Mr. Speaker, I rise today to participate in the debate on Bill C-28. I will confine my remarks during the early minutes in my limited time on the $1 billion in cuts that were made mainly to social programming here in Canada that were all part and parcel of the budget.
Most Canadians share my view that these cuts were directed at the most vulnerable people, groups and organizations in Canada, and the most vulnerable regions in this country. The cuts were based very much on ideology. Today's editorial in the Vancouver Sun accurately describes the nature of these cuts and the direction of the minority Conservative government. In actual fact, Barbara Yaffe introduced a new term into the lexicon of this assembly. I agree with her proposition that the government is suffering from a rare disorder called “ideology restrictus”. That is the problem here and I am not sure there is a known cure for ideology restrictus.
I agree with the thesis of the article that normally, when a minority government is elected, it is elected on a certain base. Once it gets into power, it attempts to broaden that base and reach out to other groups, individuals, organizations, so that the government can be the government of all Canadians in all regions of the country. With this particular minority Conservative government, that in fact did not happen. In fact, it is becoming narrower and narrower.
The Conservatives are narrow casting to their own group. Canadians have seen that very clearly from the $1 billion in cuts to social programs that were recently announced by the minority government. I want to speak about these cuts and how they affect these groups, individuals and organizations in this country and how devastating and cruel these cuts will be and the very unpleasant effects that will result. Before I do that, I want to put the cuts into context.
I agree that sometimes a government has to reorganize its priorities. There are certain times when tough decisions have to be made. Simply because a program was funded 10 years ago does not necessarily mean that the program has to be funded in perpetuity. I agree with that. A government should on a daily basis be looking at and prioritizing its agenda, programs and initiatives. However, I want to put this into context because it is very important.
In 1993 when the Conservative government under prime minister Mulroney lost after nine years in office, this country was in devastating financial circumstances. Interest rates were close to 12%. Unemployment was in excess of 11%. The annual deficit of Canada was $43.1 billion, and I said billion, not million. The debt to GDP ratio was at 73%, its highest level ever. Unemployment was increasing. The World Bank had basically given up on this country. I believe that Canada was headed for bankruptcy.
In that case there were some tough decisions. There were cutbacks that were necessary. Through good government and with the necessary control of the fiscal monetary levers available to the government, Canada's success has been startling. We all know the results.
Canada has had eight consecutive surpluses. Interest rates are at an all time low. Three million jobs have been created over the last five or six years. Whatever context we want to use, whatever we want to compare it to, whether it is debt to GDP ratio, jobs created, interest rates, et cetera, the country, when compared to the G-8 or any other countries in the OECD, has been ranked one, two or three and it has certainly been very successful.
That was the context back in 1993. In 2006 when this Conservative minority government came it power, it inherited a surplus of $13.2 billion. That was just a little contextual background leading up to these devastating cuts that were made to certain vulnerable Canadians and announced last month.
The first one I want to talk about, in the whole scheme of our $210 billion budget, perhaps does not amount to a significant amount of money, I found very cruel and devastating. It is the $5 million cut to the budget of the Status of Women. Coupled with that was the pronouncement of the government that it would no longer consider any applications for funding to any women's groups that advocated equality. In my riding, and I believe the riding of every member from across Canada, it will have a devastating effect because that is what a lot of these groups do, and they do it successfully. Their job is not done.
I want to quote from a release from Kirstin Lund who is the chairperson of the Prince Edward Island Advisory Council on the Status of Women. She says:
If Canadian women are equal, how is that they made just 62% of men's incomes in 2003, even though they made up 47% of the workforce? If Canadian women are equal, why is it that 43% of all children living in poverty live with a single mother? If Canadian women are equal why are there over six times as many female victims of sexual assault as male victims? Why are female victims of spousal violence more than three times as likely than male victims to fear for their lives? And why do women make up 84% of all victims of spousal homicide?
This question has been asked of the Minister of Canadian Heritage in the House a number of times and people are very upset. This group is upset. Groups right across Canada in all 308 ridings are very upset. The answer I have heard over and over again from the minister was that the government considers women to be equal and it was not necessary. Again, I find that totally unsatisfactory. I do hope that as we go forward this particular cut, more important, this particular restriction, will be lifted and we can go back to the way it was funded in the past.
The second area I want to talk about goes back to my original premise that these cuts are focused. It is like a rifle. They are targeted at certain groups. They are targeted at the illiterate, women, aboriginals, youth, poor people and environmentalists, as well as certain groups within society that this particular minority government, for one reason or another, just does not like and does not feel that it represents.
The second cut that was announced by the finance minister was the $17.7 million from the budget under the literacy skills program. As everyone in the House and most Canadians are aware, this is a very serious issue. Most studies indicate that over 30% of all adults have certain literacy and numeracy deficiencies and until some form of remedial action is taken, they cannot participate in the knowledge economy. In the province I come from, Prince Edward Island, under this program the provincial government received approximately $325,000 of annual funding for a literacy program. There was another voluntary alliance, the Prince Edward Island Literacy Alliance, which received approximately $100,000.
It was not a great amount of money, but it was to be used to coordinate a lot of volunteer organizations that were working in the communities each and every day dealing with this literacy issue. They were doing very good work. That is gone now. This money was leveraged to the volunteer sector and the government's response was that the sector was not doing its job and was not successful. The government needs to tell that to the groups and volunteers who were involved and to the people who benefited from those programs.
I want to quote from the executive director of the Prince Edward Island Literacy Alliance, Catherine O'Bryan, who said:
Why isn’t our government concerned with the betterment of all Canadians? This cut comes at a great expense to the very people who struggle to participate fully in the community--the message from this federal government is clear: People with low literacy skills don’t matter.
I would like to quote a statement in the Globe and Mail of October 5 made by the President of the Treasury Board in response to those people who have friends and relatives who have some degree of literacy problem and are concerned about these groups, individuals and organizations. He said:
I think if we're spending $20 million and we have one out of seven folks in the country that are functionally illiterate, we've got to fix the ground-floor problem and not be trying to do repair work after the fact.
That was a quote from the government. That was the response to those groups, individuals and organizations that are so concerned about this important problem.
Another cut was made which I do not believe has sunk in yet. It is going to affect the tourism industry which has been struggling over the last couple of years. A whole host of factors have been working against it: the price of gas has gone up, the Canadian dollar has risen significantly over the past six or seven years, security issues restrict a certain number of visitors crossing the border into Canada, and the lack of international marketing.
A whole ménage of factors have driven down the number of tourists, especially international tourists. I am talking about the $78 million cut from the visitor GST rebate program. This program allowed international visitors to get a rebate on the GST they paid on goods purchased here in Canada. This is going to make us much less competitive on an international basis.
Two particularly important segments of this industry that are going to be affected are the bus tour business and the international convention business because this rebate is built right into their budgets. If a bus tour is coming up from New York City and it is going to spend seven days touring Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and Ontario, the GST rebate is built into its budget. When it loses that rebate, that basically makes our product 6% less competitive than it was before this cutback was announced.
It is my position that this cut was not well thought out. The Canadian Tourism Commission, all the provincial industries, and all the tourism groups, are dead against this cut. I do not think this was actually thought out and it is going to make us less competitive. This is just one more nail in the industry's coffin.
I understand the finance committee has voted to review this particular cut because it is very concerned about it too. I hope that after the finance committee has done a thorough review on the issue and hears from members of our tourist industry from all provinces, the government will reconsider this particular cut.
Another cut that was made and I do not know why this was made, it was a small amount of money, but there was a cut made to the museums assistance program. It was not big bucks but this small amount of money was leveraged through the volunteer sector and a lot was accomplished with a very few dollars.
In my province seven museums received between $20,000 and $24,000. From a Government of Canada context, that is not a lot of money. However, they were able to take this money and most museums were also able to access one student under the youth employment strategy which I am going to speak about in a few minutes because that was another cut we have seen.
They were able to leverage those two programs and keep open their very small community museum. It is not a lot of money, but the effects of the cut will be devastating on these seven communities that had community museums. Hopefully, they will continue to open, but it is going to be a real struggle. We, representing all Canadians, have to ask the question and that is, why? Silence. Why would the government do it?
The court challenges program was ideologically based. This was a program that allowed certain groups and organizations to challenge a particular law, especially with the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We did not have any judicial interpretations, how it would be interpreted by our courts. There were certain groups and organizations that took advantage of it. It changed certain laws. It changed the way it responded.
An example from the east coast of Canada was the whole Marshall initiative dealing with native rights in the fishery. A lot of the Acadian groups made certain challenges to determine what was their right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to access schooling for their children, what cluster had to reached and what criteria had to be formed. This was tremendous for these groups and organizations, but again, that is gone, out the window totally.
The youth employment strategy was also cut. Again this was a small program that communities, groups, and non-governmental organizations were allowed to access and that they could lever. Every member of Parliament is fully aware of this program. Probably 70 or 80 students from each riding on average were able to access the youth employment strategy. It was a very low budget program.
If it were a non-governmental organization like a community museum, like the Canadian Cancer Society, or the heart foundation, they would be able to access students, not for the full summer but I believe the maximum was 8 weeks or 12 weeks. They were only paid a limited amount of money, around $7.50 an hour and an NGO would get 100% financing and private enterprise would get 50% financing. There has been a 60% cut in that program.
Again, I just have to shake my head. I ask why, what are we doing here? We had a $13.2 billion surplus. In most instances this was a young student's first entry into the workforce. It was so important for these young people and again, for no reason, just thrown out the door and everyone here is shaking their head.
There were other programs like the Canadian volunteer initiative. When we look at all these cuts, they were made to the most vulnerable people living in Canada. What scares me the most is that the finance minister announced there are another billion dollars of cuts coming next year. There have been accusations over the past that the Prime Minister has a hidden agenda. I disagree with that proposition. The agenda is clear, the agenda is obvious, and the agenda is very disturbing.