Mr. Speaker, what an engaging debate for Canadians to watch again as the ideologues on the Conservative benches reared their heads to strike a blow on the idea of farmers working together collectively.
Governing is about choices and the Conservative government has made a very clear choice to follow in the path of the previous Liberal government. It is offering up to the oil and gas sector, particularly those who are focused in the northern Alberta tar sands around the Fort McMurray area, a little present wrapped with a bow, of $1.5 billion each and every year. I use the word “little” facetiously because $1.5 billion is a significant amount for a government to use taxpayers' dollars to subsidize an industry. It is a deal that was made at a time when the industry actually needed some support some many years ago. If we were to ask any person on the street of all the industries in Canada that need help and support in growing, certainly the oil and gas sector, particularly those companies operating in the tar sands, would not be on the list. The profits have been, as one corporate executive in Calgary quipped, “obscene”.
At a time when there is a $13 billion surplus, the government has chosen to cut a billion dollars from much needed programs for Canadians to help them gain literacy skills, to help women define their rights and freedoms under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to help first nations quit smoking, and to help with court challenges. I do not recall these programs being in the Conservative Party's platform at the time of the last election. Lo and behold when the government is absolutely swimming in taxpayers' money, it can find $1.5 billion to shuffle over to its friends in the office towers in Calgary but somehow it also sees the need to cut a billion dollars from programs that were serving Canadians well.
The government exacerbated the problem by trotting out one of the most sad and lonesome pieces of legislation, the hot air act. It is a bill that purports to delay and hopes to confuse and confound Canadians about what is going to happen with our environment. It is a bill that does not call for any serious regulations for the greatest polluters in the country for 15 to 20 years. We will not see any result in emissions reduction or pollution reduction in this country until 2050, a year when I despair to say that many hon. members in this House will no longer be with us. The legacy we will leave for the generations to come will be a planet with a climate that has warmed up potentially more than five degrees.
We are already seeing what is taking place in my riding of Skeena—Bulkley Valley in the northwest corner of British Columbia. A pine beetle epidemic has absolutely roared across our province. I will challenge the parliamentary secretary tonight to explain why, in the midst of this challenge and the promise of a billion dollars, which is a significant amount of money to help communities in my region and in other regions across British Columbia to deal with the economic devastation, the government has chosen to take out $12 million. Nowhere is the promise of a billion dollars to be found.
I am sure that somewhere around this place the government has a Mack truck loaded up with cash and is ready to roll it out just prior to the next election, but communities need the money now. We are on the verge of an economic swing inSkeena—Bulkley Valley. We need the support to help communities acquire the trade skills. Instead the current government continues the legacy of the last government of robbing from the employment insurance fund, of not supplying the training and development that workers need across our region and other parts of Canada to seize those opportunities and make choices.
Jack Mintz, one of the leading economists in this country, was speaking of the income trust fiasco that is taking place across our land. Companies are devolving themselves into income trusts, thereby avoiding many of the taxes that help pay for the roads and transportation, career and development training, universities, health care and all these things that we try desperately to hold on to as Canadians. As these companies shift into income trusts, according to Mr. Mintz, the $500 million in taxes that has been lost to the government has now doubled and ballooned up to $1 billion a year in lost tax revenue.
How can the government pretend that it is making correct choices for Canadians while it is cutting programs and not allowing EI dollars to flow? It is cutting essential needs like the small figure of $12 million for the pine beetle epidemic but it is still finding the political will to put $1.5 billion into the oil and gas sector, one of the few sectors in this economy that absolutely does not need the help.