There is incivility on that side of the House. That is quite the hypocrisy coming from the New Democrats.
We want to pay off debt so we can relieve generations to come of crippling bills. The New Democrats want to send a major $500 billion bill to my children and my children's children rather than paying off the national debt.
We want an arrangement whereby we have real jobs here in Canada, not overseas in China. We in the Conservative Party of Canada are fighting for auto workers, for family farmers and for others who deserve to work here in Canada.
Bill C-48 is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The New Democrats are peddling paradise while they are flouting the open and transparent budgetary processes of the House. They are peddling paradise using deceptive reasoning.
I want to probe a couple of the arguments that the NDP has been putting forth in favour of Bill C-48. The first is that the New Democrats are simply taking the tax cuts for corporations like Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and reallocating them to other areas, to what they call their priorities. This is not actually true. This is not a simple reallocation within the same fiscal year.
Bill C-43 offers corporate tax relief. It is a guaranteed budget expenditure, so it is accounted for in a particular year's fiscal arrangement. Bill C-48, the NDP's budget wish list, is a conditional expenditure that triggers only beyond a $2 billion surplus. It does so no sooner than 18 months from now.
A national crisis could emerge. There would go the surplus and the NDP's Bill C-48. We could have downturns in the economy, which could eat up that fiscal room. We could have further provincial demands that need to be satisfied.
Corporations like General Motors, Chrysler and Ford need guaranteed relief to keep jobs here in Canada. They need to know that a guaranteed expenditure is coming to help them so they can plan to stay here and keep jobs in Canada. The NDP is promising, with smoke and mirrors, something that may not even come true.
The NDP will argue that there is plenty of fiscal room and says not to worry about it. The NDP also wants a child care system that would cost $10 billion a year more than the Liberals are currently funding in Bill C-43. That will mean a disappearance of any fiscal room and more. That will necessitate increased taxes, and there may be program cuts from health care and education in order to reallocate money to this national day care.
Or there may be deficit spending. We had plenty of that in Ontario. We remember Bob Rae. We certainly remember the $11 billion deficits that were run in the province. We remember Rae days, on which people could not visit their doctor because the doctor's office was closed that day. Why? There was no money for the doctor to get paid that day. That is what we remember about New Democratic fiscal prudence, or what they like to call fiscal prudence.
This means that maybe child care is on the mantel, to be chopped off. Maybe child care will not be pursued. Where are the dollars going to come from? Will they go to fund Bill C-48? Will they go to fund national day care? They cannot do both with the same fiscal surplus.
Let us look back in time. We have had $90 billion in unplanned surpluses since 1997. The actual surpluses were astoundingly higher, but the Liberal government made an art of end of the year, empty the cupboard, politically driven spending sprees to shrink surpluses so Canadians would not be so alarmed by their size.
I see a train wreck coming for the New Democrats, who actually think they may get something with Bill C-48. They are not likely going to see a dime go to funding their priorities when their Liberal cousins empty the cupboard by year's end. They have been duped. Either that or they are trying to dupe Canadians into believing that something will be there. They know it will not be. The NDP has been keeping the Liberals afloat and the NDP gets nothing. That is a raw deal and those members do not even see it coming.
Let us talk about corporate tax cuts for a moment. The NDP has been claiming that corporate tax cuts simply benefit the rich while claiming that New Democrats are helping regular Canadians.
First, the Conservative Party believes in tax relief, not simply tax cuts. Canadian families,along with corporations having trouble competing because of the high dollar and other reasons, need relief now, and not just a simple one time tax cut. They need sustained relief in taxation. Real people struggle every week to make ends meet. They deserve tax relief.
Second, tax relief for corporations actually benefits Canadians in the workforce. I am Parliament's first auto worker. Let us talk about auto workers for a moment. Having our dollar going up in Canada is hurting our exports. Canadian auto companies' productivity is being hurt. Their ability to compete globally from here in Ontario is being hurt.
Massive layoffs have begun in the United States. We have seen layoffs in my community of Windsor and in the communities in the riding of Essex. We have seen them across Ontario. This is happening not just with Ford, Chrysler and General Motors, but with our parts makers and parts suppliers and our tool, mould and die sector, which has had a 38% attrition rate in Essex county in the last decade under the Liberal watch. Those jobs have gone to foreign labour markets such as China and the United States.
Buzz Hargrove, a friend of the New Democrats, the one who actually helped them cut this backroom deal, says that these layoffs are coming to Canada soon with the trickle-down from the 25,000 layoffs that GM has announced in the United States. The NDP wants to get rid of tax relief for Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler right at a time when they are losing the ability to keep auto workers employed here in Ontario. Those are Canadian families at risk of losing their jobs right at a time when that party, which says it likes to fight for auto workers, is getting rid of that tax relief.
Every auto job supports six other jobs. Five hundred thousand regular Canadians lose their jobs when auto jobs head to cheaper foreign labour markets like China or to lower tax jurisdictions such as Georgia, Alabama or South Carolina.
No, tax relief benefits real Canadians on main streets, not just in urban centres but in rural towns, villages and hamlets. The NDP just does not get it. It is no wonder that the first auto worker in Parliament elected by regular Canadians is a Conservative from Essex and is not from the NDP, the CCF, the Liberals or anybody else.