Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I am pleased to inform Canadians about how our Conservative government is successfully implementing the initiatives in our economic action plan to promote jobs and growth and support families and communities. Our initiatives, which are part of Canada's economic action plan, greatly benefit families in rural regions, such as my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.
One of the important requirements of municipalities that is being met by our federal Conservative government is the provision of long-term predictable funding for infrastructure. I am very proud of our government, as it has delivered a new building Canada plan to help finance the construction, rehabilitation, and enhancement of infrastructure across my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. As the people in my riding know, they have been abandoned by the Liberal Party of Ontario. Unlike the Province of Ontario, which discriminates against rural Ontario by withholding provincial gas tax revenues, our federal government returns gas tax revenues to the municipalities to do the needed infrastructure upgrades and take the pressure off the property tax base, which, along with the high electricity energy prices, is forcing people on fixed incomes, like seniors, out of their homes.
Through the now-permanent and indexed federal gas tax fund, last year communities in my riding made needed infrastructure repairs. Communities like the Township of McNab/Braeside received almost $221,000 for road reconstruction. Madawaska Valley received approximately $134,000 to reconstruct Tamarack Road; and the Township of Laurentian Valley received almost $600,000 in federal gas taxes to resurface or reconstruct five roads in 2013: Ema Street, Spruce Street West, Whispering Pines Crescent, Vaudry Drive, and B-Line Road. North Algona Wilberforce received over $98,000 to begin work on Marsh Road, to resurface Snodrifters Road, and to construct a dry storage shed for salt.
The Township of Admaston/Bromley received $83,000 to resurface South McNaughton Road. The City of Pembroke received almost $860,000 to reconstruct the Pembroke Street Bridge, as part of an ongoing federal contribution since 2011 to fix various streets and replace water and sewer lines, amounting to over $1.7 million. The County of Renfrew received $2.5 million for road resurfacing and rehabilitation. The Town of Renfrew received $250,000 in federal gas tax dollars to rehabilitate Queen Street. In 2013, Petawawa received almost $0.5 million for Herman Street, with a cumulative federal gas tax fund total for that project amounting to almost $1 million.
The Township of Whitewater Region received $378,000 to resurface Pleasant Valley Road and Rapid Road and Bromley Line Road to the end. The Town of Arnprior received $360,000 for roadwork; and the Township of Bonnechere Valley received over $93,000 to reconstruct and put a new surface on Crimson Maple Road.
The Town of Deep River received $96,000 for work at the W.B. Lewis Public Library parking lot and sidewalk. The Township of Killaloe-Hagarty-Richards received over $24,000 for sidewalks, and $150,000 for roads and culverts. Horton Township received $40,000 for roads. The United Townships of Head, Clara, and Maria received $23,000 for HVAC improvements.
Greater Madawaska received over $84,000 to pay down debt on a waste management project started in 2005, for a cumulative total of over $400,000, and other federal funding of $225,000 for a total project cost of $1.2 million. The Township of Brudenell, Lyndoch and Raglan received over $180,000 to resurface a 2-kilometre section of the Jewellville Road and a 3.5-kilometre section of the Addington Road. The Township of South Algonquin received $226,000 to do Hay Lake Road repairs, and to repair Maple Drive, Galeairy Lake, and Algonquin Street.
In total, in 2013, $6.9 million flowed to my riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, generating over $20 million in municipal construction activity.
I remind municipalities, particularly municipalities in Ontario, that the backroom advisors in Toronto who devised the policy to discriminate against rural municipalities and only pay out the provincial gas tax revenues to urban communities have surrounded the inexperienced leader of the Liberal Party here in Ottawa. They want federal gas tax dollars to pay for failed social experiments, like the industrial wind turbines that no community wants, and have cancelled the gas plants.
They refer to the industrial wind turbine white elephants as a green initiative to save the environment. In fact, the Liberal Party in Ontario is being sued for $653 million for manipulating the so-called Green Energy Act by using “political favouritism, cronyism and local preference”, according to the court filing. Compare and contrast that with the long-term predictable funding associated with the way our federal Conservative government manages federal gas tax funds to municipalities.
Just ask the president of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, AMO, what he thinks of federal municipal partnerships. He said we are open, honest, and transparent.
Moreover, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has acknowledged that our tax relief has successfully targeted low and middle-income families. He said, “Cumulative tax changes since 2005”, which is when our government took office, “have been progressive overall and most greatly impact low-middle income earners (households earning between $12,200 and $23,300), effectively resulting in a 4.0 per cent increase in after-tax income”.
The federal tax burden is at its lowest rate in 50 years. We have removed more than one million low-income Canadians from the tax rolls entirely. The average family of four will save nearly $3,400 this year, and a small business with revenues of around $0.5 million now saves over $28,000 in taxes, thanks to our low-tax plan.
It is clear that Canada has become an international success story, but Canada is not immune from economic challenges beyond our borders. Those challenges include foreign dirty money funnelled to special interest groups to implement policies that would kill jobs in our forestry and energy sectors. Our government is clear that as long as Canadians are looking for jobs, we will not pursue policies, particularly ones based on junk science, that will put ordinary working Canadians out of their homes and out of work.
With that, I will now turn to the measures in today's legislation that would build on our success and ensure that we would continue to keep Canada on track for job creation and balanced budgets. First, Bill C-43 reaffirms the government's commitment to making our tax system simpler and fairer. It closes tax loopholes and strengthens tax enforcement to ensure that taxes are low for all taxpayers, not only a select few. Allow me to highlight some of the measures we have taken to improve the fairness and integrity of the tax system.
I would like to close my initial comments by saying that for the first time, according to The New York Times, middle-income Canadians are better off than Americans. That is something Canadians can be very proud of. I urge my parliamentary colleagues to support their country by voting in favour of all the good measures contained in Bill C-43.
