Debates of June 20th, 2005

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening in this place to discuss my views on and opposition to the proposed NDP budget Bill C-48. Like many of my colleagues who have already spoken to the bill and the many more who will follow me, I have deep founded, grave concerns about the bill and what it says about how we handle our finances.

Before I begin outlining my concerns, let me assure my colleagues and Canadians that I believe the financial goals of the House should be to give every Canadian the highest standard of living in the world. Our goal should be that every Canadian who wants a job should be able to find a job. Every region of our country should enjoy economic growth and prosperity, providing new and challenging opportunities for all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

My goal is that every Canadian family should be able to look forward to a life of economic fulfillment. They should be able to dream big and achieve those dreams: education, a good job, a house, a family, a decent retirement. These are goals that all Canadians should be able to achieve, partly as a result of our stewardship of the country's finances.

However Canadians cannot achieve these goals. They cannot even dream about these goals when their federal government taxes them too much and spends too much.

The government has been on a relentless spending spree with one hand deep in the pockets of hardworking Canadians while the other throws money around with little concern for the consequences.

The Liberals always confuse spending money with finding solutions. They seem to believe that if they throw bags of taxpayer money at something and spin up a couple of good press releases everything will be made right.

In the past five years, program spending has increased by 44.3% from $109.6 billion to $158.1 billion. This growth is not sustainable based on our economic growth rate, which was only 31.6% for the same period. To put this another way, in 1996-97 real federal spending per capita was $3,466. It will have risen to $4,255 in 2005-06. Current Liberal and NDP spending plans will take it to $4,644 by 2009-10. That is a real spending increase of almost $1,200 per person.

Despite this incredible growth in spending, Canadians' issues are not resolved. Health care is not better. It is worse. Many seniors who worked hard all their lives are living in fear that the money will run out and they will be left freezing in the dark.

The most vulnerable in our society are not getting the handout that they need the most. In my riding, farmers are losing their farms. Most Canadian families require two people to work just to make ends meet and often one person is working just to pay the taxes. This is a crazy cycle that must stop.

However none of this will be stopped by Bill C-48. The bill is merely a blank cheque that allows the NDP-Liberal government to spend money as it pleases with no accountability to the people of Canada. If we look at the bill, we see that it is nothing more than a blank cheque bill to allow the government to continue to spend with no accountability and no due diligence.

Everyone in the House and Canadians in general are aware of the large disasters that have occurred as the result of the government's lack of due diligence in allocating large envelopes of cash to programs without strict guidelines and detailed plans in place.

The HRDC billion dollar boondoggle, the gun registry and the sponsorship program are the most highly visible examples of the kind of spending that is called for in Bill C-48.

However there are many other programs that have been designed by the government to help those Canadians most in need, the Canadians that Bill C-48 purports to assist, programs where the government has failed miserably in design and delivery, even with advance planning.

As a small business owner, I know that one cannot resolve an issue or a problem by throwing a large envelope of money at it. One cannot buy one's way to a solution to anything. Money may be the grease but the solution is always in the human elements, the details and the action plan.

The issue first has to be properly identified and defined. The solution has to be examined and the steps and stages to reach that solution must be worked out. As well, there must be a correct follow through process to ensure that the money that was spent, combined with the work, accomplished the tasks that it was supposed to.

Now I want to talk briefly about a program that was carried out in many communities across Canada and in a city right next door to my great riding of Leeds--Grenville. I am speaking about the supporting communities partnership initiative, also known as SCPI. This program was designed by the federal government and overseen by Human Resources Development Canada. It was designed as a program to help deal with the growing issue of homelessness across Canada.

In Kingston, Ontario, in the riding of Kingston and the Islands, over $700,000 was spent altogether on the first phase of this program. From the beginning of the program in that community some folks felt there was something amiss. Concerned citizens spent more than a year pursuing the details of this program after it was complete and being shut out by all concerned. Finally, after months of letter writing and public statements, they forced an audit.

Deloitte Touche was called in and what the firm found was shocking. In the City of Kingston, of the over $700,000 spent on the first phase of this project, only $26,733 actually found its way toward helping the homeless. That was a mere 3.8% of the money that was earmarked to help the homeless in this program.

Auditors had some other interesting things to say about the program. They claimed there were errors in the process, a lack of oversight and poor record keeping. Where have we heard all this before?

What is ironic about this entire process is that it was actually members of the NDP in Kingston and the Islands who screamed the loudest for the audit and who spent the most time explaining to the public how the government had failed to deliver what it had hoped because of poor planning.

Knowing that, I find it difficult to fathom how the NDP in the House of Commons could even support this bill, its very first finance bill. I have read the bill and it has absolutely no details except for the $4.5 billion of taxpayer money that is going to disappear into some hastily organized social programs. This has proven over and over again to be a recipe for disaster with the government.

I oppose Bill C-48. At report stage, members of my caucus attempted to improve the bill to make it almost palatable. They attempted to raise the amount of the surplus that would go toward paying down our national debt. This debt must be reduced to ensure we have the money we need for social programs in the future. They attempted to force the government to table a plan each year that would state how this money would be spent and how it would be allocated in this NDP budget bill. This seems a reasonable request.

Those people who stand to benefit from the spending would surely like to know what to expect. I join with my colleagues in demanding accountability, planning and transparency in government financing, and I join them in opposing Bill C-48.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Madam Speaker, I realize the member for Leeds--Grenville is a new member of Parliament and therefore probably does not have a very good memory of the last Conservative government we had in this country but I do.

Perhaps he does not remember that the last Conservative prime minister to run for election announced the election by saying that unemployment in this country would be double digits for at least the coming decade. It did not take a Liberal government long to get unemployment well below that level.

The member talked about pensions. It was this government that put the CPP on solid, sustainable footing so that it would be there for our seniors. A Conservative government ducked that issue for the five years I was in Parliament and for the four years before that when it was in office.

The member for Leeds--Grenville also talked about the billion dollar boondoggle. The party opposite received great mileage out of that issue in the House for a long time but has forgotten to tell people that when the Auditor General finished her work the simple fact was that $55,000, had not been misspent but simply had not been properly recorded.

I also want to point out that Parliament has a role in holding the government accountable. The details of how the budget money is going to get spent are in the estimates. What was the Conservative Party doing the week that committees were considering the estimates, the detailed spending and holding the government accountable? That party was boycotting committee hearings.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am having difficulty actually finding a question in there but let us talk about pensions for a second. Let us talk about the seniors, especially in a riding like mine which has a large senior population, who are screaming for more money. They are left with not enough support and the government is not doing anything to help them, other than a few measly dollars here and there.

The other part of the question I think had to do with fiscal responsibility. People are sick and tired of programs, such as the gun registry, where there is no accountability and spending just goes on and on. The people in my riding sent a clear message in the last election that they expected their member of Parliament to come here to speak about fiscal responsibility and I believe I have done that in my speech on the bill. The bill does not address the concerns of the people of my riding.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Madam Speaker, I have a very brief question for my hon. friend.

He comes, as I do, from a riding that has a large farming sector and a large rural sector. The initial budget was just awful for agriculture. When the government's junior coalition partner with the real minister of finance, the member for Toronto—Danforth, made their cozy little arrangement nothing was mentioned for farmers or for agriculture.

I know the member must be dealing with similar problems to mine, which is that programs do not deal with young farmers. They are ineligible because they have not farmed long enough. He has probably heard the member for Yorkton—Melville talk about past programs where the money was announced repeatedly but was never delivered.

Why does the member feel that the government has completely ignored agriculture once again? This is one of the founding industries that has been built up in every province across the nation. I have worked in the Yukon and it has an agriculture industry. It is a very important and vital industry.

The average farmer will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars that go into surrounding communities to build the economy and yet this is something the government has completely ignored. There are no efficiencies and no wisdom in spending, nothing. I was curious what the hon. member's comments might be on that issue.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Madam Speaker, many of the beef farmers in my riding are having a very tough time right now. I think it is a matter of priorities. The government has not made agriculture a priority and I think that was indicated in the last election. We saw that government members who came from ridings with large agricultural populations were not re-elected and that message was sent. In these budget bills we have seen support for farmers. The $19 a cow in terms of BSE support is not adequate.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak against Bill C-48.

I have heard a number of members in the House accuse the Conservative Party of not standing up for the homeless and for education. I want to make it absolutely clear that is completely misleading.

The issue before us today is a budget that was written on the back of a napkin in a hotel room somewhere in downtown Toronto with the perfunctory minister of finance, Mr. Buzz Hargove. It is difficult to understand who exactly is running the finances of the country when in fact billions and billions of dollars are spent just like that.

Without a plan we cannot vote for the spending of hard-earned taxpayers' dollars. The Conservative Party believes that the federal government should be the overseer and the protector of the funds that people lean on us to make decisions regarding.

The federal government should be responsible for things like international trade, the military, protecting the country's borders, but the Liberal government seems to want to interfere in every aspect of Canadian life.

The government wants to educate our children the way it feels it can do because it knows that parents cannot possibly raise their own children. The government wants to interfere with the family. It wants to tell us how to define our relationships and which relationships to have. It wants to interfere with the rights of religious freedoms.

The Prime Minister actually wants to be the premier of every province and the mayor of every city. The Conservative Party does not feel that is any way a federal government should operate.

The goal of the Conservative Party is it would like to see Canada in the highest of standards around the world. We believe that all Canadians who want a job should actually be able to get a job. We believe that Canadians should enjoy the economic growth that is the envy of the world. We have everything that we need to do exactly that, except a government with leadership.

We believe that moms and pops should go to bed every night knowing full well and feeling secure that their children will have access to a Canadian dream, any dream, a dream that I have not heard from the government in a decade, certainly not since I have been in the House representing my community of Cambridge.

We believe that children should be allowed a great secondary education, not just announcements, but action, a plan. We believe that they should have some money left to save for their retirement, not be robbed all their lives of their hard-earned dollars. Maybe, just maybe it is a dream, but just maybe they could have a little bit left over for skates or a one week summer vacation for their children. But no. What we see is a government that is so ramped on taxation that two people out of every family work, one of them just to pay the taxes for that family.

We feel very strongly that the social needs of Canadians must be met. We need to be responsible and recognize that there are Canadians who are less fortunate than we are.

However, approving the reckless spending, the unplanned and unchartered spending of $4.6 billion is not the way to do that. There is no adequate plan on a piece of paper that is not more than a page and a half long. Somehow it is about $200 million to $300 million per word.

Frankly, to be quite honest, it is not only irresponsible, it is actually very cruel to continue to make announcements without a plan or probably without any intentions of following through.

I would like to discuss what happens when the government makes spending announcements without any plan. The first thing that comes to mind is the knee-jerk reaction of let us get into spending money on a gun registry.

A plan would be what we saw with our cattle. We can register 40 million cows for $8 million, but apparently it takes almost $2 billion to register seven million long guns. We are talking long guns, because registration of hand guns has been around since 1935 and it has not done anything to resolve the shootings in downtown Toronto.

I do not know that there are duck hunters in downtown Toronto causing all that violence. I suspect that those firearms are hand guns that have been registered forever. Where are they coming from? They are coming across the border at the 200-plus border crossings without any security whatsoever. The government calls that smart borders; I call it completely inane.

What about the knee-jerk reaction at Davis Inlet? At Davis Inlet we saw children sniffing gasoline. The media reported it. It became a public outcry, which it should have been, but without a plan, what did the government do? It approved the spending of what amounted to approximately $400,000 to move those children, and what else? To move the problem. There were no solutions, just taxpayers' money. We need solutions, not announcements.

Nobody would build a house without a plan. What a disaster that would be to start digging the hole first, not even knowing what size the house would be and not even knowing how many bathrooms were needed, just a blank cheque. Canadians cannot afford that kind of lack of planning.

Probably the most known one is the sponsorship scandal. Some of my colleagues suggest that was not without a plan. There was a plan to funnel and launder taxpayers' money into the Liberal friendly coffers. Maybe that is true, but frankly, the plan was a knee-jerk reaction to get money somewhere and it ended up somewhere else.

We talk about infrastructure right now. The last time the Liberals put $6 billion into infrastructure was into something called the Canadian infrastructure works program at the beginning of the Chrétien government. Since we are going back into history, I know the questions I will get asked will be something about past spending in some government. We are not talking about history. We are talking about saving Canadians' dollars by controlling the fiscal recklessness of the government.

I hate to break it to the members opposite, but we cannot change history. Let us move forward. Let us do something different, because what they have been doing for the last decade has not been working. We have record lineups, but we have $41 billion announced for health care. Nothing has changed. Lineups have not changed.

What do we have in the Canadian infrastructure works program? We have $6 billion, and a lot of that money went toward private hockey arenas. It went toward bocce courts. Do not ask me if I have anything against bocce courts. That is just political rhetoric. Of course I do not. What I have a concern about is spending taxpayers' dollars in areas in which they were not designed to go.

The Conservative Party has nothing against the homeless, absolutely nothing. They need to be helped. They need our help. We have a problem with putting $1.6 billion into a program and not ending up with any extra beds. We have a problem with a program that has 97% administrative costs. How long does the government think that we will sit on this side of the House and give it a blank cheque to continue with its irresponsible spending habits? It stops now. Frankly, the buck stops here. We cannot vote for such reckless spending.

In my community of Cambridge, we have social programs like the Bridges and Cara's Hope. These are programs that are not funded in any way by the government, because the Liberals have too much money to blow on reckless spending.

We would like that the government get down to the business of making a plan, just as normal Canadians would have to do, and spending money on that plan. That is how we get a dollar for a dollar.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, when we think of the G-7, and others have talked about Canada leading the G-7 in job creation, Canada is the only G-7 country to have a balanced budget. As a matter of fact this budget is the eighth consecutive balanced budget. This is not reflective of what the member repeated several times, reckless spending.

He talked about Bill C-48. Bill C-48 represents an increase of 1% in total spending. Why does he think that 1% increase in spending is reckless? Does he think assistance to post-secondary students is reckless? Does he think that spending on retrofitting low cost housing for environmental purposes is reckless spending? Does he think that spending on affordable housing so Canadians can have the dignity of a roof over their heads is reckless spending? I do not think so. I know the member. I know that he supports this budget.

Would the member at least recognize that there was a $100 billion tax cut that has been now fully implemented and now that our tax system is fully indexed Canadians are receiving a tax cut each and every year?

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly reciprocate the respect of the hon. member. However, I had to chuckle when the member said that it is only 1%. That is the problem with the government: “It is only 1%; it is only $100 million; it is only $1 billion; heck, we spend $500 billion, what's a billion?” I thank the hon. member for pointing that out. That is exactly the problem with the government. It has no respect for people who end up with $13 left at the end of the month. What the hon. member wants to brag about is a tax cut that amounts to $16 a year. How ridiculous.

Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. A dollar in the hand of the people is worth far more than a dollar in the hands of the government.

Let me just repeat what I said. We have absolutely nothing against providing for affordable housing, but the government's way of doing it does not end up with any net difference in affordable housing. Put the money into it, let us see the concrete pour and I will vote for it. To just throw the money into a money pit, I refuse to vote for that. I work too hard for my money. My constituents work too hard for their money. The government has to learn to respect dollars. Not everybody makes as much money as that hon. member does.

[John McKay, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Madam Speaker, it is a bit of a news flash that the Conservative Party has nothing against homeless people. I am pleased to hear that. I assume that party will therefore support Bill C-48, but I am somewhat skeptical about that.

There has been a lot of misinformation put on the floor of House by the hon. member and others. I want to bring to his attention that in the course of this government, program spending as a percentage of GDP has actually declined from something in the order of 17% to 12%. We in fact are holding the line at around 12% of GDP. Bill C-48 actually represents less than 1% of government spending and it is entirely contingent spending; in other words, if there is not a surplus, it will not be spent.

I want to make the point to the hon. member that this is a fiscally responsible approach to unplanned surpluses. In fact Bay Street has already looked at this and the dollar has gone up, surprise, surprise. Interest rates remain steady, surprise, surprise. Inflation has not jumped, surprise, surprise.

The people who actually look at these things and make decisions on what they are going to do financially with respect to Bill C-48, or Bill C-43 for that matter, have decided that this is appropriate spending.

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do not believe there was a question there, just more rhetoric from the opposite side of the House.

Again I hear this issue about 1% of spending. We really do have to tell the truth to Canadians. this budget has no plan behind $4.6 billion. Then there was this pre-election campaign spending of $25 billion in promises by the Prime Minister. When Bay Street sees the $25 billion plus this potentially contingent $4.6 billion, which sounds to me like promises made, promises likely to be broken, I suspect the dollar will go up, interest rates will go up and our economy will downturn.

I would suggest the government pay close attention to all the promises it makes. Maybe in some weird way I actually hope it breaks a few of them.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to address this do over budget, the whoops we made a mistake in the first one budget so we will try again, the back of a napkin, Buzz Hargrove, NDP deal in a hotel room.

I want to outline the difference in philosophy between the socialist corruption alliance and the Conservative Party philosophy. Our party believes there has to be a reason to take tax dollars away from Canadians.

I want to relate a story and the hon. member across the way was instructing me as to why we could not have tax relief. He told me that the reason why we could not have tax relief was if a $100 tax credit were given to every Canadian, it would cost so many billions and if a $200 tax credit, it would cost double that.

I asked him what was the problem with that? He said the question was, did every Canadian deserve a $200 tax cut? That sums it up. For the Liberals, ordinary working Canadians have to justify keeping their own money. They have to go to the government with a reason why they have to keep their hard earned dollars. Then the Liberals will sit there, judge and say that they will let some people keep a little more of their money but others they will not.

The Conservative Party thinks it is the exact opposite. We have to go to Canadians and provide a justification for why the government needs their money. It has to go to specific essential services. The Liberals view it as their private chequing account, that Canadians have to go and beg and plead for some of their own money back.

Let us look at a few of the items the government treats as its own private chequing account. There has been a lot of discussion in the past few days about foreign aid. We are sending tax dollars, collected from hard-working Canadians, working families, to China, government to the government. We are funding the most brutal regime on the planet and we are giving them tax dollars. Canada is funding a government that habitually exterminates its own people, wipes out villages, ethnically cleanses parts of its regions, rolls over vast regions such as Tibet. It has missiles pointed at Taiwan. We are giving China direct dollars.

It is not a surprise. We know the Prime Minister's buddies in Power Corporation and Canada Steamship Lines do the bulk of the trade with China. They give money to the government of China directly and then lo and behold CSL and Power Corporation are the beneficiaries of some of the payback.

We look at more millions going into the gun registry. I am not surprised the NDP voted to keep the funding going. We know the position of the leader of the NDP on gun control. It is confiscation. We know, when he was a councillor in the city of Toronto, he advocated central depositories where gun owners would have to leave their guns and sign them in and out like a library card. If they wanted to go hunting on the weekend or if a farmer had some pests around that he wanted to get rid of, they would have to go and sign their guns in and out. How much would that have cost?

It really is no surprise that the NDP leader would support more funding for the gun registry, even though the vast majority of Canadians, certainly 95% of constituents who have contacted my office, have said that they want the program scrapped. They want those dollars put right into front line police officers. This is not going to happen with the government.

The issue of child care is another example of the Liberal philosophy. It is a vicious circle and we are in the middle. The Liberals only see the problem starting at there are many working families which have to have both parents out of the house working and that is creating a problem in looking after their children.

The Liberal solution is to take more of their hard earned tax dollars and put it into a babysitting bureaucracy. They will make Canadians work harder and longer to fund a program they will give only to certain people who fit into that Liberal paradigm, that one size fits all approach. Forget about shift workers. Forget about parents who choose to work opposite ends of the clock in order to be at home and provide that care. Forget about people who use a relative. Only the people who fit in that one size fits all paradigm will benefit from it.

The good news is we will all have to pay for it. Every Canadian, regardless of their child care choice, will have to pay for it. The vast majority of Canadians will pay twice, once for the option of their choice and once again to fund the minister's huge multi-billion dollar scheme. The minister cannot even tell the House how much it will cost. He says he does not know.

Members of his party, child care advocates, say that it will cost between $10 billion and $12 billion, perhaps even as high as $15 billion a year. From where are they going to get the money? Will they hike taxes? Probably. Will they cut services in other areas? Probably. We have a ruling from the Supreme Court saying that the Liberals are certainly not doing a great job on health care, and it goes on.

A TD report released in January, I believe, showed that the gross domestic product in Canada from 1989 to 2004 grew by 25%, but the average take home pay for working Canadians increased by only 3.6%. Working families from 1989 to 2004 got a 3.6% increase in their take home pay. That speaks to a lot of issues such as quality of life. We know inflation goes up at a higher rate than this over that many years. Therefore, Canadians have had a pay cut because they have had to pay more for their services as inflation has gone up. They are keeping less of their money.

The average Canadian family in that time experienced a $1,327 increase in their total tax bill. That is shameful. We are seeing working Canadian families paying more money for fewer services. The quality of service is going down. Proof of that is in the Supreme Court ruling blaming the government for the record of abysmal mismanagement.

We know what NDP deals do to the economy. We have seen the economy in Saskatchewan stagnate. Saskatchewan is a province full of prosperity and natural resources. People are willing to build their province. They are willing to be entrepreneurs and work harder to make their communities better. Yet the government uses their tax dollars to fund wasteful schemes. I think of Spudco, or offshore investments which lose, or dot-coms in Australia and Tennessee which lose hundreds of millions of dollars. It is no surprise to see the federal NDP party starting to do some of the same things, throwing money around without a plan.

This is an important thing to remember. This budget deal is all about unplanned spending. When we go through it, we see some of the things they talk about and all are unaccounted. The minister will be authorized to spend so much money on this and many millions on that,with no plan. The government has thrown a few words in to say that it would like the money to go to something for example like the environment, but there is nothing about how that money will be implemented.

Where have we seen the government throw money at a problem with no coherent plan or vision of how the money will be used to address a problem? The first one that comes to mind is the sponsorship scandal. The reason why half the Liberal Party is under investigation for criminal actions is exactly the same sorts of things. Throwing money at a problem and letting the chips fall where they may resulted in the sponsorship scandal.

The gun registry is a typical Liberal fallacy. If there is a problem, something must be done. This is something, therefore it must be done without any sort of foresight or any thought of watching what the end result might be. That is what we are likely to see here.

We are likely to see a whole bunch of money being thrown at something with no concrete plan in place. It is not surprising. The Minister of Social Development stood in the House and told members he knew he was doing something right because he doubled the money going to Saskatchewan. He specifically said that he did not know where the money was going, but he knew he had doubled it. Therefore, he felt was doing twice as well as before. He cannot even tell the House how many child care spaces will be create.

This is the type of uncontrolled and unplanned spending. It is a horrible thing for responsible government. It is a horrible thing for our parliamentary democracy when government ministers can just spend money without any sort of accountability, implementation plan or evaluation of whether the money got to the right place and if it did the right thing. That is what the essence of the bill is. The NDP is supporting a corrupt government for the sake of being able to say that it threw money at problems.

I would like the NDP to explain that to the residents of my riding and people throughout Canada, who are so ashamed and saddened by what has happened to their government. I would like the NDP to tell them why they are propping up this corrupt government.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Madam Speaker, in listening to my colleague, it is just like hearing that the Conservatives are pure and white. I am wondering what happened in Saskatchewan when the Conservatives were in power for almost eight years. I do not know what happened to 14 of those Conservatives, but I think many of them were pretty close to jail. I do not know how those members can just get up and say how pure they were.

Let us look at the position of the Conservative Party. Where was the Conservative Party when it came to the employment insurance motion that we brought in last week? Conservative members voted against it because it was for working people. They could have helped men and women doing seasonal work. Only seven members of the Conservative Party voted for it.

Conservatives are saying that the NDP is voting with a corrupt government. How did they vote last week on Bill C-43, which was the government budget? They voted for the government budget. How can they get up today and say that the NDP has voted for a corrupt government on a bill and on a budget when they did what they did? The Minister of Finance had not even finished presenting the budget to the House when the leader of the Conservative Party left the House of Commons and told the press he could not vote against the government's budget because it was a good budget, because Bay Street liked it, because there were cuts for the big corporations.

Are the Conservatives questioning what the big corporations do with their money when they get it? I can tell them: they run to the bank. They do not create even one job over the year because it depends on the market, on if they have sales. That is how they create jobs.

Then, when it came time to help the students, the Conservative Party got up in the House and said it was against Bill C-48, not Bill C-43, where we give money to the big corporations, but against the one that would help students who are in debt. They are against that one, said the Conservatives. They are against affordable housing when we could help people who are on the street and we could give them a home. They are against that. That is what the Conservative Party is all about.

I am sure that Canadians are listening to what is happening tonight. One member is saying that the NDP has voted with the corrupt Liberal government. Where were the Conservatives for Bill C-43? Where were they for the Liberal budget, the real budget, where the Liberals and the Conservatives look the same, which was Bill C-43?

How about when it comes to the ordinary people? What about when it came to voting last week on the motion for the best 12 weeks? Who got up in the House of Commons and voted against it? The Liberals and the Conservatives, which to me look the same when we look at Bill C-43.

I would like to hear what the hon. member thought about it. He talks about Conservative members voting and tries to tell Canadians they did not vote for a budget of the government. They have voted on Bill C-43. They did not even wait for the minister to finish telling Canadians about the budget. The leader of their party said he could not vote against the budget because it was a good budget. It was a budget that was more for the big corporations than the little people.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Madam Speaker, I wish to thank my colleague from the NDP for his question.

It is most unfortunate.

The hon. member is quite confused about many issues. I would like to point out to him, and I believe I am correct on this, that it was an NDP MLA in Saskatchewan who was convicted of a crime a few years ago.

The member had a number of questions. I hope I can address them in the short time I have. First he spewed out a bunch of things: why this, why that and why that was not part of the deal. There are all these things he is crying about. Where was all of that when they went to negotiate?

He talked about people in Saskatchewan. I have a lot of people in my riding who would like to know why, when those parties were making this deal, there was not a single penny for agriculture and not a single penny for a fair deal for Saskatchewan in terms of equalization, an agenda that this party has been driving for months as the only ally of the Saskatchewan people in moving this issue forward. We had a motion in the House to give Saskatchewan a fair deal on equalization. That is forgotten.

The member was talking about the first budget. Is he talking about the job saving tax relief? Does he not realize that what is better than social programs for Canadians is being able to have a job?

I am sure the people of Regina—Qu'Appelle would like to understand why he is against providing jobs in my riding. There are big corporations in my riding. IPSCO is a large corporation and employs a lot of people in Regina.

Someone has to pay taxes. Someone has to have a job. This job saving tax relief that the Conservative Party is advocating would help protect those jobs. The huge burden of taxation that the NDP would like to impose across Canada will hurt jobs and hurt people in his riding and mine.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise tonight in the House of Commons on behalf of the people of Palliser, who have entrusted me to represent them in Ottawa.

Across my constituency, people continue to say that we need honest and accountable government, a government that is ready to govern according to the priorities of Canadians. I am proud to say that as a member of the Conservative Party of Canada I have stood up for Palliser residents time and time again to make sure that their priorities are reflected here in the House.

That is why I opposed and continue to oppose the wasteful Liberal gun registry, which diverts valuable tax dollars away from funding to fight crime, for front line policing, into a bureaucratic boondoggle.

That is why I opposed the Liberal day care plan, which the hon. member for Regina--Qu'Appelle referred to as the babysitting bureaucracy, and instead argued that we need to devote money to parents to make their own child care choices. Money in the hands of parents: I cannot think of a better solution.

That is why I stood up for farmers and producers in calling for the elimination of the producer deposit for the CAIS program.

I take the trust of the people of Palliser seriously. It is the reason I stand here tonight to speak out against Bill C-48, the Liberal-NDP deal that has kept this corrupt Liberal government in power, but which will deliver very little value to the people of Palliser.

I want to take a moment to talk about the Conservative Party's vision for Canada and why the Liberal-NDP deal fails to deliver the economic policies we need to allow families and businesses to prosper.

Canadians are profoundly disappointed with the Liberal government. The Prime Minister promised a lot when he came to power. All of us in the House remember his promises to end the democratic deficit. What has happened since then? That promise has been shattered over and over again with the same heavy-handed parliamentary tactics and patronage as the previous Liberal government under Mr. Chrétien.

The Prime Minister's reputation for fiscal responsibility has also been shattered by the fact that Liberal gang spent over $25 billion to cling to power last month, aided by the leader of the NDP, whose party continues to advocate tax and spend policies that hurt our economy.

Bill C-48 is yet another indication that the corrupt Liberal government treats tax dollars like its own private piggy bank. The Liberal budget is not a long term fiscal vision for the country but instead an opening bid for negotiations with the NDP.

It may shock members on the government side, and certainly those in the NDP, to learn that using tax dollars to buy votes, to buy Canadians with their own money, is not good policy, nor is it in the best interests of our country.

Canadians do not need a government that overtaxes and overspends. They need a government that has an economic plan, a government that leaves as much money as possible in the pockets of families, as my hon. friend alluded to.

[An hon. member]

Airbus.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite should listen, because he might learn something tonight.

Fortunately there is a party in this country with a broad national vision for the country, one that believes a government must reflect the priorities of Canadians. That is the Conservative Party of Canada.

That is why I cannot support Bill C-48, the after-budget budget, the deal where a corrupt Liberal government opened its wallets to the NDP, led by the member for Toronto--Danforth and said, “Take it all”. Bill C-48 takes $4.6 billion out of the pockets of hardworking Canadians just to keep the Liberals in power. This Liberal-NDP political deal betrays Canadians, particularly the people of Palliser and Saskatchewan, and makes a mockery of the budget process.

Let us be clear. The Conservative Party and I supported the first budget bill because, while it was far from perfect, it contained important measures on equalization, infrastructure, money for communities, more spending on the military, and some, albeit small, tax relief for families.

However, it has become clear that the Liberals were only giving us half the story when they presented their budget in February. Since then they have engaged in a reckless spending spree, without parallel in Canadian history, that has cost over $25 billion. That is three times what the government of Saskatchewan will spend over the entire year. The Liberals have blown through that in a month.

How can I or any member of the House vote for a bill knowing that this spending was not considered important enough to include in the finance minister's first budget? That is the key point. If this was a good deal for the country it would have been in the first budget, and we have heard nothing to the contrary, nothing to counter that argument.

This bill, this Liberal-NDP deal of desperation, is not good for our country. It goes against the Conservative Party's commitment to carefully manage taxpayer money and threatens the fiscal stability of our country. It is a deal we cannot support. It is a deal that epitomizes the cynical vote buying of a corrupt government that has Canadians demanding better.

Bill C-48 is heavy on the public purse but light on the details: a page and a half for $4.6 billion in spending. This is ludicrous. It commits hundreds of millions of dollars under broad areas without any concrete plans as to how that money would be spent. The government would need to post $8.5 billion in surpluses over the next two fiscal years to fully implement this bill.

The Auditor General has raised some serious concerns about the ability of certain departments to deliver programs effectively, departments to which the Liberals want to give more money in Bill C-48, including Indian and Northern Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency.

In fact, the Conservative Party recognizes that many Canadians are not receiving the level of assistance from the federal government that they deserve because of the Liberal government's approach to problem solving: spending money without an adequate plan.

The bill also fails to deliver the goods for Saskatchewan. For families in Regina, Moose Jaw and southern Saskatchewan who just finished paying their taxes, $4.6 billion is a pretty big price tag. I have low income families in my constituency trying to figure out how they will pay the rent and farm families trying to figure out how they will pay rising utility costs because of the government's failure to get the border open.

Do the Liberals think that these families looked at their income tax returns and thought that the taxes they were paying to Ottawa should be used to cut a deal with the NDP to keep themselves in power? Of course not. Instead, they are wondering why the government continues to waste money on boondoggles like the gun registry, when the federal Liberals and the Saskatchewan NDP are closing RCMP detachments along the border; hundreds of miles without an RCMP detachment. They are wondering why health care waiting lists continue to get longer in Saskatchewan under the Liberals and NDP despite the fact that we are paying more than ever for health care. They are wondering why Liberal cabinet ministers, Liberal bagmen and advertising firms are getting rich while taxes continue to rise. These are the questions of the people in Palliser and they are questions the government should be answering.

It is also difficult for families in my constituency to support a $4.6 billion NDP-Liberal deal when very little of that money is going to support families in Saskatchewan. There is no new money for farm families. It does nothing to deliver funding directly to front line policing services to stop the spread of drugs like crystal meth. One would think that the Liberal government would do at least that much considering that it refused to bring forward changes to the Criminal Code to toughen penalties for trafficking meth.

There is no equalization deal for Saskatchewan, which is what the Conservative Party has been consistently demanding from the government. To put it into perspective, a new equalization deal would have meant an additional $750 million for Saskatchewan, my province, this year alone. The Liberals and federal NDP said no to that. They said no to shortening health care waiting lists. They said no to repairing the province's highways. They said no to fighting crime. Why then should the people of Palliser say yes to the government?

In conclusion, the Prime Minister said that he wanted Parliament to work but he certainly never consulted our party about making a better budget that would speak to the real priorities of Canadians. We would have liked to have seen meaningful tax reductions for Canadian families and businesses and some spending restraint.

Instead of costing taxpayers another $4.6 billion, we would have save them some money. We would have liked to have seen real investment in Saskatchewan families.

The bill does none of those things and because of that I cannot support it.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I like the member's passion and it is good but in every budget we cannot do all things. The member probably will know that there was a $100 billion tax cut and now he is calling for a further tax cut.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

They hiked CPP right after they cut taxes.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

The member harps about CPP. He should know that the CPP is on very sound financial footing now and in fact is projected to be fully funded right out to the year 2075.

However, to get back to the member's speech, a number of members of his caucus have suggested that the existence of a surplus means that Canadians are overtaxed. However part of the responsibility of government is to be fiscally prudent and to manage the finances of the nation. We have had eight balanced budgets.

The existence of a surplus does not mean that there is some sort of a profit that does not do anything. It pays down the national debt and saves interest each and every year thereafter. We have had over $60 billion of debt repayment and a savings of over $3 billion a year.

The member now suggests that since there was a surplus the last time that we should have meaningful tax cuts. I wonder if the member would care to share with the House and with all Canadians what kind of tax cuts he is suggesting now. By how much would that reduce the government's revenue?

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we did support Bill C-43 because it contained modest tax cuts. However it did not even come close to what is needed in the country. I believe Canadians will be saving $16 a year. Canadians think that is a medium pizza and they are not impressed with the government.

We talk about being fiscally prudent. We are talking about C-48 tonight. Young Canadians who may be watching tonight are looking toward their future and to what we in the House are doing for their future.

This budget is very irresponsible. We are mortgaging their future. We are putting an anchor around the neck of young Canadians. This is $4.6 billion. That is two-plus gun registries, four HRDC boondoggles and this is budgeted for in a page and a half. That is why we simply cannot support the bill.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

What about the $1.5 billion in the budget for post-secondary education.

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

The member is pointing to the budget, yes, one and a half pages for $4.6 billion.

If this was good for the country it should have been in the original budget.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder what happened to the Conservative Party because when the Minister of Finance was reading his budget in the House of Commons the Leader of the Conservative Party ran out before the minister was finished and said that he supported the budget because it was a good budget.

What happened between then and now? I think he looked at the polls and when he saw that his party was up by 34% he decided that the budget was no longer any good and that he would bring the government down.

Right after that, the Conservatives voted for Bill C-43. What part of Bill C-48 are they against? Are they telling us that they are against bringing down student debt and helping our children? Are they saying that they are against affordable housing when we see many people in our towns and cities living on the streets and in cardboard boxes, as we saw in Toronto in front of city hall? Are they saying that they are against the 1¢ extra on the gas tax that could go to the city of Regina in the riding of Regina--Qu'Appelle?

Is that what they want to vote against, to give money to the city for infrastructure? Is that what the Conservatives are telling us?

[Dave Batters, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to go back a bit. In terms of Bill C-43, we can live with that because the measures in that bill were actually driven by the Conservative Party of Canada.

The NDP, on the other hand, were against the budget to begin with. It was only when all of us realized the depth of the corruption of the Liberals, that the member for Toronto--Danforth and the NDP decided to prop them up and keep them in power. It is inexplicable.

The member spoke about affordable housing. I have spoken in the House about reducing the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation premiums so that young families could afford to purchase their homes. Some members of the Bloc Québécois have also driven this issue. As a result, we have seen a 15% reduction in CMHC premiums. That is important.

Let us talk about what is missing from Bill C-48. The member for Toronto-Danforth, the leader of the NDP, had the opportunity to name his price that evening because, God knows, the member for LaSalle—Émard would have done anything to stay in power.

An equalization deal for the province of Saskatchewan would have been nice. It was completely forgotten by the member for Toronto--Danforth and the NDP. They completely forgot about a fair equalization deal for the province of Saskatchewan, as did the Minister of Finance from my home town of Regina. When we brought that motion forward he voted with the separatists to vote down a fair equalization deal for Saskatchewan. It is shameful.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I must rise in the House today to speak against the NDP budget bill and I have a few key reasons for my opposition. I join my colleagues to bring to Canadians a clearer view into the deficiencies of this spending spree.

To begin with, let us talk about the support for Canada's international trade strategy by this NDP-Liberal budget or, should I say, lack of support for any kind of trade strategy.

In this very short bill, which was apparently cooked up in a Toronto hotel room under the supervision of the unelected Buzz Hargrove, the Liberals paid a ransom of $4.5 billion. The NDP added provisions for the environment, post-secondary education, affordable housing and foreign aid.

Those are all worthy projects. In fact, so worthy that they demand thoughtful planning and are undermined when they are treated like pawns in a Liberal-NDP power game.

We see nothing to help fuel international trade for the Canadian economy from the corrupt minority Liberals or from their armchair enablers, the NDP.

On the other hand, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade just today accepted proactive Conservative Party policy ideas to the emerging market strategy report that will be tabled in this House. Time will tell what the Government of Canada will say in response to this.

There is no question that creating and pursuing a strong strategy to promote trade with new and emerging markets is very important. There has been action to grow beyond the traditional Liberal notion of inflated imports alone as trade objectives.

Comments over the past months and even years by the Liberal Party, the NDP and the Bloc have fallen victim to debate, using reactionary protectionist language.

A balance must be struck between adjustments to the ever changing global trade economy and invoking temporary and unsustainable interventions to shield sectors from external market forces.

The Conservative Party of Canada recognizes the unique nature of our domestic trade objectives. We urge all members of this House and specifically counsel the Liberal government to end its policy of divisive and polarizing dialogue on international trade.

Canadian industry relies on the federal government to continue its ambitious agenda of trade liberalization. This cannot happen if the Liberals are successful in pitting region against region and sector against sector.

We have seen in this House legitimate discussions on the government's commitment to defend the unique policy models and institutions. However in words and in action the Liberal government has not balanced the debate by reaffirming its commitment to aggressively pursue a global increase in strong, rules based, clean market access for Canada's export oriented commodities.

To be perfectly clear, the Conservative Party of Canada will defend Canadians in their pursuit of prosperity through free and fair trade. The Canadian economy has unlimited potential to grow and prosper but it needs a federal government that stands up for its producers, manufacturers and service industries, both in our largest export market, the United States, and around the world.

The Conservative Party, as the official opposition and as Canada's government in waiting, believes that strategic trade policy must focus on efforts to achieve strong and enforceable rules based trade agreements at the bilateral and multilateral levels. These agreements must secure increased, effective and efficient market access to global markets in established regions, such as Europe, and especially in new and emerging markets, such as China, India, Brazil and Russia.

The Conservative Party of Canada has called on the Government of Canada to recommit to achieving a strong and enforceable agreement at the WTO that achieves increased effective and efficient market access to global markets, while also maintaining the sovereignty to retain domestic marketing practices consistent with WTO obligations.

Jobs, competitiveness and productivity that fuels increased international trade are the real issues that should have been addressed in any budget addendum.

Briefly I would like to discuss the foreign aid section of the NDP budget. The Conservative Party of Canada has repeatedly demanded that the Government of Canada address concerns raised by the unlegislated nature of CIDA. Without a legislated mandate, this crucial element of Canada's global contribution is vulnerable to misappropriation.

The NDP should not have given the Liberals another blank cheque that is supposed to be spent on development when CIDA funds were already included in the commerce section of the recently released international policy statement. This should raise concerns from the NDP, as it has in the Conservative Party, that CIDA funds may be diverted from development work toward priorities such as trade promotion rather than being effectively leveraged to enhance the development advantages that can be achieved as a consequence of Canadian industry investment in developing nations.

In an increasingly competitive global economy, trade remains the key to future prosperity in Canada. Many Canadian jobs depend heavily upon foreign markets. Those jobs are placed in jeopardy when other nations make it difficult for our exporters to sell their products. The Conservative Party of Canada is committed to improving overall economic growth in Canada through facilitating competition, improving productivity, streamlining regulation and fostering innovation in concert with free and fair trade agreements.

The Government of Canada must bring more security to existing trade related jobs. To create new employment opportunities, it is critical to focus on diversifying both the products we sell abroad and the markets into which we sell those products.

Secure access to international markets through a rules based trading system will maximize the benefits we have as a free trading nation, emphasizing the need to establish trading relationships beyond North America. The Government of Canada must vigorously pursue reduction of international trade barriers and tariffs, eliminate trade distorting government export subsidies within clearly established time limits, and seek a clear definition of what constitutes an export subsidy.

The Conservative Party of Canada urges the Government of Canada to resist implementing reactionary protectionist policies, balance its domestic and international dialogues to reflect all sectors of the Canadian economy, and reject pressure to undermine Canada's foreign aid budgets by raiding legitimate CIDA programming to achieve international trade objectives.

Finally, the Conservative Party of Canada supports the development of an innovative and aggressive strategy to develop trade ties with emerging markets.