Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Trinity—Spadina.
It was amusing today to read the motion by the Liberals when last night the Liberals gave the Conservatives what they cannot get from the electorate, and that is a majority in the House. How can they criticize when they cannot perform their own functions in Parliament?
In some ways, though, the Liberals and the Conservatives come very close together. Really, we cannot expect much difference from them on economic policy.
The motion today, which talks about a number of things, may differentiate slightly on the details of how the Liberals would turn more money over to corporations, whether it is through income trusts or through more significant tax breaks for corporations, but they are after the same thing. They are together in this.
We do not see any trouble with their members moving from one side to the other, especially in the front benches where they really do have a great deal in common. They represent the interests of large corporations. They do not, in any way, represent the common people of this country, who, over the last 15 years, have been working more hours, getting paid less and are going into debt deeper and deeper. That is the situation for workers, ordinary people of this country. Both those parties follow the same line.
The working families of Canada expect their MPs to do their jobs. Northerners expect that I will do my job, which means standing up to the wrong-headed approach that the government is taking. I am sure the voters in Nunavut and Yukon expect the same. I am sure the voters in the Yukon did not expect their MP to be a pamphlet writer here in the last few days for the Conservative Party.
In some respects, what we have to show Canadians today is a clear message. On many of the most important aspects of our work in Parliament, determining the breakdown of how the economy will work, the level of resources that we are demanding from different sectors, from people and from businesses, we are seeing that those two groups are very close together.
If the Liberals had done their work, they would know that between 1993 and 1997 they were the ones who cut billions of dollars from post-secondary education. When they finally put money back in, it did not make up the difference that had been created from the original cutbacks.
To add insult to injury, the Liberals in 2004 combined post-secondary education with all other federal-provincial transfers making it impossible to determine how much was really being provided by the federal government for post-secondary education. That was kind of a neat accounting trick but it does not give good government.
If the Liberals had done their work on this motion today, they would have known that the last Liberal budget of 2005 contained zero new dollars for physical infrastructure for our communities. If they had done their job, they would have known that under the last Liberal government federal spending on transportation infrastructure fell by 46%. That is not the road to long term productivity.
If the Liberals had done their work before presenting this motion today, they would have known that their plan for research and development, which is to give greater tax breaks to businesses, does not work. Without connecting the tax breaks to actual research and development investment, there is no way of ensuring that the additional funds flowing from the lower tax rates actually go to research and development.
The Liberals' plan on research and development was an excuse to increase the prosperity gap between working Canadians and their big business friends.
The Alberta Federation of Labour stated:
The most efficient and simplest cure to the nation's lagging R&D would be to increase funding directly to the federal government's own under-appreciated research efforts and to commit significant new funds to the academic researchers at our universities.
That did not happen. It did not happen under the Liberals and it is not happening under the Conservatives.
Regular Canadians want leadership from their MPs, those in this House, and that is what we want to provide as well.
I have been providing leadership to our people in the north of this country by working to increase the northern residence tax deductions. In 20 years there has been no increase. This northern residence tax deduction could help productivity. Right now, throughout northern Canada, we have a tremendous productive zone making wealth for Canadians and fuelling the economy of southern Canada but the workers cannot afford to live there. The workers are not getting the kind of break that 20 years ago a previous Conservative government thought was a good idea for northerners. We have not seen any change in that amount over those 20 years.
However, what we have seen are significant increases in tax breaks for corporations and businesses.
In the last budget, the Conservatives said that we needed tax fairness, that the capital gains exemption for businesses had not been increased for 20 years. It was at $500,000 and they put it up to $750,000. They should look at all aspects of fairness in the system and, when they do, they will see that the northern residence tax deduction has suffered the same fate under the Liberals over those many years.
One aspect of the economy that was not mentioned in the throne speech and is not in the Liberals' motion is energy, the development and use of energy, and yet this issue is the largest single issue facing Canada and the world right now. We need a strategic approach to energy. It is being called for by provincial premiers, business leaders and academic research groups. Everyone is saying that we need to get together to create a strategic approach to energy in this country. Every other energy exporting country in the world has an approach that puts its country first. We need an approach to energy that puts Canada first.
In the Globe and Mail, Patrick Daniel, chief executive officer of the petroleum pipeline and distribution firm Enbridge Inc., said:
I firmly believe that developing and implementing a national energy strategy would help resolve many of the issues facing the oil and gas industries.
Mr. Daniel went on to say:
A national strategy would help in mapping our energy development agenda and serve to prioritize our initiatives, including R&D and training.
Why have these two governments not done this? Because both of them, the Liberal and the Conservative governments, have been too busy down in the United States selling out our energy future.
When will they put Canada first in energy and ensure that our children have a future that has reasonably priced energy for their homes and clean energy as well?
Direct Energy CEO, Deryk King, said in the same article:
We have a need for a national energy policy with federal-provincial co-operation.
On August 9, Canada's 13 premiers released a shared vision on energy that highlights the importance of energy conservation, supply and demand and infrastructure to Canada's prosperity, yet both these parties in their approach so far have said nothing about this incredibly important topic.