Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bills C-43 and C-48, in short on the implementation of the budget.
A budget is a government's most important political statement. Beyond rhetoric and hollow speeches, choices are made. In its budget, this government illustrates all of its duplicity. It is a government we cannot support. We cannot place any confidence in its main political statement, born of torment, in the context of a party that gave rise to this government and that, to fund itself, resorted to vile methods. Certain members and ministers, former and current, have been involved to varying degrees in this scandal.
Here, it is a question of ethics. This budget, like the government and party that created it, is not ethical. People need to believe in values and integrity. How can anyone believe in this government?
On February 23, the government presented Bill C-43, a rather conservative budget, with a view to pleasing the Conservatives so they would stay in their seats and pass it. So, an investment of $13 billion will be made in national defence, but no provision was made for social housing, there was nothing for Quebec, nothing to resolve the fiscal imbalance, nothing for employment insurance. If they are dividing the opposition in order to rule, they are succeeding.
But that is not enough. What are they doing? They change strategy to shift slightly left. They promise bits and pieces to the left and others to the right. The government has lost its bearings, its will, its vision and its principles. It is motivated solely by the desire to remain in power and spend money as it likes. These two budgets are the stuff of future scandals and inquiries.
In fact, we cannot expect results in response to essential needs. Furthermore, it is impossible to know what this government values. Does it value the military exclusively and has it adopted almost identical values to those held by the United States, as the February 23 budget shows, or is this a mishmash of social values, like the measures the NDP threatened and begged for before offering its support to a government it has called corrupt?
This attempt, through Bill C-48, to please the NDP and purchase a kind of political virginity, to make people forget about the scandals staining this government, is evidence of its true face, its wastefulness and its lack of both rigour and will to meet the public's essential needs. Instead, it is trying to hold onto power by any means.
Even this morning's upset, when the government announced that it was changing the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development for the third time, shows just how much this government really wants to help human resources and resolve the problems with EI. In less than one year, three different ministers have headed that department. What will the new minister, know for her leftish leanings, do at Human Resources? Once again, this government has no direction or principles.
Recently, we learned of the government's interest in Darfur. Once again, it is an attempt to buy an independent member, without consulting the Organization of African Unity or even the new Senator Roméo Dallaire, who is himself criticizing the government's position on this.
So this budget comes from an immoral government of cheaters. This budget is unethical, it lacks direction and tries to please everyone. It is not a respectable budget and it will not get any respect. Already, there is no respect for the agreement reached with the NDP, since the tax cuts are going ahead despite promises to the NDP.
What will happen with social housing tomorrow morning, when things calm down? The government had a $3.4 billion surplus at CMHC that will increase to $7 billion by 2008, if nothing changes. It has not done anything in the past 12 months. Now, it is promising to act, but it is resorting to blackmail. It is telling people that if they do not vote in favour of the budget on Thursday, they will get nothing.
Where is this government's heart? Where are its convictions? It is travelling around the Rockies, in the east and west, and threatening people that they will get nothing if they do not vote for the Liberal Party and the budget.
This is a government of petty shakedown artists. Do people want to stick with that, and to vote to keep them in office? One Montreal area MP has even said “Hold your noses but vote for us anyway, despite the bad smell, despite our disgusting politics”.
Even in connection with the Kyoto protocol, there is an announcement of $10 billion for the next 8 years. This is just one more scandal. They do not want to change the orientation of Canadian industry. They do not want to decrease our dependence on non-renewable energy sources.
All they want to do with this budget is to look as if they are doing so. This government is very big on empty show. This government looks pretty foolish with its two budgets heading in two different directions,desperately scrambling to hold on to power. They are like pallid vampires trying to find a vein. This is disgraceful behaviour.
The people watching us are entitled to ask questions. They need to know what is going on. Can anyone trust a government that changes its policy statements—the most important of these being the budget—as often as it changes its shirt? Can anyone trust a government that promises to do something about climate change but does nothing whatsoever to force the oil and gas industry to make changes, or to reorient any sector of our economy?
People feel that climate change is important. Yet the Kyoto protocol is not about $10 billion of baloney, of voluntary measures and the like. It is not a matter of encouraging polluters, not polluter-paid. People need to believe in values and actions, and not in announcements made just to buy some time, or in budgets created just to hold on to power, come what may.
As for this budget, and this approach to international aid, even Bono, the Prime Minister's singer friend, is ashamed to see a country as rich as ours unable to set a goal of investing 0.7% of GDP in international aid. These are also values. If there are three or four votes to be bought before Thursday, perhaps they will throw in that 0.7%, or maybe they will cut down the figure. If they want to win the vote of some ultra-rightist Conservative MP, maybe they will cut international aid.
Just how far are they prepared to go? How far are they prepared to go with concealment and corruption?
It is a government without the morality to govern or to manage public funds appropriately. It is unbelievable. It is rolling in surpluses. By giving $1.6 billion for housing without resolving the fiscal imbalance, it is creating poverty.
It does not have money to invest in the provinces, like Quebec, for education. Nor does it have money for the health care system either. It has no money to address poverty effectively and it says it will invest a little in social housing. In addition, it has not resolved anything when it comes to employment insurance.
Contradictory measures still exist. These are measures we cannot rely on and for which there is no timeframe. It is still a petty shakedown. If we read Bill C-48 carefully, we see that something might be done provided there is an adequate surplus—at most. However, tomorrow morning, they could change their minds. It all depends on what direction the wind is blowing for this party.
I predict this party will fall apart, since it no longer has morality or ethics. We cannot trust any of its policies. It does not know how to manage public funds, it is swimming in billions of dollars, it finances its friends and abandons individuals in the provinces and Quebec. It is vengeful, does not settle anything and does not even understand the concept of the fiscal imbalance.
It is a government without governance. It is a government without direction. It is a government that is headed straight for a loss. We will be able to say the government earned that loss, that it did not steal it—which may be the only thing this government will not have stolen at the end of the day.