Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of my party on the budget bill, Bill C-43.
With your permission, for the sake of those listening to us, and for the Liberal Party, as well as the colleague who has just spoken, I will read from a newspaper article which will serve as an introduction to my speech on the budget.
These are excerpts from an article in the May 13 La Presse , over the byline of Stéphane Paquet. It is titled “One billion a day for three weeks: the Liberal government of—I must say “the Prime Minister”, since I cannot say his name—has made announcements totalling $22.5 billion” in a matter of three weeks. I will read a few excerpts from the article:
In three weeks, the Liberal ministers' announcements have averaged out at $1 billion a day. Between April 20 and last Monday, government ministers have made no fewer than 178 announcements across Canada. That makes over 8 a day, for a total of $22.5 billion.
When a journalist requested a list of the projects announced from the PMO, he was referred to the government web site, where there were indeed 175 projects listed.
In two announcements alone, Ontario—which is, I scarcely need point out, the key battleground in the next election campaign—got close to half the $22.5 billion pointed out by the Conservatives. First of all, there was the $5.75 billion over five years announced last Saturday to reduce the Ontario “fiscal imbalance”.
Which they acknowledge exists in Ontario, but not in Quebec.
Two days later, it was the turn of the country's airports to divvy up $8 billion to be delivered over 47 years. Since Toronto's Pearson Airport is the biggest one in Canada, it gets the lion's share, five of the eight billion. As for Trudeau airport, in Montreal-Dorval, it gets $500 million.
So, $500 million compared to $5 billion.
In short, this article describes the process of buying votes at the rate of one billion dollars a day. It just so happens, moreover, by sheer chance, that the Liberals are putting the money where they want to gain seats in the imminent election, that is to say mainly in Ontario.
At the same time, they want us to debate the budget. Since this party, this minority government, does not respect the majority decisions of the House, be it one confidence vote or all votes—as in the case of the people whose property was expropriated in Mirabel—why should it now respect the vote on the budget, should it win it? Why in fact does it even need to have a vote on the budget, when, although it had not been approved, the government has spent $1 billion a day for three weeks in an effort to buy votes throughout Canada, and primarily in Ontario?
The Bloc Québécois opposed the budget from the start. What would the Bloc have liked to see in the budget for it to support it? The Liberal member was saying earlier that partisanship had to be put aside and the benefits of the budget recognized, and everyone should then vote in favour of it. That said, my colleague from Montcalm asked my why, this time, we should believe the Liberals, when they have been preparing budgets for 12 years saying, “We will pay attention to health, postsecondary education and seniors”. Every year, they fail to keep their word. For 12 years they have been in office, seven years after the annual surpluses, year after year the problem remains unchanged, except on the eve of an election or when the government is trying to buy votes in Ontario.
The Bloc, however, opposes the budget. Is it only because we are the “wicked separatists” and they want absolutely nothing for Quebec and Quebeckers?
We will try to find arguments a little more substantial than those the Liberals are using to show why the Bloc opposes the budget.
First, as we did discreetly with the throne speech, we wanted the Liberals to recognize the fiscal imbalance in the budget. They did so indirectly in the throne speech. We would have liked tax fields to be transferred rather than have them promise amounts annually conditional on our good behaviour. We will get them if the premier is Jean Charest, but if it is Bernard Landry, we will not. Perhaps it is the Liberals who are being partisan in this regard. We would therefore have liked the fiscal imbalance to be recognized and tax fields to be transferred accordingly.
We would also have liked some recognition of the problems with employment insurance. Even the agreement with the NDP does not mention this. We would have liked an independent employment insurance fund and commission recognized in the budget. My mind turns to the member for Acadie—Bathurst, who often goes on in this House about doing more for employment insurance. But our friends in the NDP forgot to include it in the deal between their party and the Liberals. For us, it was important before the budget and it is still important after the budget. It is important for people who unfortunately have to turn to employment insurance when in difficult situations. We would have liked the unanimous decisions of the Subcommittee on the Employment Insurance Funds to be included and acknowledged in the budget, but there is no sign of them. That is another reason why the Bloc Québécois cannot support this budget.
Insofar as the Kyoto protocol is concerned, money was appropriated for it in the deal between the government and the NDP. However, this money was provided to promote the polluter pays principle. There is money for encouraging the automobile industry, which has signed an agreement. That is not what we want. As the Bloc critic for the environment has often said, we want the money put aside for the implementation of the Kyoto protocol used to develop renewable energy and clean energy, such as wind.
The fourth reason has to do with agriculture. It is really strange that the budget agreement between the NDP and the Liberals does not have anything for agriculture. The Bloc Québécois would have liked some recognition of the problems faced by farmers, who unfortunately have had to pay the price for the problems between the United States and Canada. We would have liked to see more support for them, especially when there are budget surpluses.
In regard to international assistance, the Prime Minister has said—the accolades he shared with Bono were supposed to underline it or confirm it—that Canada would reach the rate of 0.7% of GDP for international assistance. Once again, with the budget surpluses that we have, the inclusion of this commitment in the budget would have been another reason for the Bloc Québécois to support it.
Let us say a few words now about respect for Quebec's jurisdictions in the areas of day care and parental leave. It is pretty strange that, here too, agreements are signed with everybody. But in Quebec on the other hand, where a system is in place and when we were told that everything was ready to go, no agreement can be reached on day care. And there are problems with parental leave. It has all been very annoying.
There you have five or six rational, non partisan, solid reasons why the Bloc Québécois cannot support this budget. To those smiling across the way I would say the fiscal imbalance, employment insurance, agriculture, international aid and the environment, although very important issues, are major oversights in the budget and reason enough for us to oppose it. The budget is imperfect and we would have liked to have improved it, but the Liberals were not interested in that.
I want to touch on another important section, part 7 of the budget, which would allow the Auditor General the right to oversee the foundations and crown corporations. This is the first time we have seen the government copy or plagiarize a private member's bill, Bill C-277, and take credit for offering the Auditor General such a right. If that is not partisanship, then what is?
In committee, I asked the President of the Treasury Board to give me another example of a private member's bill that the government had plagiarized for its own gains. He was unable to name any. I also asked him how he squared that circle since, for five years, every time the Auditor General asked, the government said it could not introduce such a bill because it would take away from the independence of the foundations.
Why now, in 2005, on the eve of an election, on the heels of the sponsorship scandal, is the government able to introduce such a bill without taking away the independence of the foundations? That is another unanswered question.
Those are the non partisan, rational, solid reasons and sound arguments why the Bloc Québécois opposes this budget and will continue to oppose it, despite the so-called agreement between the NDP and the Liberals.