Mr. Speaker, this is the second time you give me the opportunity to speak to the budget. You will remember that the first time I spoke, I kept to my own subject area, the budget provisions pertaining to better living conditions for women. At that time, I had said that this federal budget did not meet the needs or ease the concerns of women, and that, contrary to what the minister claimed, it did not recognize the fundamental link between social policy and economic policy.
For that first speech, I had to make a choice because I thought, probably in a naive way, that this budget would be reworked and amended until it really did meet people's needs. However, we must now admit that there are 19 amendments standing on the Order Paper and that the issue is still not settled.
Several of those amendments affect me and my constituents, particularly the school boards. For example, the Mille-Îles school board is now doing all it can in order to have a certain right recognized. I will come back to that later on. Besides that, the microbreweries also have to struggle very hard to keep afloat. There are many other amendments, and they relate to the whole budget.
I have to say that this budget is disappointing, I will, however, try to express some of the ideas brought forward by my colleagues from all parties. The budget really illustrates the size of the fiscal imbalance. If we had to remember one thing about the 2003 budget, it would be the fact that the federal government has a lot of money but that it iss not giving much to the provinces, while we all know that most of the needs are in the provinces.
The money is often dedicated to the wrong priorities. The money in the surplus is being spent in a number of areas of jurisdiction belonging to Quebec and the provinces. We all know that the federal government does not hesitate to create new agencies duplicating what is being done in the provinces. Education, health and childhood are good examples of that.
I am coming back to the forgotten ones. There are of course the women and the elderly, but there are also the self-employed workers, the unemployed and all those workers paying employment insurance premiums. It is well known that the people of Quebec and in the regions are seriously affected by the difficulty in getting access to EI benefits
Since most part-time workers are women and these other people, that their status is often uncertain, that they are often self-employed and that these jobs do not allow them to accumulate the 600 hours of work required to be eligible for maternity benefits, parental benefits or sickness benefits, women, amongst others, often have to rely on social assistance to meet their needs.
Relaxing the eligibility criteria of the employment insurance program would have demonstrated that the government recognizes the fundamental link between social and economic policies. Besides, women have asked their MPs, their representatives, that the EI fund surpluses be used to increase benefits, to extend the benefit period, to make the system more accessible and to improve maternity and parental leave. Unfortunately, there are no such measures in the budget. None of those changes have been made.
I could also talk about the ceiling on RRSP contributions. The government announced an increase on the limit for RRSPs, and even at the current $13,500, it is not something women can take advantage of. So, this change was discussed but not accepted.
I mentioned school boards earlier. In clause 64, the members of the Bloc Quebecois would like any reference to retroactivity removed. In his budget, the Minister of Finance announced his intention to amend retroactively those provisions of the Excise Tax Act dealing with school bus transportation. Through this retroactive measure, the minister will be able to set a new contribution for school boards, in spite of all the decisions handed down by the courts after December 21, 2001.
The purpose of this measure is clearly to strike down decisions in favour of the school boards with regard to a refund of the GST paid on school bus transportation. This retroactive measure is a very serious affront to the rule of law and the authority of a final judgment, which is probably unprecedented in the Canadian parliamentary system.
Let me remind hon. members that, in October 2001, 29 school boards in Quebec won their case before the Federal Court of Canada, which recognized school bus transportation as a commercial activity entitling them to a full refund of the GST. The Commission scolaire des Milles-Îles was one of these school boards. Under the court decision, Ottawa was to refund the overpayment on the GST, which amounts to approximately $8 million.
After many developments of a technical nature, last January, the matter ended up before the Tax Court of Canada, where the federal government did accept, in a settlement, to comply with the trial judgment, provided that the school boards withdrew their appeals to the Federal Court of Appeal. The federal government agreed to apply the judgment to Ontario school boards, whose case was pending. So, there was a setllement.
The budget brought down a few weeks later completely reversed this commitment by the federal government.
This is why the Commission scolaire des Milles-Îles and the other school boards are asking that the rights they had before December 21, 2001, which they protected by filing their claims with the Tax Court of Canada before that date and for which they received a successful final decision before the February 2003 budget, be restored and respected.
There are other elements that I want to talk about. They are the measures that were announced to respond to provincial health needs, and they are inadequate. When we debated the motion this morning to recriminalize abortion or to ask the Standing Committee on Health to study the issue of abortion once again, the women who sit in the House tried to drive the point home to our colleagues who introduced the motion that, if there were more funds for health care and if there were more funds to help mothers, children and families, we might not have had to discuss this motion on abortion.
I think that this budget is also disappointing with regard to housing. It was not taken into consideration in the 19 recommendations. Nor were the six weeks of compassionate leave. What are we going to do with these six weeks of employment insurance when a person has terminal cancer? We must provide more, sometimes three or six months, or even a year.
I will conclude by saying that this budget is disappointing. We did not win. We are not being heard at the Standing Committee on Finance. This is why the Bloc Quebecois will vote against this bill.