Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a privilege and a pleasure to rise in the House today and speak to the throne speech.
I would like to advise you at the beginning of my 10 minutes that I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park.
I would like to begin by thanking the constituents of Battlefords—Lloydminster for sending me back to this place to continue many of the arguments and debates we have been having for the past nine years I have been here, and for a couple of years before that when I served as a constituency coordinator for Elwin Hermanson, who went on the lead the Saskatchewan Party and of course has done great things in the province and will continue to do so.
It is a pleasure to rise today to speak to the throne speech, that document of the vision and the accountability we are bringing to the House. It is based on everything we campaigned on, on our five major planks. There was a lot of discussion by the Liberals and some of the media that there was a hidden agenda, but I am here to say there was no hidden agenda. Everything we said during the election campaign is underscored in the throne speech, in this document of focused vision, which would be the best way to describe it.
We are hearing a lot of nitpicking from the other side about how we are building on the great economic stability that the Liberals built up during their 13 years in power. The member for Don Valley East was going on earlier about that great economic period and so on, but agriculture did not benefit from that economic period. If anything, primary producers, the farmers and ranchers in this country, are in worse shape now than they were 13 years ago.
In those 13 years, we have not seen any sort of direction, vision or program stability that would speak to this issue. In the nine years I have been here, I have seen group after group come forward and say that this program does not address what they need and this program does not develop into what they thought it would, and then a real reticence about the fact that the federal government shows leadership in a lot of the agricultural files. The formula for the disaster in business risk is 60-40 with the provinces. There has been a lot of discussion on that formula and I think that is a good thing. We need to discuss that and do a lot of work on the equalization formula as well, but those come in a little later on.
Having started with agriculture, let me drop back to the other five units in the throne speech. With regard to accountability, we campaigned hard on the lack of accountability and on the lack of measures to trigger an audit, whether it is for first nations bands, which themselves are calling for better and more timely audits, or others. This plan would allow the Auditor General to do that. Someone who does not have an axe to grind, so to speak, will be able to go in, have a look at those books, say what is going well and what is not, come back with an action plan, and give it to the department, saying, “Act on this. Let us see something change”. I think that is a great thing.
I know that for a lot of the nine reserves and the urban component in my riding, with some 15% of the population in the riding being Cree, the rank and file are excited about this. When we talk to the chiefs and councils, and of course the national leaders, we hear them saying that they do not want this, that they do not want anyone looking over their shoulders. That is unfortunate, because this will actually bring in more stability. If they are looking to long term vision and some constructive steps to build a better relationship with the people in the constituency they represent, this is an excellent tool for them to take advantage of. I hope they will.
Through access to information, it is also going to allow folks to have greater input into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Wheat Board. A lot of departments like that are arm's-length crown corporations that really have no accountability to the taxpayers who are asked to pony up and keep them alive at times, and of course in the case of the Wheat Board, the producers who support it and would like to have better access and more timely reports and so on. That is a whole other debate in and of itself.
Regarding tax cuts, tremendous discussions went on before we put forward our platform, Mr. Speaker, and I know you took part in that as well. Everyone seemed to realize that the GST cut would affect everyone. I hear a lot of naysayers from the Liberals and the NDP saying that it only helps the rich. Let me tell members something. Everyone in my riding, regardless of income, pays GST. It is a hidden tax. We pay for it at the gas pumps, in our rent, or in the payment we make on a house when we buy it. We pay it when we pay our power bill, our telephone bill or our heating bill. It is in there. Having the GST go down a point is going to be significant for everybody at every level, whether they rent or own, whether they are a senior or a high level income earner. It is all based on how it is going to be good for everyone.
The Liberals are saying their tax cuts were bigger than our tax cuts. I have tried to figure that out, but I cannot for the life of me figure out if those cuts actually even passed. That was part of the economic statement last fall, leading up to the election. They were all flying out, with $750 million for farmers and so on, which we have delivered. We went ahead and did that, warts and all. We made sure that money to producers was expedited. They needed it this spring.
As for all these tax cuts the Liberals talk about that were part of their agenda and so on, I cannot for the life of me figure out where they went. Our GST cut is certainly going to be more beneficial to people than a pledge or a promise that was never really implemented.
We also are doing a lot of work on the criminal justice system. This is one of the issues that really dragged me into this place 10 ago and got me started in politics in a way that was much bigger than just handing out pamphlets and putting up signs. The firearms registry was the thing that drove me into this place.
We have been working diligently. We were never deterred from the idea that we were going to get rid of the long gun registry. It serves absolutely no purpose in the criminal justice system, other than to deflect what is now over $2 billion away from real policing, real court work and real criminal justice systems to a system against duck hunters and farmers. It serves absolutely no purpose at all. We are working diligently to unwrap that horrendous package the Liberals put together. Some 132 orders in council have isolated and insulated the nub of the long gun registry. We are going to tear that sucker down. It is going to take time, but we are going to get there.
With regard to child care, there has been a lot of discussion here as to whether that $1,200 per year is adequate. It is light years ahead of whatever was offered under the Liberals or any of the NDP provincial governments. They gave us zero: no dollars and no child care spaces. This $1,200 speaks to $100 a month per child under six so that parents can make the decision about whether they go to the institutionalized system or have Aunt Fannie do it. They would have the money to make those choices.
We think that is the right thing to do. It just makes common sense. People elected us because of this. They voted for change. They saw that change in our election platform. People said that the Liberals talked about this for 13 years. The NDP, just before the election, went on and on about how the Liberals had not done a thing about it and they were absolutely right in that instance. The Liberals did not do a thing.
What the Liberals were proposing was based on the Quebec model. They had agreements for one year out of five. We are going to honour that one year. The five year commitments that the Liberals talked about could and would cost some $10 billion a year. Let us do the economics. They pledged $5 billion for five years. That would not create anywhere near what is required. Our program creates 125,000 spaces over five years, plus that $100 a month per child that is to go to the lowest income earner of the family. It is money that people are going to be able to do things with and they voted for us because of it.
The whole health care debate has been driven by everybody but people needing health care. We have a whole basis for health care in this country that is based on politics and administration, not on actual health care. People cannot get any work done without seeing three or four specialists; they have to run back and forth and do all these things. In rural Canada, that is compounded by the long distances we have to travel. In my riding, people can get in to see a doctor in our small town if they are lucky--if there is one left. Then they get referred into the larger community, and from there, into Saskatoon or Regina or even Edmonton, outside the province, because that is where people have to go to have any kind of MRI or CAT scan or any of those types of things done. We are seeing people absorbing that travel cost. It is horrendous for them to have to travel those distances and of course absorb the overnight stay costs and all those types of things and still not be able to get the results they want.
We are looking at working with the people out there and with the parties in this House to better the quality of life for all Canadians coast to coast to coast on a myriad of issues. The five that we highlight in the throne speech merely tell Canadians that we are following through on the pledges and promises we made during the election.
I started by talking about agriculture. That is the biggest issue in my riding. I am here to tell the House that we are going to continue that fight. We are going to work with producers to come up with situations that are common sense, producer friendly and producer driven.