Debates of March 7th, 2005

Questions on the order paper

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker]

The Chair has a request for an emergency debate, but the member is not present. We will have to deal with it another day.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.

The Budget

[Belinda Stronach, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Red Deer.

This is the most Liberal of budgets in structure and intent. It uses the language of tax cuts and reinvestment in the military to attempt to satisfy one group, and child care and the environment for another.

However, at its core, the budget is flawed and defective on two accounts.

First, it is built on an accounting shell game that seems out of step with the revolution in corporate good governance following scandals like Enron and WorldCom.

Second, it is focused on spending taxpayer money with very little attention to enhance economic growth, increase competitiveness and create national wealth necessary to sustain the spending. This is very Liberal and one of the essential points of differentiation between the government and the Conservative Party.

Let us have a peak at how the government constructs its numbers. It has for years been underestimating revenues and expenditures. Examples are personal income and GST revenues which are $17 billion higher each year than reported, that is $85 billion over five years, with social spending understated by $17 billion a year.

For this current budget the government freed up $6 billion in planning surplus room in the next five years by re-booking certain health care and equalization expenditures previously booked over the next five years in the current fiscal year.

There is another example. It re-spent $2.5 billion worth of environmental funds that were booked in previous years but never spent, without revising its accounts.

There is another example. The $12 billion to be saved from the expenditure program review will be diverted to other spending but treated as zero activity. In the real world, auditors would never allow this sleight of hand.

What the Prime Minister has not told us is that he has now spent the entire planning surplus in a budget that is back loaded heavily into the final year; the windfall surplus will not be used to pay down the crippling national debt. What will he do when the fiscal climate of the country changes and he has spent the entire planning surplus? The promisekeeper will be forced to break promises.

With regard to the second flaw, the budget spends a lot on health care, for example, trying to reverse time to make up for the money the Prime Minister himself cut out of the same health care system when he was finance minister. With the exception of some relatively modest expenditures on workplace training, I see no strategic focus in the budget on making the country more competitive to keep jobs here in Canada and to create new ones. The key elements of an economic growth agenda are education and competitive corporate taxes.

In Ontario, for example, the provincial government allocates roughly 43% of its budget to health care but only 6% to universities and colleges. It is in large measure lack of federal leadership that has made post-secondary education the poor second cousin in public policy and the country will pay a price for that lack of vision. As a reflection of Liberal priorities, the budget abandons education.

The government remains fixated on lowering the marginal tax rate on profits as its approach to the corporate tax regime. However the key to competitiveness for advanced technology manufacturers is ongoing investment in continuous innovation. This is where much of the future success of Canada must lie. The government should be acting here to also make the effective tax rate on investment more competitive but the budget is silent on this critical part of the puzzle.

Before I cede the floor, I would like to pay attention to a specific policy area where the budget fails to deliver the goods, and that is the Canada-U.S. relationship. This relationship is complex and huge and is the backbone of our prosperity. At its nerve centre is the border, which is also the Achilles heel of Canadian prosperity. If that border does not work effectively or is shut down, it causes businesses to fail and costs jobs here at home.

Continuing blindly along in neglect, the budget promises some extra money for border personnel. This is helpful but the Liberals will spend more money on the Gomery commission investigating irresponsible government than they will put into enhanced border security each year of the budget. The real priority remains infrastructure. The border is fragile and very vulnerable.

What leads me to suspend belief in the Prime Minister's budget promises is that $600 million was allocated to border infrastructure in 2001. By March 2004, not a penny had been disbursed on new infrastructure. In its place was a lot of talk, studies, round tables and panels. Without the political will to treat the border as the single most vital piece of hardware in our national economic security, budget amounts are meaningless.

I might add that I find it ludicrous that the government proceeded to assign budget allocations to the military, development assistance and the foreign service before having completed its long awaited international policy review. I can think of no better example of putting the cart before the horse. It is bad public policy to spend money in the absence of objectives and priorities.

The Minister of Finance had promised us accountability and transparency. We received neither in this budget. This is a classic Liberal election budget based on spending.

[Bob Mills, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the budget.

I would like to take one moment to recognize two young men from Red Deer who received all their education there. Anthony Gordon and Brock Myrol, who were part of our community, were in that tragic killing of RCMP officers that occurred. I spent some time with the local RCMP in our riding. They had a ribbon campaign on Saturday and the whole community is in sorrow over that terrible incident. I do want to recognize those parents from my community and those two young men who gave their lives for all of us.

Going on to the budget, Canada has no plan and no vision. We should be at the top on environmental issues and instead we have 300 boil water warnings at any given time. We have no water plan, no energy plan, no air plan and no land plan. In fact, the Liberals really do not seem to have a plan for much of anything except how they can spin things so they can get re-elected. We do not do anything about our watersheds or our brownfields.

We use the poster child of the Sydney tar ponds. I have been here for 11 years and in every budget I have heard that we will deal with this problem. All we do though is set up another study. The people in that area are still asking what we are going to do and when we are going to come up with a plan. We have some 50,000 other contaminated sites, 10,000 federal government sites, and the government has no plan. It should be embarrassed to come out with a postdated budget like it did with no real plan.

The minister talked to me last week and said that we would have a Kyoto plan this week. It is now 3.30 p.m. on Monday and I still have not seen that plan. I do not know if there ever will be a plan but obviously that is typical for how the government reacts.

The back-loaded budget that we have is basically one of “Trust us. Just wait. We will come up with something”. Yes, the government will come up with something. When the next election comes it will drag out all that money that it postdated and we will be into that campaign.

A tax relief of $16 per year is not a tax relief. It will not revitalize our economy nor will it result in capital and corporate investment. It will not result in anything. If a corporation is looking at investing in alternative energy, in new technologies and in environmental integrity for our country, it needs to know the direction in which the government is going, not this wishy-washy, feel good, pat ourselves on the back type of budget.

I get rather annoyed when I hear people telling me it is a green budget. Mr. Speaker, this budget is no more green than the chair you are sitting in, which is a nice colour green and you look good there.

The national debt is $500 billion. Let us look at the interest payments and imagine what we could do with that money. However there is no plan to deal with that. We just hear the government telling us how wonderful it is for bringing down the debt to GDP. Actually it is just that Canadians are out there producing more and the government is simply spending. The $210 billion of spending is an embarrassment when we look at how there is nothing in the budget.

I and many others got into this business because of our kids and our grandchildren and because of the future we wanted for the country. When we see this unfocused, wasteful budget that we have in front of us, it certainly does not make us enjoy those flights back and forth very much.

We obviously look at the Gomery inquiry and we see just the tip of the iceberg. In my riding this past week, and in two or three other ridings that I visited, people are saying that the government is covering up things, covering up what it really wants and that it has no vision and does not know where it is going.

Let us look at the climate change issue. In 1992 we signed on and said yes. We agreed in Rio that there was a problem, there was climate change and that we should deal with it but what did we do? We waited until 1997 and nothing happened. We have absolutely no plan. Nothing was done.

In 1997 Canada ratified Kyoto without even having a plan. The only plan that the then prime minister had was that we had to beat the U.S. If the U.S. goes for 5% below 1990, he said, let us go for 6%. Obviously the provinces were shocked when the then environment minister came back and said, “Yes, we signed on”. There was no plan, there was no understanding of the economic impacts and obviously there was still no understanding of what that really meant.

In 2002 Kyoto was ratified. There was still no plan. The prime minister himself stood up at meetings and said, “We must have a plan. There is no plan”. Here we are in 2005 and we still do not have a plan. Our only plan seems to be that the government has now set up a clean fund. A clean fund worth a billion dollars at arm's length is just another foundation. This is just another word for a foundation.

Yes, we are going to buy credits. Where are we going to buy credits? Probably if people are good Liberals they may well have credits for sale that could be purchased domestically.

Internationally, of course, we are going to monitor environmental integrity in Ukraine, Russia and Chile. We cannot monitor the environmental integrity in this country, let alone the environmental integrity in Ukraine, Russia or someplace else. The Liberals must consider voters absolutely stupid to believe that they could monitor this kind of hot air credit.

The government has allocated $3.7 billion. Now we have had another $3 billion put forward. I try to explain these billions of dollars to people. If we were to spend a thousand dollars an hour, a million dollars would last 21 days. A billion dollars lasts 31 years at that same spending level; a billion dollars is a lot of money. There has been $5 billion of back-loaded money committed, $1 billion of it to a clean fund that will simply be a slush fund for the Liberal government.

What results do we have? Let us look at the results. Committed to was $3.7 billion and now $5 billion. We have Rick Mercer running around in a program of $48 million initially, which is going to increase. In 1997 we were somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15% to 18% above 1990 levels. By the year 2000 we were 20% above 1990 levels. Today we are 30% above 1990 levels. We have spent that money and we are going the wrong way.

I do not understand how the members of this government can stand up and say, “We have environmental integrity. We care about the environment. We have a green budget”. It is just not green, there is just no plan and it is just going nowhere.

What does the Prime Minister do on the day that Kyoto comes into effect? By the way, Kyoto is now a word outlawed in the budget because of course someone might actually ask what it is. What does the Prime Minister do? He announces that we are going to have COP 11, the conference of the parties, number 11, in Montreal. Let me tell members what happened at COP 10. At COP 10, 123 countries got up and trashed the Americans. Then they said, “The Canadians are a bunch of laggards. They are doing nothing; they are just talk. They have the one tonne challenge, big deal. That is 20 megatonnes and we need to get to 300 megatonnes”.

Thus, what do Canadians think will happen in Montreal in December? I predict that it will be somewhat the same. It will give the European Union and many of those other countries a launching pad to go after the Americans. So much for working together. So much for a relationship when that sort of thing happens.

My biggest fear is the little bit in annex 1 of the budget wherein the government talks about taxation being used to get people to submit to its carbon system. That is scary because the scenario would be that CO

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becomes a noxious substance under CEPA. If it becomes a noxious substance under CEPA, that would then give the government, simply by regulation, the ability to tax carbon everywhere.

For us in western Canada that would be the national energy program too. That would be a carbon tax. There is no other word for it. On Thursday the minister gave me his verbal commitment that there will be no carbon tax. I say that here because I want that on the record.

I could go on for a long time, as members know, but let me conclude by saying that there is no plan. Also, the threat of a carbon tax scares me. The cost of carbon has now escalated to $11.90 and it is going higher. The jobs and the investments are what will be hurt in this country. The budget, then, is a disgrace, and it is certainly a disgrace to call it a green budget.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have served with the member on the environment committee. I know that he is very much concerned about the environment and specifically about the Kyoto file.

He has mentioned a few items within the budget, but I should remind the House that we have in the budget: $1 billion over five years in the clean air fund; $250 million to create a partnership fund for projects; $225 million over five years for home retrofits; $200 million over five years for the sustainable energy, science and technology strategy; $200 million over five years for the wind power file; and $97 million over five years for a renewable power production incentive. The member is also aware of the voluntary program of the automobile industry to reduce its emissions by 5.1 megatonnes by 2010. These are all important things.

The member does raise very legitimately the whole question of the credits. We know that as far as individual Canadians go our largest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is the use of our automobiles. We all have a role to play there and that is why we have the one tonne challenge.

However, probably the one that we have the problem with, and I know the member and I think he can probably comment on this, is the issue of large emitters. It is really the area that we have to deal with. That is where the matter of credits and the purchase of credits comes in. We need to deal with that. This is not an easy move to make, because we are talking about major industry. I wonder if the member could speak about the challenge that large emitters present to us in terms of meeting our overall Kyoto commitments.

[Bob Mills, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very aware of all the figures in the budget. The problem is the back-loading, as I mentioned. The problem is also whether we will ever see some of that. We have had so much money allocated that never gets spent because there is no vision. There is no game plan of how we are going to get there.

Let me address the issue of the large emitters. I believe in cooperating with provinces and with these large emitters. By doing so, we can achieve even better targets than what the Kyoto protocol is all about. But what if we buy carbon credits from somewhere else?

Let us take a company in my riding. Its charge is going to be $6 million a year. That $6 million is going to be transferred to buy a piece of paper in the Ukraine. How are we going to monitor that?

Would it not be better for that company to invest that $6 million into new technology or into developing a technology, into CO

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sequestering, which is really possible now, or into some clean coal technology or some of these new innovative things, these alternate energies? There is the wind power process, and I agree very much with that process. We have biodiesel, biomass and all those things. Would it not be better to invest the $6 million there and then be in a position to transfer that technology to China, India, Mexico and Brazil, the countries that are the big emitters now because they are using old technology?

For us to simply penalize Canadian companies makes absolutely no sense to me. Let us use that money domestically. Let us develop these processes here. Let us clean up our environment here but then make the technology available to those other developing countries. That is the way to go, not with a European carbon trading system. Carbon has gone from $3 on January 1 to $11.80 as of last Monday. The Russians hope it is going to go to $35. The Canadian government has guaranteed a price of $15 for heavy emitters. We can just imagine if it goes to $20. That $5 commitment has to be picked up by the Canadian taxpayers and we are talking about billions and billions of dollars. It is not the way to go.

The way to go is through technological development here. It will help our environment, but more important, it will go to the really big emitters in the other countries, in China and so on. If we do not have them on side we will go nowhere.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite vociferous on these environmental issues. I have seen him acting this way in committee.

I am a bit confused about one section of what he said. A few weeks ago we had a motion before this House to enforce mandatory fuel emissions standards, which I thought he was in favour of and which would have gone a long way to meeting our targets. The government said not to worry about it, that it was in negotiations. Those negotiations have since broken down according to recent reports in the media, so first, I am wondering if he has changed his position.

Second, the commentary at the beginning of his speech leads one to believe that he will not be supporting this budget because it is so blatantly bad for the environment. I was wondering if he could let us know which way his vote will be going in a couple of days.

[Bob Mills, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Mr. Speaker, obviously when we start mandatory regulations and when our major market is the U.S., we have to take some reality with this as well. I think that off the shelf we can probably save 20% of our emissions. I think the auto industry should be encouraged to take those off the shelf technologies. I hope the government is putting that kind of pressure on the industry so that it does so. With regard to a mandatory regulation at this point in time, though, the industry has a choice and its choice would be to leave.

As far as the vote goes, obviously I am opposed to this budget. I do not think it does what it should do. When one is opposed to something one votes against it.

Committees of the House

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been discussions among all parties and I think if you were to seek it you would find unanimous consent for two motions with respect to committee travel. For the first motion, I move:

That, notwithstanding the order made on Tuesday, February 8, 2005, in relation to its study on Canadian airport systems, trucking issues and port security, seven members of the Standing Committee on Transport be authorized to travel to Halifax, Saint John, Montreal, Toronto and Niagara in March 2005 and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to its study on Air Liberalization and Canadian Airports System, 7 members of the Standing Committee on Transport be authorized to travel to Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and Surrey from April 3 to 23, 2005, and that the necessary staff do accompany the committee.

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.

The Budget

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to rise to speak on the extraordinarily successful budget that the finance minister presented to the House last month.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Cape Breton—Canso.

I would like to remind the House that this is Canada's eighth consecutive balanced budget, the longest unbroken string of surpluses since Confederation. It strengthens and secures our social foundations with record investments in health care, early learning and child care, and our seniors.

With deference to the member for Red Deer, who did say he could go on a long time but fortunately did cease, it does move us toward a green economy and more vibrant and sustainable communities. It puts into action this government's determination to play a larger, more significant role in the world.

At its core, this budget is about delivering on our commitments to Canadians. This is exactly what the Prime Minister, the finance minister and the government have done.

I am very proud of this budget. Members of the House I am sure would appreciate and indeed would be surprised if I did not say that it is a great time to be Minister of National Defence in this government. With nearly $13 billion in new money for the Canadian Forces, this budget provides our men and women in uniform with the most substantial funding increase in more than 20 years.

It clearly demonstrates this government's commitment to reinvest in our military and our men and women in uniform. As such, it represents a real turning point for the Canadian Forces. Indeed, this budget provides us with the solid foundation that we need to make some of the most significant changes to our armed forces in more than a generation.

With the allocation of almost $13 billion in new defence funds, we will be able to start implementing a long term plan to increase Canadian Forces personnel and to improve their support and their transformation.

This budget allocates $3 billion to honouring the government's commitment to increase the regular force by 5,000 members and the reserve by 3,000 members. This increase in the number of troops will go a long way to alleviating the burden of the very high operational tempo of the past decade.

These new members of the Canadian Forces will allow us as well to better defend our country and Canadians. Furthermore, they will provide us with the additional resources that we need to increase the scope of our action in the world, as was the case in Afghanistan, in the Balkan states, in Haiti and elsewhere.

The February 23 budget also provides for the allocation of over $3 billion to resolve “sustainability” issues that are facing the Canadian Forces. These new funds will be used to improve training, to repair the infrastructure, to eliminate supply shortfalls and to reinforce the care provided to the troops.

The budget also provides over $2.5 billion to buy new equipment and new capabilities, including medium range helicopters, new trucks for the army, multipurpose aircraft for Arctic use and specialized facilities for our elite anti-terrorist squad.

Our men and women in the military are among the most dedicated and qualified professionals in the world. This new equipment and our other recent acquisitions, such as the mobile gun system, will give the Canadian Forces leading edge tools to do their work both here and abroad.

Finally, the budget sets aside almost $4 billion to support the acquisition of additional new equipment and the tasks mentioned in the new defence policy that the government will announce in the next few weeks.

The budget represents a significant investment in our military and our future. It has been made possible in large part because of the government's determined efforts to find efficiencies and invest in priorities.

As part of the budget process, a cabinet committee on expenditure review scrutinized every line of government spending to ensure that tax dollars are being used effectively and efficiently, and to ensure that they are focused in the areas that matter most to Canadians.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Minister of National Revenue and the cabinet committee for finding $11 billion in savings across government, that is now being reinvested in programs and services that are high priorities for Canadians, most notably, in the Canadian Forces.

Members should understand that finding these savings was absolutely critical to the $13 billion in new direct defence funding in the budget. In fact, I am pleased to point out that we received more than 100% of the savings that have been found as part of this process. Clearly, the Canadian Forces are net beneficiaries of this reallocation exercise and clearly, they are a key priority for the government.

However, this exercise is not just about more money for defence, although I am very pleased by the result. This is also an exercise in creating a more efficient government. It includes a more efficient Department of National Defence and Canadian Forces. Over the next five years we have identified over $600 million in savings, not from cuts, as the misinformed would have us believe, but from doing things smarter and better, and by focusing on our priorities and our core business.

For example, we will achieve savings by replacing older aircraft with new fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft. We will achieve savings by improving the way in which we manage our supply chain. We will achieve savings in the area of administration. All of which we got credit for in the expenditure review exercise. All were appropriate and responsible measures for the Canadian Forces and for Canadian taxpayers.

This is a very exciting time, and in many ways a historic one, to be the Minister of National Defence. Everything is now in place for real and lasting change for our military. We have vibrant new leadership in the Canadian Forces with innovative ideas rooted in the operational experience of the past 10 years. Soon, we will be releasing a defence policy that lays out a bold new course for the Canadian Forces and with the budget, we have a solid financial foundation upon which to build.

We have the resources we need to strengthen our presence and our capacity in defence of Canada and Canadians. We have the resources we need to play a more significant leadership role in the world, one in which our voice will be heard, our values seen, and our efforts felt. We have the resources we need to fundamentally transform the Canadian Forces, to make them more effective, more relevant and more responsive to the new and extremely dangerous and complex threats that we face.

When the new chief of the defence staff was asked about the February 23 budget, he said:

An investment and a commitment to rebuild the Canadian Forces to give us the necessary resources and to allow us to start right now. And not ringing the hands but rolling up our sleeves and getting on with the work we have to do--

The budget represents a real turning point for the Canadian Forces. As the Minister of National Defence I am pleased to say, on behalf of the Canadian Forces, that we can now roll up our sleeves and get on with the work of building the finest military in the world with the support of the House and the resources it will vote for in the budget when we carry it through the House.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister would care to comment on when we are going to get the defence policy review. I remember, as a member of the defence committee, being told that we would have it by mid-November. I thought at the time the government meant mid-November 2004, but I must have been mistaken because we are now in March 2005 and we still do not have the defence policy review.

Yet, the budget has laid out considerable changes and expenditures in the Department of National Defence. This has all been done in a context in which we do not have the promised policy review. Earlier in the day we were talking about promises made and promises broken. We have had the promise of a policy review for a long time.

In terms of the 5,000 new peacekeepers, does the department have a plan for ensuring this happens in a hurry? I say in a hurry because we have a lot of senior, experienced and very capable peacekeepers in the Canadian army right now, but they are not going to be there forever. They are going to retire. It is critical that this happen as soon as possible so that the new peacekeepers can have the benefit of the experience of those who have been peacekeepers in Bosnia, Cyprus, Afghanistan, Haiti, or wherever. That is another concern I want to put on the floor for the minister.

I happen to have a very high opinion and great expectations for the new chief of defence staff. I noticed at the time of the budget that he was out in the foyer in uniform commenting on the budget. I am not raising this in any particular antagonistic way, but he was commenting on the budget like he was from a chamber of commerce or the CLC or some other NGO. Presumably he was saying nice things about the budget.

I wonder if the minister of defence would have been so content with the presence of the CDS if he had been out there slagging the budget. I am a bit concerned about the politicization of the role of the CDS. I wonder if the minister has given any thought to that as well.

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have total confidence in the integrity of the new chief of defence staff. I agree with the hon. member that he is a fine officer. I think the hon. member would agree with me that the Canadian Forces will move well ahead under his direction.

When he came to speak on the budget, we did not know what he was going to say. He might have had some criticism to say about it, but I was confident that, because of his presence, he would be able to explain, to those who wanted to know, the details of how it would affect the forces as he goes ahead in the course of transforming it. His job was not to praise the budget one way or another but to explain how it would affect the Canadian Forces. I am extremely pleased that he was able to take it in a positive light.

I recognize what the hon. member has said, but the fact of the matter is that he was there to explain to the public and to reporters exactly what the budget meant to the Canadian Forces. It was a good idea to have somebody there who could really speak to the practical consequences of the budget in order to help us understand it.

I am happy that the hon. member is here as well in the House because he raised some good questions. I too am anxious that we acquire 5,000 new troops as quickly as possible and also the 3,000 reservists. To be honest with the House, there is a discussion going on in the department about how quickly we can do this. Our answer is as quickly as possible.

There is $500 million in fresh money in the budget and a considerable amount of this is allocated to the process of hiring new people. The hon. member will appreciate that the recruitment process will take a year to probably get geared up and then we will be able to move into a much faster process. I expect this will happen over a very reasonable period of time.

As far as the defence review is concerned, I am as anxious as the hon. member to get the review, which the hon. member and other members of the House will appreciate. It will show a way forward for our Canadian Forces, both in terms of our defence of Canada, our defence of North America, and our increased presence in the world. I can assure the hon. member this will be out shortly.

I can also assure the hon. member that the government's international policy statement will be coming out shortly. We are anxious to share with the House, as we go forward, our commitment to a stronger international presence for Canada under the great leadership of our Prime Minister.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to join in the debate on the budget.

As well, it is a pleasure to share my time with the Minister of National Defence, a member who certainly is held in high esteem in the House. I congratulate him on his job in presenting the case for the men and women of the Canadian armed forces to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance as he secured an additional $13 billion in new funding, the single largest increase in military spending in the past 20 years. As indicated, those dollars will go toward the acquisition of new equipment and quality of life issues for the men and women of the armed forces. Certainly this will allow the armed forces to play a significant role on the world stage and will support our position as a global leader. I congratulate the minister.

I would like to comment on what was not in the budget. For the first time since coming to the House my colleague from Sydney—Victoria and I were very pleased to see that the Sydney tar ponds were not mentioned in a budget document. Contrary to the intervention by my colleague across the way, the member for Red Deer who is the Conservative Party critic on the environment, that promise was made and kept in 2004 when the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and the Minister of Finance blended their forces to come up with $280 million in federal money to work with the province of Nova Scotia in addressing the problem of the cleanup of the Sydney tar ponds.

That money has been booked. That money has been peeled out. The project has been brought forward by the province of Nova Scotia. It is being juried now by the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and the Minister of the Environment. There will be a decision made as to the assessment process of the project that is being put forward and then the cleanup will continue.

Make no mistake that even as this process transpires, there is work being done on the Sydney tar ponds. Projects common to whatever technology is used are being advanced. Over $40 million will be spent in the next two years to build such things as cofferdams, projects that will assist with that cleanup process. Much has been done. The fundamentals are in place and that cleanup will proceed.

I will make comments on three broad issues. Obviously the people of Cape Breton—Canso, like all other Canadians, have an interest in the federal government making sure that sound fiscal management is adhered to. We are no different from any other Canadian.

Recording an eighth consecutive balanced and surplus budget is significant. It is the first time since Confederation. This has allowed the federal government to apply $60 billion in surplus funds on the accrued debt, which has enabled us to release an additional $3 billion annually to go into programs such as health care, transportation and infrastructure. All of those programs have benefited from sound fiscal management by the government.

Again in this budget we see responsibility in the establishment of a contingency reserve fund of $3 billion. That is significant and important. It allows the federal government when national emergencies arise, such as SARS and what took place with hurricane Juan in Nova Scotia, to step in and play its part in helping communities, cities and provinces deal with those emergencies.

The health care accord was signed and the money is being booked in this budget. Again, for years we heard that the number one priority of all Canadians was the health care system and making sure that a sound financial structure was in place to ensure that all Canadians had universal access to health care services.

For the people in Nova Scotia it means an additional $1.6 billion over the next 10 years in their health care system. This goes to core service funding. This goes toward acquisition of new equipment. In my own community the Cape Breton Regional Hospital has been able to secure an MRI unit. We established a bone densitometer unit in the hospital. In Inverness in Richmond County we have been able to secure digital X-ray machines. Now an X-ray can be taken and can be e-mailed anywhere in the world to be read by a specialist. There is benefit. As well, moneys have been identified to try to address wait times.

The budget identifies the money that Canadians expect to see in their child care and early intervention systems. Our Minister of Social Development continues to meet with the provinces and deal with this important issue. He will embark on a round of bilateral agreements. We are hoping that very soon Nova Scotia will be ready to sign on to this federal deal and that the community services minister, David Morse, will be able to apply those moneys where they are so very greatly needed.

We look at the current plight of the Town Day Care Centre in Glace Bay in trying to establish a new day care facility. We hope that there is latitude and conditions in the bilateral agreement so that investment in such facilities can take place.

Several aspects of the budget speak directly to the people in Atlantic Canada and to the people of Cape Breton--Canso. I want to identify a couple of those important aspects.

There is one thing that the Atlantic caucus pushed for strongly. We were very pleased that the Prime Minister recognized that we have had success in this area. He knows that further success can be realized through investments through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. We have had tremendous success through our ACOA programming over the last number of years. We believe that the $700 million that was booked in this budget will continue to build on that success.

I look at some of the opportunities that have been seized and realized. EDS, Stream International, Dynogen and Techlink are companies that have come to establish in the Atlantic region, in Cape Breton specifically. They have been able to grow the number of jobs within our community.

Only 10 short years ago our unemployment rate hovered around 24% or 25%. Currently with the investments that have been made and the strides taken in growing the job market, unemployment is down to on either side of 14%. It has been down as low as 14%. It is at about 14.5% to 15% right now, which is progress. More Canadians are working. More Canadians are contributing to the system. We have done this by trying to address research and development in innovative industries.

There is a great success story in Mulgrave. Ocean Nutrition has come in and has created about 120 jobs right in Mulgrave. The company develops omega-3 fish oils.

The $350 million that has been booked for EI reform will benefit those who work in seasonal industries. Again, in rural Cape Breton, rural Nova Scotia, the industries that drive the economic engine, tourism, forestry, and of course the fishery, are seasonal in nature. These are not seasonal workers; these are seasonal industries. The changes in the money that has been booked for those industries will certainly give some confidence to the people who work in those industries and to people in those communities.

On the guaranteed income supplement, $2.7 billion will make a difference in the households of those seniors on low incomes. There is $400 for each individual, $700 a couple.

I believe that those changes and the programs that were identified in the budget will make a significant difference in the lives of Canadians from coast to coast, including the Canadians whom I represent in my constituency.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask my colleague across the way this question since the minister of defence got out on me just a little too quickly and I did not get an opportunity to ask him. It is interesting that the Liberals found that so many millions of dollars in defence can be saved because they are going to buy some new planes and get rid of some of the old planes.

In 1992 I think new helicopters were coming and it cost the taxpayers $500 million to get out of that deal. We would have probably been taking some of the last deliveries on the helicopters right about now. I understand there is about 30 hours of service for every hour of flying time. Think of how many hours have been wasted from 1992 to 2005, and it is going to be 2007 or longer before we see any of these things. Yes, I can see where there can be savings. That is something we as an opposition party were stressing for many years. Thanks for finally realizing that all of those moneys can be saved by spending a little of the new money.

It was mentioned how great it is to have a new MRI and various things. In Ontario it is just a wee bit different. The Ontario government has added a new hefty health tax. At the same time it is closing down physiotherapy and is laying off nurses. I do not think that the moneys are being provided equally nor are the arrangements that the federal government has with the provinces quite the same. I applaud the new MRI and those types of things but we in Ontario are having a little bit more difficulty. We have MRIs but we do not have people to run them.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether it is a new-found commitment to the military on the part of the party across the way. Obviously the $13 billion put forward in the budget is significant.

I would encourage the member to pick up the book by Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil . It is an interesting read. On page 38 he speaks about the cuts that took place in the late 1980s under the Conservative government. He talks about the drop in morale. He said:

I had never seen morale drop so fast and so violently in a group of experienced officers as it did on that day in March 1987.

He was reflecting on when Perrin Beatty, the then minister of national defence, brought forward a budget and his document on national defence.

--Beatty tabled a toothless and even hypocritical document. Over the next two years, the Conservatives hacked and slashed what was left of our acquisition programs. I finally left Ottawa in disgust in the summer of 1989.

Short memories maybe, but if we think back to when the budget document was tabled, all Canadians will remember the $13 billion that was invested in our military, the greatest and most significant investment in the military over the last 20 years.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very curious budget. Most of what is the budget is not in the budget.

When we look at the numbers, only 7% of the spending commitments in the budget are in this budget year. Ninety-three percent of those commitments are in subsequent years. Therefore, all is not what it appears to be.

The Minister of National Defence and the hon. member talked about turning the corner and a new found commitment to the military. We still will have to wait a little while longer to turn that corner. That new found commitment is still out there several years before I think the government intends to find it.

While 7% of the budget is spending in this year, when it comes to the military, less than 4%, or less than one twenty-fifth, of the great commitment of the government to spend actually will happen in this budget year. Everyone knows that next year we will have a new budget that could in fact have very different numbers.

I want to know from the member what that means for Canada and what that means for the Canadian military. Will we lose that?

The member comes from a constituency with a lot of working people. I thought many of them would relate to a letter which I received recently from a constituent. It says: “Help. Both myself and my husband reside in Bradford and have three children. We work full time, pay more than our fair share of taxes and are still trying to make ends meet. Paycheque to paycheque is now the norm for us, for a lot of middle class people. We don't have any extras to do anything with our kids. I even have to pay extra tax to have my middle child tutored because she is finding the curriculum to be somewhat difficult. We don't even qualify for the child tax credit as we earn too much. Yet at the end of the day we pay so much in taxes that our net income is equivalent to our deductions. We both make good money, if you want to call it that--

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

The hon. member must realize that we are running out of time. This is a five minute question and comment period only. I will give a chance to the hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso to answer, briefly.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there was prudence exhibited through the budget presentation. I know my colleague across the way comes from a business background. What we heard from businesses, educational institutions and from provinces was that they wanted numbers they could count on over a long period of time.

Probably the most significant budget tabled in the House in a number of years was the budget of 1995. It projected three year reductions in income tax. This budget would be the second most significant budget presented in that time due to the five years out. It gives people the long term ability to plan and go forward.