Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share time with the hon. member for Acadie--Bathurst and pick up the debate where he left off. I want to express my outrage too that the member for Peterborough would dare to suggest that somehow students are better off today than they were 10 years ago. If we look at any report from StatsCan, from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, or from the Canadian Federation of Students, all the factual information tells us that students are worse off today in terms of a higher debt load and higher tuition because of the massive retreat of public funding in post-secondary education.
One of the questions I wanted to raise in my response to the throne speech, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to do this, was to point out how the throne speech was presented to us. We heard a Liberal member across the way say over and over again that it was a solid speech. That kind of solid speech reminds me of Jell-O; it is nice to look at but eventually it just turns to mush.
I come from British Columbia where people are really hurting because of the massive cutbacks by Gordon Campbell and his provincial Liberal government in health care, in education, in child care, in social assistance payments. The people in my riding were looking to the throne speech and yes, they were looking for something solid. They were looking for some clear statements from the government, for example, that it would uphold the Canada Health Act and stop the privatization that is happening in British Columbia and elsewhere across the country.
People were looking to the government for some solid statements that there would be some standards to ensure there would be accessibility for students who want to go into post-secondary education. We do not want to see more reports out of StatsCan that tell us the chances of a low income young person or even a middle income young person getting into university are now much decreased because they simply cannot afford to pay the tuition which has gone up 136% in the last 10 years.
People in my riding of Vancouver East were looking to see some solid commitments on the housing front. I read the press release “Time to start building new housing” from the National Housing and Homelessness Network which has done a tremendous amount of work on this issue. It said in response to the throne speech:
We can start building the housing and providing the services tomorrow, if the federal government would only make the commitment today.
What we saw by way of commitment was just more promises that the federal government would deal with the housing issue. The reality is the $680 million over five years that was earmarked last November does not even come close to the 1% campaign that many groups and the NDP have endorsed which would produce what is actually needed, which is about 20,000 new units per year. That figure comes from CMHC. It tells us that we need new units in those kinds of numbers to deal with making housing prices affordable in this country.
The throne speech was a huge disappointment to the millions of people who were looking for leadership and a real commitment to deliver these promises that we have seen recycled so many times.
I also want to raise the promises that were made around the child tax benefit. One of the concerns I have in the throne speech is that the government is using language that talks about the cycle of poverty and dependency. It leaves the impression that people on welfare and single moms and their kids need to be motivated off social assistance. The reality is that the child tax benefit the government is so proud of does not go to the poorest of the poor. It does not go to families on social assistance. Therefore when we talk about dependency, it is a dependency that is created by public policy. It is a failure of public policy.
I would like to ask a question of the government, in particular the HRDC minister, who was quoted in the press as saying that the government would increase the child tax benefit. I would like to know whether or not the government is finally going to acknowledge that when it created this program it did it with a fatal flaw which was to deny the poorest families in Canada access to the child tax benefit by clawing it back. That is something we absolutely have to see change.
The Canadian Council on Social Development pointed out that the resolution which came from the House of Commons in 1989 by the then leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, said that we would eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. In actual fact what has happened between 1984 and 1999 is that the wealth of the top 20% of families rose by 43% and the net wealth of a median couple fell slightly, but the median income of the bottom 20% of earners fell by 51%.
I ask government members, is this any measure of success? It is a measure of failure.
I also want to spend a few minutes talking about the so-called promises in the throne speech to our urban centres, Canadian cities. About 80% of Canadians live in the urban environment. In fact, the throne speech said that there would be a 10-year commitment to an infrastructure program.
It has to be said that we have had enough of these on again, off again infrastructure programs. We need a permanent program that defines a new relationship with Canadian municipalities. It is outrageous that $4.6 billion is collected in gas taxes from municipalities and only $400 million of that goes back into transportation. Virtually none of it goes into public transit.
The throne speech said nothing about developing a new relationship with cities. It said nothing about some of the proposals put forward by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. It said nothing about creating a standing committee on urban affairs. There are committees on every other conceivable topic, but when it comes to something that affects 80% of the population, there is no indication the government is getting the message. The throne speech was a failure on that score as well.
The FCM even put forward proposals to reduce greenhouse gases by 40 megatonnes. This would meet 20% of Canada's commitment on Kyoto. Here we have a very concrete proposal on a hugely important issue to all of us. What is the response from the federal government? We have no idea of what the government's plan is to implement Kyoto. In fact, the NDP has been pressing this in our caucus repeatedly over the last five, years asking where the government's plan is to meet Canada's commitments on Kyoto.
I will end my comments by coming back to post-secondary education. When we look at the throne speech, we see there was nothing in there that actually delivered a promise or a commitment to students who are really hurting. They are still in a big black hole. There is still unfair discrimination against students who are facing the 10-year bankruptcy law that is hanging around their necks. Even though a recent federal task force said that this bankruptcy law is very unfair, there has been no response from the government.
There is still no sign of any sort of coherent public policy based on accessibility for post-secondary education and based on a publicly administered system. As a result of the federal government withdrawing public funding we are seeing an increase in privatization. This is something we should be very worried about. We have had a very long tradition of publicly administered post-secondary education which is now in danger of being jeopardized as a result of the irresponsibility shown by the government.
I will close by saying that these are issues that we in the NDP will continue to press. We will continue to raise them with the government. We do believe in balance. We do not think it is balanced for the government to say it is fair to hand out $100 billion in tax cuts that benefit huge corporations and wealthy people, when the people at the bottom end up with nothing. That is the real proof of what is going on with the government's record. That is what the NDP will stand up against and hold the government to account for.