Debates of May 12th, 2006

Question No. 1

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

With regard to payments made to Canadian farmers through the Pesticide Residue Compensation Act: (a) what is the total amount of payments made to date under the authority of the Pesticide Residue Compensation Act; (b) what is the breakdown of those payments between the provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick; and (c) how many individual payments have been authorized by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and, of these, how many were made as part of cost-sharing payments with provincial governments?

(Return tabled)

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-13, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the Bloc Québécois to speak to Bill C-13, the budget implementation bill for 2006.

It is never easy for those who follow our proceedings. This week, we voted on the budget. Once it is adopted, we have to be able to implement it. Implementing certain parts of the budget often requires legislative amendments to other acts of Parliament. That is more or less what is being proposed in Bill C-13. Again, and I will explain this during my speech, it does not authorize spending in all areas. The amendments contained in this bill are necessary to implement the budget. I will explain that because it is sometimes a bit complicated to follow this legislative debate and other parliamentary proceedings. I believe that if we take the time to look at this bill closely, its objectives will become obvious.

The budget proposed a reduction in the GST. Part 1 of the budget implementation bill amends the Excise Tax Act so that the GST can be reduced from 7% to 6% as of July 1, 2006. Once we have adopted this bill, people will know that, as of July 1, 2006, the GST will be reduced by 1 percentage point, from 7% to 6%.

This reduction requires amendments to various acts, including the Excise Act, 2001 and the Excise Act, which makes all this a little complicated. But the main objective of part 1 of this bill is to reduce the GST by 1 percentage point as of July 1.

Part 2 deals with changes to income taxes. The budget included several tax-related announcements. Part 2 of Bill C-13, which we are discussing today, amends the Income Tax Act to implement the various announcements made in the budget. I will give all the provisions of the Income Tax Act that will be amended, and I will not read the section numbers, in order to simplify matters for the people who are watching.

First, the personal tax rate will be reduced by .5%. More specifically, the rate will be reduced by .25% in 2006 and .5% in 2007. The basic personal amount will increase: it will be $8,648 in 2005, $8,839 in 2006 and $8,639 in 2007.

The basic personal amount for common-law partners and spouses will also increase, allowing every Canadian to buy an additional coffee each week. That is the conclusion a number of analysts have reached. That is the decision the government made. I do have to mention, though, that there will be a reduction in income tax, amounting to $2 a week at most.

Bill C-13, which we are discussing today, will increase the child disability benefit to $2,300 effective July 1, 2006.

The refundable medical expense supplement will be increased to $1,000. Capital gains on donations of publicly listed securities and ecologically sensitive land will be eliminated. The mineral exploration tax credit will be reinstated. The eligibility criteria for the disability tax credit will be modified. The lists of expenses eligible for the disability supports deduction and the medical expenses tax credit will be expanded. The amount of home renovation and construction expenses for disabled persons or others who need assistance that caregivers can claim will be doubled.

A tax credit for adoption expenses will be offered. There will be tax deferrals for shareholders of agricultural co-ops. There will be corporate tax cuts. The corporate tax rate will be reduced from 21% to 19% by 2010. The capital tax will be eliminated on December 31, 2007.

Lastly, the carry-over period for non-capital losses and investment tax credits will be extended.

This second part deals with the changes to the Income Tax Act.

It must be understood--and I say this primarily for the benefit of our citizens who are listening--that when the time comes to discuss or to vote on a budget, the government proposes a number of topics. People need to understand that, when it comes to our support of the government's budget, the Bloc Québécois remains faithful to the principles that brought it here to this House, namely, to defend the interests of Quebeckers.

Clearly, the Bloc Québécois' primary objective continues to be resolving the fiscal imbalance. In a moment, I will cite a few figures that were music to the ears of the Liberal Party of Quebec, but that are far from the cure-all. Yet, at least this government decided to acknowledge the fiscal imbalance. When it was tabled, the budget was accompanied by a 135-page document on achieving a fiscal balance between the provinces and the federal government. The concept of the fiscal imbalance is rather simple: Ottawa has too much money, which generates a large surplus in relation to the amounts available to the provinces.

We must always bear in mind that the federal government does not look after our everyday concerns. It is important to understand that. The federal government does not look after the everyday concerns of men and women in Quebec and Canada.

Health, for example, is an area of provincial jurisdiction, as is education. We want to ensure that our families, our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren have the education necessary to do what needs to be done to advance the economy. That comes under provincial jurisdiction.

Highway maintenance also comes under that jurisdiction, as do water and sewer systems, waste collection and all sorts of areas affecting our everyday life. Tap water is an area of provincial jurisdiction, because municipalities come under provincial jurisdiction.

Resolving the fiscal imbalance is among the Bloc Québécois' objectives. Therefore, the Conservative government's stated intention to resolve it within a specific timeframe will do for this year. But, in the 2007 budget, the government will have to clearly state that it is committed to resolving the fiscal imbalance. That was one of our reasons for supporting this budget.

In addition, the government pledged to look into the whole issue of older workers. We will recall the mass closures of manufacturing companies for various reasons, including globalization and emerging economies such as India and China, which are competing with us a lot. In many cases, the employees of these manufacturing companies had been working for 10, 15, 20 or 25 years, without necessarily approaching retirement. As a result, their age—they are often over 50—makes it difficult for them to find new jobs in other companies.

We want an older workers assistance program like the POWA to be put in place. The government promised to put one in place. Granted, no funds were earmarked for that in this budget. But the government made a firm commitment to look into and measure the costs of a program to assist older workers. We know that there is enough money in the EI fund, which employees and employer pay into, to establish such a program. A seed was sown in budget 2006; let us hope that, over the course of 2007, the federal government will successfully deal with the older workers issue and, with its next budget, resolve the fiscal imbalance.

Bill C-13, which has been tabled in the House today, represents the implementation of certain provisions of the budget, including those requiring amendments to certain acts. I gave the example of part 2, which deals with amendments to the Income Tax Act. Part 3 amends the Excise Tax Act by repealing the excise tax on jewellery, clocks and items made from semi-precious stones, effective May 2, 2006.

This budget contains a multitude of small provisions and, let us not forget, has returned $14 billion to taxpayers. All these small measures represent a few dollars per week, just enough to pay for a coffee I must admit.

The measures in a number of clauses are applicable to certain portions of industries or businesses. For example, part 3 repeals the excise tax on jewellery under the Excise Tax Act.

Part 4 amends the First Nations Goods and Services Tax Act. Once again, this will facilitate the establishment of tax arrangements between the governments of specified provinces and interested Indian bands situated in those provinces.

Among other things, it will also give a certain governmental autonomy to Yukon first nations resulting in better fiscal arrangements between the first nations and the provincial governments in terms of payment of taxes.

Part 5 contains another amendment affecting taxation under the Excise Tax Act, Excise Act, 2001, the Air Travellers Security Charge Act, and the Income Tax Act, in order to harmonize various accounting, interest, penalty and related application and enforcement provisions. Again , this is to facilitate the application of a portion of the budget in legislation affecting very specific parts of certain industries.

Part 6, to which the Bloc Québécois made a significant contribution, deals of course with the universal child care benefit, this $1,200 amount that will be paid to families as of July 1, 2006 for each child under six years of age.

Members will recall the questions that the Bloc Québécois put to the government when it announced this benefit because it was going to be taxable and it could have an impact on other benefits such as EI benefits and children's special allowances.

Even though the government maintained its decision to make the universal child care benefit taxable, it is amending the Income Tax Act, the Employment Insurance Act and the Children's Special Allowances Act so that this $1,200 a year benefit does not affect the other benefits covered by these acts. In other words, this will ensure that adding $1,200 to the lowest income in the family will not cause a reduction in EI benefits or in children's special allowances.

Again, we can call this a victory for the Bloc Québécois. We would have liked for the benefit not to be taxable, but it is never easy with the Conservative Party. These people are slow to understand.

We hope that, next year, when those who will be receiving the $100 a month or $1,200 a year benefit get a T4 from the federal government, the government will understand that it should have listened to the Bloc Québécois and not given us only half of what we were calling for, which was a non-taxable benefit for families.

As I just explained, part 6 that relates to the universal child care benefit deals with the implementation of this measure.

Part 7 of Bill C-13 deals with the federal-provincial fiscal arrangements and makes some changes to the equalization formula. The Bloc Québécois has been consistently asking that certain parameters not be taken into account in the equalization formula.

An adjustment was made giving Quebec $5.539 billion in fiscal equalization payments this year, an increase of $185 million over the old formula. Again, for the Bloc Québécois, balancing equalization payments is part of correcting the fiscal imbalance. Quebec has thus gained $185 million. However, the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Charest, who still tends to give in to whatever the Conservatives want, was close to a historic agreement on equalization payments. We are far from it. I hope that Mr. Charest, in all his wisdom, will understand that with respect to correcting the fiscal imbalance, Quebec has a right to expect much more than the $185 million it will get this year. Even though the Conservative Party seems at least to have recognized that the Liberals' calculation of equalization payments was wrong, $185 million this year is not a whole lot. We hope that as it drafts its 2007 budget, the government will truly understand that correcting the fiscal imbalance means correcting the equalization formula.

It has to stop calculating—or not calculating—as part of provincial revenues, all the duties on natural resources that give some provinces certain advantages over others. It has to understand that Quebec has paid. Quebeckers, our fathers and grandfathers alone have paid for setting up the entire hydroelectricity concept in Quebec. Let that be understood. Since 1970, the federal government has invested $66 billion in developing fossil fuels. Just look at the Athabasca oil sands, the Hibernia project and other carbon-based development projects—or even nuclear energy—in which the federal government has invested, when it has not invested a dime in hydroelectricity development in Quebec.

You will understand that it is very difficult, in calculating equalization, not to take into account the revenues other Canadian provinces get from their natural resources. Once again, it is an aberration of the Canadian federation. In that respect, this would not be the first time Quebeckers are treated unfairly by the federal government.

Thus, part 7 allows changes to existing legislation to redefine equalization for 2006-07. This will provide a certain advantage. Once again, this is one of the reasons that motivated the Bloc Québécois to support the budget. Quebec would nonetheless benefit from an extra $185 million.

Part 8 talks about payments to the provinces and territories. We must remember that an agreement was signed between the Government of Canada—then led by the Liberal party—and the provinces on the whole child care network matter, which was called the early learning and child care network. It is a child care program. Hon. members will recall that agreements were signed. This case is not closed. As far as I know, the Government of Quebec, Mr. Charest, has not buckled to the federal government. It still wants this agreement signed by the former government to be upheld.

This year Quebec will receive $152 million to help it continue to establish its provincial $7 a day child care network. It is a longstanding request. This great project was skilfully piloted by the Parti Québécois. That said, Quebec's child care network is now an example the world over. People come to Quebec to see how we came up with this. Other Canadian provinces seem to want to have the same service.

Because we live in a time where work-family balance is important, families need to be able to have their children cared for in a network of child care centres with qualified staff. The men and women who work in the child care centres in Quebec are qualified. They are paid fairly for the work they do. They provide children with some measure of education and enable their parents to work. This is more or less the principle on which the Parti Québécois based the world's best network of child care centres. We in Quebec take pride in that.

Obviously, we are proud that the federal government is taking part in that program this year and honoured its commitment by signing the agreement with the Government of Quebec. The problem is that the Conservative government has decided to terminate that program in 2007.

Clearly, the Bloc Québécois will vote on the budget provisions one by one, year by year. We will not necessarily support the federal government's budget next year just because we support its budget this year. We will see; we will consider each budget on its own merits. Bloc Québécois members have always acted reasonably and responsibly. That is the way we do things, and that is how we succeeded in being elected again in 51 out of 75 ridings in Quebec.

Quebeckers place their trust in the Bloc Québécois because of its unique, responsible way of defending their interests. I hold the deep conviction that regardless of what is said or discussed and even what the polls say, when a future election is held, large numbers of Quebeckers will once again entrust responsibility for federal policy to real Quebeckers who defend their interests. And only the Bloc Québécois members do this.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for illustrating all aspects of the Conservative budget and demonstrating that the Conservative Party did a good job.

The question I would like to ask him concerns specifically the $1,200 that will be given to mothers, and I would like to take this opportunity to wish all mothers a Happy Mother's Day. My colleague wants the $1,200 to be given to the Quebec government, which would then administer the sum.

Why would he chose this rather than give Canadian mothers the choice they are entitled to, that is, to receive that money and to do what they would like with it? Would he deny women this right, namely, to make their own choices when they receive the $1,200?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member congratulates us on our positive reaction to the budget and subsequently claims that if we vote on the budget, we are voting against the $1,200.

By supporting the budget, the Bloc decided to support the $1,200. What we asked was that this amount be non-taxable, which the Conservative government refused. The Bloc's message to the Conservative government is that it was the one that decided to give the $1,200 per child per year to families with children under six. The federal government and the provinces signed an agreement to establish a national child care network, although Quebec is already ahead of such a network. Continue to pay and to respect that agreement. If the government wants to give $1,200 to all such mothers, well hooray for Mother's Day. Everyone will be delighted. However, the Quebec government must continue to receive the available and necessary money so that a network can be established while keeping the fee at $7. The federal government's actions must not force the Quebec government to increase its day care fees to $25 a day.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, the member presented a very good outline of the various acts and provisions and how the budget implementation act will work. I thank him especially for mentioning jewellery and microbreweries which will help the Yukon. He also made wonderful comments on how many of the provisions that the public sees as being so great will amount to about a cup of coffee. This happens many times when people analyze a budget.

However, I think the member went overboard when he said that the Bloc is defending the interests of Quebec. Last June when his party voted against Bill C-48, the Bloc voted against public transit, affordable housing, training, post-secondary education, and foreign aid. Quebeckers believe in all those things and the Bloc betrayed them. He said that people are being too complimentary and are bending to the Conservatives. The Bloc itself is doing that by supporting the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable.

Quebeckers do not believe in doing this on the backs of students. Quebeckers do not believe in increasing income tax rates for the poor, in abolishing Kelowna, in abolishing Kyoto. How could the Bloc members possibly vote for this budget? They have given two reasons, one being older workers. We all agree with that. A study has already been done and a pilot project is working. Yet we get weak answers from the minister that the pilot project has to be studied again. The Bloc got nothing.

On the fiscal imbalance, the member said in his speech that Quebec received $155 million in increased equalization. My riding of Yukon received none. His province lost three times more than that on day care. It lost hundreds of millions of dollars on day care and received a promise from the government that it would study the fiscal imbalance. Is taking money away from Quebec going to solve what the Bloc believes is the fiscal imbalance?

Could the member tell me why the Bloc supported the budget?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot get over my Liberal colleague criticizing me for wanting to resolve the problem of older workers, given that the Liberals did not do a thing in 13 years to deal with the EI problem. I have a great deal of difficulty understanding where my Liberal colleague is coming from.

He, however, will understand why the logic of the Bloc Québécois always remained the same. The Bloc is asking that the fiscal imbalance be resolved. As I said earlier, the federal government does not deal with any of the real everyday problems people are facing. Health, education, drinking water, garbage, transportation and highways are all areas of provincial responsibility. That is why the Bloc's main objective never changed: to take the surpluses in Ottawa and give them to the provinces.

The problem is that the Liberal Party never acknowledged that there was too much money in Ottawa and not enough in the provinces. At least, the Conservative Party appears to be willing to recognize that fact. We are giving it a chance. The Conservative Party has set a 2007 deadline for showing what it will do. In the interest of Quebeckers, the Bloc is prepared to wait until 2007. But the problem better be resolved, though.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my view is that the Bloc Québécois made a really bad deal. I honestly believe, and I say this with all due respect, there was more on the table that it could have used its bargaining power to achieve. This is a missed opportunity not just for the Bloc but for all of us, because in this minority Parliament the three opposition parties have all the power. We have the bargaining leverage, but it was given away. All negotiations stopped the very moment the leader of the Bloc Québécois walked out of this room and, in front of the microphone and the cameras, said, “I support that budget”. Negotiations ended. Kyoto, good-bye.

We could have forced the Tories to accept Kyoto had the Bloc only held its ground and stayed tough. It did not for some reason. It is beyond me. I cannot see the benefit. At least when the NDP traded our support to prop up the Liberal Party, we held our noses and supported the Liberal Party but we traded it for $4.8 billion worth of spending.

Some people argue that the Liberals did not follow through with their promise, but in fact the Tories are fulfilling the promise the Liberals made by putting that money in trust to fulfill Bill C-48. We got something for our vote. The Bloc got nothing for its vote. It is like the Jack and the Beanstalk story, where we trade the family cow for three beans, none of which sprout.

I have a great deal of respect for my friend and colleague from the Bloc. Will he tell me, though, what did the Bloc get for this to sell out so early and to sell out on all of his opposition colleagues?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been attempting for a while to explain to my colleagues that the real problem with the entire federation is the large amount of money in Ottawa and the small amount in the provinces.

One day, they will understand that the fight led by the Bloc Québécois for Quebeckers is, at the same time, a fight for all Canadians, who see, when they use their roads, drink water from the tap, have household garbage problems and health and education issues, that the root of these problems is that there is too much money in Ottawa and not enough in the provinces.

That is what we are trying to do and, for the first time, we have a government that seems to be interested in resolving this imbalance. Thus, we are giving it a chance.

As for the rest, I would say to my NDP colleague, that this budget has done more for workers than the NDP has been able to do. Although it supported the Liberal budget , the NDP obtained nothing for workers. However, we have obtained a commitment from the government to analyze and solve the issue of older workers. I am speaking of all those individuals who, because of globalization and emerging markets, are losing their jobs after 15, 20 or 25 years of service and cannot find other work because they are over 50 and are having trouble. It will be a Bloc Québécois victory when an announcement is made in this regard. I hope he will applaud at that time.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to participate in the debate on Bill C-13, the government's bill to implement the budget.

I had been cautiously optimistic that both this bill and the budget before it might have contained some good news for my community of Hamilton Mountain and, indeed, for all working families across Canada. After all, with this government's fiscal capacity, this budget was a huge opportunity to invest. From its own books, we know that the Conservative government has an $8 billion surplus this year and $83 billion in surplus money over the next five years.

There has never been a better opportunity to invest in child care, education, training, and the environment, yet the government chose instead to squander over $7 billion of that $8 billion on tax cuts and subsidies to oil and gas companies. It is no wonder that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

My colleague from Winnipeg North, who is also our party's finance critic, released information yesterday which clearly indicates that while the rich are getting richer, most Canadian families have seen their real incomes shrink since 1989. The fact is that the average income for the majority of Canadians, before taxes and transfers, is lower today than it was in 1980. Most Canadian families are poorer, and the recent federal budget will not be helpful in fighting this family income crisis.

The Conference Board of Canada reports that while the average CEO experienced record growth in total compensation, at about 20% a year, most Canadians are working longer and harder for less pay and a smaller piece of the pie. It is simplistic, naive and even manipulative of the federal government to tell people that tax cuts will fix the problem.

What Canadians want and deserve is an investment in the things that matter most. Unfortunately, in that regard this budget is a missed opportunity.

The only real investment is a re-announcement by the government of the money that the NDP budget delivered for working families in the last Parliament. We secured $1.6 billion for housing. The Conservatives re-announced that spending by allocating $800 million to affordable housing, $300 million to northern housing and $300 million to off reserve aboriginal housing. Even at that, they are still $200 million short of investing the full amount of the $1.6 billion that the NDP budget delivered.

Similarly, the NDP secured $900 million for public transit and energy retrofit programs and another $400 million under Bill C-66. That totalled $1.3 billion, the exact amount the Conservatives re-announced in their budget.

In yet another re-announcement of NDP money, the government reduced the $1.5 billion commitment to post-secondary education from the NDP budget by 33% to just $1 billion. Even worse, instead of letting that money go to tuition fee reductions, to which it was originally assigned, the Conservatives have redirected the money solely to bricks and mortar instead. Investments in infrastructure will do nothing to protect Canadian students from skyrocketing debts and surely will not ease the barrier to education that rising costs represent.

When it comes to foreign aid, the government has also failed both Canadians and the international community. The Conservatives' budget simply re-announced investments made in the NDP budget. Even at that, it reduced our country's contribution from the $500 million the NDP had secured last year to a mere $332 million. We are falling further and further behind in honouring the millennium development goal and meeting our commitment of committing 0.7% of GDP to foreign aid.

Let us be clear about this. Meeting these commitments is not a matter of altruism. It is the most practical response Canada can offer to reduce global economic inequality, the single most important contributor to international instability and insecurity. It is time that Canada stepped up to the plate and lived up to the commitments we made when we supported the more than 50 United Nations resolutions at the General Assembly, as well as other votes, all of which supported the 0.7% target.

In my riding of Hamilton Mountain, more and more people are joining the campaign to make poverty history. I wear a white bracelet as a symbol of solidarity with all others who are committed to helping the world's poorest and most needy people.

While I am speaking about our international obligations, let me take just a moment to speak about the crisis in Darfur, which the government fails to address altogether in its recent budget. New Democrats are on the record as urging the government to use Canada's influence to insist that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council respect and support the right to protect.

Members of the Security Council, including China, Russia, France and the United States, must put an end to their self-serving delays and their lip service and act now to apply international pressure on the Khartoum regime to end the violence in Darfur by respecting the arms embargo mandated under Security Council resolution 1591. Canada must encourage the UN to consider the deployment of a UN-led peacekeeping force to join the AU in trying to stabilize and improve conditions for the people of Darfur.

Beyond the UN, there are measures the government can take that will have an immediate impact. The first step must be to increase the funding to the world food program for emergency aid. I am sorry to say that funding for this program was slashed by the Liberal government from $20 million in 2005 to just $5 million in 2006. This can be corrected.

Second, Canada must strive to ensure that development is not diverted to the Sudanese government, but rather that it reaches the people in need. This country's record on foreign aid had been one of steady and shameful decline. That is why the NDP ensured the inclusion of half a billion dollars for foreign aid in Bill C-48, our budget amendment of last year, to help those suffering in countries such as Sudan. Those funds are now available and should be used.

Third, Canada must increase its direct aid to the African Union.

Finally, the government can and must take immediate steps to support target sanctions against government leaders.

There certainly is no shortage of international need for Canadian leadership. Unfortunately, such leadership thus far has been sadly lacking. In fact, the government has not demonstrated any better leadership in dealing with domestic issues.

As I said earlier, this budget is one of missed opportunities. Let me give members just a few more examples.

Although I have addressed issues of poverty in a global context, allow me to take just a moment to reflect on the increasing poverty at home. In my hometown of Hamilton, one in five people live below the poverty line. Twenty-five per cent of those are children, but we all know that children are not poor. It is their parents who are poor. Hamilton families need help now.

We need to invest in our manufacturing sector to ensure that we will continue to have decent paying jobs in our community, yet Bill C-13, the budget implementation bill, is silent on this issue. It offers neither a steel industry strategy nor an auto sector strategy.

Nor does Bill C-13 do anything to provide funding for decent paying public sector jobs for professions such as nurses or nurse practitioners, who are so crucial to improving our health care system. Similarly, the doctor shortage remains unaddressed. In fact, as I will return to later, the entire budget is largely silent on one of the top of mind issues for most Canadians, and that is health care.

Continuing on the jobs front for the moment, decent paying jobs also are not being supported by adequate training and retraining opportunities in this bill. Without such support, it is impossible to build and maintain the skilled workforce that is essential to supporting the 21st century economy.

Of course, there is the double-barrelled impact of not supporting our municipalities with money for infrastructure renewal and housing. Not only does this curtail the number of building trade jobs in our communities, but it also adversely impacts the ability of cities like Hamilton to provide residents with the services they deserve.

In short, there is nothing in this bill to offer hope to working families. It is simply a missed opportunity.

What about those whose careers are behind them? This budget offers absolutely nothing to our seniors. They have worked hard all their lives, they have played by the rules, and yet they are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet.

Despite a compelling report entitled “Aging and Poverty in Canada”, by the government's own National Advisory Council on Aging, the Conservatives have done nothing to address any of its key recommendations. Instead of offering income tax credits that will do nothing to improve the lives of most Canadian seniors, the government should lift seniors out of poverty by increasing the guaranteed income supplement to at least the low income cut-offs recognized by Statistics Canada.

Instead of proposing to pump $3 billion of taxpayers' money into the CPP for questionable purposes, the government should be using that money to raise the public pension benefits of all seniors. CPP has always been a “pay as you go” plan that does not rely on public money and, by the government's own estimates, CPP is going to be solvent for more than 75 years. It hardly needs a cash infusion. It is seniors who desperately need additional cash, not in the pension fund, but in their pockets.

With so many private pension funds currently in a state of underfunding, it would have been helpful if the government's only statement on this critical issue had not been to address debt servicing, but rather had focused on benefit security for workers and retirees made vulnerable by the solvency issues surrounding their pension plans.

I introduced a bill in the House on Tuesday entitled the workers first bill, which would put workers at the head of the list of creditors in cases of commercial bankruptcies. If the government really wants to do the right thing for seniors, I would encourage the industry minister to work with me so that together we could ensure quick passage of my bill for the protection of workers' wages and benefits.

There is one more pension issue that needs to be addressed immediately, but it is one that only got a promise of review and more study in the government's budget. That is the issue of survivor pensions.

At first blush, the budget documents that the minister tabled on May 2 seem to offer a faint promise of hope for parents and grandparents of children with physical, psychological and developmental disabilities. In fact, on page 105 the budget states:

An important consideration for parents and grandparents of a child with severe disabilities is how best to ensure the financial security of their child, when they are no longer able to provide support. The Minister of Finance will appoint a small group of experts to examine ways to help parents save for the long term security of a child with severe disabilities and provide their recommendations to the Minister within six months.

While the minister indicates a timetable for receiving initial input, he offers absolutely no timetable for action. In the midst of a minority government, that is a huge concern. Families are tired of waiting. They want answers now.

Moreover, I hope the small group of experts is not limited to actuaries only. This issue goes well beyond exploring options for private pensions and trusts and must include a full examination of all public supports, a new way of dealing with other moneys or assets left to survivors and a prohibition on clawbacks.

I look forward to engaging the Minister of Finance in a dialogue on this issue because action is long overdue. Action of course is also long overdue on a number of other issues but again, instead of dealing with these issues head on, Bill C-13 and the budget represent a missed opportunity.

Let me turn first to health care. If health care is one of the government's top five priorities, why is it barely mentioned in the budget? If it is so important, where is the plan? Where are the imperatives? How is the federal government going to work with the provinces? Where is that information? It certainly is not in the budget implementation bill.

As I have said in the House before, people in my riding of Hamilton Mountain remember only too well the last time a Conservative government turned its mind to health care. The last Conservative government in Ontario, of which the current Minister of Finance was then a member, threatened to close the Henderson Hospital, jeopardized access to home care and did nothing to address the unprecedented shortages of family doctors in the community. In fact, it laid the foundation upon which Premier McGuinty is now building his P3 hospitals and justifying the privatization of health care.

I had hoped that the Minister of Finance might have learned from his mistakes in Ontario and not repeated them here. However, his budget did nothing to expand public home care, an issue which not only impacts the most vulnerable families in the community but is directly linked to opening up beds in the acute care system.

The budget did nothing to reduce wait times for surgeries, which could have been done by investing in training and skills upgrading for health providers, particularly nurses and nurse practitioners.

The budget did nothing to act on the recommendation of the provincial premiers by enacting a national drug plan, which could have saved Canadians $2 billion a year.

In short, this budget should have been an opportunity to get serious about implementing the recommendations of the Romanow report so that governments like the McGuinty Liberals in Ontario would have to stop using the federal government as a scapegoat for proceeding with their ideologically based push toward the privatization of health care. However, instead of seizing the opportunity, this budget is just another missed opportunity.

The same is true of the environment. The Conservative budget and the budget implementation bill that is before the House today do absolutely nothing to address the profound environmental challenges that confront Canadians today. The silence is absolutely deafening.

When it comes to climate change, we have essentially lost yet another year on this most critical issue. It is showing up on the pages of Macleans, on the front page of The New York Times and across our communities, but it is not showing up in the budget. Canadians want this issue addressed. They recognize that the environment and wellness are inextricably linked. They know that environmental issues have a positive impact on our economy, but as of May 2 they also know that the Conservatives do not care.

Over many decades, and sometimes not deservedly, Canada has earned itself a reputation as a country that engages the international community in a positive way, whether it was through former prime minister Pearson's work in the UN or eventually through such treaties as Kyoto.

The Liberal Party of Canada as early as 1993 made commitments, Liberal promises if you will, to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but once in power the Liberals went about doing absolutely the opposite. In fact, emissions rose by over 25%, a record worse than that of the Bush administration in the United States.

Successive Liberal governments have not made the investments to improve the productivity and efficiency of the Canadian economy and to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that it promised to do. There was a deathbed conversion as the Liberals were starting to sink in the polls and only then did a plan finally come forward.

As an environmentalist, I can remember day after day the then minister of the environment saying that the Liberals had a plan, that it was coming, to just hang on and have a little patience. It literally took years. The Kyoto accord was signed in 1997 and the government said nothing until 2005. What did Canada end up with: a discussion paper about climate change. There were no targets, no timelines and no strategy whatsoever.

Now there is a Conservative government in power, a government that has only recently come to realize what most of the world has known for years, that climate change caused by humans is in fact happening and is in fact a threat to both our society and our economy. Yet the budget is devoid of a strategy for dealing with climate change. It is a budget that is being declared an absolute disaster by environmental groups across the country.

Instead of offering solutions and a concrete plan, it cut $1 billion from home retrofit programs that benefited both the environment and low income families across our country. When it comes to the environment, there is no more significant tool than the budget to make real progress. The message the government sent through its first budget is that the environment simply does not matter. The budget has failed Canadians both at home and internationally when it comes to the environment and it is yet another missed opportunity.

By this time in my participation in this debate, I have already outlined at least eight opportunities for meaningful action that were missed in both the budget and the budget implementation bill. Since the government was intent on cutting taxes rather than making meaningful investments that would help working families, perhaps that should not surprise me. There were two other missed opportunities that I would now like to identify which fall squarely into the tax cutting agenda and yet they too are nowhere to be found.

The first issue I would like to raise is the elimination of the goods and services tax on literacy materials. Yesterday I had the good fortune of seconding the introduction of Bill C-276, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, literacy materials. The bill was brought forward by my good friend the NDP finance critic and member for Winnipeg North, who shares my belief that literacy is a necessity and must therefore not be subject to taxes.

For many Canadians the added cost of the GST can be a real impediment and there are far too many barriers to literacy already. Removing the GST on books and audiovisual materials for literacy training in fact complements existing tax relief programs given to organizations that conduct literacy work.

In my view, the GST should never have been imposed on these materials at the outset, but when the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney brought in the GST, they failed to establish an exemption for literacy materials. Despite the fact that the Liberals had 12 years to redress that issue, they failed to seize the opportunity and left the GST in place throughout their term in government.

In this minority Parliament we have the opportunity to do the right thing. Let us act together to remove the GST from all literacy materials. The measure would pay for itself. In our knowledge based economy the bar is being constantly raised higher on the base of skills needed to access decent jobs, to function in daily tasks and to participate in social and political life, and yet despite our technical sophistication, nearly 50% of Canadians still have difficulty working with words and numbers. It is in everyone's interest to raise Canadian literacy rates. As I said earlier, let us act now. It is the right thing to do.

Similarly, if the government is intent on governing through tax cuts, then I have another proposal that would also be the right thing to do. I had the privilege yesterday of seconding the introduction of Bill C-275, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act on feminine hygiene products. The bill was brought forward by my good friend the NDP finance critic and member for Winnipeg North, who shares my belief that taxes on feminine hygiene products are discriminatory.

Charging GST on feminine hygiene products clearly affects women only. It unfairly disadvantages women financially solely because of their reproductive role. Our bill would benefit all Canadian women at some point in their lives and would be of particular value to women with lower incomes. If a proper gender based analysis had been done when the GST was introduced, this discriminatory aspect of the tax would never have been implemented.

I urge all members of the House to support this initiative. I am confident that members of the Conservative government will do so because of their announcement of support last October when they pledged to deal with the tampon tax. Failing to--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Lethbridge.

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to get my comments into the time allotted to me.

I compliment the member on her obviously well researched, albeit somewhat off track, presentation. She did refer to the government being silent on the environment and I have to take exception to that and I will point out a couple of reasons why.

In our budget we have outlined a $1.7 billion investment in new, cleaner transportation to get Canadians out of their cars and into public transit. That is an important initiative for Canadians to help end the pollution that we see in our cities.

Really important to me is that we will be moving to a 5% average renewable content in Canadian motor fuels. I am excited about this for a couple of reasons, for the benefit to the environment, which is important, but also for the benefit to our primary producers, our farmers. It will give farmers an opportunity to have one more market for their products to help them get through the terrible crisis they are going through right now and help the environment at the same time.

The government has also stated that it will review the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, CEPA, which will be the first serious review of it since 1987, and will also look at the Great Lakes water issue.

The government is fully engaged on the environment. The environment minister has started us down the right path.

The hon. member stated that our budget was silent on the environment. I ask her to comment on the points I made.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am really delighted at the intervention, because I ran out of time and now I have a whole whack more.

I understand that the Minister of the Environment this weekend will be in Bonn, Germany to chair a conference on climate change. I find it absolutely incredible that the government could send her there, given that the Conservatives have not bought into the Kyoto accord, that the budget offers no plan and that the single biggest tool for creating action on the environment, the budget, is largely silent.

While the hon. member raised a couple of points he would like me to consider, I would like the government to consider this: the EnerGuide program was cut. As of midnight, the level A audits are no longer allowed to be conducted. Not only does that hurt our environment, it hurts the lowest income families in our communities.

In my community of Hamilton, Green Venture has been conducting these audits on behalf of consumers and on behalf of low income families. It will have to potentially lay off up to four staff. This is completely counterproductive to the member's stated goal of wanting to improve the environment.

If the Conservatives are serious about wanting to address environmental issues, they should look at what they can do about the Kyoto plan, what they can do about energy retrofit programs and what they can do to encourage green industries. On none of those issues did their budget make a single bit of difference.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on her comments with respect to the budget, a budget that attacks the most vulnerable in our country.

I know she is a new member so I should cut her some slack, but she really has to do her research if she wants to appear credible when she talks about the environment. She said there were no targets, but Canada had set targets. Even her own member talked about the $1.1 billion that we invested. She just passionately defended one of our programs.

She should have listened to the speeches yesterday, if she were really interested in the environment and Kyoto. It was made quite clear that the Liberal government planned to implement 22 made in Canada plans and programs. These programs would have cut millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases. She cannot say that we were against biodiesel, considering the help we were giving for ethanol development, deepwater cooling, solar heating, wind energy, ground source heat pumps, photovoltaic, geothermal, landfill gas, biomass and low head hydro. We had one of the best auto agreements in the world to cut emissions. We were also in the process of developing legislation for large emitters.

A number of Conservatives have said they believe that climate change is somewhat of a natural phenomena. For the NDP to be unaware of these 22 programs and for them not to support environmental initiatives in what environmental groups said was the greenest budget in history is not a very productive way to support the environment.

I agree things could be improved. We could cut more greenhouse gas emissions. The emissions have gone up because our economy has been so successful, the greatest in the G-8. However, we have cut millions of tonnes. The NDP should support these programs. It should support these cuts and ask for even more.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hardly think New Democrats need to be lectured by a Liberal on environmental action. When the member's government was turfed out of office, emissions had gone up 25%, even more than those emissions under the Bush administration in the United States.

While I appreciate the member's more gentle comments at the beginning, when he congratulated me on my comments about vulnerable people in our communities, let me also use this opportunity to remind members that I have in fact done my research. We have talked to seniors in our communities. They are telling us that they are hurting more each day because their pensions, their fixed incomes, are not keeping up with things like increased property taxes, which would have been helped with some significant investment into municipal infrastructure. They are also being hurt by rising energy prices. With the cut of the EnerGuide program, these seniors have no hope of reducing those costs. We have to remember that public pensions have not been improved in any significant way.

As a House, we owe it to those individuals who built our country, who built our health care system, to ensure that they can retire with the dignity and respect they deserve.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton—Strathcona.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the voters and the citizens of Wellington—Halton Hills for giving me the privilege of representing them on the floor of the House of Commons for the second time. I am truly honoured by this trust and the confidence that the people have shown in me and I am determined to act in a manner that is consistent and worthy of that trust.

I would also like to thank all the volunteers who assisted me in the most recent campaign. Many Canadians may not realize that there are literally tens of thousands of volunteers who help out. In any particular riding, there are hundreds of volunteers who assist in election campaigns. This is time that they take off work and it is time they take away from their families to participate in our democratic and civic processes. It is a commitment they make because they believe in the importance of our parliamentary institutions and in our democracy. I want to thank them especially for taking that time helping me and our government in that regard.

Anybody who has spent time in politics also realizes the enormous burden that our jobs and our work places on our families. I would also like to thank my wife Carrie for all the commitment she has shown over the last number of years in helping me with my work.

Budget 2006 delivers on our commitments. It is a balanced budget that focuses priorities and that delivers on many of the commitments we made in the most recent election campaign, including debt reduction.

In the recent election campaign, we made a number of commitments to the Canadian people. We broke them down into our key five priorities. I am happy to say that our budget delivers on many of those commitments.

Budget 2006 gives tangible expression to the things that we told Canadians we would do. During the election we said that we would commit to certain things. We have come to this House and we have done those things. There is no greater way to restore the trust and faith of Canadians in government than to do what we said we would do during election campaigns.

One of the government's top priorities is to enhance accountability to Canadians and transparency in government operations. The federal accountability action plan published on April 11 introduces a broad range of reforms, including the establishment of a position of parliamentary budget officer and a commitment to provide quarterly updates on fiscal forecasts for the current fiscal year.

The budget offers sweeping tax relief for individual taxpayers, totalling nearly $20 million over two years. That is as much relief as was provided in the last four budgets put together. Budget 2006 provides improved assistance to Canadians and their families, to the tune of $5.2 billion over two years. Budget 2006 invests $1.4 billion over two years in protecting Canadian families and communities, ensuring border security and enhancing public health emergency preparedness.

Over the same period, the budget will provide $73 million for making our financial system safer. The government is also committed to strengthening Canada's role on the international scene by investing $1.1 billion over two years in the Canadian Forces and striving to ensure the efficiency of international aid.

In this budget, the government pledges to take immediate measures to restore fiscal balance in Canada and respond to concerns in that regard, by implementing the ten year plan to strengthen health care and—in conjunction with provincial and territorial governments—developing and introducing a wait time guarantee for necessary medical treatment, among other things.

The budget is also good news for Wellington—Halton Hills. In our area, many farmers over the last year have faced particularly devastating economic circumstances, especially farmers outside the supply managed system. They have indicated to us over the last number of years that they do need help.

Our government has responded. In the budget we fulfilled our election commitment to put an additional $500 million annually into farm income support. Budget 2006 not only delivers on that commitment, but it goes beyond that. Our government has deep roots in rural Canada and we understand the plight that farmers today face. The budget responds to those dire needs of many farmer by putting an additional $1 billion in budget 2006 into farm income support.

The total additional financial support that the Government of Canada has committed to Canadian farmers is $1.5 billion for this current fiscal year.

I am very glad I can go back to the citizens and the farmers of Wellington—Halton Hills and tell them that our government is committed to Canadian agriculture and that we will deliver on those commitments.

Like all provinces, Ontario faces infrastructure challenges. Our government made commitments during the election to help provinces and municipalities with infrastructure. The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities has delivered on those commitments. Budget 2006 puts an additional $6.6 billion into infrastructure support: $2.4 billion for the highways and border infrastructure fund; $2 billion for the Canada strategic infrastructure fund; and $2.2 billion for the municipal rural infrastructure fund, also known as COMRIF, in Ontario.

In addition, we met our commitment during the election to continue with the previous government's gas tax commitments by committing an additional $4.4 billion over the next four years to deliver that gas tax on a per capita basis to Canada's municipalities. In budget 2006 municipalities in the province of Ontario will receive $233.9 million as part of that commitment to fulfill the gas tax.

Another area that our government fulfilled its commitment on is the environment. During the election campaign, we committed to putting in place a 15.5% federal tax credit for public transit fees. We have delivered on that commitment.

We have also delivered our commitment to support the Canadian arts and Canadian culture by committing an additional $50 million over the next two years to ensure that arts and art institutions are supported. This money will go toward the Canada Council for the Arts to ensure that it can deliver and protect Canadian culture throughout our great country.

Finally, our government has been prudent in its financial planning and we have delivered $3 billion in debt reduction for the upcoming fiscal year. Our belief is that the best way to protect social programs is to run a good fiscal program and to ensure that the fiscal and monetary situation of the country is run in such a way that the Government of Canada has adequate resources in future years to deliver the programs that Canadians so value.

In conclusion, before I take questions from members of the opposition, as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister for Sport, I am very proud on some of the commitments that our government has delivered in the budget.

The budget offers immediate assistance to the citizens living in my riding of Wellington—Halton Hills and to all Canadians.

It offers a clean plan for the future to effectively address many of the serious challenges our country faces and represents a tremendous step forward in the right direction for our great country.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question about the fiscal imbalance for my colleague opposite.

The Council of the Federation published a report recommending that equalization payments be increased by $5 billion per year and that another $5 billion be transferred to the provinces. This means that the provinces will get an additional $10 billion every year.

Given the recent announcements about reducing sales and income taxes, and additional investments in defence and prisons, as my colleague across the way pointed out, there is no more money. There is not even a contingency fund.

This leads me to wonder where the new money will come from to correct the fiscal imbalance. Given that there is no more money, there are no sources. And what the provinces want, is money.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Our government tabled, as part of the budget, a paper entitled “Restoring Fiscal Balance in Canada”. In it, one of the problems that we identified in years past under the previous government had to do with transparency in budget planning. The budget paper outlines one of the problems that we have had in recent years. The government consistently underestimated the sizes of the surpluses. At year end, March 31 each year, the provinces were always surprised at the amount of the federal surplus because the government failed to be sufficiently transparent in this regard.

For example, just before the 2004 election, Canadians were told that the budget surplus would be $1.9 billion. It turned out to be $9.1 billion, a difference of almost 400% to 500%. As a result, provinces felt that the government was not being transparent with them with regard to fiscal transfers of the federation.

Our government acknowledges the problems of the previous government with respect to transparency and budget planning. That is why we have set out to establish an independent budgetary office that would be part of the federal accountability act, so that there would be greater transparency and greater accuracy in budget planning.

We have committed to dealing with the question of fiscal balance. We have acknowledged that this is an issue across the country. Obviously, the previous government had mixed messages on it. On the one hand, it indicated that it was not an issue, but on the other hand, it signed the Atlantic accord and the May memorandum with the province of Ontario to address its concerns about fiscal and federal transfers.

Our government has said that we received the Council of the Federation report. We welcome its feedback in this regard. We have received the budget paper. We are looking forward to the expert panel on territorial and equalization financing, also called the O'Brien report, that the previous government commissioned. Over the course of the coming months in the summer, the government will consult widely with the provinces on this issue and in the fullness of time, the Prime Minister will be putting forward proposals in this regard.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question about corporate welfare, out of deference to the former leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, who coined that term.

I do not know if my colleague is aware, but Canada is the third largest producer and exporter of asbestos in the world. Even though most of the world is banning asbestos, we continue to subsidize and underwrite the costs of the asbestos industry in direct subsidies and in travelling the world challenging anyone who wants to ban asbestos by sending teams of Department of Justice lawyers to Rotterdam and The Hague. Anywhere they are trying to limit and contain the use of asbestos, we try to block them.

We even sent our lawyers to the WTO to block France from banning asbestos saying that we would lose the trade. Does he agree with me that asbestos, in all of its forms, should be banned first of all, but at the very least, we should stop underwriting and subsidizing this deadly substance, tobacco's evil twin, and stop these corporate serial killers from polluting the planet with asbestos?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources have been working closely together on this file in collaboration with our foreign counterparts to ensure that Canada's interests are protected in this regard. In the fullness of time, I am sure that the government will come to a determination on this issue.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be here to speak about this government's new budget. I am very proud of our colleague, the Minister of Finance, and his hard work over the past few months. He has tabled a budget that reflects all the priorities of Canadians.

I am referring to, among other things, how this budget will reduce the rate of taxation for all Canadians. This budget will put in place a good number of the true priorities of Canadians. It is the first time in several years that a budget has been able to accomplish this. I am very pleased to speak about this budget, today.

Speaking with the people from my riding, the feedback I am hearing is overwhelmingly supportive. It seems that Edmontonians know that the budget is good for their city, good for the province, and obviously good for Canadians. They support a focussed agenda that will actually get results for a change.

As someone who has stood before the House in the past to speak on budgets, especially being in the opposition, one of the key assessments that I have always had to make is to look at how the government's plans would actually affect the people who sent me here to represent them.

In the past, I will say as many have felt, it has been frustrating because despite a punishing tax regime that squeezed the average family, individuals and small businesses in my riding, people regularly had the sense that we were not receiving value for money.

The previous government would announce billions in funding, but for average people, for real people in neighbours in my riding, the only results they ever saw was a creeping tax burden, a rising cost of living, the occasional press release announcing a new program, but no real help or support that ever seemed to make a difference. This budget is different.

I am proud to say that our plan does more in one budget to help the diverse needs of people in my riding than the previous government was able to deliver in the last 13 years.

Individuals in Edmonton—Strathcona are hard-working people. There are students at the University of Alberta, small business owners, entrepreneurs on Whyte Avenue, and moms, dads and grandparents who put a premium on family.

I am happy to say that the budget speaks directly to their needs and it does so in a way that leaves the maximum amount of flexibility for individuals to pursue their own goals in their own way.

It is in the spirit of respect and acknowledgement of the fact that individuals not bureaucrats know best that our budget seeks to make life easier for all Canadians. The government does not and cannot better understand the needs of a third year chemistry student trying to balance work and study to afford tuition at the University of Alberta.

None of us here can pretend to know what is best for the restaurant owner trying to scrape the money together to expand on Whyte Avenue and we cannot certainly assume to better be prepared to tell the parents of young children in my riding how to raise their family.

In the past, the previous government sought to impose a one size fits all for its own solutions for these very real problems. Our vision is very different.

We do not pretend that because people have different needs that government does not have a role to play in making life better, but what we do say is that people know best for themselves and that government's proper role is a supportive one.

I am proud that the budget recognizes this fact and takes steps to position the federal government to help people achieve their goals and realize their dreams.

One of those groups is students. For every single one of more than 35,000 students attending post-secondary studies at the University of Alberta in my riding, the budget delivers significant and meaningful assistance in the most direct way possible by getting out of the way and leaving students with more money in their pockets for their own priorities.

Our new government will help reduce the burden on students in Edmonton—Strathcona by providing an immediate tax credit to help all students with the cost of their textbooks.

For a full time student at the U of A this will mean a textbook tax credit of about $520 per year. This is money that will be left in the pockets of students and go toward any number of needs from groceries to school supplies, a ticket home to visit friends and family, or to start paying down some of their debt.

Students need to be supported for their hard work in pursuit of academic excellence. That is why we took a bold move, that should have been done a long time ago, to exempt bursaries and scholarships from tax, so that when students are awarded some of the much needed financial assistance, they will not see that recognition clawed back to the federal coffers in Ottawa.

As I mentioned, I used to be a small business owner in my riding. I know firsthand the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and hard-working independent business owners who make our community so vibrant. Incredibly, I have long made the case to fix the problem. Government needs to do a lot less, not more.

We need to leave individual business owners more of their hard-earned money to invest in how they see fit. This will mean more jobs and a more robust economy as small business owners find they have more money to expand, to take on more staff, and also make key investments. The budget delivers on that.

Entrepreneurs in my riding will have an additional $100,000 of qualifying income for the small business tax limit. Not only does this mean more business income than ever before will be protected from punitive tax rates, but our government has moved to reduce the small business tax rate by 1% over the next two years.

In addition to helping small business owners, we knew that all Canadians, regardless of who they are or what they do, deserve meaningful tax relief. That is why the government is providing tax relief people can actually see, tax relief that will affect every single Canadian. We will be immediately reducing the GST by 1%.

The benefits of this commitment will be felt by every single individual in my constituency. I know, coming from a service industry business, the more that can be freed up in taxes, especially in the service industry, the more disposable income people will have to actually spend on particular items for their families or themselves.

For students, it means that the necessary expenses needed to get them to class will be cheaper. For business owners, it means customers will have more money to spend on their products and services and, more importantly, for families in my riding, it means an extra $400 on average every year that can be spent or saved as families see fit.

More often than not, government cannot spend money better than Canadians. This is a recognition that Ottawa can do more with less and that Canadians can do more with their own money. Instead of treating Canadians like a series of special interest groups, the budget recognizes that Canadians are individuals with their own goals and desires.

I am thrilled that my constituents finally have a government that recognizes the need to support their choices by leaving them with more resources to carve out their own destiny. By providing broad based and meaningful tax relief, our fiscal plan will make a real difference for every single person in my riding.

One point that I did not mention during the course of my speech relates to students and the link to small business. I know that one of the unfortunate restrictions in the past was that international students, who are now making up such a significant part of our student base across the country, were not able to work while they were spending time here in Canada. Often we would have those international students bring about $4 billion worth of investment into Canada every year by attending classes, taking up housing, and spending money when they came here to pursue their studies. Unfortunately, they were not able to work.

As we know, in the budget there was the announcement that we have opened up that process to allow those international students to actually pursue employment here in Canada while they are attending school.

As I mentioned, as a small business person in the service industry, I have noticed that there is a labour crunch right across this country. Many of the markets are finding it difficult to find people to work. Our budget will provide not only the chance for students to find work and raise some money to help pay for some of the costs that they incur, especially being away from home in an international location, but will also help fill the gap that we currently have in the employment market when it comes to the service industry by allowing some of those students to take up some meaningful employment.

I know that will make a huge difference to many people in my riding, especially when it comes to filling that labour shortage that many people are currently facing.

The budget is an excellent new start for the government. The budget sets some key priorities in the short term to achieve meaningful results. It sets a plan in place for the future, a bold vision that I think Canadians were so desperately needing after 13 years of mismanagement, corruption, and lack of attention to their needs.

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That this question be now put.