Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour is being ridiculous right now. The suggestion is that average Canadians could take $5,000 of their own money, pay the tax up front, put that away in a nest egg on a year to year basis and allow it to grow so that they could actually have it when they retired. He compares that to the George Bush plan. In fact it is a Conservative plan that allows Canadians to provide for their own retirements. The plans that the Liberals have are not sufficient enough to provide for people's retirements when they do retire.
There is also something they could actually make changes on. With respect to the changes the Liberals proposed to the RRSP, people tell me that the biggest problem is that the Liberals may have made it more flexible and that is great, but people need more flexibility so they can have money at the end of the year to put away. They want their tax burdens lowered so they can actually put the money into a plan.
Let us also look at investment tax credit regimes. One of the biggest problems facing this country is that we invest in companies through R and D. Here I will be fair and credit the former industry minister, John Manley. He showed a lot of leadership with things such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Canada research chairs and investments through the research councils. I will give credit where credit is due. However, one of the big challenges that companies face is they rely on this R and D and they get to a certain level. One example is Iogen Corporation here in Ottawa. Then they have a period where they need access to capital in order to grow to where they can become a fair sized manufacturer or whatever. They need that access to capital.
The government has proposed certain things, technology partnerships Canada and other programs. We are hearing from company after company that this is not the way to do it. Companies such as Ballard in British Columbia would like flow-through shares. They have proposed it so that the investor would be allowed to write off that loss, direct money into companies such as Ballard, so that we do not have an American company coming up here and saying, “Ballard has this wonderful technology. The Canadian government has invested money in R and D. We are going to scoop it up and take it down to the United States”.
Iogen right here in the city of Ottawa is producing ethanol. It is an excellent plant. It is concerned about moving to Iowa because it has become productive and is at the point where it needs access to a sufficient amount of capital so it can stay here in Canada, and that is not happening. We need to look at the whole issue of commercialization and look at allowing these companies to access a big amount of capital, which is not available through a program like technology partnerships Canada. It just does not work that way.
I would also like the government to look seriously at our venture capital policies. The reality is we need not only to increase the size of venture capital in Canada but also to increase the managerial expertise at seeing these young start-up companies that do need venture capital and ensuring that it gets to them, so that the money gets to the companies that need it.
What has really gone out the window as well with this budget plan is any sort of debt repayment plan. We would think the government would actually come forward with an updated fiscal statement for the next two years to five years as to what the budget is rolling out. The government has made so many announcements over the past few months I think it has actually lost track of the amount of money that it has promised. What we are asking is that it present an updated fiscal plan. A lot of the outside economists, whether it is the C.D. Howe Institute or people like Don Drummond, have said it is incumbent upon the government to do that.
I would like to talk about the whole Kyoto process. There was $5 billion allocated in the budget. Then the Minister of the Environment three weeks later, or even later than that said, “Oops, sorry, I was off by $5 billion” and said he thought they would have to put in $10 billion. The government has allocated about $2 billion to Kyoto and emissions have actually gone up. Here is $2 billion to increase emissions so the Liberals are going to spend $10 billion and hopefully decrease emissions.
The reality is there are ways to reduce emissions of all types, the CO
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emissions, that can be done by investing in technology, by allowing companies to invest in technology. One way would be to reduce the capital cost allowance as was recommended by the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters. This should be done on a broad based level. The member said it was done in the budget. It was not done in the budget. It was done only for a certain number of specific cases. It was not done on a broad based level as was suggested by the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters. This would allow companies to invest in the new technology that we desperately need.
What this comes down to in the budget is a different vision. It is a different vision of Canada. It is one which says we cannot just allocate endless spending without knowing where it is going. We have to have a prudent fiscal approach to the way we treat taxpayer dollars. I think the difference comes down to that.
It is interesting in question period to hear the government respond to questions. It is always, “Our money is going here. Our money is going there”. It is not the government's money. The fact is it is taxpayers' money. It is taxpayers' money that is held in trust to be spent on the priorities that they want it spent on. That is one thing the Liberals and NDP members will never understand. It is taxpayers' money that should be held in trust to be spent on their priorities.
With the size of the surpluses we have had, it is time to give individual Canadians, average Canadians, a substantive tax break so that they can keep some of the life energy that they pour into their work. It is time to allow them to keep some of their own money for their own priorities, for their own families and their own needs.