes it more difficult to export Canadian goods.

We have set up a vicious cycle of job losses, which are being felt especially in the industrial heartland of Ontario and Quebec. Clearly such policies do not sustain Canada's economic recovery, as the title of this bill would want us to believe. On the contrary, they exacerbate the job losses that were already affecting hardworking Canadians as a result of the 2008 recession.

Even before the current crisis hit in the fall of 2008, Statistics Canada reported that we had bled off 300,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. It is little wonder that Canadians are worried. They are worried about their jobs. They are worried about their retirement savings. They are worried about their children's futures.

Let me just remind members in this House of a few reports that have been raised in this chamber during various debates:

From RBC Economics, today the typical Canadian family must devote 49% of its income to own a standard two-storey home, while mortgage rates are at their lowest point. That means people on average are spending half of their income to own their home, and they know if interest rates go up the costs will only increase.

From the BMO Financial Group, 64% of parents worry they will not be able to afford the rising costs of post-secondary education. Having recently met with student groups from across the country, I know that CFS, CASA, students in professional programs and graduate students would all echo that.

From the Canadian Medical Association, 80% of Canadians fear that the quality of their health care will decline over the next three years.

From the Canadian Cancer Society, Canadian families are concerned about the cost of caring for a terminally ill loved one, which is currently $1,000 a month, excluding the loss of income from taking time off work to provide care. That is one of the reasons I have introduced Bill C-534. It is one small step toward providing financial assistance to spouses providing in-home care.

From the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, 72% of pre-retired Canadians worry about maintaining a reasonable standard of living in retirement and maintaining a reasonable quality of life.

From RBC Economics, 58% of Canadians are concerned with their current level of debt, averaging $41,470 per person, which is the worst among 20 advanced countries in the OECD.

From the Canadian Payments Association, 59% of Canadians believe they would be in financial difficulty if their paycheque were delayed one week. Think about that. More than half of all Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque with virtually no savings to fall back on. This is a country with a lot of people who are profoundly worried. For them, the devastating impact of the recession is clearly not a thing of the past. It is still being felt every single day.

To be debating a bill that talks about sustaining Canada's economic recovery will seem a little far-fetched for a lot of Canadians who may be watching our proceedings in the House today. They want to experience the economic recovery first-hand, and so far, they have been left behind. Regrettably, it looks as if things are going to get worse before they get better, at least if the Conservative government has its way.

Last week the finance minister kicked off his pre-budget tour for the 2011 budget, purporting to be listening to Canadians. Yet he began by telling seniors and hard-working families that they should not get their hopes up, that there will not be any new big spending because he has no money left. Both parts of that assertion deserve a closer look.

First, let us look at why he has no money left. The government has created the single biggest deficit in Canadian history at $56 billion. We already know that the $6 billion annually for additional corporate tax cuts had a great deal to do with that, yet the finance minister insists on continuing them despite the fact that our corporate tax rates are already lower than those of our biggest competitor, namely the U.S.

Do Canada's chartered banks really need another tax break? In the first nine months of this fiscal year, they reported $15 billion in profits and they have set aside an astonishing $7.5 billion for executive bonuses this year. I would defy the government to find a single Canadian outside of that exclusive club who thinks that additional tax cuts for the big banks ought to be a priority for the government.

Nor did Canadians think that the government used money wisely when it hosted the G8 and G20 summits last summer. The Conservatives spent $1.3 billion for a 72-hour photo op at the G8 and G20 summits. That included $1 million for a fake lake, $300,000 for a gazebo and bathrooms that were 20 kilometres away from the summit site, $400,000 for bug spray and sunscreen, more than $300,000 for luxury furniture and $14,000 for glow sticks.

The Conservatives would want us to believe that such is the price of hosting events on the world stage, but the security cost of the G8 meeting in Italy was $124 million in 2009. The year before, it cost $280 million in Japan. It cost $124 million in Germany. Once again, it is about choices.

For just over half of what it cost to host the G8 and G20 in Canada this summer, we could have improved the guaranteed income supplement so no Canadian senior would have to live in poverty. The remaining $600 million would still have been higher than the expenditures on any other summit. Clearly, the Conservatives' claim of being fiscally responsible is not borne out by reality.

Now to the government, of course, that is all water under the bridge. The government wants us to forget all about how we got to the record deficit and just wants us all to begin focusing on tightening our belts to get it back under control. Well actually, that is not all of us. There is still new money around. It is just not there for the priorities of hard-working Canadians.

Here is some of the new spending that has already been announced and for which money will be found in the upcoming budget. First, of course, is the ongoing commitment to spending $6 billion annually on additional corporate tax cuts. Next, there is the government's decision to continue Canada's military presence in Afghanistan.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Canada's military mission to Afghanistan up until 2011 will cost Canadians $18 billion. The government originally estimated that the military extension from 2011 to 2014 would cost $1.6 billion in military and $300 million in aid over the three years.

However later on, the government announced that the military costs were actually higher and the extension will cost $2.1 billion.

By contrast, according to PCO documents, the strictly civilian role envisioned by Canadian officials for the 2011-2014 period would have focused on diplomacy and development at a total cost of $.5 billion over three years. That would have been less than 25% of the cost of the military extension.

Next, there is the commitment to build U.S.-style mega-prisons in Canada. This is despite the fact that crime rates are actually going down. According to the President of the Treasury Board, we need those prisons to lock up the unreported criminals who have been doing unreported crimes. The cost is a cool $10 billion to $13 billion, and to find the money for those astronomical costs the government has shortchanged municipalities to the tune of $500 million on policing costs and shut down the successful prison farm program.

At least no one can accuse the Conservatives of letting sound public policy stand in the way of their ideological agenda.

Then there is the $16 billion that has been committed for the next budget year to the purchase of F-35 fighter jets. This is the single biggest defence procurement purchase in Canadian history. It raises a number of important questions.

First, why is this huge expenditure so vital to Canada's defence when we cannot even properly patrol our coastline? Why was this an untendered contract? Where is the transparency? Where is the accountability?

We know that technology problems plague the F-35 program, that commitments from some other countries are far from certain and that even the U.S. Pentagon says the program is two years behind schedule. There is a cost overrun of 65% and, worse of all, we have no guarantees on price, jobs, quality or value for money.

The government is flying by the seat of its pants and yet it stands firm in its commitment to purchase 65 new fighter jets. Canadians deserve transparency and accountability, and above all they deserve a say in whether this money is well spent.

Together the above four commitments alone account for $34 billion in new money that is already earmarked for future spending. Apparently there is plenty of money floating around for the government to act on its priorities. However for hard-working Canadians and seniors, there is nothing left but to tighten their belts.

Frankly, that is not good enough. Canadians deserve better and they deserve to be heard.

I would invite the Minister of Finance to come to Hamilton with me and to listen, really listen, to what the priorities are in our community. Jobs, EI and retirement savings are right at the top of the list. The minister will know that our community has been devastated by plant downsizings, restructurings and closings.

I have raised the case of U.S. Steel on numerous occasions in the House. Not only did the government fail to do due diligence when it approved the foreign takeover of Stelco by U.S. Steel but, now that the workers have been locked out, it is failing to provide even the basic support of providing the workers with EI. This is despite the fact that there was a $57 billion surplus in EI, which successive Liberal and Conservative governments stole to pad their general revenues in previous years.

It is simply outrageous, and hard-working members of USW Local 1005 deserve better from this government.

However they are not the only ones who have been devastated in recent years. I could list literally dozens of manufacturing plants that have closed their doors completely and thousands of workers in just about every sector who have lost their jobs or had their hours cut during this last recession.

That is why they have looked with hope to the government's infrastructure program, which promised $3.2 billion for job creation through investments in provincial, territorial and municipal infrastructure. Fourteen projects were approved within the city of Hamilton, totalling $184 million of stimulus funding. The 15th project was announced for the city on September 25, 2009. A condition of the funding was that approved projects be substantially completed by a deadline of March 31, 2011. It was understood that the federal and provincial governments were determined to see the projects completed in a timely manner.

However, it is difficult to appreciate the taxpayer benefit of withdrawing funding to the municipal governments for public infrastructure projects that extend beyond the March 31 deadline, particularly where projects may be delayed due to a number of factors that are beyond the municipalities' control.

In Hamilton six projects are at risk for not meeting that deadline, primarily due to factors that are indeed beyond the municipalities' control. First, although the program was intended to run over two years, project announcements were not made until June 2009, thereby effectively leaving only a single construction season for project completion.

Second, one of the projects was further delayed when its funding was not announced until September 2009.

Third, contractors, particularly for specialized construction, were difficult to obtain because of the large influx of stimulus funding, all with the same completion deadline.

Fourth, the approval process by some ministries and regulatory agencies have delayed some of the projects.

Despite these challenges, all 15 of the infrastructure projects are well under way. The delay in completion before the March 31 deadline is a matter of months, not years, and yet now the government is indicating that there will be absolutely no extension given to complete these important community projects. This, despite the fact that the Prime Minister himself stated at the opening of the recent G20 summit, “To sustain the recovery, it is imperative that we follow through on existing stimulus plans”.

In Hamilton, this is particularly germane. While recent employment figures reflect significant year over year job creation across the country, Hamilton is still experiencing increased unemployment. From June 2009 to June 2010, our jobless rate rose half a percentage point, from 7.2% to 7.7%. For our community, the ability to complete all of our infrastructure projects is critical to Hamilton's economic recovery. Conversely, the potential withdrawal of infrastructure funds after March 31 will only compound the pressures on our city and local taxpayers during this economically challenging time.

I have absolutely no doubt that the completion of these projects is much more important to Hamiltonians than the construction of prisons for unreported crimes, and I suspect the same is true in communities from coast to coast to coast.

I implore the government to listen to Canadians and extend the infrastructure deadline.

While I am on the subject of jobs, let me point out as well that we urgently need action on creating green jobs for a sustainable future. My NDP colleagues and I have laid out a comprehensive strategy for protecting jobs and protecting the environment, but urging the government to take action on that file is probably not time well spent. After all, the Prime Minister and his Conservative colleagues just killed a landmark climate change plan after it was passed by elected members of Parliament.

The New Democratic climate change accountability bill was Canada's only federal climate change legislation. Members of Parliament supported it and Canadians supported it but the Prime Minister refused to listen and then he instructed his unelected, undemocratic senators to kill the bill. By obstructing progress, the Prime Minister ignored the will of Canadians and left our country dangerously unprepared for climate change. Regrettably, it is our children and grandchildren who will pay the ultimate price.

I know I am running out of time but there is so much more that needs to be addressed. I have heard from so many constituents about what they believe the government should focus on in the upcoming budget but I will not be able to get it all on the record here today. Perhaps I could point to the excellent report of the HUMA committee as a short form for some of the other issues that must become priorities for government support.

Currently in Hamilton, 18,600 people depend on food banks every month and more than 8,100 are children. The Globe and Mail reported last Friday that there has been a 25% spike in the number of seniors now living in poverty. Poverty is real and it is pervasive but it is not inevitable.

We must ask ourselves a question. The banks and car companies received their bailouts from the government but where is the bailout for the poor? During this recession, we have seen the Conservative government bailing out big businesses. such as the auto and banking industries, but putting few resources into helping to build the social infrastructure necessary to aid the most vulnerable in our society.

Civil society groups are challenging all of us to do better. They are calling on the federal government to be more responsible, more accountable and to prioritize resources to child care, the child tax benefit, EI reform and social housing. These organizations have all been working tirelessly toward the same goal of eliminating poverty in Canada.

In Hamilton, I want to give a particular shout-out to the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, the Social Justice Coalition that campaigned for adequate welfare, Social Planning & Research Council, the Hamilton Community Foundation, Wesley Urban Ministries, the Good Shepherd Centres, Food Share, St. Joseph's Immigrant Women's Centre, Neighbour 2 Neighbour, the Hamilton's Centre for Civic Inclusion, the Housing Help Centre and the United Way. The list does not end there but each and every one of these organizations demonstrate unbelievable resilience through their continued efforts. Their work is inspirational and is a large reason that I remain so hopeful that it is not too late to build a better world.

Here in the House of Commons, New Democrats are taking up their call. Thanks to the incredible work of my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie, New Democrats now have a bill on the floor of this House calling for a national poverty strategy and an action plan with clear targets and timelines. The three priority areas that the bill addresses are income security, social inclusion and housing.

Instead of hitting seniors, who are the most vulnerable, with the HST on everything from home heating to haircuts, let us bring the federal government back into the discussion about its role in public life relating to poverty, the economy and taxation. Part of that conversation has to--

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:20 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

I will have to stop the hon. member there as her time has expired.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Mississauga South.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:20 p.m.


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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's speech because she touched a lot of points that Canadians have also raised. In the brief time I have to ask a question, I want to focus in on the economic stimulus.

Last Tuesday, on the front page of The Globe and Mail, the finance minister was quoted as saying, “March 31, that is it. It is over”. There was an article about the city of Ottawa and should it not complete the project that it does not anticipate completing but costing some $5 million.

Interestingly enough, on the same day the minister appeared before the finance committee on Bill C-47 and was asked about the stimulus plan. His response was that the Conservatives would be flexible and would look at each project on a case by case basis. Just yesterday, the member for Ottawa—Orléans reported, although I do not know whether it was an authorized comment, that those that are substantially complete.

It does raise the question that there does not seem to be a position of the government. It appears to be a strategy to somehow create a crisis that March 31, 2011 is hurling toward us, then to ease up a little, and then to say that it will do something. It is almost like the Conservatives want to create a crisis and then they will resolve it and take credit for doing something good, when in fact they are the authors of both ends of the argument.

I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether the government has been straight with Canadians, with the municipalities and the provinces about their obligations so that they can make appropriate plans to deal with the projects they have. Timeliness is very important in this regard and the government should not be coy with Canadians, provinces or cities, but should just clearly indicate its intent with regard to the stimulus funding.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:20 p.m.


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NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is funny that my colleague from Mississauga South used the line “creating a crisis”. He, too, will remember that in Ontario we had an infamous Conservative minister of education by the name of John Snobelen who talked about needing to create a crisis in education so that the Conservatives under Mike Harris could then bring in their right wing reforms in our school system. The member has chosen his words very well in asking about the infrastructure program.

The Conservatives may well be creating a crisis. I am not sure what the end game is, though, because for communities like ours, and I am sure it is the same in Mississauga, in Ottawa and everywhere else, the construction programs that have been funded under the infrastructure program are a process and that process is continuing. We cannot tell people to stop putting shovels in the ground today and say that maybe we will be flexible by the time next April rolls around. The program does not work that way.

Communities like Hamilton and almost every other community from coast to coast to coast in this country are relying on the infrastructure money, not only because it helps to create jobs, but because it helps us to deal with the very serious infrastructure deficit that all communities have been amassing over the last 20 years. This was finally an opportunity to do right by both Canadians, by taxpayers and the communities in which they live.

This is a fundamentally important program and we urge the government to continue the commitments it made under the infrastructure program and tell municipalities today that projects that were authorized will be allowed to be completed under the infrastructure program.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:25 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, the member spoke about some concerning statistics in her speech and indicated that one-half of Canadians' disposable income is now spent on owning a home. That is particularly concerning because Canadians know that historically interest rates have rarely been this low.

Interest rates normally, I would guess, over time have been in the area of 6% to 9% or thereabouts. We have seen interest rates as high as 18% in our lifetime, just in the last 20 years. We know that if homeowners are paying 50% of their disposable income on mortgage payments now, it does not take much of an increase to put people out on the street. We saw this 20 years ago with a lot of foreclosures in the early 1980s.

Once again, the banks get off scot free because, unlike American banks, Canadian banks take no risks in handing out mortgages in excess of what people should be borrowing. Why is that? It is because banks require mortgages to be insured through CMHC. However, the homeowners are the ones who pay the insurance fees for the CMHC loan in the first place. When a mortgage goes into default and people must move out of their home and onto the street, the bank is not out anything because the house is insured, thanks to payments by homeowners, and the banks simply collect from CMHC.

I am questioning why the government waited so long to bring in the new restrictions that it did a number of months ago on house sales. It brought in some tougher requirements for homebuyers and, by the way, the restrictions brought in a few months ago still are not as tough as the restrictions back in the 1980s.

Would the member comment on that because this is a looming disaster that the government seems totally oblivious to or maybe it knows it is going on but it is happy to let it ride its way through?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:25 p.m.


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NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona has, of course, described the problem very well.

He asked if I could explain why it took the Conservative government this long. I have to admit that I always have a really tough time with questions that ask me to get into the minds of Conservatives. That is a scary place and I do not think I can shed much light on what happens there.

However, I do want to speak to the larger point that he raises because it gets to the heart of affordability. I have spoken to literally dozens of seniors in my hometown of Hamilton who have worked hard all their lives and have played by the rules and now, with every bill they open, they are paying more and getting less. They already own their homes. They have paid for their houses. What they cannot keep up with are the property taxes and the cost of heating and food, the prices of which are growing exponentially. They are losing their homes because they can no longer afford to keep up with those very basic costs.

What has the Conservative government done to support them? It imposed the HST. People are now paying HST on essentials like home heating. We live in Canada and heating is not a luxury. Every winter, seniors will be paying extra percentages of taxes because of the imposition of the HST. Instead of making life easier for seniors, the government has added to that cost burden. Seniors are losing their homes.

We need to take action now and take action on all fronts. We need to reduce the 5% federal portion of the HST on home heating. We need to ensure that retirement incomes are secure both in terms of protecting private pensions and ensuring that public pensions are adequate, and that includes doubling CPP benefits and raising the OAS.

For goodness sake, for a mere $700 million we could lift every senior out of poverty in Canada by raising the GIS. We had $1.3 billion to spend on the G8-G20 boondoggle, surely to goodness we could find $700 million to lift every Canadian senior out of poverty.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:30 p.m.


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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member read off a list of a number of initiatives that will be added to the fiscal burden of Canadians. Today it has been reported that the gross domestic product has dropped and slowed to a 1% rate per annum. It would seem to me that the government needs to take some tough fiscal measures to deal with it and yet, as the member laid out, there are billions and billions of dollars of ideologically justified expenditures on the backs of Canadians. I cannot believe this will end like that.

Does the member feel that the government must rethink these things on the basis of the economic performance reported today?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:30 p.m.


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NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

In short, Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes, if one of the engines of our economy is the manufacturing sector. I had a brief opportunity in my comments to talk about the devastating impact that the recession has had on the manufacturing sector. Clearly that sector has not recovered. Instead of helping the sector, the government is implementing policies, such as its lack of oversight on foreign investments, that really hurt Canadian productivity.

I would love to go into more details but I see my time is up.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:30 p.m.


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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-47, which is not a short bill. The printed version is 143 pages long. The bill includes about nine different sections and 199 clauses. I hope all hon. members will appreciate that when we get a bill this size, it is difficult for any speech to touch on the substantive matters.

The House will often deal with the issue of relevance in debate. I have heard people say that we are debating the budget from last March and they start talking about virtually every item in the budget. However, subsequent to that we have had one implementation bill and this is the second. These implementation bills are intended to put the technical mechanics in place so the representations in the budget are operable. I want to get into a few of those.

I want to advise those who are interested that this bill deals substantively with amendments to the Income Tax Act and related acts in part 1. Part 2 deals with amendments to the Air Travellers Security Charge Act. Part 3 deals with amendments to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, which is extremely important in terms of funding of provincially delivered programs and services. Part 4 deals with amendments to the Bank Act and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada Act. Part 5 deals with amendments to the Canada Disability Savings Act, which we discussed substantively at committee. Part 6 deals with amendments to the Customs Act. Part 7 deals with amendments to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act. Part 8 deals with amendments to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Act. Bill C-47 is a very broad-based bill.

When we are dealing with a budget implementation bill, we are often not talking about anything in the bill in terms of specific amendments to legislation. We tend to drift back to the budget itself and some of its consequences.

The parliamentary secretary, on behalf of the government, led off the debate on the bill. He did not talk much about the budget implementation bill but rather he talked about the budget. This opened up the debate to virtually everything to do with the budget. That is why some people who are interested in the proposed changes to some of these acts have been somewhat ignored in the debate. To rectify that, I want to deal with the proposed amendments to the Income Tax Act and related acts. It is an area in which I have some experience.

The first important area has to do with benefits entitlement and shared custody. Under the Universal Child Care Benefit Act, an eligible individual is defined in subdivision a.1 of division E of part I of the Income Tax Act. If I repeat a lot of these references, people will not understand, so let me just say it is defined in the act. The act currently provides for only one eligible person for a given period.

Under the current provisions, the Canada Revenue Agency has rotated benefits for the universal child care benefit, the Canada child tax benefit and the GST-HST credit for families with shared parenting arrangements on a six month payment basis. The budget proposed to allow two eligible parents in a shared custody arrangement to receive child benefits, including the UCCB. I support that change. It makes sense. A lot of people are at a disadvantage by having just one eligible recipient where shared custody would be a more equitable situation.

The second item under the income tax amendments has to do with the rollover of RRSP proceeds to an RDSP, or registered disability savings plan.

The existing registered retirement savings plan rollover rules are extended under the bill to allow a rollover of a deceased individual's RRSP proceeds to a registered disability savings plan of a financially dependent, infirm child or grandchild. The reason that is important, and why I support it, is that on death of the holder of a registered retirement savings plan, if there is not a spouse for which the act already provides a tax-free rollover, it would then collapse and be taxable fully in the year of death.

If an RRSP collapses all in one year and has a tax liability, in many cases most of that would be taxed at the highest possible rate. It means the estate of the person involved would pay much more tax now than it would have paid had he or she not bought the RRSP in the first place. This would allow that investment in the RRSPs to rollover to a disabled person, financially dependent infirm child or grandchild. It would in fact help families. Members will know that anything that helps families will have my support.

The third area under the Income Tax Act has to do with charities and the disbursement quota form. The finance committee presently is looking at Bill C-470, which tries to put transparency through the expenditures, particularly the human resources costs and salaries of executives of charities. Concerns have been raised that some charities pay exorbitant amounts of compensation to people with the amount of the moneys actually go for charitable purposes being substantially reduced, and that is a problem.

Interestingly enough the changes made in Bill C-47, and I do not know enough about individual cases, I suspect will help some and hurt others because it deals with a disbursement quota.

First, the disbursement quota reform for registered charities, specifically the charitable expenditure rule, would be repealed. Second, the capital accumulation rule would also be modified to increase the threshold from $25,000 to $100,000 for charitable organizations. Third, the anti-avoidance rules would be extended to situations where it could be reasonably considered that the purpose of the transaction was to delay unduly or avoid the application of the disbursement quota. Finally, measures would be implemented to ensure that transferred amounts between non-arm's-length charities would be used to satisfy the disbursement quota for only one charity.

The problem I have with that section is it goes in a different direction than Bill C-470 in terms of the transparency and the concern that there be moneys. In fact, it would allow the charity to have a higher threshold of making disbursements. It would also allow certain charities to accumulate money for capital investments, for instance, if they wanted permanent facilities or core funding for certain programs.

I can understand that in terms of, for instance, hospitals, hospital foundations. I am not sure if the same rules would not have maybe unintended consequences with regard to other charities that are not in some of those key areas of universities or hospitals or organizations like the Cancer Society or the Heart & Stroke, et cetera. There are 85,000 registered charities in Canada. When we start to play around with the disbursement quota rule, somebody will fall through the cracks and there may be some unintended consequences. It will be up to us to monitor the situation.

The next area under part 1 has to do with the employee stock options. There are various methods in the Income Tax Act to deal with the treatment of employee stock options.

First, there is an amendment that would preclude double deductions of both the employee and the employer in respect of the same stock option benefit, which would make sense. The stock option agreement to a non-arm's-length person results in an employment benefit at the time of disposition, and, again, that makes some sense.

A further measure would repeal the tax deferral election. As well, the existing tax withholding requirements would be clarified to ensure that the amount in respect of tax on the value of the employment benefit associated with the issuance of the security would be required to be remitted to the Canada Revenue Agency by the employer. Again, administrative and substantively I agree with that.

Finally, the last measure introduced is a special elective and relieving tax treatment for taxpayers who elected under the tax deferral election introduced in budget 2000 to defer taxation of their stock option benefits until the disposition of the options securities. That appears to be a sound approach.

Section (e) under part 1 deals with accelerated capital cost allowance for clean energy generation. At the finance committee's prebudget hearings, which we have recently concluded, the issue of accelerated capital cost allowance came up frequently. It is an opportunity for businesses to write off, for tax purposes, desirable investments on an accelerated or quicker basis so they pay less tax, which allows them more cash flow to meet their obligations or, more important, to reinvest and continue to roll over their assets to ensure they have the assets, the machinery, the equipment and the like to be more efficient in their work.

Accelerated capital cost allowances is with us to stay. It has been used as a tool rather than a tax cut or something like that. This is effectively a tax deferral scheme. If the businesses keep doing it, it effectively represents a permanent reduction in taxes that could carry forward as long as they continue to invest in the capital, equipment and machinery. I agree with it as a tool and it is very much supported by those who are involved in equipment.

In this one, the section deals specifically with clean energy generation. With regard to our environment and addressing greenhouse gas emissions, et cetera, this is a positive development, which I support.

Section (f) is capital cost allowance for television set-top boxes. I do not know if anybody will understand that, but the capital cost rate for satellite and cable set-top boxes that are acquired after March 4 and that have neither been used nor acquired or used before March 5 will be increased to 40% to better reflect the useful life of the assets. This is effectively a correction of a rate, which is already available in the tax act. As it indicates, it is simply to reflect the fact that these assets have a very short lifespan or utility before substitutes become available and desirable by consumers. It allows them to write them off over a short period of time.

Section (g) under part 1 deals with the Canadian renewable and conservation expenses to do with principle business corporations. The definition of that will be amended to clarify that flow-through share eligibility extends to corporations the principle business of which is one or any combination of producing fuel, generating energy or distributing energy. I agree with that. It is a constructive move to make that change.

Section (h) deals with international financial reporting standards. It gets a little too technical, so I will not go to go there. Having looked at it, there is a five-year transition rule, and I think it works.

There is a sub-item on that. Amendments to the Canada pension plan and the Employment Insurance Act and the Income Tax Act will be made to provide legislative authority for Revenue Canada to issue online notices where authorized by a taxpayer. Again, this is an efficiency in terms of the process.

In addition, part 1 of the bill implements a number of other income tax measures. Employee life and health trust is new. The working income tax benefit will be amended for 2009 to $925 for single individuals with no eligible dependents and to $1,680 for individuals with at least one eligible dependent.

The amendments in this bill will ensure that the working income tax benefit amounts will continue to be indexed to inflation on an annual basis. Thank you, Mr. Minister. I think it is an important change.

There are some technical amendments to the tax-free savings account. I want to comment more fully on that, but I will move on.

Finally, there are the labour-sponsored venture capital corporation rules. Very few people will understand very much about that, but there are consequential amendments related to the tax-free savings account, which I want to address now.

First of all, I certainly support the tax-free savings account instrument, which allows Canadian residents who are 18 years of age or older to be eligible to contribute up to $5,000 annually in a tax-free savings account. The contributions are not tax deductible, but the investment income earned in a tax-free savings account will not be taxed. Since the contributions were not deductible when deposited, there will be no tax when withdrawn.

It is a good instrument to save money if one has money. This is of benefit certainly to middle and higher income Canadians who have cash that they are presently investing and paying income tax on the investment income. Now there is an instrument where they, their spouses and kids can have tax-free savings accounts. All of a sudden, formerly taxable investment income is going to be growing up in non-taxable instruments.

Eventually, I suppose, the taxes will ultimately come when that money is taken out and disbursed for consumption purposes and it works its way through the system. However, it is a leakage of tax revenue to the government, no question about it.

I raised my concern on this with the finance minister and officials last Tuesday. It has to do with the number of amendments they have to make. This is a simple program. One can put up to $5,000 a year in there, and on any income earned on eligible investments, one will not have to pay any tax ever.

We have amendments to make the income attributed to deliberate overcontributions and prohibited investments subject to existing anti-avoidance rules. We also want to make any income attributable to non-qualified investments taxable at regular tax rates. As well, we want to ensure that withdrawals of deliberate overcontributions, prohibited investments, non-qualified investments or amounts attributable to swap transactions or related investment income from a tax-free savings account would not create additional tax-free savings account contribution room. Finally, we want to effectively prohibit asset transfer transactions between tax-free savings accounts and other accounts.

It is a simple program, but the amendments that are being made say to me that the crafters of this and all the levels of care and due diligence that took place in the process somehow did not consider what would happen if people made overcontributions. The government did not consider that if people made an overcontribution, a penalty of 1% was actually a lower amount than what they could earn on those investments, so 1% was not a deterrent. People realized that they could invest at 3%, and if it cost 1% in penalties, they would still make 2% on something that is not going to be taxable anyway. It is getting around the rules.

How is it that the government could not deal with the issues of non-qualified investments? Obviously there are some. It could not deal with deliberate overcontributions, prohibited investments, non-qualified investments, or amounts attributable to swap transactions and what happens if this is done and what are the consequences.

The point I made there and I will make again today in the House is that I did not get a strong comfort level that there was rigorous due diligence and careful thought given to this particular program. With all the things that the government missed in a very simple program, in my view, if the little things are not done well, there is not a great confidence level with regard to the larger items.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:50 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, regarding the TFSA, the government did catch on to it at the end of the day and now it is closing the loophole, which as the member said, should not have been. If it was well thought-out and well planned, executed and implemented, it should not have happened in the first place.

The member also knows that the government increased the air travellers security charge by 50%, which now makes us the highest taxed in the world. The member also knows that revenues collected through the tax exceed the amount spent on security. Over a five-year term, $3.3 billion was collected in taxes but only $1.5 billion spent on security.

That would not necessarily be the end of the world if it were not for the terrible results we are having, that the government now has become the best friend of the United States airline industry, because in Manitoba alone, although it is not the only jurisdiction, 50,000 Manitobans per year are going to Grand Forks, bypassing the Winnipeg airport and Canadian airlines such as WestJet and Air Canada and flying with United States carriers because the taxes are much less there. Coupled with the higher dollar and higher passport fees, we see why we are bleeding our tourism industry and working against ourselves.

With the government's ability to study each issue and access to experts that we do not have, why does it keep making such major blunders? Could the member explain that? We obviously cannot get any answers out of the government.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:50 p.m.


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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to say thank goodness I mentioned that there were 199 clauses in the bill dealing with diverse areas that I must admit I am not very familiar with, but I am certainly aware of the Air Travellers Security Charge Act and the Excise Act, which are being amended under part 2. These empower the Canada Revenue Agency to issue online notices at taxpayers' request. In fact, they do not have to do with the air travellers security charge itself. This is administrative and that is the difference.

If we are talking about the budget, that is what the member is asking about. If we are talking about the budget implement bill, which deals with the technicalities of how we deal with it, the questions I would ask would be why does clause 91 empower the Minister of National Revenue to authorize a designated carrier to report semi-annually rather than monthly? If we report semi-annually rather than monthly, that means we are losing the cashflow month after month and we are getting these lump sums. If one understands the time value of money, the government is losing money simply by making these changes.

Secondly, what type of documents or notices of deduction will be sent by email, how will they ensure a person has indeed received the document in question, and what date will be used for the calculation of interest and penalties? Again, it is technical in this regard. I do not disagree with the member with regard to the propriety of the charges, but with regard to Bill C-47 and the changes being proposed, it would appear to be appropriate.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT

Mr. Speaker, there are four general budgetary areas that the member might like to comment on, and I appreciate his speech. He always speaks very well in the House. These areas are important to my riding.

The first area is the constant cuts to small museums. The second one is the constant cuts to Canadian tourism marketing, even though we market our country less than most countries in the world. Third, there is nothing new for health care, which is high on the minds of Canadians and costs are increasing. The fourth and final one is the deplorable attack by the government on seniors that the member for Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte spent an entire speech on this morning and it should be distributed to every seniors' organization in the country.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I wish I were an encyclopedia on some of the issues, because the member has raised some good ones.

We recently had a reception with the small museums. Those are the institutions that bind us together. We all cannot have major Ottawa-based types of museums, but having them there and having programs where the exhibits can be shared across the country, small museums are very important.

With regard to health, we have the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act that will be dealt with and certainly the funding. This is going to be a big ticket item. When we see the numbers, I think Canadians are going to be concerned about whether we are going to be able to sustain the five principles of the Canada Health Act but cut back on certain areas of funding, and I suspect seriously, for things such as dealing with chronic care and disabilities.

With regard to tourism, again this is Canada and we have to continue to sustain many of the programs that we have to attract visitors to this country. Our tourism industry is always the first one to suffer. If we do not support tourism, people will stop coming here and will look for substitutes. Once they find a substitute, they may not want to come back and see us. So we have to keep what we have.

The last one is the seniors, which the member has talked about, and the GIS. I agree with the member. What happened is that the government was caught. It had the numbers. One does not sign off on a regulatory change that is going to affect 1.5 million seniors. I think that was the number but it is subject to a check, but it seriously affects them. The government did not admit it, but I am pretty sure it knew but just thought it would slip through.

I cannot believe that when the government is dealing with seniors it could be so uncaring, so insensitive to the impact on people who, if they are getting the GIS, we know by definition are already living in poverty. What the government has done is damage poor seniors.

That is outrageous and unforgiveable.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 12:55 p.m.


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NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Mr. Speaker, the budget actually axes the very successful eco-energy for renewable power program despite the fact that 90% of the wind power development in Canada has occurred since its inception. It is a very popular program that quite a few of my constituents in Trinity--Spadina have utilized. They have put solar panels on their roofs and they have done energy audits.

In the budget, the government cancelled that very popular program, and I know the Liberals are supporting the budget.

My question is, why would the Liberals support a budget that continues to give a massive tax cut of about $21 billion to profitable corporations, since 2008, and it is doing it at a time when it will be adding billions of dollars in public debt?

Why would the member support this budget? The Liberal Party said it does not support corporate tax cuts and it supports all good things for the environment, yet the budget is cutting $52 million from Environment Canada and is axing the eco-energy program.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1 p.m.


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Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, I could give a whole speech on that, but perhaps I will concentrate on one aspect. That is Bill C-311, which was summarily defeated by the Conservative majority in the Senate.

The bill was intended to try to get Canada to commit to a strategy to deal with our environmental issues. We needed to have some hope, but that bill, after it passed here and went to the Senate, was not even debated. There was not one word of debate.

The orders came directly from the Prime Minister's office to those senators he had appointed, to say “This is what we are going to do”. I do not have to explain why, because I think Canadians know why. It is because the Prime Minister still thinks the issue of greenhouse gases is a socialist plot.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1 p.m.


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Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks on Bill C-47, I want to comment on something my colleague from Mississauga South touched upon with respect to seniors.

I have been in this House for almost 17 years and the one issue to which all of us have been sensitive is how we address our obligations toward our seniors, our men and women in uniform, and our youth, referring to youth programs, youth initiatives, investment in education. After all, we make speeches about the future of our country and it is our youth who need the right kind of education and the right kind of tools.

With respect to seniors and the fiasco that occurred, I am very pleased that my colleague from Mississauga South touched upon it when he was prompted by a question from our hard-working member for Yukon. I am at a loss for words. All I say is, let us give people the benefit of the doubt and let us move forward positively on that.

I am speaking to Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures. The audience can see on the television screen, “Bill C-47, Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery Act”. With respect to the word “recovery“, given what is going on globally, the whole world is trying to recover from a lot of those toxic packages, to be polite, that we saw coming from the United States to different parts of the world and which affected different countries.

We are fortunate in many ways here in Canada because many years ago a Liberal government, under the prime ministership of Jean Chrétien with Paul Martin as the finance minister, took the initiative to address, for example, the banking issue. This was very instrumental in helping us deal with these very awkward and difficult circumstances today.

There were several questions on this bill. The member for Mississauga South said that it is such a large bill, with 199 clauses. He went into some of the technical details, but the average Canadian listening to this debate or reading about it, really wants to hear about the meat and potatoes, things that affect Canadians on a daily basis.

I had the privilege recently as a member of the international trade committee to speak with our counterparts as we move forward on the Canada-Europe free trade agreement. Common throughout the world is that every nation, in looking toward implementing programs to recover, to get its people working and its economy rolling, wants to trade. That is wonderful, because Canada is a trading nation too. All countries want to sell their goods and services, but in order to sell their goods and services, there has to be an economy somewhere that is able to purchase them. In other words, the countries have to have their finances in order.

We were speaking to our counterparts in England, for example. We were listening on an hourly basis to what was unfolding in Ireland, how it was collapsing and its banking system was to be taken over. There was no money available, et cetera. The IMF and Great Britain were to step in to help Ireland, and so they should because Ireland needs a stable, or at least a sustainable economy to purchase goods and services.

The United Kingdom for example, even though it is going through difficulties, relates to us. I want to touch upon that as it relates to the bill. The new British coalition government is moving forward by taking certain steps. As I was reading about them, I had to smile because it took me back to 1993-94. I was being taken back to the future. What the U.K. is doing today, other nations in the European Community and other non-European countries are doing as well. I will mention some of the things they are doing that were done here as well.

The United Kingdom is experiencing difficult times. It is going through an austerity program, if I can use that word. Some of the areas that are going to be spared from the cuts are scientific research, health, schools, meaning investing in education, international development, renewable energy and large infrastructure projects. Areas that are going to be cut are welfare, social housing, policing, which I thought was wrong, as well as government services, which I think was right.

Why am I bringing this up today? There are areas in the budget that needed to be addressed and were not addressed. I will point out two specifically.

My colleague from Yukon talked about health care. Year after year, for as long as I can remember, health care has been the number one priority for Canadians. Coincidentally, I found an article not too long ago that states that Canadians rank health care a higher concern than the economy. It reconfirms what my constituents have been telling me for decades.

What did the Liberal government do when Paul Martin was the finance minister? It implemented the Romanow report. Mr. Romanow said in an interview with Peter Mansbridge that the Liberals exceeded the recommendations. That was a 10-year commitment.

Why am I bringing it up? The Conservatives, in two minority governments, have not made a single investment in health care. When asked a question, the response on record of the then Minister of Health, who is the Minister of Industry today, was that the government will continue the funding, after last year's budget or the year before. In other words, it would continue to fund the moneys, the $58 billion, that the Liberals put into health care. Health care was the number one issue then and it is the number one issue today.

There is one other area, as I mentioned, that relates to the U.K. investing in scientific research, and that is that there has been very little investment in R and D. Everybody talks about getting their economies going and competing in the new economy by investing in R and D. R and D can only develop new jobs if we invest the money up front. Yes, it costs money initially, but as they say, we have to spend a dollar to make a dollar, and we know very well that the new Conservative government has not done that.

I will refer to an article, the headline of which reads, “Researchers disappointed by funding for innovation. Just keeps the lights on”. I am quoting; I am not being political, which I choose never to do. I choose to refer to statements made by others so people know it is not my biased comments as a Liberal member of Parliament but what Canadians or others, the foot soldiers, in this case the researchers, are saying. The article states:

Peter MacLeod, a fellow at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University, says “much of the funding promised to various agencies will do little more than “keep the lights on”.

There was some money; I am not saying there was not. How can we look forward to competing for the jobs of the future when the government budgets have not made any significant investments?

Why are we falling behind? Other nations are making investments and we are failing to do so. Here we are, a country that was miles ahead of all these other nations in terms of eight consecutive balanced Liberal budgets and tremendous surpluses. The last one, if I recall, when the Liberals lost office in 2006 was just over $13 billion.

The government gloats about our economy being in a good state and that we are better off than everybody else. That is true. So why are we not making the right investments? For example, Canada is still lagging quite badly. The United States spent $594 million in 2009, Australia spent $123.5 million, and Canada spent $19 million. How can we compete?

We all know the difficulties the United States is going through. Speaking of the United States, it even went through some updating of its health care system. Even Sarah Palin commented about our health care system. She used it. She got that right. The only thing she got wrong was mixing up North Korea and South Korea. The fact is she confirmed that we do have a better health care system, a system which she and her family used.

If we are not going to make the right investments in R and D, we are going to miss out on the jobs of the future. For example, China, the world's biggest polluter, has now become the world's number one green energy investor. China is putting its money where its mouth is. It is investing. Yes, China pollutes, but it is now saying that it has to address this horrendous issue. China invested $34.5 billion in 2009 on low carbon energy technologies. I applaud China. I am not saying we have to invest $34.5 billion, but surely to God we can make some decent investments.

We are missing out on the jobs of the future because we are not making the right kinds of investments. We see the United Kingdom making these investments, even though its books are in a worse mess than ours.

Of course with the health care system, which I believe needs modernization, that 10-year arrangement is coming to an end and Canadians are going to keep an eye on the government to see what its next step will be. One would think that as we were getting close to the renewal of the agreement, the government would commence discussions with the provinces, with the professionals, with the stakeholders. At least we asked Mr. Romanow to do a study. He delivered his findings and we responded. That agreement is coming to an end and the government has not even begun discussions. I worry about that.

The disappointments with the government are so many that I do not know where to begin.

My colleague talked about the $5,000 tax-free savings account. That is a good initiative, but given the circumstances today, one would ask how many families can put aside $5,000, and those are after-tax dollars. Not too many Canadians can do that because they are hurting. Maybe the very rich can do it and if they can, I have no qualms about it. Good luck to them. It is the right thing to do. The fact is that average Canadians cannot do it and there are no other initiatives to support these families. Why? Job losses are still occurring. Yes, there are little spurts of a few jobs here and there. We know the economy is not really growing. We also know that new jobs are not being created as fast as was projected by the government. The finances of the nations are not where they could be or should be. I will address that as well.

Canadians today do not have the confidence. Why do they not have the confidence? They are being told one thing and others are showing up.

For example, today we are faced with a $56.5 billion or $57 billion deficit from last year. The government actually projected that it was going to be about $52.2 billion or $53.3 billion. The Conservatives were off by almost $2 billion on their projections. At this time of the year, the Conservatives are saying it is going to be about another $55 billion or $56 billion, for a total deficit of about $110 billion. It is unheard of.

All the average Canadian has to do is go back a short 16 or 17 years and he or she will realize that our deficit was $42.3 billion. Seventeen years down the road, the deficit has more than doubled and there is no economic growth. There is no job growth. There is less revenue to pay down this deficit.

The upcoming budget will be the government's fourth one. It reminds me of the Brian Mulroney days. When the Mulroney Conservatives were in government for nine years, they did not meet one budget target.Year after year, they told us what they would spend but never met that target. As a result, the debt kept growing and, in 1993, we did what we had to do. We did the responsible thing, things that the U.K , Ireland and Greece are doing today. We hear that Portugal, Spain and other countries in the European Union are next in line. They are going through these austerity programs. They are doing today what we did responsibly.

Therefore, when the government of today stands and says that we slashed and burned, I want to remind it that the Conservative Harris government of the day and Ralph Klein were doing the same thing. We had no choice. It was sink or swim, as they say.

The fortunate thing is that we made the right investments in the new economy, for example, in R and D. We invested in education. We invested in small and medium size enterprises, which means they started generating jobs. People were paying into the system. Another important thing is that we were lowering payroll taxes.

The government talks about lowering taxes. I challenge it publicly when it says that it lowered taxes because it did not lower taxes. It said that it would raise taxes by 1.5% and then it said that, no, it would decrease that to 0.5%. However, 0.5% is still an increase and the government is trying to pass it off that it lowered taxes. It is still a burden on the employer and the employee. It does not entice employers to invest in new tools, in new equipment or in new hires. It de-motivates them. If Canadians are not working, they do not have earning power nor do they have purchasing power, which means goods and services taxes are not being collected, for example, that would go to invest in health care, in post-secondary education, in housing, et cetera. It is a cycle, if we look at it.

With regard to gas, my constituents are complaining they are paying an average of $1.10 or $1.12 a litre. Just a couple of years ago, the barrel was on the market at about $148 to $150 and gas at the pump was 85¢ to 90¢. Today, my constituents are saying that barrels of gas may be $80 at the most and are asking, why they are paying $1.10 a litre.

The point I want to make on the gas is that the current government also made another promise. It said that anything over 85¢ per litre it would take off the taxes. It has not done so.

Am I leading into promises made and promises not kept? I really do not want to do that. My speech today is not political in any way. It is more so to point out the frustrations of Canadians. What they want to know is how they can trust the government to manage the economy well.

One gentleman said to me that, at the end of the day, the debt is going higher and the deficit is getting out of control. Per capita, we are one of the most burdened nations at about $42,000 per person in comparison to Greece that is at $31,000 per person. That gentleman said that we were more in debt than those guys are and wanted to know how we were better off.

We could go on for hours.The government has lost its priorities. Two out of three Canadians have not given the Conservatives their vote primarily because they cannot depend upon them and y cannot trust them because they say one thing and they do another. They talk about lowering taxes and yet they are increasing taxes. The only taxes they have decreased are the corporate taxes.

It is not that I am against that, but it is a timing thing. We keep reducing those corporate taxes year after year when the nation is hurting today. It is times like this when the gas companies, for example, need to come on board and say that they will help the average Canadian. It is times like this where everybody comes together as a family and it becomes a give-and-take for the good of the nation.

When we look at what the government did with airport taxes and at what happened with the seniors and the GIS, it is shameful. When we look at the lack of investments in R and D, that is shameful. When we are looking at the government spending $16 billion in untendered contracts, surely to God that is unacceptable. What will Canada's benefit be from that?

Canada has spent over $23 billion so far in Afghanistan, and now we are going to—

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:20 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

I will have to stop the member there to allow time for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Trinity--Spadina.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:20 p.m.


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NDP

Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from many seniors, especially those on fixed incomes. They have purchased a house, and that is their life savings. Some of the seniors are of Portuguese or Chinese descent. Their children have moved out and they are having a hard time paying the tax bills and the heating bills. For them, the old age security has not increased by much, the Canada pension plan has not increased, and the guaranteed income supplement has not caught up with inflation. Many seniors are having a hard time surviving. Some have resorted to turning down the heat because they do not have the money to pay their heating bills.

In this budget there is not one dollar for lifting seniors out of poverty. A $700 million increase each year to the guaranteed income supplement would increase seniors' pension income so that they would not need to worry about their daily living. There is nothing in here to get rid of tax on home heating. Home heating should be tax-free because it is an essential item, just like food is.

Will the member be supporting a budget that does not lift seniors out of poverty and that does not get rid of tax on home heating?

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:20 p.m.


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Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have three sensitive spots. One is for our seniors, another is for our veterans and our men and women in uniform, and the other one is for our youth. For those of us in between, we will somehow found our way.

That is why I often talk about the obligation we have to our seniors. I will touch on the other two areas later. I did not hear a lot of complaints, and I do not mean this in a biased way, when the Liberals were in government for almost 11, 12 years. We used to hear complaints but we were making the right investments.

As we managed to turn the economy around, we invested, and I call it an investment rather than an obligation, in our seniors. Housing was a great investment. Contracts were signed.

Just before we lost the government 2006 for various reasons, and the member knows what I am talking about, I believe—

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Merv Tweed Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Tell us.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:25 p.m.


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Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Sure. The NDP agreed to be in a coalition with the Conservatives to overthrow the government. That was the first coalition.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:25 p.m.


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Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:25 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:25 p.m.


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Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I was asked a question and I had to respond.

The first coalition in Canadian government was that of the NDP agreeing with the Conservatives to overthrow the government.

Now I will get back to this. That is why we had the NDP amendment, the budget, which allocated almost $1.-something billion to housing, to post-secondary education, to seniors, et cetera.

What can I say?

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:25 p.m.


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Liberal

Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Scarborough Centre for his comments. In fact. if I were to thank him in his own language. I would say:

[Member spoke in Greek].

[English]

My hon. colleague from Scarborough Centre said that he would not talk about the unkept promises of the government. I can understand why. It is because we only have 20 minutes for a speech at this stage of debate on this bill and It would require unlimited time to go through that list.

I will talk for a minute about what the finance minister has been doing. He has been going around the country bragging about Canada's record, economically, and the situation, fiscally, and about our strong banks.

I am sure my hon. colleagues know that the Conservative government came into office with a surplus of $13 billion that it inherited from the previous Liberal government and, within three years, it had increased spending by 17.8%, far beyond the rate of inflation.

Of course, we also know that the Conservatives were in favour of changes to regulations that govern banks that would have put us in a much worse situation in the crisis that we have had in the last couple of years with this recession and in the crisis that led to this recession.

I wonder if my hon. colleague would comment on the finance minister's bragging as he goes about the country, and whether he believes that is justified.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:25 p.m.


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Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of my hon. friend, English was my first language when I grew up in downtown Toronto on Walton Street and Greek became my second language later.

The member is right. The Conservatives are revisionists. They do brag. However, by using their own statistics I will point out how wrong they are.

The Conservatives did make an investment in debt retirement when they first took over. They plunked the surplus down on debt reduction. They inherited a $501 billion debt from us and they brought it down to $460 billion. According to their own graft, by 2014-15 that debt will have grown to $622.1 billion. It will actually be higher with the most recent figures. In other words, the Conservatives will have added $120 billion to the debt in a short period of time. That is unheard of. They are burdening not just today's youth but tomorrow's future as well. I point to our House of Commons pages because this debt will be on their backs more so than on ours.

I just pointed out that the Conservatives inherited balanced books. However, as of next year, we will have a $100 billion deficit, and amount unheard of. What can the Conservatives be proud of? They have nothing to be proud of.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:30 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I would caution the member against scaring our pages.

However, he is absolutely correct in his assessment of the government's lack of spending in R and D. The government seems to be reluctant to accept best practices in a lot of areas around the world. It only has to look at Germany as an example of solar power and wind power development. Canada has missed many opportunities right here in Canada.

A company in Canada called ARISE Technologies Corporation was forced to move to Germany because the Canadian government showed no interest in developing solar panels here in Canada. This company is now so successful in Germany that it has to build another plant because it is operating at full capacity. It is being subsidized and supported strongly by the German government. This is another example.

The member used China as an example of the largest green energy investor at $34.5 billion in low carbon energy technologies.

I wonder if the member would like to comment on not only the Chinese experience but also the German experience. They are showing the way but the Conservative government does not seem able to understand or accept it.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:30 p.m.


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Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that before China, Germany, the U.K. and other countries showed the light, the Liberal government made record investments in R and D. Genome is one example but there are many others.

I remember discussing the aerospace act in the House when John Manley was the parliamentary secretary. We made the right investments. We invested in the Canadarm, and the list goes on. We were ahead of the game.

I gave examples in my speech of China, Australia and the United States. The United States, although burdened with high debt and deficits, made those investments but not the Conservative government, as was pointed out by professionals. I quoted a gentleman who said that all this does is keep the lights on. We have failed in this area. When other nations are investing in new jobs and jobs of the future, they are doing the right thing and we should look to them as examples.

I do not use scare tactics. I am only talking to the pages simply because it is their future and their country, but--

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:30 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please. Resuming debate. The hon. member for Burnaby--New Westminster.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:30 p.m.


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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise to speak to what is a budget implementation bill but very clearly another failure in the Conservative government's very sad history of financial measures taken over the last few years. Nobody votes Conservative because they want a better health care system, or they want an accessible education system or they think that public services will improve. People vote Conservative for only two reasons, because up until now there has been the Conservatives' pretence of trying to manage public affairs adequately, and then there are the crime issues.

What we have seen over the last few months is that the Conservatives have lost all credibility on crime. Number one, they gutted the crime prevention programs that are actually a way of reducing the crime rate in this country. After they gutted crime prevention measures, many Canadians are now asking what credibility Conservatives can have on crime when they actually seem to be trying to stoke the crime rate by eliminating crime prevention programs that keep Canadians safe.

I will not even go into the other aspects, for example their refusal to provide compensation for the families of police officers or firefighters who have lost their lives saving those of others. We have had an NDP motion that was passed in a previous Parliament, which Conservatives have steadfastly refused to put into place, now for five years. So they have shown real disrespect for our police officers and our firefighters. The fact that the Conservatives would cut crime prevention and the fact that they want to spend billions of dollars building jails for unreported crime has pretty well eliminated any credibility they had on the crime front.

Let us talk about finances, because that was the only other issue that a person would want to vote Conservative on. We certainly have not had in past history any real track record of financial propriety from Conservative governments.

The Minister of Finance produces every year, and has for the last 20 years, an annual compendium of all governments, whether they be Conservative, New Democrat, Liberal or other. What that annual document has shown year after year is that NDP governments are the best at balancing budgets, paying down debt and maintaining public services. That does not come from an NDP source. It comes from the Department of Finance, which is now a Conservative ministry of finance. For 20 years, New Democrat governments have managed money better than Conservative governments. Now the current Conservative government has broken all records for an inability to manage finances wisely. I just need to mention a few of the Conservative boondoggles we have had from the most recent Conservative government.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:30 p.m.


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An hon. member

A lot of them. It could take hours.

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November 30th, 2010 / 1:30 p.m.


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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Absolutely. I could spend my 20 minutes just talking about the boondoggles, the incredible cost overruns and misallocation of expenses. These are hard-working taxpayers putting forward their money to make sure the collective good is taken care of, and what we have seen is a clear abuse of taxpayers' money from the Conservatives.

I am going to come back to the HST because that is one of the boondoggles. In British Columbia, we have certainly seen the reaction from British Columbians and that is why the Conservative government is running very scared and continues to refuse to call a by-election in Prince George—Peace River. Today we are asking it, yet again, to show respect for the people there, call that by-election now and let us have that referendum on the HST in British Columbia.

I will go into just a few of the other boondoggles that the Conservatives have concocted over the last few months. We have $130 million shovelled out the door to AbitibiBowater, even though the press gallery did not really pick up on that boondoggle. That is money paid in compensation to AbitibiBowater for having broken its agreement with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. The legislature in Newfoundland and Labrador quite rightly took back the timber rights and water rights that belonged to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. AbitibiBowater, having not respected its agreement, said it would file one of these chapter 11 SLAPP suits that are the Liberals' gift to corporate rights in this country.

The Conservatives simply turned around and paid out $130 million of taxpayers' money in compensation to that company. That is one boondoggle.

The second is the fact that we did not go to tender on the F-35 fighter jets. The most recent figures are now showing cost overruns, and we have seen a number of countries moving back from that purchase.

We are looking at about $30 billion that the Conservatives want to put forward to buy these fighter jets. Yes, they are the Cadillac of fighter jets; there is no doubt about, but this is at a time when we have many seniors living in poverty. It is at a time when we have hundreds of thousands of Canadians without even a roof over their heads.

This is at a time when we have seen our gutted manufacturing capacity collapsing, with half a million jobs lost in value-added manufacturing, which has led to a lowering of the standard of living for the vast majority of Canadians. The only ones who are really doing well are the lobbyists who Conservatives and Liberals love to talk to. The top 10% of income earners now take most of the Canadian income pie. Everybody else, middle class and poor Canadians together, has seen a pushing down of their living standards. Instead seeing an industrial strategy put in place with that $30 billion, we are seeing those people hung out to dry as well.

I could talk about aboriginal poverty. I could talk about record levels of student debt. The reality is that Tory times are tough times, because the Conservatives continue to listen to a few key lobbyists and a few wealthy Canadians at the expense of everybody else. There is $30 billion that the Conservatives want to put forward for 65 fighter jets rather than deal with the fundamental issues Canadians are having to deal with, with no help from the Conservative government.

I can keep going, with the $60 billion in corporate tax cuts that the government has put in place. The government is very proud that it has given money to the bankers and big businessmen. Corporate CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank. Again, that comes at the expense of the community economy. That is why middle class Canadians are earning less under the Conservatives, even less than they were 20 years ago. It is because we have a misdirection of what should be the economic priorities of this country. That $60 billion in corporate tax cuts is not for job creation, not to stimulate the economy; it is just handed out, just shovelled out the back of a truck. It is an irresponsible, inappropriate boondoggle.

A few months ago, we saw an even clearer example of the types of boondoggle this Conservative government is giving out. It held a 72-hour meeting. According to many Conservatives it was a very important meeting, addressing many important things. The government filled in one lake and created another fake lake. It had to buy a lot of baubles and things to hand out for this very important meeting. When all the figures are added up, we are talking about $1 billion that the government doled out in the space of 72 hours.

What is so outrageous about that is that we have been saying in this corner of the House for years, and seniors' organizations have been saying for years, that for the relatively paltry sum of $700 million in guaranteed income supplements, we could lift all seniors out of poverty in this country. However, the Conservative government has continued to say, “no, seniors are not important”, and it does not care about them.

The government does not want to allocate any money to lift seniors out of poverty. Yet, the government was willing to fork over $1 billion for a meeting that only lasted a few hours. It built these fake lakes and majestic temporary accommodations to ensure that brief meeting was, according to the way only a Conservative could evaluate it, a success.

The cost is that thousands upon thousands of Canadian seniors have to continue to live in poverty. The government said it was more important to have that brief meeting and that fake lake than it was to treat our seniors with respect and give them the kind of support they deserve and warrant for their long-time contributions to this country.

Outrageous, scandalous, absolutely, but that is what Conservatives choose. They always choose lobbyists over the needs of ordinary Canadians.

I could go on. We have seen an advertising budget that has more than doubled. The government loves to advertise itself. The Prime Minister loves to see himself on TV. The government has increased the advertising budget substantially right across the country.

We have examples of these beautiful signs that it purchased, often offshore, often in foreign jurisdictions. I guess it does not believe Canadian workers can do the job, but in this corner of the House we believe that Canadian workers do a fantastic job.

So there would be a small government subsidy to change a door knob with a $1,000 sign right outside, paid for by Canadian taxpayers, with the bright lights and everything else. That is again absolutely inappropriate but that is what the Conservative government loves to do. When it comes to managing money it is just as bad as the Liberals.

One of the other boondoggles is the one that does not really have a cost estimate because the Conservatives do not really know how much it is going to cost. They want to build a bunch of prisons across the country.

When the President of the Treasury Board was asked, given that the crime rate is actually coming down, why he would want to build these additional prisons, the response from the President of the Treasury Board was, “We are going to build these prisons so that we can put people in prison for unreported crime”.

This left people shaking their heads right across the country. On main streets from Vancouver Island right through to Newfoundland and Labrador, right up to the Western Arctic and the Northwest Territories, people have said, “This is absolutely ridiculous that we would want to spend billions of dollars to fill the prisons with people who have committed unreported crime”. That is absolutely absurd.

As the member for Burnaby—Douglas pointed out a little while ago, I could keep going for hours on the boondoggles of the Conservative government. I did not even get into the West Block renovations. I saw Mike Holmes over there evaluating what has gone into this. It is clearly a botched renovation if ever we saw one. I could go on and on.

However the important point to mention is this. Conservatives manage money worse than New Democrats. They do manage money better than Liberals but they manage it worse than the NDP.

That is the Department of Finance that tells us this, not after one year, two years, five years or ten years, but over a twenty-year period NDP governments managed money best.

The important point to mention is why New Democrat governments manage money better than Conservatives and far better than Liberals. It is because our party is a party of ordinary Canadians. Ordinary Canadians manage their money best. They are not high flyers; they are not jet-setters. They go to work every day. They work very hard, working longer and longer hours as we have seen over the last 20 years, for less and less pay, because of how badly botched the economic policies of both the Conservatives and Liberals have been.

They put in a hard day's work, and at the end when they get their paycheque they make sure it goes to essentials first. They make sure their family is housed. They make sure their children are clothed. If there are additional expenses for health care because of the erosion of our health care system under both Conservatives and Liberals, they make sure those health care expenses are paid for.

Then and only then, if they have money left over, Canadians will then perhaps indulge in a little bit of luxury, but that is when they have taken care of essentials first.

The lesson of how badly Conservatives manage money, just as badly as the Liberals before them, is that Conservatives and Liberals spend on the luxury first, completely contradictory to what they promise in election campaigns and completely flying in the face of what are basic Canadians values.

They love those fighter jets. They want to spend $30 billion. A couple of lobbyists come and see them and say, “Let us get those corporate tax cuts”, and they say, “Sure, $60 billion; how much do you want? We will write you out a Canadian taxpayer's cheque today. Do you want a billion bucks to take to the Cayman Islands? That is fine. Corporate tax cuts are great”, they say.

They say, “Let us buy the fancy baubles. We have a 72-hour meeting; let us throw a billion bucks at it. Let us build a fake lake. That will be just a great idea”.

The Conservatives love those luxury items. That is why they increased their advertising budget. That is why they love to spend on themselves and their fancy baubles, but the problem is that once they have spent on all those luxury items there is nothing left for essentials. That is the fundamental problem with how Conservatives mismanage money. They want to spend on the luxuries first and then, if there is any money left over, maybe they will look at the housing crisis. Maybe they will look at record levels of student debt. Maybe they will look at record levels of seniors living in poverty. Maybe they will look at those veterans programs that they have gutted and at how despicably, how horribly, they have treated the veterans of our country over the last few years with their cutbacks in veterans programs.

Only after they have taken care of the luxuries do they think to look at the essentials, and that is the fundamental problem with how Conservatives manage money and this kind of Conservative budget. They want to spend on the baubles, on the corporate tax cuts, on the fake lakes, on the fancy meetings, on all those high-priced things, and then there is nothing left for ordinary, hard-working Canadians who are often just looking for a helping hand and a safety net when they fall into difficulty.

That is where we differ fundamentally from Conservatives and Liberals. We believe in taking care of the essentials first. That is why the ministry of finance has given us the top marks over the last 20 years for managing money in this country. The federal ministry of finance says that the NDP manages money best. We balance our budgets more often. We pay down debt. We make sure essentials are taken care of. That is why we have a key role in this House in criticizing these kinds of budgets.

I have a few minutes left and I would like to go specifically to the British Columbia component of this budget, because two elements within the budget itself are ones that provoke a great reaction in British Columbia, such a great reaction that the Conservatives actually are scared to call a byelection in Prince George--Peace River. They called the other ones. They are refusing to call Prince George--Peace River because they know darn well there is going to be a reaction from the Peace River country and there is going to be a reaction from Prince George on their incredibly irresponsible actions in concocting the HST.

The HST was concocted federally. It was pushed on the province by a premier who was acting irresponsibly, working in conjunction with the federal Conservatives, and we have certainly seen what happened to that premier. He has had to resign. What is going to happen next is that British Columbians are going to have their opportunity to say a few words on the HST, and that will come when there is a federal election or when there is a byelection.

What we are saying is that to show respect to the people of Prince George--Peace River the government should call that byelection now, and we will let British Columbians judge about this HST, this tax shift that gives a massive tax break to British Columbia's wealthiest corporations and forces ordinary families to pay about $2,000 in extra expenses, and of course forces small businesses in the province of British Columbia to pick up the tab. There is not a small businessman whom I have seen in Burnaby or New Westminster who has told me that the HST is a good thing. They all see it as a bad thing.

The final point I wanted to raise was on softwood lumber. In this corner of the House, we were the only party to oppose the softwood lumber agreement. We said that the softwood lumber deal, the softwood lumber sellout, would cost tens of thousands of jobs. We have been absolutely right. We also said that it would lead to longstanding fines and the taxpayers having to continually pay, and we see in this budget taxpayers having to cough up another $68 million. We were right there too.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Merv Tweed Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. friend talk a little bit about the budget and probably the centre of what we are focusing on today, but I have just a very simple question for him.

He talks about luxury items that the government has bought. He talks about what I would consider to be the essential equipment that our armed forces need, be it military, be it the soldiers, be it the pilots.

I had the opportunity and the pleasure to visit Cold Lake recently; I toured the facility and actually got to sit in an F-18. It was explained to me that if these planes are not replaced in the timely fashion that we are suggesting, basically they will be grounded in a couple of years and they will simply become a playground for international flyers to come in and do their routines.

Does the member believe that providing essential equipment to our armed forces is a luxury? Is it not absolutely the least we can do for our armed forces? The very least we can do is provide them with the equipment that they need to represent Canada, to represent our vision of the world, to bring peace to other countries? Does he not accept that as being an essential tool as opposed to a luxury?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:50 p.m.


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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Obviously, Mr. Speaker, the member for Brandon—Souris did not listen to a single word I said. What we have been saying all along is that it is absolutely essential that the veterans of this country be treated with respect, and it is absolutely despicable that this Conservative government has cut back on the veterans programs that should be supporting the veterans of this country. The Conservatives should be talking to some of the veterans, as I did on Remembrance Day at some of the rallies where veterans were speaking out against the despicable and disrespectful treatment of this government.

And how about the disrespectful treatment of seniors? The Conservatives are willing to spend more on building a fake lake for a 72-hour summit than it would take to lift every single senior in this country out of poverty. How about that for disrespect of our seniors?

Those are essential items, and what I have been saying is that this Conservative government should stop spending its money on fake lakes and corporate tax cuts and start putting money forward to support the ordinary people who built this country.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:55 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please. The Speaker would appreciate it if only one member asks a question at a time and if only one member answered that question at a time. It is becoming increasingly difficult to hear.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL

He is an angry man, Mr. Speaker, probably because there are many issues that he has concerns with.

One of the issues he spoke to before is this issue, the issue of pensions. What I find lacking in the House on the pensions issue is that we have not had a fulsome debate on where we go from here, because we are facing, I will not say a completely different set of circumstances, but certainly circumstances that have changed, such that the pension system will receive quite a bit of pressure that it has not before, undue pressure. A large population is now drifting through to its senior years, and therefore is calling upon the younger generations of proportionately lesser numbers to support them.

We talked about the raise in the CPP. We talked about supplementary CPP as well. But there does not seem to be any depth to the discussion of pensions in all the budget bills that have come forward in the House, and certainly for the sustaining Canada's economic recovery act in this particular situation. I would like the hon. member to talk about that.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:55 p.m.


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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am passionate, as I think all New Democrats are, because we are out in our ridings every weekend and we see the reaction from Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

These Canadians ask why we are spending money on fake lakes, why we are spending money on massive corporate tax cuts, why we are handing $130 million to AbitibiBowater, and why is there always with the Conservatives money they like to shovel off the back of a truck when the essential needs of Canadians are not being taken care of?

That is the essential question Canadians are asking more and more and the Conservatives can laugh at veterans, laugh at seniors and laugh all they want, but the reality is that there is an election coming and Canadians will have the ability to sit down and say that they are sick and tired of this mean-spirited Conservative agenda, which gives lots of money to lobbyists, lots of money for corporate tax cuts and lots of money for fake lakes. Any time a lobbyist just wags their finger they get millions of dollars, but what about the essential needs, as the member mentioned, on pensions? What about record levels of student debt? What about access to education? What about all of those issues and health care, which Canadians are talking about every day? Conservatives have no answers for any of those things. What they like to do is shovel money out to lobbyists.

What Canadians are seeing is that disconnect between what Conservatives are talking about and the kind of walk that they are making--

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:55 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please. I think I can take a very brief question or comment from the member for Timmins—James Bay if he keeps in mind that at 2 o'clock we will have to start statements by members.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:55 p.m.


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NDP

Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON

Mr. Speaker, the people of northern Ontario are suffering from the HST, a regressive tax that has hit working families and seniors. I know the people of British Columbia are feeling the effects of the same regressive tax from a government that gives breaks all the time to big corporations but squeezes and punishes seniors.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague what he is hearing from people back home about the HST and how it is affecting their ability to heat their homes in the winter.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:55 p.m.


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NDP

Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member for Timmins—James Bay is one of the strongest members in the House representing his riding and region. He is speaking up against the incredible misguided HST that is being shoved on Ontarians and British Columbians. The NDP has put forward a plan to take HST off home heating fuel that will help Canadians.

I have a message for Conservatives from British Columbia, and that is to call the byelection in Prince George—Peace River, stop chickening out and let British Columbians have their say on the HST. Call that byelection—

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 1:55 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please. We will move on now to statements by members with the hon. member for Miramichi.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 3:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Mr. Speaker, as the holiday season draws near, Canadians are examining their household budgets and they are worried. They are worried about how they are going to make ends meet and how they are going to pay their mortgages.

Canadian household debt, which is the amount Canadians owe in mortgages, credit cards and personal lines of credit, has grown to $1.5 trillion. That is $44,000 for each and every Canadian, almost $100,000 for every Canadian family.

These are historic highs, the highest levels of personal debt in Canadian history. Right now Canadians are having trouble making ends meet when interest rates are at historic lows. Canadians are naturally and justifiably worried about how they are going to make payments in the future, as rates will inevitably rise.

More troubling when they look to the future is that too many Canadians do not know how they are going to pay the bills, pay their mortgages and pay for their children's education.

On a number of fronts, the situation for Canadian families has deteriorated under the watch of the Conservative government.

Since the last election, Canadian household debt has grown by $200 billion. To put that in individual terms, the average debt that each and every Canadian carries has grown by $4,000 since the election of the Conservative government.

In terms of Canadian jobs, Canada's unemployment rate has risen from 6.2% in October 2008 to 7.9% as of last month.

The Conservatives have claimed that they have restored Canadian job numbers or job levels to where they were before the economic downturn. That is simply not accurate. That is false.

In fact, fewer Canadians are employed today compared to October 2008, and even that does not tell the full story. In the past two years, Canadians have seen a shift from full-time jobs to part-time work. There are 115,000 fewer full-time jobs today compared with October 2008.

It is true that many of these full-time jobs have been replaced by part-time work. Canadians know that not all jobs and not all work is created equally. Too many Canadian families have been left trying to make ends meet and provide for their families with only their wages from part-time work, in many cases with minimum wage jobs.

To sum up the Canadian jobs front since the last election we have, one, fewer total jobs and, two, a dramatic shift from full-time jobs to part-time work. It is shocking that the Conservatives continue to brag about this sorry record.

It is a reminder that the Conservatives really are out of touch with the challenges being faced by Canadian families. What is also worrisome is not only that the Conservatives are doing very little to deal with the challenges Canadian families face today, but the Conservatives are ignoring completely some of the real challenges that are on the horizon.

Canada, like many industrialized countries, is facing a significant demographic shift. Many families today are trying to take care of aging parents while at the same time they struggle to pay for their children's education. We are hearing the term now, the “sandwich generation”, and we read and learn of families who are taking care of children and parents at the same time.

The Globe and Mail did a very important series of articles on Alzheimer's and dementia a few weeks ago. One of the most striking and poignant profiles in that series was of a family with a 26-year-old daughter who had two little children and was taking care of those two little children and at the same time was taking care of her 52-year-old father who had early-onset Alzheimer's.

Canadian families are looking to their government for leadership. We need pension reform to prepare us for the demographic bubble and the shift that is occurring.

We need fiscal responsibility to try to get spending under control to ensure that we do not, along with the demographic shift and the challenges on social investment and pensions in the future, also have the fiscal incapacity to deal with those realities.

Canadian families want a government that is not just focused on this week's polls but is focused on the challenges and the opportunities 10 or 20 years ahead of us. They want the government to invest in the priorities of Canadian families.

Instead, Canadian families are being lectured by this finance minister who tells them that this is not the time for risky spending schemes. However, at the same time, this is the finance minister who is pouring billions of Canadian tax dollars into untendered fighter jets, U.S.-style mega-prisons, high-priced consultants and corporate tax cuts that we simply cannot afford now on borrowed money.

This is the same finance minister who inherited a $13 billion surplus from the Liberal government and then increased government spending by 18% in the first few years of the Conservative government, putting Canada into a deficit even before the economic downturn began.

This is the finance minister who said there would be no deficit and then missed every deficit target he ever set, finally, recently, giving Canadians a $56 billion deficit, the biggest deficit in Canadian history.

This is the same finance minister who lectures Canadian families about what he calls “risky spending schemes” instead of lecturing his justice minister and his public safety minister on their risky spending schemes.

On the cost of the prison legislation, the justice minister originally told Canadians that his prison bill would only cost Canadian taxpayers $90 million. Then he said that instead it was going to be $2 billion. So he went from $90 million to $2 billion.

Then we have the Parliamentary Budget Officer who has said that this prison legislation of the Conservative government would not cost $90 million and would not cost $2 billion but would in fact cost between $10 billion and $13 billion. Talk about risky spending schemes.

The last thing Canadians need would be a U.S.-style approach to law and order. In fact, if putting more people in prison led to safer communities, U.S. cities would be the safest communities in the world. We all know that is not true.

Instead of investing in the kinds of sensible measures that would reduce crime in Canada and actually protect Canadian citizens in their communities, the government is pursuing a failed Republican-style U.S. approach to law and order, which failed in the U.S. and has no better potential to succeed here in Canada.

I would like to speak a little bit about the government's other risky spending scheme, and I would remind the House that this same finance minister who lectures Canadian families on government spending has failed to lecture his defence minister on the cost of the untendered F-35 fighter jets.

The F-35s are set to cost Canadian taxpayers $16 billion. The Conservatives are prepared to throw taxpayer money away and pay a $3 billion premium for the F-35s, because the Conservatives stubbornly refuse to open up the process to competition.

U.S. Senator John McCain has expressed his frustration with the F-35s, calling the costs outrageous and saying, “I share our allies' and friends' deep disappointment about the cost overruns...”.

That is Senator John McCain, someone who knows a little bit about defence and understands the importance of respecting tax dollars.

Even the Auditor General has pointed out that the F-35s are a risky undertaking, saying, “I would hope that nobody is assessing...[these risks] as low risk”.

Yet this finance minister continues to lecture Canadian families about risky spending schemes. He completely refuses to reign in his own ministers and their risky spending schemes.

This finance minister who talks about risky spending schemes is also the finance minister who allowed his public safety minister to waste $1.3 billion on a 72-hour G20 photo op session in Toronto. That included $1 million for a fake lake, $300,000 for a gazebo, bathrooms that were 20 kilometres away from the summit site, $400,000 for bug spray, I guess the fake lake was attracting a lot of insects, over $300,000 for luxury furniture, $14,000 for glow sticks, millions on high-end hotels and over $75,000 on mini-bar snacks. Who the heck uses mini-bar snacks? It is the excess. I mean people should buy their own snacks. This excessive Conservative waste is insulting to Canadian families today.

Canadian families are having trouble making ends meet, struggling to pay their mortgages and their children's education, struggling to pay for Christmas presents at this time of year and to pay their taxes. They see this Conservative finance minister and his ministers wasting the Canadian taxpayers' hard-earned money on a frivolous Conservative government spending spree.

One of the Conservative members recently said the government was spending like Christmas, boasting about the spending of the Conservative government. When the Conservatives are wasting the tax dollars of Canadians, particularly during this season, it means Canadians have less money to buy presents for their children this Christmas. It means Canadians have it a little tougher to find ways to pay for their children's education. It means this winter, as the temperatures drop, Canadians are finding it tougher to fill their oil tanks and to pay for their home heating costs. At the same time, they watch the government wasting their tax dollars with out-of-control spending. No wonder they are enraged.

This is a finance minister who lectures Canadian families instead of lecturing his own Prime Minister who has increased the budget of the Prime Minister's Office by 30%. This is a finance minister who refuses to look in the mirror and take responsibility for his own risky spending schemes that have caused the tab for high-priced consultants to go over $10 billion a year. That is $10 billion a year for high-priced consultants. The finance minister's spending schemes have also caused government advertising to grow by 300%.

It is no wonder the Parliamentary Budget Officer said just last month that there is an 85% chance that this finance minister will break his promise to balance the books by 2015-16.

Canadian families, who are forced to balance their books every month, do not need to take any lectures from this finance minister who has failed to meet any deficit target he has ever set.

What Canadian families want and deserve is a government that will control government spending and restore fiscal order. Instead, we have the Conservatives who preach fiscal austerity while borrowing and spending more than any other government in Canadian history.

There is a better way. A Liberal government would clean up this fiscal mess created by this borrow-and-spend Conservative government. After all, it was the previous Liberal government under the financial leadership of people like Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and finance minister Paul Martin who eliminated the deficit.

Under the financial leadership of the member for Wascana when he was finance minister and the deputy leader of the Liberal Party in the House, the Paul Martin government was the last government to actually reduce government spending. That was the last government. It was the Liberals, under the financial leadership of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, who implemented the biggest tax cuts in Canadian history. We did this in a responsible manner during an era of hard-earned surplus. We did not do it on borrowed money.

A Liberal government would once again restore order to Canada's financial books. We would invest prudently in the priorities of Canadians, in learning, in family care. We would invest in strengthening pensions. We would invest in the jobs of tomorrow, in science, in research and development, and in the green jobs of the 21st century.

We would do this in a prudent way by reining in the reckless spending that has occurred and continues to flourish under the Conservatives. We would listen to Canadian families and we would ensure that we would invest in their priorities. We would partner with Canadian families and recognize that they face tough times. We would be there with them as a government, helping them get through these tough times, and ensure that in the future, we would emerge from these economic challenges stronger and more united, more competitive and more prepared to face the challenges of the 21st century.

The Mandarin word for “crisis” is the same word as that for “opportunity”. It is telling to look at the way other countries, including China, have invested their stimulus money. China has invested over $400 billion in energy modernization, in a clean energy grid, a smart grid, in clean energy production. In 2008, China became the world's largest producer of solar panels in the world, and in 2009, China became the world's largest producer of wind turbines. China is focusing on green investment with its stimulus package because it recognizes that the future economy and the jobs of tomorrow will be dominated by green economy jobs.

The U.S. has put almost $8 billion into energy modernization, investing in grid technology, investing in an energy grid, clean energy production and research.

In fact, China and the U.S. have invested jointly billions of dollars in a clean energy partnership focused on carbon capture and storage. What is frustrating is that in Canada we have a head start in this area now; in fact, 40% of the sequestered carbon in the world is stored in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. However, we have completely missed the boat on this important investment of two of our trading partners, China and the United States, and this partnership that they have to research and develop clean, conventional energy technology in carbon capture and storage. We have missed that opportunity. We should be working hard to get back to the table so we are part of that.

I mentioned the word for “crisis” and “opportunity” in Mandarin for a reason, and that is that we should never waste a good crisis. If we look through history, during any time of crisis, smart investors, smart governments and smart business people made smart decisions which enabled them to prosper as they came out of the period of crisis.

I fear that the visionless Conservative government has failed Canadians not only by failing to protect the jobs of today, but by not having enough vision and focus on the future to create the jobs of tomorrow.

Today I have spoken about the fiscal deficit the Conservatives have created. I could have spoken of the trade deficit the Conservatives have created and their failure to connect Canadians to the markets of tomorrow, but I have also spoken of perhaps the most troubling deficit, and that is the vision deficit of the Conservative government and its failure to provide a coherent vision for the future of the Canadian economy to enable Canadians to have some sense of hope for a more prosperous tomorrow.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 3:55 p.m.


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NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Madam Speaker, I was interested in my colleague's comments. Some of them I agree with. Some of them I think he perhaps might not understand, which brings me to the question that I have for him. He talked about taking advantage of the crisis. He is probably aware that usually governments do not use that for a positive effect. It is usually a negative effect. In other words, the crisis presents an opportunity to further the government's own agenda which is very seldom positive.

I wonder if my colleague would like to make any more comments along those lines on that subject.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 3:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Madam Speaker, from a historic perspective and from an international perspective, I think many smart governments over time have used periods of crisis to make bold decisions that in the long term were very beneficial for their citizens.

If we look at stimulus packages in the U.S. in the past, the Hoover Dam is an example of a stimulus package that is still producing energy in the U.S. The GI bill in the U.S. was probably one of the most successful examples of stimulus in terms of providing education for people returning from the war. Many people believe that the GI bill in the U.S. was instrumental in creating the baby boom. In Canada, if we look at soldiers returning from World War II, investments in their education was a form of stimulus.

There are examples both in the past and in other countries where governments have taken a crisis and created an opportunity. But when the Conservative government was faced with a global financial crisis, its first instinct was not to bring in a budget and an economic package to benefit Canadians. Its first instinct was that the global financial crisis was a great time to put the boots to the opposition.

I agree with the hon. member that the government's instincts are usually to find political advantage, not to try to create a national or global advantage for Canadians.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 3:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Dominic LeBlanc Liberal Beauséjour, NB

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my hon. colleague from Kings—Hants for his excellent speech. He has a remarkable understanding of the Canadian economy, and I often find his opinions and analysis extremely relevant.

My question is around the Conservatives' attempt to raise job-killing payroll taxes. I think the member shares my view that increases in employment insurance premiums on small businesses, for example, those in my riding in rural New Brunswick would have a very negative effect on job creation.

The director of provincial affairs for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business in New Brunswick is Andreea Bourgeois, an impressive woman. I am sure my colleague has had a chance to meet with her. I met with her a number of times over recent weeks and in the summer. The CFIB makes a very compelling case about the negative effect an increase in employment insurance premiums would have. It would inflict damage on small and medium size businesses that are trying to create jobs and hire people. It would inflict damage on the economy of regions like the one I represent in New Brunswick, and the one represented by my colleague from Kings—Hants.

Could he share with us his view on this irresponsible Conservative tax increase that threatens job creation?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4 p.m.


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Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate my hon. colleague's question and I completely agree.

It is ridiculous to increase taxes on jobs during a recession. It makes no sense. Doing so would be pure nonsense. I do not understand why the government is going ahead with a plan that will raise taxes on jobs in January, when finding a job anywhere in Canada is already very challenging for most people.

It is ridiculous. It is bad for small businesses, it is bad for the economy and for entrepreneurs, and it is bad for workers and the unemployed. This is not the right time for it.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, clearly, we see that the longer the Conservatives are in government, the more comfortable they become with debt.

I wish I could talk to Preston Manning. I would ask him to re-read Animal Farm. When the old Reform Party and Preston Manning were in this House, I remember watching him on TV refusing his pension, along with the whole caucus over there. I remember when he turned the keys to the car over to the government and said, “Here is your car”. I guess he was going to walk. He refused to move into the official residence, as I recall.

Have things ever changed with the government. Now that the Conservatives are in power, they have forgotten all the things that they promised when in opposition. They are back to accepting the pensions now. I believe they are driving the cars. They went into the stimulus spending issue very willingly. They are as bad as any government has been in terms of spending money to attract enough voters to try to get a majority government.

Things have changed an awful lot with that group in a very short period of time.

Does the member have any observations that would confirm or disagree with that assessment?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4 p.m.


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Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very difficult question. He is asking for just a couple of examples of Conservative hypocrisy in this regard and, frankly, it is really tough to narrow it to just one or two examples.

This has been a government whose stimulus package has been a political stimulus package. It has been looking for political stimulus. The poll numbers are around 30%. The Conservatives cannot get above that. It is like that country music song Looking For Love (in All The Wrong Places).

This is a government that has been more interested in counting signs than in counting jobs. This is a government with a fetish for signs but a disinterest in creating real long-term jobs and opportunities for Canadians.

There is only one thing I would quarrel with in terms of what the hon. member said. He said that this government has been as bad as any government in terms of its spending, in his view. I would say that this government has been worse than any government in history.

I can remember when we were in government, the Liberal government under Paul Martin as prime minister. There was an expenditure review committee of cabinet. I was part of that committee. In fact, it was chaired by the member for Markham—Unionville. We actually worked to reduce government spending on a department by department basis. We went through items of departmental spending line by line. We worked with the public service in a very constructive and respectful way to find areas of lower priority where we could re-prioritize, areas where there may be some waste or duplication, with the goal of getting the best value for taxpayers while providing the best services for citizens. That is when we were in a $13 billion surplus. Respect for taxpayers, respect for hard-earned tax dollars, is not something we just do when we are in deficit. It is something we do with every hard-earned dollar we receive from the Canadian people.

I am very proud of the fact that the member for Wascana, when he was the finance minister, was the last finance minister in Canada to actually reduce government spending. I think that is a good thing. Whether we are in surplus or in deficit, we have to do that. It is morally the right thing to do, because people work so hard. Canadians work so hard to pay their taxes and they are just barely getting by. It is an insult to them to do anything but that.

The member used to be a provincial member in Manitoba. I would add that it is something that provincial governments, in some cases provincial NDP governments, in some cases provincial Liberal governments, in some cases provincial Conservative governments, have to do. The buck stops with them. The buck stops with provincial governments. The buck stops with municipal governments.

As we enter this period of health and social transfer debate, discussion and negotiation, in the coming years, with provinces with record high deficits and the federal government with record high deficits, we are going to have to watch every penny on behalf of Canadian taxpayers.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:05 p.m.


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Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

Madam Speaker. tomorrow will be the beginning of December and I note that the original budget was presented on March 4, so some nine months later we are getting around to implementing some of the provisions of the budget.

I went back and looked at the original budget and I was struck by chart 1, interestingly titled “Rapid decline in deficits”. If ever there was a creative way in which one would describe this runaway deficit, this is the way to describe it.

Generally speaking, certainly when we were in government, we put the surpluses above the line and we put the deficits below the line. It is quite interesting that the Conservatives government has everything backward, or more accurately, upside down. The return to deficit should be all below the line and the surpluses of the previous government all above the line.

In an interesting way in which things are backward around here, where left is right and left is right and up is down and down is up. The government has it entirely upside down. In chart 1, this rapid decline in deficit, the Conservatives have all the deficits above the line and all the surpluses below the line. They did not actually include the surpluses of previous government, which should have been above the line. However, that would not have worked with the chart.

The interesting thing is the Conservatives were already in deficit in the fiscal year prior to the crisis with respect to the recession. They had already blown away $3 billion or $4 billion in deficit. Actually it is greater than that. It is $5.8 billion in deficit, so they were already in the hole before they started, before we got to the fiscal crisis and before we got to the issues with respect to the difficulties that the entire world experienced in the fiscal year 2008.

It is an interesting presentation. It is an interesting way in which one tries to describe up as being down and down as being up. The deficit is above the line, therefore apparently in some respects surplus, and a surplus has been below the line and therefore in some respects being described as a deficit. Given their challenges with respect to communications, one can readily see how one blows $130 million in the Prime Minister's office just to communicate that up is down and down is up.

The significance of this chart in the budget document dated March 4 is that it pretty well blows away 13 years of very difficult work on the part of the previous Liberal government. The previous Liberal government took over from the previous Conservative government, which had run up a pretty significant deficit the last year it was in office, something over $42 billion or $43 billion. It took something in the order of four years, I think it was in 1997 when we turned the corner. It was with a lot of pain, a lot of difficulty, where we had to get control over our spending and our revenue streams.

From 1997 through to 2005-06, when the last Liberal government held office, we ran surpluses and the Canadian taxpayers received the benefit of that surplus in two respects: first, in lower taxes; and second, in reduced interest rates. At some point in the previous Liberal government we were running 9%, 10%, 11%, 12% interest rates on mortgages, which was coming out of each and every pocket. As well, we were running inflation rates of 3%, sometimes 4%, sometimes 5%, which was an illusion of increases in asset value.

Two things happened in the previous Liberal government. First, the fiscal house was put in order by Messrs. Chrétien and Martin and the current member for Wascana. The second thing that happened was the monetary policy was also put in order. A band was implemented primarily by David Dodge, but also by Gordon Thiessen before him and followed up by Mark Carney, of setting the inflation rate at somewhere between 1% and 3%. That would be the band that would be an acceptable rate of inflation.

Fortunately the Conservative government cannot touch monetary policy. As a consequence, the monetary policy put in place by the previous government has remained untouched. Therefore that part of Canada's fiscal financial situation has not been messed up. The only thing that has been really messed up at this point is the fiscal policy.

Publicly I want to commend Mark Carney for continuing on with that band of inflation and his judicious and prudent use of monetary policy to achieve the best possible outcome for Canada. It is not without criticism. I am sure some members in the House would be prepared to criticize the governor on various points, but on balance, in my judgment, the governor has achieved that level of monetary stability which stands us well.

The other thing thus far that the Conservative government has not been able to mess up completely has been our financial services sector.

I recollect that when I first came here, which was back in 1997, there was an impetus on the part of financial institutions, particularly banks, to get larger, to be bigger, to bulk up, to start to be international players. They were losing their status as international players.

The pressure was on the Liberal government at the time, and particularly on the Liberal caucus and the GTA caucus, to allow banks to merge. Frankly, that was an attractive argument to many of us. I was one of them. Being from Toronto, I thought we should allow our institutions to get world-class status. I started out with the view that it would be a good idea. However, the Liberal caucus and Minister Martin had the idea that we should at least take some evidence and think about this before we allowed banks to merge.

Over the course of those caucus hearings we did change our minds, or at least I changed my mind as did a number of members of our caucus. We could see the benefit for the banks, particularly their directors and maybe some of their shareholders, but we were not overly convinced on how the Canadian public and the consumers of bank services would benefit. At the end, we decided there would be no mergers. That turned out to be a prescient decision because the banks therefore were unable to get into the acquisition of other financial institutions.

As a result of them being unable to get into the acquisition of other financial institutions primarily, which would have been American financial institutions and maybe some foreign financial institutions, they did not make a number of the disastrous decisions that came back to haunt primarily American institutions in the last few years. It was the result of a bit of good fortune, a bit of hard work and us asking ourselves the fundamental question: What was in this for the Canadian public and consumer?

The consequence of the consequence of the consequence is that the Canadian taxpayer did not have to bail out the financial services sector. Canadian taxpayers did not have to pony up moneys for that sector and therefore that crisis was avoided.

The previous Liberal administration had 13 years of difficult financial and fiscal decisions to make. I can criticize some of them, but, on balance, when Liberals left office, the financial and fiscal houses were in order. There was surplus in the accounts. Indeed, the first year of surplus for the Conservative government was largely a surplus created by the previous Liberal administration. Then there came one or two years of surplus and we started with the deficit. We now have a deficit picture that I previously described as upside down.

Now the government tells us that we should continue to trust its fiscal management, having run up a deficit in one year of something of the order of $54 billion, a cumulative deficit over the course of the next number of years of something like $165 billion. Then in kind of an interesting way, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that there was virtually no chance the government would return to balance or surplus in the next five years, notwithstanding the protestations to the contrary by the government.

We are going to have deficits for as far as we can see. Generally speaking, we can give a reasonable prediction for two years. Heading out to five years is a bit on the remote side and there are a lot of things that can go wrong between now and then.

The Parliamentary Budget Office has described this stuff as fantasy and I tend to agree with him. The likelihood of the government ever returning to a balance or surplus is virtually non-existent.

There are two major reasons why there is no chance the government will actually return to balance or surplus. The first reason is it has destroyed the revenue bases. It is all wonderful to talk about how much fun we are having cutting taxes. The trouble is if one is to cut taxes, one also has to cut services.

There is not a corollary commitment on the part of the government to be fiscally responsible in terms of the cutting of services. It seems to want to have it both ways. It wants to run up the cost of government without any meaningful way in which to approach the reining in of costs. Simultaneously it wants to cut various revenue streams, giving ill-advised tax cuts, particularly corporate tax cuts, the result of which is deficits.

It is simple. No one can run a household or a business that way. There have to be revenues to offset expenses. If one is going to cut revenues, then one has to cut expenses. The government has not done it and continues not to do it.

Then we see the absolutely outrageous examples of how to blow money in very short order, the most significant of which was the fun and games at the G8-G20, which blew through something in the order of $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion on a weekend.

I am from Toronto and have the great honour to represent a riding in the east end of Toronto, in Scarborough, which residents there like to say is the centre of the universe. Not many people know that, but I am here to inform the House of that fact. Downtown Toronto is seen as a suburb of Scarborough.

We in the centre of the universe watched with horror, not only the spending but the image that was projected of Toronto around the world. The central image of the G8-G20 spending was burning police cars in the middle of intersections in downtown Toronto.

If ever there was some illusion that somehow or other this was going to project a good image of Toronto and all of the good things that go on in Toronto those burning police cars, those rioting people, the police in riot gear, the smashed windows of businesses and the whole ugly image that was presented was completely counterproductive to the $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion that was spent.

It does not seem to matter to the government that the government was advised well in advance by the then mayor, David Miller, and by the police chief, Bill Blair, that maintaining security, keeping security and giving security in downtown Toronto was going to be virtually impossible, that this would be an extraordinarily difficult task and it would cost literally thousands and thousands of man hours and literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now the bills are arriving. We got a bill in excess of half a billion dollars from the RCMP. We got a bill of $125 million from the city of Toronto police, and we have a current bill something in excess of $60 million from the Ontario Provincial Police.

Those are some significant bills and it was not as if the government was not told in advance that this would be costly and virtually impossible to do. What did it do? It essentially trashed the image of Toronto by doing something that it was advised it should not do at this location.

It is not as if it was not suggested to the government to put it in some other location. It could have put it in another secure location. It could have put it on, for instance, a military location where it could have already had security, it could have people coming and going, it could have had all the meetings that it needed to have and at the end of the day the infrastructure money would have been spent on upgrading a particular military base. I do not see what was so difficult about that.

The other thing that is really more curious than anything else is for the G8 spending the good folks in Muskoka for their time and trouble received $50 million in extras. These extras I am sure were welcomed by the folks in Muskoka. However, the same good folks in Toronto, somewhere in the order of five million people, got absolutely nothing. They got little or nothing.

Why is it that $50 million should end up in Muskoka and nothing ends up in Toronto? Toronto has the burning police car. Toronto has the smashed businesses. Toronto has the smashed windows, and Muskoka gets the gazebos. It does not seem to add up and it is a classic example of misspending and it is in some respects a typical story of why the government is in such a mess.

It has jacked up the deficit to $165 billion. That is your money, Madam Speaker, and that is my money. It has made very ill-advised decisions. It has run roughshod over the local mayor and the police chief and said, “You're going to have this conference, you're going to have it in downtown Toronto and we don't really care about your problems”. However, now the bills are starting to arrive home: $500 million plus for the RCMP, $60 million plus for the OPP, $125 million plus for the city of Toronto police, and that is not all. It is the city of Toronto taxpayers who are getting stuck with paying for the burning police car, the smashed businesses and the smashed windows.

It is an outrage the way in which the government runs roughshod over everyone. It destroys its revenue base and cannot seem to control its own spending.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:25 p.m.


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The Acting Speaker Denise Savoie

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Bourassa, Radioactive Waste; the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, Taxation.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON

Madam Speaker, I am always amazed when I hear members from the other side who have been in government for some time, who seem to have failed memory. Either that or it is very selective memory because I can remember in Ontario the cuts to health care, the cuts to education and the cuts to social services.

I also spent some time with members of the Canadian Navy this past summer and they talked about the significant cuts to the military and how they are only now under this government starting to see the ability to reinvest in their ships. What we saw when our soldiers were sent into Afghanistan by the former administration is they were sent in with uniforms to prepare them for jungle warfare, not for desert warfare. So what they literally did was make our military walking targets.

How does the member propose to pay for all of the promises that they keep making from the other side of the House? From our side of the House we know that if we take a look at the public accounts we will see in the pie charts that 47% of the revenue to government comes in through personal income tax and 13% comes in from corporations. So for a very incremental adjustment in lowering corporate taxes we are going to increase the number of people who are working who are paying personal income tax. That is going to be a benefit to our economy.

My question for the member is when are the Liberals going to come clean and tell us what taxes are they proposing to raise?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:30 p.m.


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Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

Madam Speaker, this is classic Conservative speak. Up is down, down is up. This is the same wonderful gang that brought Ontario reams of deficits, which Premier McGuinty is slowly digging himself out from, and that was whacked and sideswiped by this recession. The same gang is bringing to Canada what they brought to Ontario; endless deficits and that the answer to all questions, including the meaning of life, is tax cuts. That is the answer to life and the hon. member says that is right. She believes it, that the whole world is going to be a whole lot better place because of tax cuts.

If Conservatives are going to have tax cuts, they had better come clean and tell people what services are going to be cut back because right now we have the worst of all possible worlds. They are running up the deficit and killing the revenue base. The consequence is deficits as far as one can see.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:30 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased that the member admitted that he was wrong for originally supporting the merger of the banks because I remember that time very well and there was a lot of pressure. Certainly the Conservatives who were the Reform Party in those days were out beating the drums for allowing the banks to merge, but to give the finance minister and the prime minister of the day full credit, they did resist that.

It is a bit of an irony because that is what saved the hide of the government when the economy went south in 2008. Had the mergers been allowed to happen, had we followed the same pattern as the United States, and we have no reason to believe that it would have been any other way, we would have seen the long-tail financial liabilities that at the end of the day the people in the United States have had to accept. Let us face it, the money in the banks is simply the people's money. It is the senior citizens in my constituency who put their deposits in the bank, and if the bank is totally irresponsible and buys financial instruments that result in huge losses to the banks, they simply take it out of the pockets of the citizens of the country in the first place.

It certainly was a stroke of luck for the government of the day to hold off allowing the banks to merge. Another reason that the government of the day was successful in doing what the current government cannot is that we had a very robust economy in those days. It was easier to do what the members have been talking about because the economy was good, but nevertheless a decent job was done.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:30 p.m.


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Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his speech masqueraded into the question. I do agree with him.

May I say to the hon. member that it was not entirely luck, with respect to financial services. That was a fairly long and extensive hearing process the Liberal caucus went through under the chairmanship, at that point, of the member for Spadina. We delved into quite a number of areas.

One of the other interesting areas was that we kept the capital ratios up, because there was a huge pressure on the government to reduce capital ratios so that more money could be put into the system to go after loans. Of course, that is putting good money into the more dubious loans because when there is more money in the capital spending account, all the managers have to get that money out. If they do not get that money out, then they do not get to use it. And so, those things end up being done.

I might say to my hon. colleague that the Liberal approach is, so to speak, a non-ideological approach. I supported, when we had surplus, aggressive tax-cutting regimes, both personal and corporate. I think we have to have a competitive tax regime. That is just reality. We do not live in some sort of isolated universe, free from the tax rates of New York or Michigan or California or whomever our other competitors might be. We have to be competitive with those with whom we trade.

Having said that, we certainly should not enter into ill-advised tax cuts when we are running a deficit of $60 billion. There is dumb, and then there is dumber. That is in the dumb, dumber, dumbest category, that we run tax cuts and destroy our revenue base just when we are trying to dig ourselves out of a deficit hole. I throw up my hands with respect to these folks because I do not really have much hope.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Jean-Claude D'Amours Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the members of the House that it was not very long ago that a good Liberal government here in Ottawa was making sure that the Canadian deficit and debt—particularly the Canadian debt—were decreasing gradually. As we all know, as our debt decreases, we pay less interest, and the less interest we pay, the more services we are able to provide to the public. Then the Conservatives arrived, trying to play God and perform miracles. In less than two years, the amount we paid down on the Canadian debt was completely wiped out, bringing us back to where we started.

What does this mean? It means that we must now pay additional interest that we were no longer paying. Additional interest payments mean that the public is getting fewer services. So who is paying the price?

I am asking my colleague to tell the Canadian public who, in the end, must pay the price for the Conservatives' mismanagement of Canada's public debt and deficit.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:35 p.m.


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Liberal

John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON

Madam Speaker, there is a pretty short answer to that. The member will, everyone watching will, everybody in this chamber will, even the hon. member who is the chair of the finance committee will have to pay for this mismanagement.

The hon. member was not here when Paul Martin was the finance minister, but he would talk about two things. He would talk about a vicious cycle and a virtuous cycle.

A vicious cycle is when we are constantly paying our debt, the debt keeps costing us more and the faster we run, the more the debt ratchets up.

A virtuous cycle is exactly the opposite. A virtuous cycle was entered into in 1997 and it basically ended in 2007. The virtuous cycle is that when we started to pay down our debt and deficit the interest rates would go down with it, and so we could actually pay it down faster. It is a simple concept to understand. Anybody who owns a mortgage understands that if interest rates actually decline and their payments remain the same, the principal amount of the mortgage goes down more quickly. That is a virtuous cycle.

The current government has reversed that. We are now in the vicious cycle. We have ratcheted up the deficit and interest rates are sure to follow.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 4:35 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-47 today, which, once again, is one of the budget implementation bills that we are dealing with before this House.

I have heard a lot of good speeches here today on this particular bill, and a lot of good speeches from the Liberal members as well. However, at the end of the day, the viewing public should know that the Liberal members, regardless of their criticism of this bill, the budget itself or in fact the government, will make certain that enough of their members are not here so that the government does survive. The Liberals have been doing this for the last couple of years, keeping the government in place.

It is great to hear some of the criticisms of the members but the reality is that when it comes time to actually stand up and vote in the House, the Liberals have not had enough of their members consistently here to vote and cause the government to fall.

Regarding Bill C-47, there are a number of implementation issues that are involved with this particular bill. I could get into them one by one, and I am sure there would be very interesting explanations, but I do want to give special attention to one or two items.

One of the big concerns I have coming out of this budget is the increase in the air travellers' security charge by 50%. Up until now, the air travellers' security charge was the second highest in the world, next to Holland. Now, with the 50% raise in the budget, Canada would be the highest taxed in the world for this particular tax.

It only stands to reason that if we are highest taxed in the world, there will be some resistance to that. I will get into what sort of resistance we are finding on the part of the consumers in Canada in a minute. I did want to state that the revenues collected through the tax over the last five years have exceeded the amount spent on security.

Over the last five years, the government has collected $3.3 billion on the taxes, and I think the public would understand if in fact it were spending the same $3.3 billion on airport security. However, that would not be true. The government is only spending $1.5 billion on security. Why would the government increase the tax by 50% when it is only spending a fraction of what it is currently collecting on security in the first place?

What is the result of this move on the part of the government? The result is that the government is turning out to be the best friend of the United States airline industry. We now have information that 50,000 Manitobans are streaming to Grand Forks to fly with United States carriers. I can assure members that 50,000 people are a lot of people.

A very recent article in the Winnipeg Sun detailed what was happening. I have been aware for probably two years now of people driving down to Grand Forks to take flights to Las Vegas and other places. They are finding that the airlines there are able to provide the service for a much lower price.

I have an example for a January 9 flight, a flight that has not even happened yet. The members can simply go out and check their computer and they will find, if there are any seats left, that they can fly from Grand Forks, North Dakota to Los Angeles on January 9, 2011 for $95.98. That is not just the airfare, because the common lead-in with airlines is to give us the low price and then whack us with the taxes. The air fare is $69.99 and the taxes are $25.69, for a total of $95.68.

The equivalent WestJet flight out of Winnipeg is $258 for the ticket and $83 for the taxes, for a total of $341. We can see that is a savings of over $200. If we multiply that for a family of four, we are talking about a significant amount of money. All people need to do is drive the extra two hours to the United States, park their car and fly to Las Vegas or, in this case, Los Angeles.

We are losing business to these carriers and we have a combination of reasons why that is. The strong dollar is certainly an issue here, but we have the issue of the increase in the air tax. Why we do this when we know our tourism is faltering?

We have a Conservative member here who has a bill dealing with a national hunting day. One of the reasons he presented that bill, which, by the way, I hope will get unanimous support in Parliament, is that the tourist operators were complaining. They are suffering. There have been reports of tourist camps that are practically going out of business after being in operation for many years, going through several generations of one family. Now they are having to close their doors because their traffic has dropped off considerably. This is as a result of, once again, the strong dollar, but also the taxation question on the air fares and the issue of passport charges.

This past summer, I happened to be at the Midwestern Legislative Conference. All of the American states are members of various conferences but this conference involves 11 legislatures from midwest states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin; and three Canadian provinces, Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan. I think Barack Obama was one of the delegates to this conference. I have been there probably six years now and in the first year or two, he was one of the delegates.

This group of legislators, composed of Republicans and Democrats, discuss and pass resolutions at their conventions. I was lucky enough to get a resolution passed this year dealing with a reduction in passport fees. We literally had it unanimously passed. As a matter of fact, one of the Liberal Party MPPs from Ontario was the seconder of the resolution at the U.S.-Canada committee of the conference.

When this resolution was introduced and it went through the committee of the conference, it received instant acceptance. It was the one issue of ten or eleven issues that they discussed in the committee that took up about half the time of the committee, with literally everyone there wanting to speak in favour of this resolution. We had legislators from the United States saying what an aggravation it was to have to go through the passport process and pay upwards of $500 for a family of four to be able to come to the conference. These are the legislators saying this. Can we imagine what the average citizen of the United States and Canada would have to say about this?

Through the security provisions that have come about since 9/11, we have continued to fortify the border and solidify the security around the border. Some would argue that it is questionable as to how more secure the border is as a result, but we certainly spent a lot of money doing this.

In a way, however, we have actually harmed ourselves because, when the Americans established the rule that their citizens needed a passport to get back into their country, they cut a lot of activity along the border. When I talk to the border legislators, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, they are of one mind on this. They accept that the bad guys do not stand at the border to try to get through legitimately. The bad buys simply smuggle whatever they are going to smuggle by going around the border, thereby thwarting these increases.

A politician in South Dakota or North Dakota is getting complaints from constituents about the border issue and about not getting enough tourists doing business in their country. On top of that, on the Canadian side of the border we are getting the same complaints about businesses not getting support from Americans. Americans used to come to Canada regularly for many years and now they are not doing it. The dollar has been strong before. During the Diefenbaker years, the dollar was as high as it is right now.

It is a combination of elements that have come together and conspired to make life very difficult for tourism in this country. Rather than coming to grips with the issue and trying to deal with it, the government is throwing roadblocks in the way. Why would there be a problem with 11 American states, Democrats and Republicans who do not normally get along that well with one another on many issues, getting together in conference and passing a unanimous resolution? Coupled with that, there are Canadians from three provinces, Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats, all agreeing unanimously to call on the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States to do something about this.

This was in August. What has happened with this issue? Why would the Prime Minister not take a moment from his many important international trips and conferences to look at this file and pick up the phone and call Barack Obama? Both of them have received this letter from the legislators conference. It is tantamount to getting a letter from the premiers conference in Canada. I am sure when the Prime Minister gets a letter from the premiers conference in Canada, he does not ignore it. I am sure his office responds to it and tries to deal with the issue.

We have all of these legislators showing interest and passing the resolution. The question is why the Conservatives have not done something at this point to encourage the Americans to pull back on this issue. If they have not done it by now, when will they do something?

Many ideas came out of the conference, and it will be up to the governments to come up with whatever the solution might be, but one of the ideas that has been talked about is a two-for-one passport renewal process or two-for-one passport applications in a limited time. The idea is to get the number of passports up. Only about half of Canadians have passports, but only a quarter of Americans have passports. Unless or until we can get the Americans to respond positively to this, I think we will have this continual drag on business at the border.

There are many things the government could be doing. I recognize the strategy of the government is to marshal its resources in such a way as to give it maximum possibilities for a majority government at some time.

We in opposition know that the cupboard is bare, that the Conservatives are running a $56 billion deficit right now. The projections for the future are pretty bleak, and not only will they not be paying down the deficit anytime soon, they will be adding to it and accumulating an even bigger deficit in the long run to offer the Canadian people enough incentive to vote Conservative in the next election.

If the Conservatives plan to introduce a budget in the next few months, I do not really think they will introduce one that says, “Well folks, there is nothing here. We are not going to offer you anything in the election.” That will not work. It has rarely worked in the past. I would be very surprised if they used that approach. No, they will offer a bunch of goodies to the public to try to get their majority and they will hide the fact that the financial situation is worse than what they say it is. This has happened with many governments over the years. I think in one case it was called the “fudge-it budget”, where the government hides the true financial situation in the jurisdiction to get itself beyond the election, and then, surprise, surprise, things are not what they seem.

Let us look at corporate taxes. There are so many issues that one could deal with here with the government. I recall a Conservative member asking a question about tax reductions, and she is obviously a big supporter of them. She was asking a question of the previous Liberal member who spoke. She was talking about corporate tax reductions. I think she said corporate taxes made up 13% of the taxes collected and rest are personal income tax. I have news for her. I do not have the statistics here right now but I know they are available, and within her lifetime there was a time, not long ago, maybe 20 years ago or thereabouts, where the amount of corporate taxes collected in this country roughly equalled the amount of income tax collected. What has happened through successive Liberal and now Conservative governments is that the proportion of taxes raised by the government through taxes on corporations is actually being reduced, and of course, the shortfall is being made up by the public.

So we could forgive the working person in Edmonton—Strathcona or Elmwood—Transcona or any of our constituencies when they look at this and say, “Well, the government is talking about restraint”. Everybody knows there was a slight blip in the economy and a bit of a recession and we are trying to get out of it right now. I think the average member of the public is prepared to say, “I will give a little if you give a little”. But when the public sees that the initiatives of the government are to lower corporate taxes, what is that all about?

The federal government is just arbitrarily reducing corporate tax, phasing it down to 15%, when the Americans are in the range of 30%. For the Americans, I think it is almost double. What kind of studies were done? What kind of advice are the Conservatives taking that would prompt them to just arbitrarily say that they have to start reducing corporate taxes? We are already lower than the Americans, but we will go ahead and reduce them some more.

When my homeowner, my voter, looks at the statistics and sees that during a recession the banks where he is depositing his earnings made $15.9 billion, and then when he finds out that the bank president, the CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, Gordon Nixon, and TD Bank's CEO, Edmund Clark, earned $10.4 million, we have to forgive him for being a little bit confused in wondering what this is all about.

We see the same situation in the United States, where the taxpayers have begun to revolt because they see these big corporations being bailed out. The government likes to pretend that it did not happen but we bailed out the banks. We say that we did not bail out the banks. Yes, we did. We underwrote the mortgages. Remember back in the tough times in 2008 when the Prime Minister was campaigning in his sweater and suggesting that his mother treat the stock market downslide as a buying opportunity? At that point in time, the fact of the matter is--

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5 p.m.


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The Acting Speaker Denise Savoie

Perhaps the hon. member can add some comments in response to questions and comments.

The hon. Minister of State for Democratic Reform.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5 p.m.


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Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia Manitoba

Conservative

Steven Fletcher ConservativeMinister of State (Democratic Reform)

Madam Speaker, this member and I are both from Winnipeg. We represent ridings in Winnipeg.

Listening to the member speak, I have to say that it is very disappointing. The member talked about airline taxes. This is the same member who introduced a private member's bill that would penalize airlines for delays and other things, even inclement weather and other factors outside the airline's control.

In fact, we would not have airlines in Canada if the member got his way with the bill. So it is a bit rich for the member to talk about airlines.

The Winnipeg International Airport is in my riding, and also Magellan Bristol and a lot of aerospace companies. The member is against all these initiatives of this government. All these initiatives, the airport and the aerospace industry, are real jobs, on-the-ground jobs. I recall the Prime Minister making an announcement on the economic action plan and the place was packed with CAW members, Canadian auto workers, and this member is against those members having jobs. I think that is very offensive.

I wonder if the member will admit that the rejection of the NDP in last night's byelection is as a result of the zany, kooky, whacky, irresponsible policies presented by the federal NDP.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Madam Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the government and its air traveller security charge increase now make Canada the highest taxed jurisdiction in the world. We have that distinction, which has forced 50,000 Manitobans to flee from the hon. member's constituency, from his airport in our city of Winnipeg to go south to avoid his taxes, because the airlines cannot afford to pay the rent and pay the taxes that his government is charging.

Furthermore, with regard to the air passenger bill of rights, if the airlines followed the rules, it would cost them nothing. The rules we were proposing under my air passenger bill of rights have already been in the European Union for the last seven years now. Air Canada operates in the European Union. Air Canada pays compensation for overbooked flights, cancelled flights and flight delays in the European Union. When that happens, they would have to do the same in Canada. Inclement weather has nothing to do with it. That would be excluded. The member should know that, if he has read the bill. The fact of the matter is that the bill is no different from Europe's. It would have cost the airlines nothing.

However, this airline tax costs the airlines big time, because 50,000 of their customers are going to the United States and that number is only increasing.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5 p.m.


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Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, the NDP member said in his opening statement that he was going to address the viewing public. He asked why the Liberals continue to allow the government to survive. No matter what, he wants us to defeat the government. That is not a new statement. They wanted us to do that right after the last election.

The member says he wants to be responsible to Canadian taxpayers, that he does not want to waste money. Canadians have repeatedly told us that we must work together. We could not afford an election a year and a half ago. An election would cost over $500,000,000, in these trying and challenging times. Canadians are asking us to try to work things out. The NDP is saying it wants us to defeat the government, that it does not matter.

We do not disagree with what the member said about the airport tax and the cost.

Does my colleague think there would be some benefit if we defeated the government? What would the outcome be? Everybody is predicting that if an election were held now we would have another minority government, whether it be Liberal or Conservative.

I will tell the member, once and for all, we did not defeat the government because we chose to be responsible and we listened to Canadians. We do not believe that wasting more than half a billion dollars would get a different result. With the NDP, it is easy come, easy go. Maybe last night's election is a reflection of Canadians' distrust of the NDP.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, the member walked right into it. The Liberal candidate got thrashed in Vaughan last night. So I would assume that the member is going to be pretty careful in the next little while. I expect him to be backing up the Conservative government for many years to come. On the basis of what happened in Vaughan, I would suggest that he is probably afraid of losing his own seat right now and it is probably going to show over time. My prediction is--

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Why don't you challenge me?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, the member should just go over and join the Conservatives, because he practically belongs in their caucus. He should just--

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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Conservative

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

What is the relevance?

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, can I continue?

I think the member should just bypass the--

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order. As I asked hon. members earlier today, the Chair would certainly appreciate it if one member at a time asked a question and one member at a time answered the question.

There is enough time for one more question and comment. The hon. member for Edmonton--Strathcona.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, the member and a number of other speakers have raised the issue of perverse incentives in the budget. It is reported that, by 2014, given the cuts to corporate taxes that the government has announced, $60 billion worth of Canadian taxpayers' money will be lost at a time when our deficit is rising.

It is one thing to talk about the dollars and cents that are actually in the budget bill, but we need to look at the parallel initiatives of the government that go along with the budget, an example being the terrible, perverse incentives that it is providing to major industries by delaying important regulations to clean up the environment and to reduce greenhouse gases. Billions of dollars are being banked by these corporations as a result of the government's failure to act. That is far worse than the direct perverse incentives of cutting their taxes.

What about the perverse incentives of the government's enforcement of foreign investment law and its decisions on foreign investment, putting lots of money in the coffers of multinational corporations that are not even based in Canada? It is also denying thousands of Canadians badly needed jobs so they can buy Christmas presents for their kids.

So in terms of lost tax revenue, lost jobs, and lost benefits to Canadians, I wonder if the member could speak to that and the perversity of this budget.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:05 p.m.


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NDP

Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her question, but I do want to deal with the member for Scarborough Centre's concerns.

Forgive me if I am a little confused about whether he really is a Liberal or whether he really is a Conservative. Not only are the Liberal Party's actions concerning the budget votes of some confusion for the people in the House and in the public but its position on the military involvement in Afghanistan is a really good issue.

Over and over again the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party leadership have indicated that we will be out of Afghanistan after spending $18 billion and getting questionable results. We were going to end our involvement there, but at the end of the day we find out it was the Liberal Party that was the conduit for getting this deal put in place to extend a training mission for two years at a cost of another $2 billion.

This is when the country is running a $56 billion deficit. We have already spent $18 billion on this war, which has lasted almost 10 years. Now the LIberals have gotten into bed with the government to facilitate once again something that even they did not think they could—

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please. The member's time has expired. We will move on with the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:10 p.m.


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Liberal

Joyce Murray Liberal Vancouver Quadra, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be here today to take part in the debate on Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures.

My speech will be very simple; I would like to discuss two main points. First of all, the Conservatives are mismanaging public money, and the way they waste money is shocking. Second, the priorities they set out in the budget do not meet the needs of Canadian families.

Starting with my first point, this is a government of shockingly bad wastage of public funds and mismanagement.

Of course we have heard already from many of the speakers about the record $56 billion deficit. Having been part of a provincial government wrestling down a deficit, which was in place when the government I was part of came in and took responsibility, I know how difficult it is to reduce deficits.

We have a huge challenge over the coming years. This is a government that does not appear to understand the value of money and does not appear to understand the importance of taking every taxpayer dollar extremely seriously and ensuring that every dollar is put to its highest and best use in the public good.

What we are anticipating from the current government's plans is $156 billion in new debt between 2009 and 2014, which would cost taxpayers $10 billion a year. Every single year, each and every year, that is $10 billion that will not be available for all of the many other things that are priorities for Canadians. That money would essentially be wasted. It would be taken out of the productive economy to pay interest costs.

I would ask my colleagues across the way if they actually believe it would be easier for the next generation to pay down this debt that they are incurring on behalf of Canadians as we speak. It will be much more difficult when there are fewer people in the workforce, when there are more people receiving pensions, when there are more people at an age that would put pressure on our health care system.

When we spend tomorrow's money, it has to be very wisely, and that is exactly what the government does not understand. Apparently, wisely for the government is in pursuit of votes and in pursuit of seats. That appears to be the vision of the current government, unfortunately for Canada and unfortunately for Canadians who deserve and need a vision to address the challenges that we have facing us in the future, the competitive challenges, the environmental challenges, the social challenges.

The wasteful spending has become a hallmark of the current Conservative government.

Again and again we have seen evidence that tax dollars are treated as though they are the private preserve of the Conservative members and cabinet.

I would call part of their wasteful spending the P3 plan. I wish the P3 plan were a plan about partnerships to create value for the future, public-private partnerships to build and create. However, the P3 plan of the current government essentially is about the planes, prisons and photo ops. That is the huge commitments of dollars, the billions of taxpayer dollars that are being committed unwisely and wastefully; for example, $16 billion for the stealth fighter planes.

We begin to trip over the word “billion” as though it did not have meaning. A billion is the number of minutes since Christ was born. A billion is a huge number. If one were to plant a tree every eight feet, a billion trees would be a swath of trees around the equator 400 feet wide. That is a billion. That is a huge number. We need to somehow find a way to have the government understand the scale of a billion dollars when it commits $14 billion or $16 billion for a stealth fighter program without a rationale as to why that actually is the equipment that our troops will need and that our government strategy to protect Canada or to protect our Arctic territory will require, when there is no clear rationale.

In fact, there is a refusal to respond to the Liberals' request for a clear rationale for why this particular equipment with this incredibly high price tag is the right one. That was not forthcoming. Second, these planes failed to have a competitive bid and failed to secure jobs in Canada.

It is just one of the reasons why I have to shake my head, seeing a group of members of Parliament who claim to be pro-business using such woefully inadequate practices for making their decisions in such a way that is so wasteful of the public dollars.

Another issue in the P3 program is the prisons, which appear to be heading towards $10 billion to $13 billion in spending of tax dollars at a time when crime is going down, as I want to remind the members opposite. This is a proposal to focus a huge amount of borrowed public funds, which will need to be paid back by workers in the future, on prisons when the evidence is very clear. In California for example, one in ten Californians is in jail. What has that done for the economy of California? It is not a very positive story.

I would ask the members opposite why the Conservative prime minister of Great Britain is coming forward with a goal of reducing the number of prisoners by 50%. He is a Conservative prime minister. Why would that prime minister be looking at reducing the need for prison cells and reducing the number of prisoners? It is because that is good public policy. What the government is doing is the opposite.

Not only is this an expensive use of borrowed public funds, not only is it bad public policy, but the government attempted to deceive the public as to what the costs of its crime agenda, its punishment agenda, would be. The government claimed a certain bill would cost $90 billion and was then outed by the Parliamentary Budget Officer when in fact the tab was some 100 times higher for the projected costs of prisons that the government will be foisting on the Canadian public.

It is wasteful spending on prisons, planes and photo ops. There has been much said about the photo ops. Again, it was $1 billion for 72 hours of the Prime Minister having his face in the newspapers and in the news coverage. Is that really a priority for Canadian citizens?

Rather than more for less, which is what the business community strives to do, more value at a lower cost, this is a government that has been delivering more borrowing and spending for less result and less value. There has been more borrowing to spend $30 million more on a census that is universally condemned across the country and outside the boundaries of this country for what it will do to frustrate researchers who are trying to provide services to Canadians.

There was more spending on a historically high ad budget that is highly focused on partisan signs to promote the government's agenda. There was more spending on the Prime Minister's office, up $10 million, to increase the Prime Minister's ability to control and spin information, leading to another one of the major critiques. For example, the journalist associations from across Canada, in a public letter, have said that our democracy is at risk with this increasingly secretive government that makes information difficult to access, that holds back freedom of information requests and that hides information and makes it unavailable to journalists who are then finding it very difficult to hold the government to account.

The fourth estate is an essential tool of our democracy to hold the government to account and to enable the public to know whether they are being properly served by their elected representatives, on the government side or not.

Journalists across the country are putting up the red flags and sounding the warning bells that the Conservative government is secretive, hiding information and undemocratic.

The second point I want to touch on in my remarks today is about the priorities of Canadian families and the fact that the priorities of the government, with its P3 program and more borrowing and spending for less value, are not addressing the primary priorities of Canadian families.

First there is health care. I would like to emphasize the importance of care to better health.

Care is very connected with health and the government has ignored the needs for care. It has ignored the predicament of people who take care of their chronically ill loved ones or aging spouses and parents. There is no help for them. The government has ignored the gap between the rich and the poor and Canada's gap will only widen under the policies of the government.

I want to underline that this is a very serious proposition for the well-being of Canadians and our country in the future because the research is unequivocal. Countries that have a lower gap between the rich and the poor have better outcomes on an entire range of indicators that have to do with health, happiness and well-being. Countries that have a low gap between the rich and the poor have fewer suicides, lower child mortality, higher happiness of citizens, better health, stronger families and virtually every indicator of health, happiness and well-being. A country ranks higher on those very important indicators of the strength and the resilience of that country when there is a lower gap between the rich and poor.

The government is doing everything it can in its policies to increase that gap. Where is the Conservatives' anti-poverty plan? Nowhere. That is something on which a Liberal government is committed to providing leadership. Where is their housing strategy? Completely absent. It was embarrassingly obvious during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games that the federal government had completely taken itself out of the business of caring about providing leadership to ensure that affordable housing was available to those who needed it.

Not only are Conservatives not providing leadership to push things forward, they are undermining the leadership that the provinces and municipalities have undertaken to put a safety net under some of the most vulnerable, for example, the Insite facility in Vancouver. All peer reviewed research shows that facility saves lives. That facility puts a safety net under some of the most discouraged human beings in our country. It provides them with a safe place to engage with the health care system, to get the drugs they need to be well when they suffer from HIV-AIDS and to help them prevent passing that condition to others.

It is about compassion, but it is also about preventing the spread of disease and it is about saving lives. The government has gone to endless lengths in the courts to undermine Insite, not to support it, not to partner with the province and the city that support it, but to undermine and eliminate it. It is a shocking abrogation of human responsibility by the government.

These are some of the areas on which the Liberals will provide leadership on: the Liberal family care plan to support those who spend months or years to care for their loved ones, anti-poverty strategy, housing strategy, health care and education.

Education is the foundation of health, success, a wealthy society and a sustainable economy and the solution to the challenges of the future.

Education is very critical and that will be a number one priority of a Liberal government.

The government across the way has chosen to cut dollars for research in the universities, while spending the unimaginable kinds of dollars on signage. Every time the government does anything, it is forcing an expensive sign to be created.

When my constituents drive down the streets of Vancouver and see an economic action plan sign, they think that is another piece of playground equipment that cannot be purchased. The signs are costing an average of $2,000 to $3,000 each. The government wants to advertise its partisan ways using taxpayer dollars.

Why not use it for education? Why not use the dollars for making post-secondary educations more affordable for aboriginal people? Many young aboriginal people have the grades and are eligible but cannot obtain post-secondary educations. This is another equality issue that is tied in with education.

Protecting the environment is not a priority for the Conservatives. On the contrary, they see it as a barrier. They have relaxed the rules concerning the impact of development on the environment.

Shockingly the government is cutting funds for protection the environment. It sees protection as a barrier. Therefore, it is no surprise that it has cut la Fondation canadienne pour les sciences du climat et de l'atmosphère, the very organization that for decades was the steward of climate science. It has had its funding cut and those experiments are now to be abandoned.

They have slashed the energy efficiency program, the only major program for renewable energy.

The government has cut programs and it has cut the climate legislation. This is an uncaring, secretive, controlling, visionless and ruthless government and Canadians are getting tired of it. The bill is just one more expression of the misplaced priorities that ignore the real needs of Canadians.

Sustaining Canada's Economic Recovery ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2010 / 5:25 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

The hon. member will have time for questions and comments the next time this bill is before the House.

The House resumed from December 2 consideration of the motion that Bill C-47, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures, be read the third time and passed.

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December 7th, 2010 / 5:25 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer

Order, please. It being 5:30 p.m., pursuant to order made Thursday, December 2, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill C-47.

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #138

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December 7th, 2010 / 6:10 p.m.


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The Speaker Peter Milliken

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)