Madam Speaker, again it is a pleasure to speak in the House to Bill C-48, the NDP supplementary budget to the government.
I think all Canadians have certain days they want to commemorate, such as birthdays, anniversaries and special occasions. In politics, we remember days of elections and times when budgets or policy documents are brought forward. Those are the days we remember.
This past spring the government brought down a long anticipated budget, Bill C-43. After the budget came down I had the opportunity to host five or six town hall meetings in different areas of my constituency, such as Oyen, Drumheller, Strathmore, Camrose, Stettler and Hanna. I hosted these town hall meetings to explain what the 2005 budget contained. I can say that coming from a rural riding in Alberta, an area that has been devastated by droughts, BSE and other various elements, the budget was a tough sell. Then again I am certainly not much of a salesman when it comes to trying to sell Liberal budgets in Conservative ridings.
However in the town hall meetings I commented on a fairly recent speech that the Alberta minister of health had given. In that speech she noted in the public forum that mental health issues were on the rise as Albertans attempted to balance their work and family commitments and struggle with ensuing financial hardships. In her speech she made reference to the turbulent times, such as drought and BSE, mainly in rural settings. No one knows more about those financial hardships and the stress of dealing with those burdens than our farmers.
At the time I conducted these town hall meetings throughout the constituency, the NDP had not made its deal with the Liberal government, the deal to prop up the corrupt government. That April 26 deal resulted in the legislation that we are discussing today, Bill C-48. Bill C-48 provides the legal framework for the outlandish NDP spending measures that we in this party adamantly oppose, measures that total up to $4.6 billion over two years.
I do not have a copy of Bill C-43 but it was a thick document. Bill C-48, amounting to $4.6 billion, is one double-sided page, half English and half French. Someone has already made reference to the fact that it contains 400 words but just like that spends $4.6 billion. Bill C-43, the first budget, spent $193 billion. Bill C-48 spends an additional $4.6 billion. That is big government. The deal that the NDP made with the Liberals made the spending even bigger.
That goes against what Conservatives believe. Conservatives believe that the people who earn the money, who go out and work for their paycheques, who are putting the crop in and taking the crop out, are the ones who are best able to spend the money. The Liberals say no. They believe they need more money to spend, and the NDP is right there with them. They say they want to build a larger bureaucracy so they can spend the money.
Where does the extra $4.6 billion come from? It comes from all hardworking Canadians who basically trade their time for the paycheque. They go out every week and give up the 40 hours or 50 hours of work and at the end of it they get a paycheque. The government now says that it wants to take that time and the money they received and control how it is spent and where it goes.
We in the Conservative Party believe in smaller government, in lower taxes and we believe the private sector is the main engine of economic productivity, growth and prosperity.
What did we not see in the 2005 budget? What we did not see in that budget and in the companion budget we are discussing today was any type of financial commitment to farmers who are undergoing terrible conditions.
The budget speech delivered on February 23 by the finance minister was very long and detailed but lost in those details was the fact that farm incomes in this country have been in a negative position for a number of years. We all know why. Those living in Crowfoot and throughout Canada, specifically in some parts of rural Canada, understand that there have been successive years of drought and BSE. Now, in much of my constituency and in constituencies in southern Alberta, we see unrelenting rain and flooding.
As I speak here today, in part of my constituency in the area of Drumheller, 2,700 people were told to get out of their houses because the river was swelling and there would be certain flood damage. I could go on and talk about Drumheller because it is a great community. It is a great tourist centre and a great place to visit. I hope everyone here will take the opportunity to go there.
Drumheller, which is a good area for farming and agriculture, if we were to go south of Calgary we would see that many fields are now under water. The member for Macleod told me that 80 acres out of 160 acres, or a quarter section of land, are now under water. A lot of these farmers are looking at flood damage and another year of negative growth.
In 2003, farmers had negative farm incomes for the first time since the great depression. Today grain and oilseeds prices are even worse. They have fallen through the floor. We are still suffering from the mad cow crisis.
To be frank, I was disappointed at the continued lack of respect and attention that agriculture producers and hardworking families received in this 2005 budget. Farmers will get no more cash in their pockets because of this budget. Despite Agriculture Canada's forecast of another year of negative farm income, there was little mention of agriculture. When the NDP decided to prop up this corrupt government and talked about the four areas, there was not one mention of agriculture. It is no wonder that the NDP in Saskatchewan have been basically shut out. It has forgotten about agriculture and about rural Canada.
In a question earlier, the member for Prince George talked about the CAIS program. One day the Liberal government was telling us it could not take away the cash deposit requirement. It said that it was not able to set that aside because farmers could not afford to put it into the CAIS program. A few days later, after it was voted on, it came out in the budget. I will give the government credit because what it said it could not do, it did. We applaud it for that even though it is what the Conservative Party of Canada had stood up for as we were defending farmers. The government accepted that and we applaud it for that.
However, with regard to the total new funding for agriculture, the first budget only had $130 million in it. It is important for Canadians to know that money did not get to the kitchen table of farm producers. It was not for the producers. It was there to build a bigger bureaucracy and to add consultants. It did not put dollars on the kitchen table. It was not designed for producers.
Programs that were brought out by the government in the spring in some cases forgot about a whole sector of agriculture. They forgot about some of the new farmers who have come on, some of the new farmers who have allowed their farms to grow.
Don Drummond, a former deputy minister of finance and now an economist for the TD Bank, said it is time that Canadians have a pay increase. He said Canadians need lower taxes and in effect that will give them a pay increase. We could not agree with him more. Bill C-48 would make people pay more because we are going to spend more, make government bigger, and have larger bureaucracies. Bill C-48 is a bad piece of legislation and we will be voting against it.