Mr. Speaker, when I read the motion presented by the Liberals for today's opposition day, I thought it was a joke, that it could not be true. It is so shallow, so hollow, so gratuitous and so without purpose. When I realized it was a reality and this was the genuine intentions of the Liberals, all I could conclude was the Liberals, with this opposition day, were making a mockery out of Parliament. They have embarrassed this place for all of Canada.
If we look at the resolution, it is nothing more than a statement of self-congratulation and gratuitous remarks. It has no purpose, no specific recommendation and no action for Parliament to consider. Therefore, I do not know on what we are supposed to vote. I, along with my colleagues, certainly will not vote on a motion that congratulates the Liberals for bringing our country to its knees over a decade of poor economic and fiscal mismanagement and a decade of cuts that have hurt the ability of Canadians to contribute.
For the life of me I do not understand how the motion was allowed to be on the books and come forward. Surely, it is contrary to all the traditions of this place with respect to opposition day motions, and we are debating nothing. We are debating an empty statement of pure rhetoric, which is self-serving for the Liberals in this chamber.
It presents us with the unique combination of conceit and weakness, which has been so characteristic of the Liberals over this past decade and certainly over the last couple of years when their attitude, arrogance and sense that they were entitled to rule this place, no matter what voters thought, became so apparent.
First, I have no choice but to recommend that my colleagues vote against the motion. It would be ludicrous for us to support such an empty, gratuitous statement. Second, I have no choice but to tear apart the two parts to this resolution
The first part of the resolution suggests that the Liberals left the Conservatives the best economic and fiscal position of any incoming federal government, which is just nonsense, and I will proceed to prove that.
The second part critiques the current government for not demonstrating the need, value or wisdom of its announced expenditure cuts, implying that if the current government had justified the spending cuts, had given us some background, some evaluation, the $1 billion in cuts would have been justified, would have been be okay.
We cannot accept that position. We can accept nothing short of a resolution that calls for the reinstatement of these $1 billion cuts until such time as the government comes forward with an actual cost benefit analysis to show which programs were not producing results and were not contributing to the Canadian economy. So far we have not seen any evidence of that. The Conservative government has cut the lifeblood out of most communities, the very things that help communities help others, that help communities renew housing and community supports, that help give people the tools to access our economy, like literacy and numeracy and supports in socio-economic initiatives.
There is nothing to date, in any of the cuts announced by the Conservatives, that suggests there is any benefit to our Canadian economy, that there is any savings to be accrued, other than adding to our debt down the road and creating more and more difficulties for Canadians to participate.
Let me just go back to this nonsense about the goodness the Liberals have left this nation. I would remind members that over the course of the past 13 years, our country has ended up in a far worse position than we are today.
Let us go back to 1993 to 2006, to the fortunate year when the Liberals were, thankfully, defeated. During that period of time, workers' wages and salaries, as a percentage of GDP, declined steadily over those years, dropping from 54.3% to only 50%.
Let us look at some of the statistics. During this decade, the share of income for the top 1% of our population, those people who make over $150,000 a year, rose from 9% to 14%. Therefore, the Liberal government did a great job of boosting the already wealthy and catering to the corporate sector, but did nothing to help low and middle income Canadians. The bottom 40% of Canadians' share of national income actually dropped under the Liberals during this decade.
Let us look at the job situation. Under the Liberals, we saw our country move away from a society, which had the possibility of permanent well-paying jobs, where both men and women were treated equally, where people were able to combine work, family and leisure activities on a reasonable basis and had some quality of life. That was taken away by the Liberals. Most new jobs, under the Liberals, happened in terms of temporary employment, part time employment or self-employment. Instead of us moving toward a progressive civil society, where people could put their talents to use in full time meaningful jobs, get some benefits and security and be able to still participate fully in their family and in their community activities, the Liberal government took that away.
One out of ten manufacturing jobs in Canada has been lost since 2001. More than 200,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector. That is a blow to many communities in our country and a blow to our whole society.
One in seven Canadians works full time for less than $10 an hour. Women are two times as likely as men to work in low wage jobs.
The employment insurance, which was supposed to help workers, now only helps about 40% of unemployed workers instead of the 80%. That happened when the Liberals took over as the government in 1993. Instead, they chalked up an EI surplus of $50 billion, which has not been used to help unemployed workers. It is not being used to train workers. It is not being used. That is the Liberal legacy. While workers were struggling, while families were suffering, while people needed training to be able to access the new economy, the Liberals destroyed the future for many Canadians. I could go on.
When we look at the human aspect to fiscal and economic policy, which is a central part of any fiscal economic management and good government, we have to not simply look at the bottom line in terms of how much debt has been paid off and how much the tax breaks have been given corporate sector. We also have to look at the health and well-being of the workers who contribute so much to our economy and, in fact, grow the wealth in this country. Whether we are looking at the human aspect or the fundamentals in terms of good economic policy, the interest rate policy, the role of the Bank of Canada in trying to cut off growth every time the economy starts booming, all of this has to be traced back to Liberal inaction and incompetence over the last decade.
Finally, let us point to the ludicrously of the Liberals talking about cuts and criticizing the Conservative cuts. Members know we are opposed to the Conservative cuts. They hurt so many people in harmful ways. However, the Liberals were far worse. Do not forget that the Liberals were promising far bigger cuts in 2005 when they were still in office. In fact, for the two year period we are talking about, the Conservative cuts as a percentage of planned Liberal cuts is 25%.
Therefore, what the Conservatives are doing now is modest in comparison to what the Liberals were planning to do. In fact, they entrenched in the whole Treasury Board process the expenditure review, which would lead to significant cuts by the finance critic of the Liberal Party himself, none other than the person who brought forward the motion.
Let us just remember that the Liberal government over the years cut $25 million from provincial transfers for health and education, cancelled the Canada assistance plan and eliminated its support for social housing. In the 1996 budget, it cut over 45,000 public service jobs. It cut over half a million dollars in appropriations to the CBC. It allowed Canada's foreign aid to slip from 0.4% to 0.3%. It cut the money for core programs for women and cut the heck out of the very fabric of our country. It left us in a position today--