Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Secretary of State for Rural Development.
First, I cannot resist talking a bit about the right wing rant we just heard from the member for Calgary--Nose Hill when she talked about nine long years.
The throne speech is a real Liberal throne speech based on a Liberal agenda. We are not catering to the right wing ideas of the party opposite, which has been done too much in the past. Today as we set the stage for the throne speech, Canadians have fiscal sovereignty and they are united. We are united as a country and we are a confident people. We can move forward with the kind of economic and social agenda that we can be proud of as Liberals and which meets Liberal values.
I welcome the throne speech. It lays out an important direction. It is a road map for the future and where the government will go in the next several years.
This is a real Liberal throne speech and I am proud to take part in the debate on it. In the throne speech there are some of the issues we campaigned on as far back as 1993 and I will admit that. When we came to power we ended up facing the fiscal deficit that was left as a result of the Mulroney years. We had to get the country's finances in order and we did. We made some tough decisions. Some of them have been mentioned that we made in 1995. We made the necessary cuts and today the foundation is under us to enable us to move forward.
The throne speech breaks the catering to some of the right wing values of the past and moves us forward. It not only builds on a strong economic base but it also builds on a social policy for better health care. It helps families and children. It improves the situation in agriculture. It deals with climate change. It tries to develop a better opportunity for others around the world. It is based on Liberal values.
I was very pleased that the Prime Minister gave caucus members the opportunity to participate and put forward their ideas in the development of the throne speech. I am pleased that a good many of our ideas in the discussions we had as a party are in the throne speech.
I want to quote from the letter I gave to the Prime Minister. I do so because we have to be ever vigilant of our natural resource industries including fisheries, as members opposite yell about from time to time.
Sometimes the difficulty with the heady excitement surrounding new technologies is that we lose sight of the fact that the key enduring strength in the Canadian economy lies in our natural resources: agriculture, fisheries, forestry and mining and the value added that we get from those resources. Those natural resource industries have been the foundation of the country from the beginning and they will remain the foundation. We have to make sure those natural resource industries are well funded in the future. We will do that through the budgetary measures.
Most of those areas were mentioned in the throne speech. The throne speech addresses several of these points and we must be vigilant to ensure that we spend the necessary moneys in the future.
Since my background is in agriculture, I want to talk about it. The initiative outlined in the agricultural policy framework stated as its purpose that the government is committed to “moving agriculture beyond crisis management to greater profitability and prosperity in the 21st century”. This marks a new activist involvement of the federal government in agriculture.
This past June the announcement of the framework was accompanied by a new infusion of funds from the federal government in the amount of $5.2 billion. With provincial cooperation this funding will increase to $8.18 billion for agriculture. This initiative has the support of the farming community and is one which must be built upon further.
The benefits of this initiative depend not only on domestic efforts, but also on the situation our farmers face at the international level. I do not have time to go through the figures and the subsidization levels in the United States and Europe, but they are outrageous. We have to stand by our farmers in the interim.
The United States farm bill and the renewed United States trade actions targeting the Canadian Wheat Board demonstrate that the efforts of the federal government to meet the commitments under the agricultural policy framework will include action in response to the United States agricultural policies and unwarranted trade challenges.
The U.S. farm bill will put about $190 billion into their agricultural industry over the next 10 years. However this new level of protectionism will continue to drive commodity prices down in this country and around the world and will have a direct negative impact on Canadian farmers. To respond to these unfair trading practices and subsidies, the government must be committed to a direct response as outlined in the throne speech, noting that the government will work “bilaterally and multilaterally to resolve trade disputes”.
A more activist government agenda will be one securing the critical infrastructure of our agricultural sector. There must be a strong and aggressive challenge to the United States efforts at undermining the Canadian Wheat Board. We must stand up to the Canadian Alliance as well, which is also trying to undermine the Canadian Wheat Board. The most recent challenge is the 10th effort by the United States. All previous attempts to challenge the board have been unsuccessful.
The federal government must issue a strong statement of support for the supply managed commodity sector, one of the unique Canadian success stories in terms of agricultural management and production benefiting farmers. It must ensure that at the World Trade Organization and other trade negotiations this important institution is not compromised.
As a final point, with respect to resolving trade issues, the rules must be the same across the board. Specifically with respect to the issue of potato wart and mop top virus, the United States has been attempting to negotiate a more stringent quarantine program for Prince Edward Island farmers than the Americans are willing to accept for theirs. That is unacceptable and we must have similar program restrictions for both countries.
I emphasize that in terms of health care the throne speech is moving in the right direction. In terms of environmental protection and climate change, we are also moving in the right direction.
Regional development is one of the areas the Alliance Party always attacks, especially in Atlantic Canada. I want to talk for a moment about what regional development has done for Atlantic Canada in terms of putting it at the forefront in moving forward.
Let us look at business costs. The most comprehensive business cost environment among the G-7 countries is in fact Atlantic Canada. In Atlantic Canada the cost of living is 25% to 65% lower than other regions. Building permits and environmental assessments are done much faster, in a matter of weeks or months. Land costs are in the lowest 5% of locations around North America. We have competitive reliable energy rates. We have a workforce of 1.2 million people who are well educated. We have a strong infrastructure in terms of 16 seaports and 15 commercial airports.
Canada has the second highest rates of broadband penetration in the OECD. We have over 40 colleges and universities. We have a dependable and very strong labour force. The Alliance should listen to this one on taxation. Atlantic Canada has the second lowest average corporate taxes in the G-7.
As well, property taxes are 30% lower and it is one of North America's leading e-learning clusters. We have more than 1,400 training companies. Atlantic Canada is the place to do business. We have been able to do it and maintain our social agenda and it is in part thanks to our regional development agencies like ACOA.