Madam Speaker, I would like to wish a happy new year to everyone in the House today.
Unfortunately the tsunami tragedy started off the new year in a shocking way for all of us. It reminded all of us here and Canadians across the country in a cogent way that there are people who are in far more need than any of us. There are people in need around the world, not just in the areas affected by the tsunami but also in Africa.
I am going to call my speech today the economy of hope. I am going to explain how our budget will deal with people in need around the world and in Canada.
I want to set the background of the tremendous accomplishments made by our Prime Minister and the government during its first year. I do not think any member of the opposition or any member of the media has encountered a Prime Minister who has achieved so much in such a short period of time. I am going to outline some of those areas and how they will help the big agenda items of our nation and the world.
The government started out by dealing with the biggest problem in the nation identified by Canadians, health care. That historic deal followed another historic deal made by our government. Some $41.3 billion has been set aside for 10 years for health care. How many times in history has a prime minister in the first year in office been able to deal with the biggest problem brought forward by Canadians? On top of the regular deal there were additions for people in the north and for aboriginal people because of their special health care needs.
The second historic agreement related to equalization. A whole new structure was set up with $33 billion, and increases will start in 2006. If anything defines the nature of this country it is equalization, where provinces that are having a hard time are supported by wealthier provinces. It is the backbone of our nation.
In the Prime Minister's first year in office, equalization was renewed, extended and increased. The wealthier provinces will help to take care of other provinces in their times of need. To emphasize that point, a couple of days ago a new deal was finalized concerning the special requirements of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
The health care and equalization deals are huge and historic. Part of the reason these deals could be made was the openness to understand the differences between provinces across Canada. Provinces are not always treated the same if they have special needs. That is the whole philosophy behind equalization. The provinces and territories came into Confederation with different deals. They are not identical. Canadians are open enough to understand that fact. A great strength in our federation is that different areas with different situations can come together in this great country of Canada.
The background includes the election platform of the Prime Minister and the government. Some five or six great initiatives were included in that platform. These were fundamental initiatives to deal with the needs of our nation. All of the promises that were made in the platform have been kept. They were translated from the election platform into the throne speech.
The first area is the historic demand by Canadians for a national child care and early childhood development program. Over the last few years we have been putting millions of dollars into that area. This was an even more comprehensive deal. I congratulate the federal minister and provincial ministers who came to an agreement on the basic philosophies of that program. They will meet shortly to finish the deal. When they finish that deal, Canada will be putting $5 billion toward that area.
In an economy of hope another group to help is the group of seniors. What people in society could be more needy and have less control over their destiny than senior citizens? The platform included the increase in the old age income supplement for low income seniors and the return of the new horizons program, which was very popular for seniors' activities.
In the environmental area, greenhouse gases were mentioned in a previous speech. There were requests from the Bloc for an increase in wind energy. As everyone knows, our platform is quadrupling the wind energy capacity in Canada with a huge investment. That is not the only energy initiative. There are all sorts of other ones related to ethanol as well as other renewable energies such as solar energy and atomic energy. We are investing in different areas to decrease greenhouse gases.
Canadians have always been very proud of their place in the world especially with respect to peacekeeping, defence and humanitarian aid. They will be proud that we are contributing 5,000 more troops and 3,000 more reserves to continue that role to help people in other parts of the world, as we have in a number of situations which I will mention later.
Another massive initiative in the platform and in the throne speech was the new deal for cities, some of which was acted on right away. The platform was to manage all the areas of challenge at the federal government level and around the world and then to add the interaction with another order of government, to tell the municipal and community level of government that the federal government would help out there too. Another remarkable achievement is that finances were managed in such a way that we could interact with a level of government with which we have not normally interacted.
Since 1994 we have put $12 billion toward infrastructure in communities across Canada. Since then roads, bridges and water systems have been built. It has helped create jobs across the country and has helped improve the quality of life in our communities. In the new deal there was $7 billion provided almost immediately from GST rebates. The communities in my area were absolutely delighted with this extra money with which they could build the basic infrastructure for their citizens.
There was the rural infrastructure program to help the rural parts of Canada over 10 years. We have accelerated that down to five years. There will be twice as much expenditure per year. The final negotiations are going on now related to the gas tax.
These are tremendous investments and new initiatives in the first year in office of a new Prime Minister.
The new deal for cities is more than just that. The new deal as we see it evolve will lead to an entire new relationship of how we envision the communities, from the very small to the very large, will fit into the type of vision that we see for Canada and how the Government of Canada can help achieve that vision.
As I said earlier, there is the strengthening of Canada's place in the world. In his first year in office, the Prime Minister has made a great mark around the world in a number of unprecedented initiatives.
One of my proudest moments over Christmas was at a rotary club meeting when a club member stood, as I think happened in rotaries across the country, and commended the Government of Canada, the finance minister and the Minister of International Cooperation for the $42 million that was put toward polio, saving a campaign that was having a great deal of difficulty this year, the United Nations campaign in Africa. There is also the creation of another historic initiative, the Canada Corps, to help Canadians spread the values of good governance and living by the rule of law around the world. There is the $20 million that we put toward helping the African union and people in Darfur.
Who in the world could be more in need of our economy of hope than those suffering tragedy and murder in Darfur? No Canadian approached me over the Christmas season to say that we should give this money back to Canadians, that we should not invest in Darfur or in people affected by the tsunami.
We put $100 million into AIDS drugs, and a $70 million increase in our AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs. At the same time we put peacekeepers or money in Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa. We have also signed a Canada-Mexico partnership. It is a huge agenda for the first year of a government.
On the world scene, we have made a change in how we help countries and peoples in trouble such as Darfur. It is almost unprecedented that a new Prime Minister would have such an effect on the world scene in his first year. He has the respect of the world to make such a change, starting with the whole concept of the responsibility to protect and spreading this especially around a group of G-20 nations that can help instill this new philosophy to help prevent situations like Rwanda and Darfur. The world sees a responsibility to protect these citizens. This is a remarkable achievement by our new Prime Minister.
It also includes helping Canada and Canadians fit into the new economy. We have the new learning bond for those in lower income families. This falls on the heels of the largest scholarship in Canadian history, the millennium fund. We also have an increase in ceilings on student loans.
Following on the $3.5 billion, the largest environmental program in history, we have added another $1 billion to the new environmental technologies from the sale of Petro-Canada. We have $100 million for the auto industry.
Another historic achievement in the first year was the Canada aboriginal peoples round table. There is a whole new era of cooperation and interaction with first nation peoples: a new adviser in the Prime Minister's Office; a new secretariat in the Privy Council Office; and now round tables in various areas identified in that original historic meeting. On top of that is the business of carrying on modernizing governance of first nations with the Tlicho and the Westbank land claims. Of course I encourage the government to ensure that over and above the new deals for land claims that we continue to ensure we fund the implementation sufficiently in ones that have already been signed, such as in my area.