Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to rise today on behalf of the people of Nipissing--Timiskaming and offer my response to the Conservative government's Speech from the Throne.
On Tuesday evening I listened intently to the Speech from the Throne, eager to hear what the Conservative government planned on doing to address issues of importance to the people of my riding.
Unlike members of the Bloc and the NDP, I felt that I owed it to my constituency to take the time necessary to assess the speech's impact on my constituents and indeed all Canadians before deciding how to proceed.
In the end, like most Canadians, I was extremely disappointed that the speech included very little to address climate change, provide social justice or enhance economic prosperity and competitiveness. Furthermore, I was deeply troubled by the fact that the speech contains little or no mention of priorities such as health care, research and development, or education. I had also hoped to see a commitment to infrastructure programs for our cities and communities as well as regional development programs such as FedNor. Once again these were conspicuously absent from the Conservative agenda. In short, the Conservative throne speech lacked vision and failed to address the issues that matter most to Canadians.
In the interest of making Parliament work and doing the job that we have been elected to do, my Liberal colleagues and I have proposed a series of amendments to find solutions to correct the shortcomings of the Conservatives' vague agenda. We are calling on the Conservative government to take greater action on climate change, to announce now the Canadian combat mission in Kandahar will end in February 2009--that is the combat mission--to fight against poverty in Canada, and to bring forth proposals to help build a stronger economy.
When the Conservatives took office in January 2006, they acquired the strongest economy in Canadian history. They had campaigned on a platform of fiscal discipline. Since that time the Conservative government has raised federal government spending by over $25 billion. However, the average Canadian yet has to benefit from these expenditures.
Furthermore, the Conservatives recently announced a generous fiscal surplus. Yet they continue to make cuts to programs that have been proven effective and necessary tools in helping individuals and communities. The Conservatives have failed to address the five main priorities that they set out in 2006 in the Speech from the Throne. Now they have outlined five new priorities in the hopes that Canadians will not focus on the abysmal Conservative record over the past 21 months. Simply put, the current government is especially adept at being big on rhetoric and small on action.
The Prime Minister has demonstrated time and time again that he would much rather put good politics in front of good policy. For instance, let us take a closer look at the Conservatives' proposal to forge ahead with an additional cut to the GST. The cut is being made despite the fact that every serious economist in the country agrees that it is poor public policy and a misuse of about $4.5 billion in federal fiscal flexibility every year.
The Conservatives would like to have us believe that the cut to the GST is beneficial to all Canadians. However, there is wide consensus that the Conservatives' tax cut plan would largely benefit higher income families over those who need it most: low and middle income families, that is, low and middle income Canadians.
To improve disposable income and help build greater productivity, the first target of tax reduction should be income taxes, not consumption taxes, but the Prime Minister has chosen instead to raise income taxes for low and middle income Canadians to help pay for this regressive and expensive GST cut.
Tax cuts like these set the stage for more pressure for spending cuts. Low income Canadians benefit relatively little from these tax cuts, yet the Prime Minister and his Conservative government continue to window dress for a possible election.
Another example that the Conservative government cannot be trusted to implement substantial and long-lasting solutions to critical problems is its appalling approach to child care. During the last election the Conservatives pledged to make up the shortfall through a plan to use tax incentives to create 125,000 new child care spaces. Last month the human resources minister admitted that the Conservatives cannot and will not deliver on this commitment.
Since coming to power, the Conservative government has made the biggest child care cut in Canadian history, slashing $1 billion in funding from child care services in 2007 alone. The Conservative government's policy of handing over small amounts of money to individual parents instead of investing in a child care system is simply not delivering the support that young Canadian families require. This piecemeal approach to governance has become a trademark of the current Conservative regime. Canadians simply cannot trust the Prime Minister to produce a comprehensive effective solution to priority issues.
Further evidence of this exists in the Conservative environmental policy.
The Conservatives have an obligation to reduce their weak approach to combatting climate change crisis with real action. Canada will likely not meet Kyoto targets because the Prime Minister scrapped all climate change programs upon coming into office and then implemented weak substitutes. Basically, they ignored our obligations.
The Conservatives have admitted that their so-called plan would result in absolutely no reduction in Canada's total greenhouse gas pollution during the first phase of Kyoto and would not even be in place until 2010.
According to the C.D. Howe Institute, something that our Conservative friends can relate to, the Deutsche Bank, the Pembina Institute and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, the Conservatives will not meet their own far too modest targets and will allow the country's carbon emissions to increase until 2050 or beyond.
Under two consecutive environment ministers, there has been no attempt to move forward seriously and not even an honest and full effort to curb greenhouse gas pollution. In fact, one of the Prime Minister's first acts in office was to scrap a fully funded plan to meet Canada's Kyoto obligations and then do nothing.
This is simply unacceptable to Canadians who are looking for action and leadership in the fight against climate change and are being presented, instead, with a Prime Minister, and a government, who would much rather deny that climate change even exists.
My constituents are also looking for clarity on Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.
The Liberal opposition is committed to staying in Afghanistan to complete a humanitarian and peacekeeping mission. However, we must be clear and unambiguous in our signal to NATO that Canada's participation in the combat mission in Kandahar ends in February 2009. Only through such clarity can Canada truly be a valuable service.
To that end, Canada must finally say our friends in NATO and the Afghan government that the February 2009 deadline to withdraw our troops from the combat mission in Kandahar is firm and they have 17 months to plan our replacement. Unfortunately, the Conservatives have approached this debate with considerably more ambiguity. Their statements on this issue have been confusing and often contradictory.
Again and again the House of Commons we heard the Conservative mantra that the mission in Kandahar would not be extended beyond 2009 without consulting Parliament. Then, while in Afghanistan, the Prime Minister changed his tune. The mission could be extended. His government would not be bound by arbitrary deadlines.
Finally, we heard there was no urgency to make a decision about extending the mission because NATO had not asked for an extension. However, NATO's Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, obliterated that argument when he requested that Canada extend its combat mission in Kandahar, forcing the Prime Minister to change his position and claim the mission would not be extended without some degree of consensus.
In Tuesday's Speech from the Throne, Canadians learned for the first time that the Conservatives would prefer to see the combat mission in Afghanistan extended to 2011. This is in addition to the fact that an independent panel has been created to advise Canadians on how best to proceed in the given circumstances.
What exactly are Canadians and their allies to make of that latest position? This ambiguity has put our allies in an unfair position. Instead of being strung along, they deserve an honest answer about Canada's desire to rotate out of Kandahar. This indecisiveness can only be harmful to our troops and the people and the values that they are working to protect.
Constituents in my riding and throughout northern Ontario were looking for some substantial investment in infrastructure and with so little included in the Speech from the Throne to address the growing concern, it has become painfully apparent that the Conservatives continue to ignore the people of that region.
The people of northern Ontario want to know why the Prime Minister and his Conservative government continue to abandon them, and I believe that it is time for the Prime Minister to start providing some answers.
I have said it before and I will say it again. The Conservative throne speech lacks vision and fails to address the issues that matter most to Canadians.
Over the coming weeks, my Liberal colleagues and I will be working very hard to ensure the gaps in the Conservative agenda are replaced by policies that have a positive and long-lasting effect on all Canadians. We must remain committed to build a richer, fairer and greener Canada.