Yes, indeed this year if the people across the way have the capacity to pass the budget bill.
We have heard from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We have heard from Saskatchewan municipalities. We have heard from British Columbia municipalities. We have heard from Quebec municipalities. They say that they want the budget passed. They want the new deal for cities and communities and they want it now. We have signed one agreement with British Columbia. British Columbia wants that program, nearly $700 million, if my memory serves me correctly.
This Parliament will have lots of time to debate the hot political points that flow back and forth across the floor, but now is the time to deal with the budget, now is the time to ensure that money flows to the cities and communities across this country.
There is more in the budget. There is child care, establishing a $5 billion program to ensure that there is early learning and quality child care across this country, child care that is high quality, that is universal, that is affordable and accessible and that is developmental, not just a form of babysitting or storage, but that brings education and life skills development to the youngest of our citizens.
I would encourage members of the House to listen to the child care advocates, to listen to the social service groups across the country, to listen to provincial governments. The Hon. Joanne Crofford, who is the minister of social services in the province of Saskatchewan, has said that the child care initiative is bold, innovative, and exactly what Saskatchewan needs, and she wants to see it passed.
Then there are provisions for senior citizens. These are extremely important. We have undertaken to increase the guaranteed income supplement. That will be worth $2.7 billion to senior citizens over this next five year period, as we implement it in the next two years and then the flow of funding over the following three years, to the oldest and the poorest people in the country.
We also have provisions in the budget for the disabled to try to improve the credits and the benefits that flow to those who want to be more self-sufficient, to find their way into the workplace, to have a more comfortable and high quality of life. That is one of the things in the budget that ought to be passed.
There is also a provision to double the credits available to the caregivers of seniors and disabled Canadians. We want to give those caregivers some recognition of the benefit and the value of the huge supports that they provide to those in their families who need that kind of assistance.
There is also $1.4 billion in the budget for measures dealing with aboriginal Canadians. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has pursued an ambitious program over the course of the last number of months and it has some further months to run. The minister will be consulting with aboriginal Canadians, with all ministers of the cabinet and with the provinces.
There will be a retreat toward the end of May, where a number of bold new ideas will come together about how to rebuild and re-establish a better relationship between aboriginal Canadians, the Government of Canada and all Canadians.
There will be a first ministers meeting in the fall of this year, where governments can specifically lay their plans to move this important file forward. In the meantime, the budget provided $1.4 billion to begin on issues such as housing, the care of children and education to move the files forward. That too should be passed at the earliest possible date.
Then there is what we had to say about the environment. I was rather pleased when the Coalition for Clean Air and Renewable Energy made the comment that it thought the only thing wrong with the budget was the date. It was in February. They said that it should have been on March 17, on St. Patrick's Day, because it was the greenest budget in Canadian history.
All together there is about $7.5 billion in the budget directed toward environmental issues. It is very important that those proceed, not necessarily to satisfy the technical requirements of some international treaty, as important as that is, but to ensure that Canadians have clean air and clean water and a high quality of life for them, their children and their grandchildren.
The budget also dealt with foreign affairs and with foreign aid. The budget dealt with the Canadian Forces. It contained the biggest investment in the Canadian Forces in 20 years, $13 billion to rebuild and refurbish the Canadian Forces.
Then we have the measures on productivity, workforce training, immigrant settlement, training and skills and literacy. We have the innovation agenda, $1 billion for science and technology and to ensure that Canada stays in the forefront of the knowledge based technology driven and highly skilled world of the 21st century.
The budget brings forward tax reductions to try to ensure that Canadians are fully competitive with the forces of competition that they have to face from around the world.
There were reductions in personal taxes. Especially there, the government will take 860,000 of the lowest income Canadians off the tax rolls all together, a quarter of them, 250,000, are senior citizens and most of them are women. That is a very progressive measure and it needs to be implemented.
For all of these reasons, as well as the importance of the Gomery commission, there is no need in the House for a rush to judgment. It is time to do serious work on behalf of serious Canadians who do not particularly appreciate the heckling and the hullabaloo that comes across the way. They want to see respect, they want to see civility and they want to see a Parliament that works. We are dedicated to that.