Evidence of meeting #9 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was money.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
I don't want to argue the merits of pay equity. I asked you a general question of why these non-economic issues found their way into the economic stimulus package. If you're asking us to buy your story, why don't you show how sincere you are about getting the money out the door and back off some of these irritants that make it so difficult for us to deal with it?
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Sir, I'll let you finish, but I have to ask you this. We're worried about the partisan spending of some of this money; let's get the cards on the table. And one thing I wrote down that I'm worried about is when you said “vote against the budget and you will get nothing”.
Is that some kind of a veiled threat, that those of us who vote against the budget won't see any money flowing into our ridings?
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
No, that's the reality, Mr. Martin, that if you vote against the budget, you don't get any money, because there is no money to give out. All money comes through Parliament. That is the reality.
Now, the issue on pay equity.... You seem to classify that as a non-economic issue. How can that be? It involves expenditures of money, which involve the implementation of a human right. So in order to ensure—
NDP
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
Absolutely, and that's what we're so concerned about. In the past, that has been negotiated away. In the future it will not be negotiated away. Everyone coming--
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
It would have to be a matter for collective bargaining, if you take away the other avenue as a recourse.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
No, let me finish.
Pay equity ensures the appropriate compensation of women in the federal sector, and we will ensure that the principles of pay equity are incorporated into the collective bargaining process so that no decisions can be made without taking pay equity principles into account. At present, in a collective agreement situation or a bargaining situation, the union and the employer can bargain and arrive at whatever agreement they want, regardless of pay equity. They can simply ignore pay equity, and that's wrong.
For example, in Quebec--
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Well, I think it's wrong to have things like health and safety and pay equity at the bargaining table, because if you want to keep pay equity out of the negotiations, you offer people an extra buck an hour, and nine times out of ten they'll take it. That's why human rights and health and safety don't belong at the negotiating table. They belong in other avenues of recourse.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
The principles of health and safety and pay equity are fundamental to collective bargaining, and anyone who goes into a collective bargaining situation saying they can ignore health and safety and they can ignore pay equity is wrong. They have to take those into account.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
They're non-negotiable. I've negotiated a lot of collective agreements, and I would never allow the employer to bring health and safety to the bargaining table because it's non-debatable and non-negotiable. The same applies for fundamental rights like pay equity.
Liberal
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for appearing this morning. I have a very quick comment, and then I want to ask a question about the infrastructure and lapsing funds.
My first comment is that you keep saying the programs to which the $3 billion will be applied are outlined in the budget. I will point out that the budget provides for total expenditures of almost $250 billion, and to say that the programs for the $3 billion are included in that is extremely broad, and in my view a completely inadequate answer for a $3 billion blank cheque.
I have two questions on infrastructure. The first one is specific. When we talk about the Building Canada fund and other infrastructure money, there remains some question about the money that has been unspent. By far the majority of the Building Canada fund has been unspent. You mentioned that it had been signed in September. The Building Canada fund was announced in 2007, sir, but a significant majority of the Building Canada fund money has not been spent.
Will that money be allowed to lapse at the end of this fiscal year, or will it actually be brought forward into the 2009-10 budget?
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
Let me just clarify that the agreements are signed with the provinces in order to flow the Building Canada fund money. The agreement, for example, that I said was signed in September 2008 was in one of those provinces, Manitoba. That's when that particular agreement was signed. So to suggest that money was available to Manitoba in 2007 under that particular fund is simply wrong.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
It became available in September 2008, and the process now in Manitoba is to identify the particular projects that we hope to have identified in the next little while.
But there are three parts--
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
Minister, that's actually not my question. I appreciate your clarification.
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
I appreciate your clarification on Manitoba in particular, but the Building Canada fund was announced in 2007. Very little of that money has been spent. The question is very specific. Will the money that has been allocated for the Building Canada fund be allowed to lapse, or will it be carried forward?
We are talking well into the billions of dollars here.
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
I understand that. There are certain commitments that the Government of Canada has as a result of the signing of the individual provincial agreements. So there are--
Liberal
Martha Hall Findlay Liberal Willowdale, ON
This is money that was specifically approved and allocated. So the question is simple. Will that money lapse?
Conservative
Vic Toews Conservative Provencher, MB
Yes, I understand what you're saying. Where there is money that has been committed, that money flows.
