Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak at third reading of Bill C-48. My colleague the member for Kings--Hants has had carriage of this piece of legislation. He is now with the finance committee somewhere across the country and it has fallen to my delicate hands to take it to the next stage.
Our party will be supporting Bill C-48. I appreciate that the members from the Bloc, and certainly the member speaking after me from the NDP, have different philosophical positions with respect to business management and labour. Certainly their philosophical positions will come out in their opposition to this piece of legislation. The NDP and the Bloc make no bones about it that they are not friends of industry. They are not friends of business. They are not friends of being able to generate the economy in the natural resources sector.
I appreciate my colleague from the Bloc helping me in protecting Manitoba with respect to this legislation. He indicated many times that Manitoba would be the net loser should this bill go forward. I do not agree with that. I believe in competition. My province of Manitoba has certainly seen the benefits and the opportunities in the mining sector. It sees the benefits and opportunities certainly in the natural resources sector. As a matter of fact, the majority of Manitoba's GDP is from natural resources, whether it be agriculture, mining or forestry. We see that there are advantages.
As a matter of fact, Manitoba has put in quite a number of changes to its own tax system, tax rate and royalty system to encourage mining. We have some very large mining operations in Manitoba with Inco and Falconbridge. We want to continue to be able to compete in the world market. In order to do that Bill C-48 corrects some of that inequality.
We were somewhat dumbstruck when it was brought forward in the 2000 budget that there would be a reduction in the general corporate income tax rate from 28% to 21%. We were actually thunderstruck when we found out this did not include the natural resource industry. Oil and gas, minerals and mining were excluded from the 2000 budget. I do not know whether the NDP at that time stood up and said wow.
There is a huge industry that has been neglected. Bill C-48 brings that back into line. There is an equity issue that has to be resolved and Bill C-48 resolves it by adding the mining sector to the reduction in the tax rate from 28% to 21%.
There are other issues with respect to the legislation. There are phase-outs. Certainly the 25% phase-out is going to have some concerns. My colleague from the Bloc spoke to that. Manitoba will have a reduction in revenue streams because of that tax reduction.
That may be true, but we also have enough foresight to recognize that there should well be revenue streams or revenues increased by encouraging exploration, by encouraging mining operations to come into Manitoba, northern Manitoba specifically, and by encouraging these industries to not only explore but process the raw materials they extract from the earth. This is what we were built on and this is what we want to continue to do. We want to encourage that so there will be more union jobs developed in Manitoba, so union jobs can be increased in the sector that this is trying to assist. Bring equity back into the system.
I hear somewhere in the background the member from Windsor suggesting perhaps that is not the case. As I said at the outset, there are philosophical differences. I believe in the private sector developing economy. I believe in that. Also I believe that profit is not a dirty word. That may send them into apoplectic shock, but the fact is there has to be profit in a sector.
There has to be profit in an industry in order for that industry to reinvest in itself and reinvest in its employees, in their training and their pension plans. That is what the economy is all about. I do not have to lecture the member for Windsor West on economics 101, but I do have to lecture the member and say that the inequalities in the industrial sectors do not bode well for Canadians.
We do have tough competition in the oil and gas and the mining sectors. We have competition offshore. China has some very strong advantages compared to us. The labour costs in China are substantially less than they are in Canada. We have to compete in the way we can and that is obviously in our tax rates. We cannot take from the industries so often that they are not able to reinvest back into this area.
I appreciate the Bloc's position on most of the issues. The Bloc members are suggesting that there will be revenue losses. I appreciate the Bloc trying to protect Manitoba, but we really do not need that protection. We can look after ourselves.
More than that, I am sure the Bloc's concern is more about the federal-provincial jurisdictional issues as it always is. Obviously the Bloc has some difficulties with the federal government getting involved in any kind of provincial jurisdiction. This is one of those areas. When Bill C-48 becomes law, it will be necessary for the federal government to work with the provincial governments to ensure that the resulting provincial revenues are redirected to the affected mining industry.
Basically, my good friends in the Bloc are telling the federal government not to step on Quebec's jurisdictional toes. In fact, this is a federal responsibility. Bill C-48 is a federal responsibility in setting tax rates for the industry. It is up to the government to set those rates.
There is never any perfect legislation. We certainly know the government is not perfect; that is an understatement. We know there could have been amendments--