Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke, I am pleased to participate in this debate on Bill C-66, an act to make a special payment to some voters in time for the next election.
The crisis many Canadian families will face this winter with the cost to heat their homes is a made in Canada crisis of the government's making.
While the Prime Minister would like to blame external events, the energy crisis in Canada is a direct result of the Prime Minister's dithering on the environment. That dithering resulted in Canada signing onto the Kyoto accord without any plan on how to live up to the obligations of that international treaty. Anything to deflect attention from the Gomery inquiry into Liberal Party corruption is the only priority of this scandal ridden government.
The absence of any plan to deal with the economic fall out from the Kyoto accord means that Canadians who heat their homes this winter with natural gas could see the cost rise by as much as 50%. In time for a federal election, the Liberal Party response is a special bribe or payment.
For the benefit of Canadians who are following this debate, I want to clear up any confusion regarding the Liberal Party and the term “special payments”. The special payment being proposed is not the same as the special payment that is paid to non-registered Liberal lobbyists who lobby for special favours. It is not a special payment that is made to Liberal Party ad men.
This also is not the same special payment that was collected by the Prime Minister's company, Canada Steamship Lines, in the form of grants from taxpayers to the tune of $161 million. This is not a special payment in the form of registering company assets in a foreign tax shelter to avoid paying over $100 million in Canadian taxes, similar to what the Prime Minister did with his personal family company, Canada Steamship Lines, when the Prime Minister, as finance minister, used the Barbados tax shelter so it would be there when he needed it. That special payment is better known in the boardrooms of Liberal Party supporters as a corporate dividend paid out to the principal shareholders, in this case the Prime Minister's family after he was caught and forced to transfer ownership to other family members.
This special payment is designed to get the current government through the next election in the face of voter fury over the high cost of energy, including the cost to heat their homes, and to deflect attention from the Gomery inquiry into Liberal Party corruption.
The bill has three main parts.
Part 1 of the bill outlines who would receive a payment and how much. The payment would be sent to the following groups: $250 to families entitled to receive the national child benefit supplement, NCB, in January 2006; $250 to senior couples where both spouses are entitled to receive the guaranteed income supplement, the GIS, in January 2006; and, $125 to single seniors entitled to receive the guaranteed income supplement in 2006.
Part 2 of the bill would increase and expand federal assistance and programs for houses and housing projects that make heating system upgrades, improve windows, engage in draft proofing, et cetera. All this assistance would be delivered over five years.
Part 3 of the bill addresses public infrastructure specifically. It states that $400 million, previously provided for under Bill C-48, will be freed up by Bill C-66 in each of the next two fiscal years for municipalities to boost investments in urban transit infrastructure.
Parts 4 and 5 of the bill are housekeeping measures.
I acknowledge that there is a problem with perception in Canada. Consumers believe there is price fixing in the oil and gas industry, no matter how many investigations are conducted. The industry can and should do more to explain price setting and price fluctuations.
Since apparently the federal government has not had the time to monitor or publish an energy policy or reports on gas prices, private companies such as MJ Ervin & Associates have stepped in to fill the void. Now that the government is collecting this information, some could argue that it will be subsidizing the oil and gas industry, the main users of such information.
MJ Ervin & Associates has estimated that the average price of home heating oil has jumped to its highest level on record, 93¢ a litre. The best guess is that homes heated with oil can expect to pay 32% more this year, while homes heated with natural gas can expect to pay 48% more. Electricity bills will also rise, but not as drastically.
In Ontario the Ontario Energy Board approved a rate increase for Enbridge gas that will increase natural gas bills by about $123 a year. Union Gas also sought and received a rate increase. Sixty per cent of Ontario residents rely on natural gas for heating. Bill C-66 provides payment to some Canadians if they are lucky enough to qualify.
The Conservative Party supports measures providing relief for low income families. Parliament has an obligation to represent and support those who have much less than the average Canadian. The government estimates that 3.1 million low income families, or 10% of Canadians, will receive these rebate cheques. I am pleased some effort is being made to try to assist low income Canadians. These Canadians should not be left to struggle against rising energy costs on their own.
The problem is that the delivery method chosen by the Liberals will miss a great many Canadians who need help in paying for their heating and paying for gasoline for their cars that ferry them to and from work. Persons with disabilities who claim a disability benefit will not receive a payment. Seniors who qualify for the GIS but do not claim it will not receive a payment.
A Statistics Canada study released on Friday, October 21, 2005 found that 206,800 eligible individuals missed out because they do not claim the GIS. Students will not receive a payment. It will not help poor Canadians who are childless.
Research from Statistics Canada indicates that nearly two million individuals under 65 who fall below the income threshold have no children. These individuals will receive no help.
If anything represents the callous disregard for children and families, it has to be the government's record when it comes to child poverty. I listened very intently to the speeches from the government side regarding the legislation before us today, Bill C-66. While Canadians hear all the usual statements from the party that is campaigning for re-election, let us look at the actual record of the Prime Minister when it comes to children.
Poverty among children in Canada is rising. The government may talk in the billions of dollars it says are being spent, but when questioned directly about the plight of children, the same inability to provide a public accounting for how the dollars are actually being spent, which created the sponsorship fraud, applies to funds that the government says are earmarked for children but end up being siphoned off to other Liberal priorities like bogus ad campaigns.
As finance minister the Prime Minister oversaw a deal in 1997 that resulted in the clawback of the national child benefit supplement from the pockets of some of our neediest children. Set up in 1997 to assist Canadian families with children, it replaced what many Canadians grew up calling the baby bonus. It was introduced as the Canada child tax benefit, the CCTB. It included a basic benefit and a supplement, the national child benefit supplement, the NCBS.
The NCBS program was supposed to be designed to reduce poverty among low income families and children. Negotiations between the federal and provincial governments around implementation of the NCBS resulted in some provinces, Ontario included, deducting the NCBS amount from the benefits received by families on social assistance. This is what is commonly known as the NCBS clawback. In the province of Ontario families who are entitled to receive the national child benefit who are receiving social benefits are subject to the clawback. What that means is social assistance recipients have the amount of the national child benefit supplement they are entitled to receive deducted from their social assistance cheques.
In the absence of any special agreement, the $250 payment that is intended to benefit families with children on welfare will become a financial windfall for the government of Ontario. So much for the federal commitment to assist low income families with children.
This is being done with the full knowledge of the Prime Minister who designed the clawback system when he was Jean Chrétien's finance minister. The Prime Minister was the most senior minister in the Chrétien regime and was the senior minister in Quebec. No decisions involving money could be made without the present Prime Minister knowing. After all, he was the finance minister and he saw all the figures.
The current finance minister is fully aware of the clawback. When questioned in committee the best he could offer Canadians is that the government would encourage the Liberal Party at Queen's Park in Ontario not to claw back this particular payment.
The Minister of Social Development has once again dropped the puck on this issue as well. If the minister spent less time making campaign stops in other members' ridings and concentrated on the issue of child poverty in Canada, maybe child poverty rates in this country would drop.