Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying to the member for Peace River that I had an opportunity about three weeks ago of being on VIA 1 and we went through part of his community. I want to say that he represents a beautiful part of the country.
I agree with the member in a lot of what he had to say. We have all been in our ridings in the last couple of weeks. I come from downtown Toronto. I do not have to tell anyone in the House how we are being devastated in the tourism sector which is the largest employment sector of our economy.
There are over 10,000 chambermaids in the greater Toronto area who in the last three weeks have been laid off. Because the machinery of our government in the employment insurance section is broken they have to wait six weeks before they get a cheque. That is how long it takes. Many of those people have to pay their apartment bills and they need that cheque every two weeks. Otherwise they are a step away from welfare. This applies to the rest of the people in the hospitality sector as well.
We sit here debating big issues and billions of dollars, but in the hospitality industry 50% of the wage is on a cheque from the owner of the hotel or the restaurant, but the other 50% comes to that person in gratuities. When people go to collect their employment insurance the calculation is only made on half of what they are making, yet they pay tax on the total amount, the gratuity and the guaranteed wage.
What are we doing here? Is there any emergency system to help those people who are in pain? When the tourism sector of the country is hit like this and we are in the middle of debating the budget, there must be some kind of mechanism here, if this place is really supposed to represent the people, to use this budget debate to react to that sector.
I have been harping and I know other members have been harping, but I find it so strange that there is no reaction from the machinery of government. That is why I contend that the machinery of government is broken. When we cannot react to the people who are at the lowest end of the income spectrum, when we have never had such a high surplus in our EI fund, when the disconnect is there, then I say the place is broken. That is the hotel and food service industry.
It is not just in my community. I was in Jasper on that trip west. As I was checking out of the hotel a woman said to me that she had just lost four bus loads of Japanese tourists because everyone thinks that Jasper or Vancouver are suburbs of Toronto. Therefore tourism in the country has been affected coast to coast because of SARS and because of the international perception that we are all walking around in downtown Toronto with masks and oxygen on our backs. That is because of the international press. Conventions and trade shows have been cancelled.
I am appealing to the House that we generate some focus and political will to get some action. What good is a piece of paper or a budget if we cannot turn it into real action? What good is it?
I want to go back to the member for Peace River on the issue of being competitive. In southern Ontario the next greatest sector after tourism is the automotive sector. What is going on is that in three weeks we have the largest automotive plant in Windsor, Ontario, Daimler-Benz, and less than 100 miles down the 401 we have Navistar in Chatham, and we are going to lose these plants.
Are we crazy in this House of Commons to be losing these plants? Once they go to Georgia or Mexico, how are we going to get them back? Are we going to have some kind of emergency debate and all of a sudden find, not the $10 million a year for 10 years to keep them, but we are going to spend $100 million just to move them back? Is that going to happen? I doubt it.
Those are skilled jobs in a sector of our economy, the automotive manufacturing sector, which is now rated as world class. I thought a budget was to deal with these things.
If it means, as the member for Peace River said, that we have to examine our tax policy to keep those plants and jobs, then we have to do it. That is what the House of Commons is supposed to do. That is what I thought when I was elected a few years ago.
My concern is about the last six weeks. Tourism has been gutted and now the automotive sector is on its knees. My goodness, we lost the shipbuilding yards in Saint John. We should be building. If ever there was a way to link our shipbuilding sector to our ocean security, those plants should be going around the clock. We could use that skill in Saint John to deal with the whole issue of our security responsibility. That would also create massive goodwill with our friends to the south.
We are disconnected with what is really going on out there. Our capacity to move quickly, our sense of urgency to react when people are really in pain is not there. It is almost as if, if one could imagine, a plane would crash on the front lawn of the Parliament buildings and we just went about our business and said “Ho-hum, so what”.
Well, the plane has crashed in the tourism sector. The plane has crashed in parts of the automotive sector. We have to react toward those sectors the same way we would if a plane had crashed on the front lawn of the Parliament buildings. We would be out there in seconds. The emergency services, the fire engines and the ambulances would be there and the hospitals would be working. That is what has to happen now with these sectors of the economy. This sort of ho-hum let us take our time response is not the way to go.
It is an amazing thing. I am starting to think that this is becoming the norm around here: “If we cannot set up an emergency system to get EI cheques out to the chambermaids, the bartenders or the waitresses or chefs who lose their jobs, ho-hum”. That is wrong. We have to somehow make this budget moment come alive where we cause people to react with some creativity, some outside the box thinking and some risk taking. That is what we are supposed to do here.
I do not think that people will judge us in a negative way if we move quickly. There is no sense of urgency around here and that has to change fast. Otherwise--and I agree with the member for Peace River, and it is amazing I am agreeing with the member on nearly everything he has said here today--when we wake up one morning in about 90 or 120 days, we are going to get a real kick in the head. Right now our economy is the envy of the G-8, but we are going to find that a lot of people are out of work in tourism, the automotive and manufacturing sectors. When those people are out of work, they do not have buying power. That affects retail sales eventually. The next thing we know, we will have a bad scene.
In supporting this budget and its implementation, I immediately attach to my vote an appeal to the officials who have parliamentary approval to access those funds that we are voting on. I want to make an appeal to all the departmental officials who are listening, although I do not know if officials listen to the House much these days as it seems we have become so irrelevant. However, if there are any senior officials listening, I appeal to them to move quickly, especially toward those people in our communities, whether they be in Peace River, Toronto, Saint John or elsewhere, to access those moneys and resources, the stimulus to get this economy going again.
Just because three or four sectors of our economy are really doing well, we cannot ride on those three or four sectors. We have to remember that there are sectors of our economy right now where we are only seeing the tip if the iceberg in terms of trouble. I want to flag the tourism and the automotive sectors.
One cannot imagine the way the margins in automotive manufacturing are being squeezed. The manufacturers squeeze the parts makers and on and on it goes down the line. Eventually we will have a situation where we look at one another and ask how did it happen. If there was ever a moment to provide real stimulus and incentive, especially in the tourism and automotive sectors, this is the moment.
When I say tourism, I do not just mean my city. I mean right across the country. I mean the convention trade show business and the motion picture industry. In my community four months ago 80% of the motion picture studios were doing business. Now people in the motion picture industry are telling me that if there is no business within the next 90 days, they may as well give the keys to their businesses to their bankers. There are restaurants in downtown Toronto that have $1 million invested in those businesses with probably $5,000 or $6,000 of equity and the owners are saying that if people do not go back into the restaurants, hotels and motels, some of them are 90 to 120 days away from giving the keys to their bankers. They will not be able to make it.
I want to appeal not just to the member for Peace River but to the Canadian Alliance and the opposition who have always been obsessed, and some would say it was good obsession, although I would not always agree, with the fiscal cuts. If there was ever a moment that there should be some money around here, that there should be stimulus to help those sectors of the economy get back on their feet, that moment is now.