Mr. Speaker, this is my maiden speech in this Parliament and this gives me the opportunity, despite the limited time that I have, to take a moment to thank the voters of my riding who returned me with an substantially increased mandate and who turned out in great numbers this election. I am very appreciative to them.
I am appreciative to the fantastic campaign team that worked for me, headed by Mike Firth, my campaign manager. In particular, I am grateful to the folks who work with me in my office at Parliament Hill as well in my offices in the constituency in Carleton Place and Napanee. I thought I might just mention them by name. Shandy, Sonia, Steve and Brad work here on Parliament Hill, all of whom do a fantastic job. Anita and John work at my Napanee office, who do great constituency work. Sam, Andrea and Carol work at the Carleton Place office. Then there is my executive assistant, Mindy Conlin, who has been my pillar of strength and who also served as my memory very often for the last four and a half years, and has just been poached from me by the justice minister. All of them have been fantastic supporters for me and have done a great deal to make me a more successful representative in my riding.
I wanted to talk a bit about the fact that this is the shortest Speech from the Throne in living memory, but it is also the most focused Speech from the Throne in living memory. As everybody knows, there are many fewer words in this Speech from the Throne than there were in the one produced by the former Liberal government in the 38th Parliament, and there is a reason for that. We have an agenda and we can state it briefly and succinctly. It often takes many more words to say that one has nothing to say than it does to simply state what one's priorities are.
By now I suspect that many Canadians are familiar with the five priorities of our government, which we outlined in the election, again in the Speech from the Throne and subsequently, we are starting to demonstrate in our actions.
I am referring, first, to the new ethical standards laid out in the law, the federal accountability act; second, to the reduction in the GST from 7% to 6%, which will be included in our budget; third, to the legislation regarding the security and safety of our streets, our towns and our neighbourhoods, particularly with regard to toughening the offences for the misuse of firearms in the commissions of crime; fourth, to the giving of choice to parents in child care through the $1,200 payment that will be given annually to all parents of children under the age of six; and finally, but definitely not the least important, to the action that we are going to take, which was outlined in the Speech from the Throne, with regard to achieving shorter waiting times in conjunction with the provinces.
In short, if we put things a little differently, the Speech from the Throne is about higher ethical standards, lower taxes, safer streets, better and more accessible child care and faster high-quality public health care.
Is that focused? Absolutely, but it is also, from our other point of view, extraordinarily ambitious, particularly given the small number of words in which it was laid out.
I only have a few minutes and, therefore, I will turn my attention to the one aspect of the Speech from the Throne and of the government's agenda that matters the most to me. I think this is a metaphor for how in a very few words we have summarized a very ambitious agenda. This is the democratic reform agenda. I was the critic for democratic reform in the last Parliament. I now serve as the deputy House leader and, therefore, as an assistant to the Minister for Democratic Reform. On the one hand, what we say in the Speech from the Throne on the subject of democratic reform is very brief. We say this:
Building on the work begun in the last Parliament, this Government will seek to involve parliamentarians and citizens in examining the challenges facing Canada's electoral system and democratic institutions.
However, look at what this means. In terms of that part of the government's agenda that has already been laid in the legislation, and there is more to come, it means we are taking the financial reforms in the federal accountability act which are going to permanently remove the influence of money on federal politics. We are taking this element of our system out of it completely.
We will be removing all corporate and union donations, not merely to federal parties but to candidates, leadership campaigns and for nominations. We will ensure that only individuals can donate. To ensure that no individual can buy influence, we will be reducing the amount that individuals can donate down from $5,000 per individual to $1,000 per individual per annum.
Another important issue arose in the last Parliament from a private member's bill. We will ensure that senior electoral officials in every riding in the country will be people who are appointed based on merit not on partisan considerations. This was an idea brought forward by the Bloc Québécois, supported by the New Democrats and is now incorporated into the legislation. This is a tremendous step forward and will do a great deal to ensure we have a fair electoral system.
We also talked about changes to the Senate. We had many other elements in the Speech from the Throne or elements that were hinted at which will be coming forward in our government's agenda.