Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would love to be brief. However, this is an ongoing issue in Alberta. We have seen family after family lose their jobs, their homes, and their livelihoods. We have families coming into my office and asking when they will have an opportunity to work again.
There's a family I spoke to the other day in which there's a landscaper. He lost his job because of the downturn in the economy and he's looking for support. He's looking for help. His wife is a stay-at-home mom of four kids, and they had a flourishing business when the Alberta economy was strong, but now it's a terrible situation for them and for many others.
We also have families from Fort McMurray who have had the terrible situation of losing their jobs. They are now at the food bank, of all places.
I spoke with the food bank in Edmonton, and the Edmonton Food Bank is saying that they are at maximum capacity. I asked them about opportunities and about what would help them and the families they serve. They told us that what they don't need are a lot of the initiatives happening at both the provincial and federal levels.
We talked at length about a carbon tax, and that happens to be in the number one recommendation in the “Alberta Jobs Taskforce Report”. There are 11 recommendations in total, but the number one recommendation is to scrap the carbon tax. It's a burden on already-struggling Albertans, as well as already-struggling families not just in Alberta but across the country. This is particularly true in Alberta because of the high unemployment rate. It hurts the pocketbooks. It hurts the businesses. It hurts everywhere in Alberta.
We have a provincial government that unfortunately is going full speed ahead with that, but also a federal government that appears to be in lockstep with our provincial government.
It's a terrible time for many Albertans, and that's why we launched this jobs task force to begin with. It was a non-partisan approach to—sorry, I get passionate—finding solutions for Albertans and for struggling families.
These are real solutions from real Albertans, everyday Albertans on the ground, who unfortunately have just had an absolutely terrible time in the last year to year and a half. Some may say that it dates back to the beginning of 2015, but things have gotten worse.
As we went through the report...this was done at town halls and round tables with many Albertans who were in tears as they entered and in tears as they left, looking for something that the government could do and could help with. We took their stories, their ideas, and their thoughts, and put them in.
I encourage you to study it. It's only a 35-page report, but it tells their human stories about why they're struggling and what you as a government, and we as parliamentarians, can do to assist them in the process.
The carbon tax is number one, but throughout the report there's a strong focus on youth. In Alberta we're losing a generation of young workers who are graduating at the height, the excitement of their careers, and now they're being told there are no jobs for them. There is no opportunity for them in Alberta.
As we in this room all know, Alberta has been a strong economy in Canada for years, and has really driven our economy. To see that now these young students, whose parents and grandparents and previous generations have been a part of the Alberta fabric, are now having to move out of the province and often out of the country because they can't find work.... Again, this is a whole generation of young people. This is their report. These are their words, the reason we're doing this. You have them in front of you; they're graduating in six months and they're scared. They're in tears asking what to do. How do they combat the closing of all these businesses, all this tax that's now put upon them through the carbon tax and the CPP increases? The provincial government's not helping at all.
We have to do something. I encourage everyone in this room to please look through this report and study what opportunities we have. This is months and months of hard work by me and our Alberta caucus colleagues going across the province, from town halls to round tables to one-on-one meetings in our office to big group events where we asked them about their ideas, their solutions for putting Alberta's economy back on the map.
We often say that a strong Alberta is a strong Canada. We need a strong Alberta to pull us out of this economic downturn. Again, from a non-partisan approach, this is an opportunity to do that. We can show Albertans that everyone in this room cares and everyone in this room wants to help Alberta, wants to support Alberta.
I recognize a lot of colleagues across the table aren't from Alberta, but that shouldn't matter. At the end of the day, this is about Albertans who want to work hard. Often various ministers ask about all the EI increases they've provided, but Albertans don't want the handouts. First of all, it took a while to get the EI extension. We want a solid path forward to get Albertans back to work to ensure that the economy's moving forward, the economy's strong, so we have the opportunity to again contribute to Alberta, to Canada, and be a leader in the country.
I go back to the carbon tax. There is nothing but disdain for the carbon tax and a pleading not to impose a carbon tax. A provincial carbon tax is already in place, and now the federally mandated carbon tax is tearing away at many Albertans, who are struggling to pay their bills. People are foreclosing on their homes, having to sell their cars, moving in with their parents. There's a lot of pride in Alberta, a lot of dignity that's now being essentially eroded by the additional taxes and so on. It's disappointing to us on this side of the table and to our Alberta caucus to not see any real action.
I've pleaded with the members from Alberta. We even called an emergency debate on this topic, and we shared personal stories. The natural resources minister at the time mentioned all the things that have been done already. That's not what Albertans want to hear; Albertans want to hear what you're going to do to allow Albertans to get back to work.
That's the essence of this report. We've looked at every option. We don't shy away from the provincial aspects, but we really focus on what can be done federally. I've done a lot of different media shows, different talk shows, on this. Again, this is a non-partisan report, but we're essentially doing the work of the finance minister for the Prime Minister.
This makes his job a lot easier. This is essentially a blueprint for the finance minister to take into the next budget. It's for him. It says, “This is what we think you should do and this is what we feel is important to help Alberta.” It's been signed off by every single one of my Alberta colleagues, including our leader, Rona Ambrose. It's something that we've all heard in our offices. We've all listened to the phone calls, the emails, everything. We've heard from the oil and gas industry and from the not-for-profits. We've been able to listen in depth and, again, to compile it for the finance minister in doing his work for him.
Again, we're not looking for credit for it. At the end of the day, we're looking for real solutions and real actions for the task force and the government to take to make sure that Albertans get back to work. The food banks and the charities that Albertans have supported for years are now looking to support Albertans. It's sad to see the number of businesses in downtown Edmonton that are closing and the office towers in Calgary that are vacant.
There's a 30% vacancy rate in Calgary. That's insane. Think of that a few years ago, a 30% vacancy. We have an unemployment rate of 9.1%. It has hit 10% at times in Calgary. Who would have thought of double-digit unemployment in Calgary, of all places? Edmonton's rate is slightly lower, around the 8.5% mark, but that's also deceiving, because there is a provincial government and there are unions and so on and so forth, many of which we met with and talked with about this report. They have jobs only because the provincial government has put on a hiring freeze, or a freeze....
These are the facts and figures, but again, behind all these numbers are the many Albertans who have stood in front of many of us and cried. We were elected to be members of Parliament to support those people and to support those families, and to have them in front of you when you say you want to do something and that you're encouraging the government to do something....
We stand up time and time again in question period saying that we need you to do something. We talk to the infrastructure minister, who is from Alberta, and we plead with him to please do something. That's often met with talking points. Granted, maybe that's not where the minister or other ministers want to make announcements, but at the end of the day, something has to be done. We took it upon ourselves as the Alberta caucus to go out and do that work and to take it right to Albertans in community halls. They were packed. We had over 200 people coming to a small community hall just to hear about this and to share their thoughts on what they think the government can and should do.
To think that there is something hyper-partisan about that is absolutely false. This is very focused on what was said at all these meetings. It's incumbent upon us as members of Parliament to bring this forward to ensure it's studied at length to see what possibilities there are from here.... I would encourage you to go through each recommendation one by one. Again, there are 11 of them. It's not entirely onerous to look at 11 recommendations and their possibilities.
Not listening to Albertans will be to their detriment. You will hear that for Albertans the number one thing is to get rid of the carbon tax and number two is to review corporate taxes and to immediately reduce small business taxes. Number three is to reverse the mandatory increase in CPP contributions. These are things that can and should be done to ensure that Albertans get back to work.
You can blanket a country with policies and legislation; however, when you look at the situation that Alberta is in, that doesn't support Alberta.
As I said before, a strong Alberta is a strong Canada, and we need to make sure that we get these people back to work and ensure that they have jobs. The devastation that happened up in Fort McMurray was yet a further blow to Albertans and to a community that has been the backbone of Canada for a very long time. That's not to take away from our communities in western Canada. Saskatchewan is doing great things, as are British Columbia and the rest of the country. However, Alberta has really been an engine of this economy, and seeing the situation it's in right now is something that makes me fearful for its future if nothing is done.
We also heard a lot in the report about the provincial government, which is going full steam ahead with ill-advised policy ideas. However, it appears that this federal government at exactly the same time will give lip service to Alberta and will have the Prime Minister come to Alberta and say that, oh, he had a slip of the tongue, and he's not phasing out the oil sands. The message that sends to Alberta is that he said it once and now he's back in Alberta and he apologizes for it, but if he said it one time, that's one time too many for us in Alberta.
As an Albertan born and raised, I can tell you that anything along the lines of phasing out the oil sands is not something that my tongue would ever slip about. All of us in Alberta, and our caucus especially, recognize the significance of Alberta and the oil and gas sector. We would hope that the other side would do the same.
There are a lot of industries across the country. However, the oil and gas industry is a major industry that we certainly have a strong and proud history of supporting in Alberta. Under recommendation 2, we say, “Honouring decisions of the National Energy Board that will see the approval and expansion of pipeline projects in order to safely get Canadian products to market and create jobs”. That seems simple to do. Again, these are thoughts of everyday Albertans.
The other recommendation they put through is “Reducing the regulatory burden and bureaucratic red-tape on natural resources projects to ensure competitiveness of the Canadian industry.” Again, it seems logical. I imagine all of us in this room would agree, so I encourage the committee to review these in particular and to go into depth about what's needed in order to make them a reality. The budget's coming forward, hopefully soon. We're not yet sure when, but hopefully it will be soon. At that time we would love to see every one of these recommendations in the budget.
I know that the first one, eliminating the proposed carbon tax, is a tough one, a tough pill to swallow. However, on the other side there was the decision to back away from electoral reform. It's about making the right decision when we see what that is. Eliminating the carbon tax would be the right decision to make, especially for Albertans and western Canadians. It hits every single person, every single person who drives a car. Maybe in downtown Toronto you're able to take the bus and there's a more fluent subway system, but we don't have that in Alberta. We don't have that in Edmonton in particular. A lot of us still have to get in our cars. A lot of us still go to the grocery store to buy food that's being shipped from one side of the country to the other. The carbon tax hurts all of us. The intent to reduce emissions—