Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the budget implementation act.
I will start by making some corrections that I think are important in terms of the revisionist theory that is happening on the Liberal side with regard to what brought about an election. I also want to point out that the Liberals still have not learned a sense of responsibility regarding their conduct in the last Parliament in promising one thing to Canadians and then delivering another.
It is amazing to hear that the timing of the election was solely brought on by the NDP, when the fact of the matter is it was the member for LaSalle—Émard who literally went on television and begged for his life. There was only three weeks difference in when we actually had the election. He begged across this country. He set a precedent. It was the first time a prime minister had used the national media to ask for time so that the Liberals could actually bring something forward. The reality is there was only a three week difference. What else is amazing is at that time even if we had chosen to support the Liberals, there still would not have been enough votes in the House of Commons to prop them up.
The fact is the Liberals have really missed the point that Canadians made a decision. Canadians made a decision and their votes should not be taken for granted. They have that right.
What we have now is a budget which in many respects reminds me of the budgets that the member for LaSalle—Émard put forward in the late 1990s which focused on tax cuts for corporations as opposed to investing in Canadians. That is one of the reasons as a New Democrat I cannot support the present budget bill. It does not invest enough in Canadians. At a time when we have record surpluses we still have outstanding challenges.
One area I want to focus on today is the manufacturing sector. An industrial strategy has been repeatedly called for. We have witnessed the struggles of the aerospace and textile industries which are very important economic engines for the Canadian economy. This goes back to prior to the rise in the Canadian dollar. The rise in the Canadian dollar is in large part due to the high oil and gas exports to the United States. Those are having a significant impact on the dollar which has a subsequent impact on manufacturing in Canada.
Studies, the most recent of which was on January 27, have shown that with the labour market shifts in manufacturing, construction and natural resources, we are witnessing one of the biggest downturns in Canadian manufacturing history.
I come from Windsor, Ontario. The automotive industry traditionally has paid a lot of money into the federal government coffers through personal and corporate taxes, which has benefited this country significantly. That industry is at risk for a couple of reasons. There is no public policy of framework on how to increase the capacity to create manufacturing jobs and keep them going forward or, more importantly, incentives regarding employment on the shop floor.
The United States has incentives, economic relief and strategic elements for training as well as incentives for infrastructure which capture Canadian jobs. That is a real risk here. We know with the dollar going up it has had an significant impact.
In a study from 2002 to 2005, before we actually had a significant shift in the Canadian dollar which is further problematic, manufacturing jobs fell by nearly 149,000, representing a 6.4% loss during that time. This is significant because once we lose those jobs they are gone.
It is interesting that in the budget plan a chart on page 32 indicates a steep decline in manufacturing employment from 1970 to 2005. The decline is represented by a downward slope so steep that someone could ski jump off it. Unfortunately, we have not been doing anything to push that rate back up again. We have not done enough.
Interestingly, in the budget plan there is a graph showing immediate crude oil prices, but we witnessed the exact opposite. On budget day it was over $75 a barrel which is a significant increase. That pushes up the manufacturing issues relating to productivity which are so difficult to deal with. There are the elements of a higher dollar that had traditionally been relied upon as a crutch by the government without an actual strategy.
Potential solutions have been proposed. The Centre for Policy Alternatives has a good one. I am going to outline a few of the things where the budget does not allocate or speak to the auto sector which is very important. There are simple things we could do.
We could establish a multi-stakeholder sectoral development council. We did that in the past with CAPC recommendations. The Canadaian Automotive Partnership Council got together to create a national strategy. Everyone is on side, from business to labour to municipalities. It is a comprehensive strategy.
What is interesting about this budget, which reminds me once again of the regime of the member for LaSalle—Émard, was that a previous Liberal minister, the member for Vancouver Kingsway, could have acted on the CAPC recommendations. It is a model that is spoken about. He had an opportunity to act on it and he chose not to. At committee I challenged the then Liberal minister of industry, science and technology to bring forward an automotive manufacturing strategy. He promised on two different occasions that he would bring that back. He did not deliver.
What is interesting is that the member has now moved over to the Conservative Party as the Minister of International Trade. Why did he not bring the work related to the budget and auto policy with him? Will it come? We do not know. We have not heard. It is not in the budget. It is not in the speaking points. The Minister of Industry has been virtually silent. It is certainly not one of the five priorities. A convincing case could be made, but we have not heard about this very important file.
I cannot understand it. The member for Vancouver Kingsway carried the softwood lumber position that was constructed under the Liberal regime over to the Conservative side. The softwood lumber issue was basically trade crime against Canadians but he did not bring forward a piece of legislation for the automotive sector and the manufacturing sector at one of the most sensitive times. It is an interesting point in time because we have newer technologies. We hear a lot about the potential tax credits and some of the structures that could be put in place to move newer technologies from shop floors into manufacturing, but where is the sectoral strategy to deliver that? We have yet to hear.
I am very pleased that the industry committee has agreed to study manufacturing losses and jobs in the upcoming session of Parliament. It is a priority. It is very important, but we need to do more.
Another aspect is we could review the Canadian investment act to ensure that incoming foreign investment generates significant benefits in the public interest. This is something that has been put forth with regard to China Minmetals. China Minmetals was going to purchase Canadian companies. We objected to that. It was shot down at committee. We had tried to put that forth at that time. We now hear grumblings that the legislation might come back for amendment. We might have an interest in that. We need to look at that in terms of what type of export of Canadian jobs is happening.
This is not foreign to Canada. In the United States, congressmen and other legislators are looking at similar types of changes to their legislation and ownership rules. We have seen that most recently with Dubai and with other types of initiatives relating to manufacturing. Hopefully we will see that type of review come forward, and not just in terms of what I raised at industry committee. We talked a lot about safety and security and national security issues but there still is nothing today in our foreign investment act that prevents rogue nations, when we define them as rogue nations, from actually buying Canadian companies. Some of them could be sensitive strategically involving telecommunications and natural resources and could have a significant impact on the Canadian market and on manufacturing here and abroad. There is nothing in there. Currently all the information is kept private and there is no recourse for members of Parliament or the public to get the information.
Another thing that we are calling for, and I would have hoped to see a comment on this, is in regard to the free trade talks with Korea. There is a significant problem with regard to the automotive industry. Right now Korea has a significant trade surplus with us in the automotive sector that we cannot penetrate. We would like to hear about those things.
In closing, another very important issue which comes into play is the western hemisphere travel initiative. We never saw anything for the tourism sector in this budget to the detriment of our economy and our tourism sector. That should be in the budget as well.