Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to say a few words in the debate tonight.
People watching think we are debating the budget, but that is not factual. The bill implementing the budget has already passed through the House and is in the Senate. Hopefully, it will receive royal assent shortly because it contains a lot of good things.
I would like to give the House a bit of history. When the government was elected last fall, it found itself in a minority position. It then brought in its budget, which was carefully doctored around the concerns of the opposition. All parties in the House can take credit for suggesting, pushing and ensuring sure certain items were included.
The Atlantic accord was a Conservative initiative, a Conservative commitment. It was included in the budget. We were the ones who pushed to get it in there. We had tax cuts, with which the government played around, that would stimulate the economy, create jobs, employ people, bring in more taxes and put money into social programs, all indirectly. We had included help for the homeless, an issue about which every party in the House talked. Generally it was a budget to satisfy everybody. It was not a Liberal budget. It was a parliamentary budget.
Consequently, the Liberal Party voted for the budget. The official opposition did not vote. If we had voted against it, we would have sent Canadians back to the polls. The NDP and the Bloc voted against the budget. Thanks to the official opposition, the government survived and things began to progress.
As things were progressing here, they were also progressing at the Gomery commission. We heard very heated and pointed testimony, pointing clearly to the involvement of the Liberal Party and high profile Liberals in the scandalous operations during the sponsorship time in Quebec. Unfortunately, the people of Quebec grew tired with a lot of the accusations. We have said many times that it was not a Quebec scandal; it was a Liberal scandal.
As a result of that, the government found itself in a very precarious position. People across the country were getting upset. Pressure was put on opposition parties to get rid of the government, to make changes. Liberals being Liberals, hanging on by their fingernails, tried to find ways to stay in power.
One of the members just asked if that was not what minority governments should do. He asked if we should form coalitions to try to beef up support to stay in power. My answer to that is yes. A government gains the support of other parties in the House, whether it be a four party system, as we have here, or a 25 party system as we see in other places, by being responsible, by providing good government and by being the type of government that opposition parties, especially fringe parties, can feel proud to support and keep in power. Is that what happened here? Not at all.
In trying to find ways to hang on to power, the Prime Minister knew he could not get support from the chief opposition party. He knew he could not get support from the Bloc after what the Liberals had done to the province of Quebec. His only choice was to try to buy out the NDP. Therefore, there was a hurried meeting in a hotel room.
Let me tell the House how hurried it was. The topics that were mentioned were the environment, public transit, energy efficient refits of low income housing, training programs, access to post-secondary education, including aboriginals, affordable housing, including aboriginals, and foreign aid.
It seems that there must have been a rapidly called meeting and the leader of the NDP must have rushed there not knowing what it was about. When the Prime Minister said that he wanted to make a deal with him, he must have had a copy of the budget. Trying to come up with a quick answer to satisfy the Prime Minister, he rattled off these topics because these very items are well spelled out in Bill C-43, the budget.
It talks about the implementation of a tax exemption for employer provided transit benefits, investment in communities, sharing gas tax revenues for sustainable infrastructure, and the amount of $5 billion over five years for public transit et cetera. In large urban areas investments would target one or two of the following priorities including public transit.
Then we go to renewable energy and we talk about capital cost allowances for investment in efficient and renewable energy generation.
When we look at the post-secondary scholarships for aboriginal Canadians, there is a $12 million endowment, $10 million more for a post-secondary education program administered by the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. Then we talk about affordable housing with $340 million over the next five years for first nations housing on reserves.
On foreign policy, there is $500 million over five years, and I could go on, but these are items that are in the budget, Bill C-43.
If these items were there with a plan to spend x number of dollars over x number of years, why would the leader of the NDP say that we needed to put money into these five or six areas? They are already there. He says and the NDP will say that it is to up the ante; it is to sweeten the pot.
If we look at Bill C-48, we will find that this extra upping the ante only kicks in if there is a $2 billion surplus which the government will not know until August 2006.
Justice Gomery is supposed to report in November with a final report in December. The Prime Minister said that he would call an election within 30 days of Gomery reporting. Therefore, somewhere between now and August 2006 we are undoubtedly going to have an election which means that the promises to the NDP mean absolutely nothing. Am I the only one saying that? No, not at all. Let me read what the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre said:
It is my personal belief that the Liberal Party of Canada is institutionally psychopathic. Its members do not know the difference between right and wrong and I condemn them from the highest rooftops. But before the last Liberal is led away in handcuffs, we want to extract some benefit from this Parliament and that means getting some of the money delivered to our ridings before this government collapses.
That is what he thinks about the party opposite. Perhaps I should read what the member for Vancouver East said. She said, when asked if she believed the Liberals were going to deliver, “Who does one trust? How do we trust someone? We are adults. There is no perfection in those guarantees for sure”. The NDP members do not even think they are going to get the money. They just said that they made a point. They did make a good point and I congratulate them for it.
However, the whole thing is a sham and we are here debating a bill which is nothing but a sham. This bill will deliver nothing to anyone in the country. The main components are already in Bill C-43 which has passed.
How can the members stand and ask the people of the country to support this ill-conceived bill, completely outside the budgetary process, listing items that are already in the main budget, and with no intention of delivering the promise? It is just a matter of sucking in the NDP, like the Liberals tried to do with the people of Canada.