Human Resources Committee on Feb. 7th, 2008

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

—when he introduced the advanced manufacturing prosperity fund. If he's just going to read things over and over, it might be useful to add that to the record, to take us through to 11 o'clock.

[An hon. member]

Mr. Chair, is that a point of order?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I'll actually put you on the list, Mr. Savage, if you want to do that.

Go ahead, Mr. Lake.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Can you tell me who is on the list right now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

The list has Mr. Lake, Ms. Yelich, and I've just added Mr. Savage.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Perfect. I look forward to hearing what Mr. Savage has to say.

I'll go back to the beginning of this motion, and it does sound like the same thing over and over again, but I have not yet actually read the same thing at all. I'm reading different motions to different committees.

This one from the finance committee reads:

1) That the Committee recommend to the government, in view of the serious crisis in the forestry and manufacturing sectors, that it implement without delay an improved assistance plan for the forestry and manufacturing sectors, including $500 million to restore Technology Partnerships Canada; $1.5 billion in reimbursable contributions to allow companies to purchase new equipment; a $1 billion diversification fund for the forestry industry, to be administered by Quebec and the provinces and allocated among them based according to the size of their forestry industry; $1.5 billion in support measures for workers affected by the crisis, including $60 million for an income support program for senior workers and a $1.44 billion reserve for the employment insurance fund to be placed in a special fund until an independent fund is created; and that the adoption of this motion be reported to the House at the earliest opportunity.

Again, I would note that this motion is not completely word for word the same as the motion that was brought before us because it has a little more in it, but it actually contains exactly the same words as the original motion put forward by Mr. Lessard, which read:

That the Committee recommend to the government, in view of the serious crisis in the forestry and manufacturing sectors...

I could almost read this by heart now.

...that it implement without delay an improved assistance plan for the forestry and manufacturing sectors, including $1.5 billion in support measures for workers affected by the crisis, including $60 million for an income support program for senior workers and a $1.44 billion reserve for the employment insurance fund to be placed in a special fund until an independent fund is created; and that the adoption of this motion be reported to the House at the earliest opportunity.

As I look at those things, I'm assuming they're all referring to the same thing, which, if I add up the numbers in the finance committee recommendation, it would have been in the neighbourhood of $5 billion they were talking about spending. If I'm wrong--and somebody can maybe correct me if I'm wrong--and they are actually different motions, then we're actually talking about somewhere in the neighbourhood of $10 billion to $15 billion in spending, maybe more in spending on these issues.

If Mr. Lessard gets a chance to clarify that, he could clarify whether we're talking about one motion presented five times to obstruct committee business in five separate committees and potentially eat up 15 hours of House time in concurrence motions, or whether we're actually talking about five completely different motions that would spend in the neighbourhood of $10 billion, $15 billion, or maybe $20 billion of taxpayers' dollars towards this issue. It would be interesting at some point to get some clarification on that if we could.

In terms of the new amended version of the motion, as amended my motion would read:

That the Committee recommend to the government, in view of the serious crisis in the forestry and manufacturing sectors and thirteen years of inaction by the previous Liberal government, under whose leadership we probably still would not have a softwood lumber agreement, that it implement without delay an assistance plan for the forestry and manufacturing sectors, and that the adoption of this motion be reported to the House at the earliest opportunity.

I'm sure the Liberal members of the committee would gladly jump up and support this motion. It really does speak to the problem.

I'm looking forward to hearing from my colleague Mr. Savage when he comes forward to explain his leader's poverty plan. As I mentioned before, if it follows in the Kyoto pattern, it would raise poverty rates by 33% in just a decade. I'm looking forward to hearing his thoughts on that.

Actually, I'm really looking forward to hearing any kind of plan whatsoever. We hear these wonderful pronouncements about these wonderful sounding programs, but we never actually hear anything about a plan to implement those. Maybe we would be talking about raising the GST up to 7% to pay for some of these grandiose plans, as some of the members of the Liberal Party have talked about.

Maybe it will be the cancellation of the corporate tax measures we've announced that will take place over the next five years that will make the Canadian economy the most competitive in the world. Perhaps it will be an increase in personal tax rates. I'm not sure. We don't know yet what it's going to be.

Obviously there will have to be some significant tax increases somewhere along the line to pay for these grandiose plans, because not only has he talked about this unfunded plan to deal with poverty, but there's also the universal child care plan that they've talked about. As we've heard in previous committee meetings, it would cost up to $20 billion a year if every child under the age of five was put in a program such as that. It will be interesting to hear where the funding is going to come from for plans such as that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Mr. Lake, could I interrupt you for a second? You still have the floor.

We have to call this meeting to an end because another committee will be starting in five minutes. I don't know whether the parties want to discuss some different options to amend this when we get back on Tuesday. I anticipate that you'll want this to be first on the agenda again on Tuesday. I suggest that the parties talk to see if they can come up with something more amenable in terms of the motion.

Mr. Lessard, do you have a comment?

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to put some order in our proceedings, since the Conservatives' intention is clearly to prevent us from deciding this motion so that we can go back to the employability question. At this time, Mr. Chairman, it would be appropriate to suspend our proceedings on this motion so that debate can resume on the same motion on Tuesday morning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

That's exactly what will happen. We will start Tuesday's meeting with this motion again. Once again, I encourage all party members to see if there's some way we can strike out “the thirteen years of Liberal inaction” and maybe “the inaction of the current government” and come to something a little closer.

Anyway, we will start with this motion on Tuesday at 9 o'clock. We will come up with a subcommittee meeting that doesn't correspond to the dates. We'll hopefully have that booked by the end of this afternoon.

Ms. Yelich.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I wonder if we couldn't just give them something to think about on the weekend, if we couldn't insert that. Mr. Savage knows that was a silly....

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I suggest you two talk about that and come back with something on Tuesday.

Mr. Lessard is next with one final comment.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

I only have one question of a practical nature, Mr. Chairman. Do you know when you intend to have the subcommittee sit? Will that be tomorrow?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

No. We'll probably have it in the first part of next week--maybe even Monday, if that's possible. I'll have the clerk call around this afternoon to figure out what can be booked for early next week, or at least before Thursday's meeting.

Mr. Savage.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

In light of all the crazy stuff that's been happening in a lot of committees and in Parliament, I want to commend you for arranging the scheduling of this meeting again and for rescheduling the subcommittee. I think that was the right thing to do, and I thank you for it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.