Madam Speaker, the budget brought down by the government should be given points for public perception, and the federal government for improving its image. The impression is given that the government has hit hard. The impression is given that it has reduced the deficit and done everything it possibly could to turn Canada's economy around.
I heard a number of comments in this House that were extremely frustrating for me. One was that this budget was fair and equitable, hard but equitable.
According to the press clippings I read after the budget was tabled, those who complained loudest were the banks, who said it was a very harsh budget.
All the banks said that this government hit their profits very hard, including the president of the Royal Bank. Which means the government came down very hard. In fact, in the budget the banks were asked to contribute $50 million annually, but only for two years, which means a total of $100 million.
Consider that last year, the six chartered banks made a net profit of 4.3 billion dollars. I am talking about net profits, what the banks have left after covering all their expenses and salaries. These are net profits: pure profit. The banks raked in 4.3 billion dollars last year alone for their shareholders and owners.
When the government says in the budget that the banks will be asked to contribute $50 million for two years, this means barely 1 per cent of their net profits for last year. This is all part of a general trend we are seeing in a government that is probably following the example of its Conservative predecessors by supporting the wealthiest in our society. That is very obvious. In fact, not only is the banks' contribution towards paying off the debt extremely small, their taxes have been going down compared with the kind of profits they make. There are statistics and studies that show this very clearly.
I am, of course, referring to those who are among the wealthiest members of our society. The president of the Royal Bank, Mr. Taylor, pocketed over $2.5 million in salaries, bonuses and loans last year. The story is the same for other bank presidents.
Very clearly, this government favours the rich, and the rich are getting richer with this budget and the government's mentality. The proof lies in the fact that the government did nothing about family trusts, that it did not tighten corporation tax credits, and that even subsidies to Canadian business were reduced by only 60 per cent over three years. All this to say that the government has demonstrated its intention to protect the strongest and richest.
If we go to the other end of Canada's social map, we see this government's hard-heartedness, its immorality and its lack of a sense of justice in cutting $300 million in the public housing sector in its budget. Cutting three hundred million dollars in this sector means asking society's most vulnerable people to pay a share three times that of the banks. People who live in public housing earn an average of $10,161 a year-a very long way from Mr. Taylor of the Royal Bank, who earned $2.5 million last year.
In the public housing sector, the government has called for cuts of $100 million this year and the next three. This means that, since 1994, not a single cent has been spent on new housing construction.
Since January 1994, this government has put the key in the door, has not invested a cent in new housing projects even though the demand for low-rent housing has continued to increase. There are 80,000 homeless in Canada, the most beautiful and the best country in the world, as some members of this House would say. Yet this country has 80,000 homeless. Canada needs 600,000 new housing units. Yet not only has this government not invested a cent in new housing, it has cut $300 million from the social housing budget.
That is no longer cutting the fat. However, cutting $50 million is hardly even trimming the fat from the banking industry. Cutting $300 million for social housing is not trimming the fat, it is cutting to the bone with an axe. They are asking the most needy and vulnerable in society to cough up even more than the president of the Royal Bank of Canada. Is that what you would call a fair and just budget? I ask you, Madam Speaker. Not in my opinion. Any Liberal who rises in this House to say that it is is guilty of the greatest hypocrisy of all times, because there has never been a bigger need for social housing in the history of Canada, and it is a basic need.
A $300 million cut to social housing represents a 10 per cent cut in the annual operating budget of each low-rent building in Canada. That means that the window that lets in the cold will not get repaired this year. The roof will go unrepaired. That means that the building itself will continue to deteriorate.