Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today on Bill C-43, the Budget Implementation Act, 2005.
If I may start with the previous discussion on post-secondary education, I will be pleased to forward today's Hansard to my provincial member of Parliament who has said that the federal government has shirked its responsibility and needs to do more for the province of Ontario. We have some of the most crippling student debt and costs related to post-secondary education.
The federal government's Liberal cousins seem to feel it is the federal Liberals who have shortchanged them. It is the federal Liberals, their cousins, who have created a funding gap. The responsibility has been shirked onto them unfairly by the federal government.
I will make sure that the debate is forwarded to them. That provincial member was at a meeting that we had locally at St. Clair College and said that Premier Dalton McGuinty actually supported post-secondary education, but the federal government which has a surplus is where the real problem is. The federal government is the one that has the recipe to solve the problems.
I am going to focus my comments regarding Bill C-43 on a couple of topics. This is a very wide-ranging bill. Bill C-43 disappoints me because it does not lead to the prosperity that is needed for the long term in economic policy.
We in the New Democratic Party will not be supporting the budge because it is a betrayal of Canadian voters who wanted progressive change. The country has to move past the malaise that has dominated this decade of Liberal rule. The NDP is fighting for a responsible rebuilding of the nation that made a difference in the world as a leader, not a follower, and offered a strong social identity to develop and foster economic prosperity that will raise the standard of living for all Canadians, not just a select few.
Although this Liberal minority budget is an improvement over the past majority budgets, it fails the test of breaking the troubling pattern of Liberal budgets that leave mainstream Canadians behind for the benefit of a few. The most glaring example of this injustice is the fanatical drive to continue to empty the public purse through corporate tax cuts which do nothing to ensure employment wages and standards, or job security.
Indeed, the Prime Minister's election ploy to vote Liberal to keep the Conservatives at bay because the Liberals have values similar to the NDP is fraudulent and insulting at best.
At a time when ordinary Canadians are struggling more than ever to feed their families, to send their children to college or university, and to pay off their debts, the Liberals are prepared to hand over more of the taxpayers' money to Bay Street. Canadian corporations earned record operating profits last year of $204.5 billion, which is up nearly 19%. At a time when corporations have reached record operating profits and after a decade of billions of dollars in tax cuts, at a time when we have massive infrastructure deficits, when Canadians are struggling the most and corporations are benefiting the most, the government has decided to shovel more money to the corporations, nearly $5 billion.
While mainstream Canadians are being asked to put personal goals and financial security aside, the government is emptying the coffers, at a time when we need to seize the industrial opportunities that will protect the environment, raise living standards and position our labour market in the world.
This glaring example demonstrates the gap of rhetoric of Liberal promises and final capitulation to Conservative policy goals. At the end of the day, they do not represent Canadian values and thus the budget fails to deserve the support of the NDP.
Despite all the rhetoric, it fails to address a national auto strategy, an aerospace strategy, shipbuilding or agricultural realities. Indeed, the budget does very little for those who build Canadian cars, airplanes or feed our country and the world.
Ask those Canadians if their insurance companies which realized record profits from increased premiums and reduced coverage deserve another tax break. They are getting it. In 2002 the insurance industry brought in $350 million in profits. In 2003 it brought in $2.6 billion in profits. In 2004 it has now brought in $4.2 billion in profits, yet the Liberals are giving them another break.
It is not right. I know that in my constituency young people struggle to pay premiums on their cars. In fact, some pay more for auto insurance than they do for leasing the vehicles.
It is not acceptable. It hinders our economy. It hinders the success of our young people. Those companies certainly do not deserve a reward.
Ask Canadians who watch the banks rake in record profits, close branch locations, raise fees, play fast and loose with our personal privacy and charge predatory interest rates on credit cards if the banks deserve a break.
Do Canadian values reside in this budgetary accomplishment? Apparently Liberals think so. If they cannot give the public money to their friends or back to the Liberal Party as the Gomery testimony indicates, they will reward the corporate sector at the expense of ordinary Canadians. They did not even have the decency to at least isolate areas where we might stop that from happening, areas that do not deserve money back and do not deserve the public trust with their dollars. They should be paying their responsible share.
The argument that policies of free trade, deregulation, privatization and tax cuts would trickle down to create investment has not borne fruit. Recent economic data demonstrates that this strategy has not resulted in new quality jobs. Rather, this failed government policy has required an ad hoc intervention policy in sectors like auto, air, textiles and agriculture to protect the status quo.
Overall Canadian productivity has stalled since 2002, coupled with a significant decline in capital investment as a percentage of the GDP. Why would we continue to reinforce this economic model that will not generate more investment, prosperity and quality jobs for Canadians? In fact, many corporations and businesses no longer profess the tax cut as a tonic for their survival or growth.
Take the auto industry, for example. It would rather see infrastructure items like the Windsor-Detroit corridor as budgetary priorities to ship and receive their goods and services along the U.S.-Canada border. This tax cut will not provide the infrastructure required, nor the staffing and security measures being demanded by the U.S. The duplicity of promise and action is best represented in this particular example.
In his budget speech, the Minister of Finance said:
Part of the productivity solution is also investing in public infrastructure, including in our cities and at crucial border crossings such as Windsor-Detroit--probably the most valuable transborder shipping point in the world--
Yet there is no funding for this infrastructure, despite the Prime Minister's call that he would provide cold hard cash.
In fact, industry, chambers of commerce, citizens and the labour movement have all called for the government to provide the proper infrastructure in the Windsor-Detroit corridor, the right costing for staffing and resources, the right oversight, the investment necessary to move the goods and services through an area that has approximately $1 billion a day in trade. The government has yet to act on unanimous support of a city council and county council report to improve the conditions of that corridor.
More important, a signal was sent to the United States that we are going to address our most damaging infrastructure deficiency which is stagnating and has created lost opportunities of investment in Ontario and other areas. We have lost that opportunity. The signal that was sent in this budget was that we have no plan, that we have no commitment.
We have a Liberal promise that the government might renew a project for border infrastructure funds later on, but we know what the public thinks about Liberal promises. We know what the record is on Liberal promises. At the end of the day the promises do not provide the confidence nor the commitment that will subsequently come from those who want to invest and have to move goods and services through that corridor. As opposed to Liberal promises, what is needed is a commitment of resources and the application of those resources to make sure the investment, prosperity and jobs that will result will be managed as a priority.