Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-28, the budget implementation act.
It occurs to me that only in Canada could we have a former finance minister who owned a company that registered its ships in foreign countries to avoid paying Canadian taxes and wages. Only in Canada could we have a former finance minister who would reflag his ships in tax havens and replace them with Korean or Filipino crews because they were paid much less. Only in Canada do we allow that kind of behaviour and not hold our ministers to account. I cannot explain it, but all I know is it is completely inappropriate.
We had a new budget presented in February by a new minister. Many of us thought we would see a new course set in the new budget. What we continue to see is the same Liberal direction and the same misplaced priorities.
Canada is a trading nation. Our ranking in the world is dependent on trade. We are very dependent on trade, much more so than people in mainland China who are about 10% dependent on trade and people in the United States who are 15% dependent. Canada exports 45% of our GDP and imports 40% of our GDP, and 87% of that trade is with the U.S.
What is our most precious asset when it comes to trade? Obviously our relationship with the U.S.
We have $2 billion a day in two-way trade across the Canada-U.S. border. Given our need to diversify export destinations while at the same time addressing concerns of our southern neighbours who have expressed great security concerns about border issues and points of entry, the budget should have spent a lot of time addressing those issues and it did not. There was $11 million over the next two years and $5.5 million a year to add regional offices and increase consular presence in the U.S. These are insignificant moneys and much less than what was given to a simple PR program for the softwood associations in the U.S. to affect opinion makers in the softwood lumber dispute.
I find this problematic and I want to talk about some of those misplaced priorities. For example, Canadian infrastructure is a large and current but looming problem as well. We have major problems in the air, on land, and in the sea. The budget did not address those priorities.
Everything the government has talked about in terms of improving our land infrastructure border crossing needs is reliant on a $600 million announcement that is not going to cut it. That program was announced in 2002 and is only a start, it is not comprehensive.
The message that Canada has been sending to the U.S. on our domestic security, international security, border issues and military issues through the budget and in other ways, that we are all too familiar with in the House, is imperilling our long term trading relationship in a major way.
For example, the government collects $5 billion in fuel taxes every year and only a slight amount is returned to transportation infrastructure. In fact, 100% of those taxes go into general revenue. Last year only 4% was returned to highways.
There was a recent spike in gas prices at the pumps. If that 10% increase were to sit there for 12 months, it would represent $350 million in windfall revenue to the federal government. That little increment alone would be more than enough to pay for the spending promises for the Olympics and every other highway spending announcement in British Columbia that the government has made this year. In 2000, the federal government actually spent $400,000 on highway infrastructure in British Columbia alone. It was one-twentieth of 1% of fuel tax revenues taken out of that province. This large increase is actually still minuscule.
What is happening is that provinces are putting 92% of provincial fuel tax revenues into transportation related infrastructure. The federal government is putting in 4%. We need a new direction on this. The provinces and municipalities are the main responsible parties for land transportation and highways. We call on the federal authority to vacate its fuel tax room to the provinces and municipalities. This is essential to our well-being as Canadians.
We have another form of land transportation and that is rail. VIA Rail has cost Canadian taxpayers $3 billion in taxpayer subsidies over the last 10 years. That works out to $10 million per federal constituency. If the average constituency were to think about what it could do with $10 million, its wish list would include a lot things before it would include subsidizing the VIA Rail network. VIA Rail has become a self-protective, self-perpetuating organization which, once again, wants to enter into competition with Rocky Mountaineer, the very route that it wanted to abandon and that Rocky Mountaineer turned into a profitable route. VIA Rail now wants to get back in with a subsidy and the Minister of Transport is buying this argument. This is opposed by communities and chambers of commerce from Kamloops to Calgary, the very route that the rail would take.
I will give another example of misplaced priorities. We have a government committed to Kyoto. We have some exciting wind and wave energy projects on the west coast. Because of a lack of commitment by the government, those projects which have been moving along nicely on the promise of federal contribution have been pulled. That is not what I call commitment to Kyoto. That is something very hypocritical.
In the few seconds left I would like to say that there is a spending side and there is a revenue side. On the revenue side, one year ago Canada Customs and Revenue Agency hired 92 auditors for my province alone to go out and get new revenue. They are beating up on all of the wrong people. That is another misplaced priority and one the government should address.