Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on this opposition day motion, which states:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should initiate immediate discussions with the provinces and territories to provide municipalities with a portion of the federal gas tax.
I have listened to the debate throughout the day. I think there is a consensus with regard to the importance of the health and well-being of our cities and our municipalities.
I have often thought, quite frankly, that large municipalities have attracted away large numbers of people from smaller communities. They have not only the best but they have the worst, because they also have become what is often referred to as “the doughnut hole”, in that people do not really live there during off business hours. People just go to the big cities for their business and maybe for some of the major entertainment things, but as for the people who live there, in fact this is the urban magnet situation, where those looking for social services et cetera have been coming.
It reminds me of the report that was funded by the federal government with some $800,000. It was a report on the homeless situation in the Toronto area. As I recall, the report found that 35% of the homeless in Toronto were suffering from some form of mental illness. Twenty-eight per cent of the homeless in Toronto were youth who had been alienated from their families and of which 70% had experienced either physical or sexual abuse. Some 18%, I understand, were aboriginals off reserve. About 10% were transient women on the streets, more likely than not victims of abuse or other difficulties.
Large urban centres have tended in the past to get a disproportionate amount, I believe, of the support from programs, but I also believe that maybe that has been to the detriment of the ability of other communities with the potential to have more vibrant economies, with the potential to attract and keep a skilled labour force, to attract business and economic development, to create wealth there, to grow their population, and to provide safe, secure streets and a safe community in which to raise children.
I have often thought that we need to look at an appropriate balance, because everyone cannot live in large major centres. That is not to say that large major centres should not get support, but I asked this question earlier of a previous speaker. If we are talking about the $4.8 billion of federal gas tax and having a portion of that shared, if we are to disburse that to all the municipalities and cities across the country, there are a lot of municipalities and cities, every one with their hands out. How much would be significant or how much would be appropriate to make a meaningful difference in terms of the ability of that community to match dollars and to make something happen?
Maybe there has to be a little more discussion about which are the have cities and municipalities and which are the have nots, and about what our responsibility is to ensure that every community with reasonable potential has an opportunity to share equitably in whatever resources may be available, whether it be through a sharing of gas taxes or an authorized infrastructure program or some other cost sharing program that Parliament has approved.
I wanted to put that on the record as a preamble of other aspects of this issue we should be discussing. I should give some background information about the tax we are talking about.
This excise tax is 10¢ per litre on gasoline and 4¢ per litre on diesel. It does raise about $4.8 billion per year in revenues for the federal government. This is not a dedicated tax. It is not dedicated for investment in roads, repairs or other automobile or transport related infrastructure.
These moneys are not dedicated and in fact go into the general revenues, as members have pointed out all day long, into the consolidated revenue fund, and are used to support a broad range of programs obviously valued by Canadians, including things like the Canada health and social transfer, which takes care of not only health care but post-secondary education, welfare and the social supports needy Canadians must have to be able to survive in dignity.
The government recognizes that healthy communities and competitive cities are vital to the collective and individual well-being of Canadians. I have said in my speeches in this place that I honestly believe that the measure of the success of any country should be the measure of the health and well-being of its people. How are the people doing?
In this regard, we should probably talk about the health and well-being of the people in smaller communities, communities with potential, communities that have not been big players but maybe should be big players in terms of economic development and in terms of population growth, skills development and industrial development.
Not everyone has to live in the large urban centres. Not everyone has to work in downtown Toronto, Calgary, Montreal, Vancouver or Halifax. All those cities have problems. They have large population bases, on a relative basis for their size, but look at the problems, at the urban magnet. I was talking about the homelessness report earlier. Forty-two per cent of the homeless in Toronto did not come from Toronto. They came from other communities, from communities that did not have the social supports to care for those people in need. These people migrate. They migrate to the large urban centres where the money has been poured in. That is where the social supports are. That is where they can live on the streets and get all the things they need.
There seems to be a counterproductive trend that has taken place. It is the urban magnet thing. If we keep pouring into the major centres, we are creating more gridlock, more pollution and unhealthy environments.
Yet in my own community, the City of Mississauga, our mayor has admitted openly that the city has been planned in a way that is not conducive to public transit. We have developed communities where we need to have cars to get out of our neighbourhoods to go to the grocery store, to go to the big box stores. This is the kind of thing our urban planners really have to be cognizant of. It is not a matter of how many people we can shoehorn into a neighbourhood; it is how a neighbourhood can be a vibrant, synergistic community where things like public transit are viable.
The City of Toronto has in perpetuity had problems with the Toronto Transit Commission. It constantly has its hand out saying it needs more money because it cannot keep its trains and tracks in good order and it does not have enough people using it. I think I know why it does not have enough people using it: because the Toronto Transit Commission has one of the highest transit fare prices in North America and people are looking for alternatives. People do look for alternatives. If the prices were reasonable and competitive, maybe people would then start reusing it, but I think it has jaundiced the situation simply by maintaining high levels of transit costs.
We are talking about supporting Canadian communities. I hope the member who moved the motion and his party are talking about communities that need that hand up, that lift, that boost to allow them to develop that economic base to attract skilled people, to attract the industry, to be able to generate the wealth within their community so that they can invest in their own community and continue to grow.
It makes a lot of sense strategically. If the federal government is participating in cost shared programs and they must be cost shared. There have been far too many examples where moneys have been given by the federal government for specific purposes and moneys have ended up in bank accounts and forgotten about. It happens time and time again. It happened in the province of Ontario with Mike Harris, the former premier. It was unbelievable that about $500 million was put in a bank account and forgotten about.