Debates of Nov. 30th, 2007

Question No. 19

[Bill Casey, Independent, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

With respect to the ongoing rural mail safety review being undertaken by the Canada Post Corporation, to date: (a) how many rural mailbox locations have been reviewed both nationally and within Nova Scotia; (b) how many of these boxes have been reviewed in the riding of Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley; (c) how many of the reviewed mailboxes in Nova Scotia, and in the federal riding of Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley have failed the criteria of the review; (d) how many senior citizens across Canada and in Nova Scotia have been negatively impacted as a result of failing the criteria of the review, and what steps has Canada Post taken to ensure that they can continue to receive their mail; and (e) how many complaints have been received by Canada Post, by province and territory, in regard to the review?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 44

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

With regard to First Nations Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada upstream investment funding for suicide prevention in the Churchill electoral district: (a) since the program’s inception what has been the rate of suicide in the First Nations population in Canada, in Manitoba and in the Churchill riding in particular, including the rates in the categories for adults, youth, and children; (b) what has been the rate in each province; (c) has the government assessed what reasons exist for different rates among the provinces and territories; (d) has the government undertaken or contracted for any audits, evaluation reports or analysis of its Suicide Prevention Strategy; (e) what is the annual allocation and expenditure by the government for its annual Suicide Prevention Strategy since its inception; (f) what has been the annual expenditure and allocation for suicide prevention strategies in each province and territory; (g) what is the annual allocation and expenditure of the government on First Nations suicide prevention in the government budget tabled in March 2007; (h) as per the joint report completed by the Assembly of First Nations and Health Canada, entitled "Acting on What We Know: Preventing Youth Suicide in First Nations", what steps has the government taken to address the 30 recommendations; (i) if the government has not acted on certain recommendations, what are its reasons; (j) how many suicide prevention crisis lines are presently receiving federal funding in the Churchill riding; (k) how much federal funding has been allocated to suicide prevention crisis lines in the Churchill riding; (l) what is the amount of federal funding in each of the fiscal years from 2003 to 2008, inclusively; and (m) when will the government begin to fund appropriate and adequate funding and provide services to prevent the high incidence of suicide amongst First Nations?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 46

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

With respect to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in the riding of Churchill: (a) how many RCMP detachments are there currently, including the community name and the number of police officers in each individual detachment; (b) how many detachments are on First Nation reserves in the riding; (c) what is the government's policy on how First Nations are policed in communities without RCMP detachments; (d) what is the total annual federal allotment to provide policing on First Nations without a RCMP detachment; (e) what was the total allotment for band constable funding for First Nations in the province of Manitoba in each of the fiscal years from 2004 to 2007 inclusively; (f) in the budget tabled in March 2007, how much funding was provided for the band constable training program; (g) on First Nations without detachments on reserve, (i) how many have holding cells, (ii) which First Nations have holding cells; and (h) what has been the annual funding in each First Nation without holding cells for the fiscal years 2004 to 2007 inclusively?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 52

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

With respect to the resolution of Aboriginal specific and comprehensive land claims: (a) how many lawyers, for each year since 2002, have worked on behalf of the federal government on specific and comprehensive land claims issues, counting both federal employees and those in private practice contracted by the government; (b) provide a list of the departmental budgets from which these lawyers were paid, including the line items accounting for these payments; (c) what is the total dollar amount spent on specific and comprehensive land claims lawyers, since 2002, broken down by year; (d) of the total amount spent on lawyers for land claims issues, what portion has been paid to attorneys in private practice working on government contract; (e) in what part of the country do these lawyers work; (f) what studies and evaluations have been requested, undertaken, or commissioned by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada since 2002 dealing with Aboriginal land claims; (g) what individuals, departments, or organizations undertook these studies; (h) what has been the total cost of these studies; (i) what were the findings and recommendations of these studies; and (j) have any of these findings and recommendations been integrated into government policy on the resolution of specific and comprehensive land claims?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 53

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

With regard to government jobs in the National Capital Region, what is: (a) the number of Public Service employees in the Outaouais region and in the Ottawa region from 2006 to 2007; and (b) the number of employees of government agencies, Crown corporations or any other government bodies in the Outaouais region and in the Ottawa region, from 2006 to 2007?

(Return tabled)

Question No. 75

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

With respect to funds allocated to the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor): (a) what is the global budget of FedNor and its programs from 2003 to the present; (b) how much of FedNor's economic development funding and other funding it administers has gone to projects and initiatives in Northern Ontario from 2003 to the present, and how does FedNor define "Northern Ontario", i.e. its boundaries, and when and how has that definition changed since 1993; (c) what is the number of jobs directly created in Northern Ontario as well as other regions from FedNor programs and other programs it administers from 2003 to the present; (d) listed by location, what is the number of full time employees and equivalents that have worked for the FedNor, on an annual basis since 2003; (e) what are the top ten electoral ridings in terms of receiving the most FedNor funding from 1993 to the present, broken down on an annual basis; and (f) listed by electoral riding, who were the recipients of FedNor funding, broken down on an annual basis from 1993 to the present?

(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.

Business of Supply

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated yesterday in the Thursday question, I would like to designate Thursday, December 6, 2007, as the last allotted day for this supply period.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-28, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2007 and to implement certain provisions of the economic statement tabled in Parliament on October 30, 2007, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to this bill, but it is sad that we are having to debate this bill. I do not think the bill should have been brought forward in the manner it was. I say that because one of the things that we on our side of the House have been very clear on is that Canadians need to have a fulsome debate as to how the surplus of the nation is spent.

I want to begin my comments on that note because of something I call truth in advertising. When the government was in opposition, it was very clear in its position as to how we should be dealing with the finances of the nation. In fact, I recall in 2005 the then leader of the opposition party, now Prime Minister, went as far as saying to have these kinds of surpluses was akin to fiscal mismanagement. He was saying that because of what had been happening with the previous Liberal government's pattern of underestimating the surpluses.

Of course, we agreed with him on that note, the fact that there should be more accuracy and truth in advertising in understanding exactly how much money is projected to be in the surplus. We know over the years the private sector forecasters, the not for profit forecasters, were all accurate in their projections of what the federal surplus would be and the government would always underestimate it.

The surpluses would come forward and the government would say, “oh, look what we have here, a terrific surplus” which was no news to those who had been paying attention and keeping an eye on these things, but apparently it was to the then government.

What happened of course is that the surplus would be spirited away to pay down the debt, which is noble and might be the best thing to do, but in the way it was done there was no debate. There was absolutely no indication to Canadians that the surplus was something that we could actually talk about, that we should decide where the money should be spent and invested in our communities.

It is rather sad now that the Conservatives are in power they have decided to replicate the same behaviour as the previous government when it comes to surpluses. Further to that, which is more egregious, in Bill C-2, the accountability act, there was a provision for a budgetary officer of Parliament. It is in the act. Anyone can go and look at it. That bill was passed.

What has not been acted on, brought into force, is that budgetary officer of Parliament along with the idea that we can actually have people who are appointed to agencies, boards and commissions to have to be appointed according to merit. Those two key foundations that the NDP supported, and in the case of the public appointments commission amended, have not brought into force.

We now have a government that in opposition said that we need to debate the surplus, we need to have accurate forecasting, and we need to make sure that Canadians are aware of the finances of the nation.

However, not only do the Conservatives continue the past poor practice of the previous government of not being upfront about the surpluses, but they do not bring into force and appoint a budgetary officer of Parliament whose job it would be to give unblemished, objective forecasting, so that all members of Parliament, and by extension Canadians, will understand the fiscal framework of this nation.

Add onto that this method of using a fiscal update to bring forward a very substantial change in the fiscal framework. We just have to look at what is being proposed in this: major tax giveaways to corporations and effects that will continue on for many years. This is not a fiscal update.

A colleague said the Conservatives make it sound like it was a mini-bar in a hotel and they were just doing little fiscal updates in those little bottles. He said in his own way that this was more like a 40 pounder. This is a big giveaway. This is a substantial tax giveaway to corporations with no debate that is substantive. We are debating this now, but normally this would come forward in a budget. Instead, we have it as a “fiscal update”.

I just want to begin my comments on process, on accountability and on what the government said it would do in opposition vis-à-vis surpluses as well as what it said it would do around the accountability act with a budgetary officer of Parliament to provide objective, unblemished fiscal updates.

It is important that parliamentarians and Canadians in general know exactly how much the surpluses will be so we can have a fulsome debate. The money should not automatically go toward paying off the debt, holus bolus. There should not be these fiscal updates without Parliament being provided the information ahead of time.

That said, the fiscal update bill is before us. Essentially it says that the government's role is to shrink the pie on what we invest within our respective communities.

When we look at the amount of tax giveaways to corporations, there will be less in the federal government's revenue stream, at a time when there is up to $123 billion in infrastructure debt across this land, when we have needs in terms of housing, affordable education, affordable drugs. There is a widening prosperity gap, and the Conservative government has actually shrunk the pie so that in future, there is less ability for the federal government to make a difference in the everyday lives of Canadians.

The $123 billion infrastructure deficit that exists was recently brought to the attention of Canadians by an excellent study that was done by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. I might add that the government used that group as a validator in previous budgets, but now seems to want to distance itself from that group when the news the FCM provides is not the news the government wants to hear.

The study outlines the infrastructure deficit across the land. People may ask why we should care about that in that we are at the federal level and it is a municipal concern. The Conservative government would tell the municipalities to quit whining, and in fact we have heard the government say that, to make do with what they have and to raise property taxes.

The government has denied the reality of our communities. The FCM study showed that our bridges, sewers, water systems, et cetera are falling apart and need updating. We have heard the horror stories throughout the land of infrastructure falling apart. It is a real cost. It is a real shame that the government did not see the need for investing in our communities.

I implore the government to take a look at the deficit across this land among our partners at the municipal level. The Conservatives should listen to them. The municipalities know what is going on in our communities. The fact that they will be provided with no relief in this fiscal update is not only a shame, it is an abhorrent action by the government. It shows the lack of responsibility of the Conservatives in terms of the infrastructure of this nation.

I implore other parties to join with us and oppose the bill. I ask them not to abstain on the vote. We saw that occur before. It is not a credible position by any member of Parliament to abstain on this issue. It is too important for Canadians. It is too important for the infrastructure of our cities and municipalities.

I look forward to any comments or questions from my colleagues on a debate that is very serious, very important and incredibly sad in terms of the actions of the government vis-à-vis the bill.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is a staunch defender of his constituency, his city, his province and his country.

He is absolutely correct when he talks about the municipal deficit in terms of infrastructure for water, sewer, transit and so on. The infrastructure in the cities and rural parts of Canada are crumbling.

My question is with respect to the human deficit.

The government is giving over $7 billion to the most profitable corporations in the country, some of which are foreign owned, all of which are making very good money under the current tax regime, but it cannot help children with autism. The government tells widows of veterans that they have to wait. It tells atomic veterans that it might get around to them. It tells agent orange victims that only some will receive compensation and the rest will not.

What type of government would ignore the plight of so many who are being left behind to enhance the profits of those that are already doing very well in this country?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Nova Scotia for the hard work he has done for children with autism and for veterans. Before I was elected to Parliament, I was a teacher and I was aware of the work my colleague did in advocating for the rights of autistic children who, sadly, are being ignored by the Conservative government.

My colleague asked what kind of government would decide it is more important to give money to corporations instead of investing in vulnerable people, children and veterans. I would respectfully suggest that it is a government that seems to be out of touch with communities across this land. It is a government that is out of touch with the people who need help.

Why is government here? Is government here to advocate on behalf of just big business, or is government here to help out communities, to help out the vulnerable, like autistic children?

This is a very important bill. It deals with the finances of the nation. When the Conservative Party was in opposition, it asked the then Liberal government to be upfront and truthful about the surplus and to have a debate in this place about how that surplus should be spent. Now as government, the Conservative Party is not doing that. It is not going to appoint a budgetary officer of Parliament to provide that information. It is irresponsible and hypocritical.

On the point that my colleague made about how we invest in people, I might add there are over 10,000 people right here in Ottawa, in the nation's capital, who are looking for affordable housing. They have been on a waiting list for a very long time. They are being ignored by this legislation. There is no money for them.

The government has said that it has invested in affordable housing. A point that should be made is that money was in Bill C-48, the amendments that the NDP made in 2005. That is the last investment we have seen in affordable housing. It is not good enough for the residents in Ottawa. It is not good enough for the people of Canada.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct about housing. I just did a tour of the far north in the high Arctic and talk about acute housing needs. The people up there desperately need help and they need it now. The Conservative government is completely ignoring them.

The reality is the government has clearly defined that it is only for the individual, where we in the NDP are for the collective. That is a very clear distinction.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on why in a nation that should be a healing nation, in a nation that encourages all people to have the same rights and benefits, the government is leaving so many behind.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the government is just listening to the wrong people. It is not listening to the communities. The Conservatives are out of touch, but the voters will have a chance to put them back on track and maybe put them out of power. Who knows what will happen in the next election. If they stop listening to Canadians in communities, that is exactly what will happen.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a distinct pleasure and honour to rise in the House today to speak about the economic statement that was tabled in this House earlier in the fall.

I know that members would agree with me, because we all spend a lot of time in our constituencies, but certainly the constituents of Kitchener Centre and in fact Canadians right across this nation have indicated that they do not want tax cuts at the expense and the compromise of the social fabric of the nation. For the majority of Canadians, spending on medicare and education, the elimination of poverty, the creation of a national child care program, as well as the protection of the environment all come before tax cuts as their priorities.

Today Canada's economy is performing extremely well. In fact, the federal treasury is awash in cash. As the government announced in September, it ran a surplus this year of $14 billion. Certainly a tax break would be in order during times of such prosperity.

However, the government also announced a reduction of the lowest tax bracket to 15% when in reality it was merely reinstating a tax cut that our previous Liberal government had made. The Conservative government in its initial budget had raised the tax rate of the lowest income bracket from 15% to 15.5%. It is hardly a tax cut when it merely returns to the same rate that it was previous to the increase in the budget preceding. Canadians are no further ahead financially than they were before the minority Conservative government took power.

Many in this House will recall the previous Liberal government's $100 billion tax reduction plan. It was passed in the year 2000. It was the largest tax cut in history, and Canadians continue to benefit from that budget today.

What made the tax relief plan and the subsequent Liberal tax relief so effective was how very broad the application was. Millions of people benefited from those reductions.

We are also in favour of reducing the tax burden on corporations because we recognize this is one way to unleash Canada's productive capacity. Our record speaks to this.

The finance minister and the government make much of the reduction of 1% in the GST. It has gone to 5% from 6%.

What is interesting about this is that the vast majority of economists and as a matter of fact those with any kind of economic sense are quick to acknowledge that trimming taxes on consumption offers very little in terms of economic stimulus. Quite frankly, it advantages the rich. We all know that we would get more GST relief when buying a Mercedes-Benz than when buying a bicycle. It is simple arithmetic.

On this side of the House, we are accustomed to governing with vision and with an eye to the long term economic good of our country.

The quick fix, simplistic initiatives put forward by the Conservative government are designed to pay dividends at the ballot box in the next election. There is no commitment to long term economic vitality, no vision and no attention to growth.

The Conservatives fail to deliver on the long term vision of the investments that need to be made in using the record setting fiscal strength that they inherited from our previous Liberal governments.

We need a system of taxation that would provide an economic stimulus to help mitigate the economic slowdown in the United States. No one can dispute that Canada will face consequences of any economic changes that happen in the United States. With our loonie at par and occasionally above par and worth more than the U.S. dollar, Canadian manufacturers need help from the government.

The Conservative government is failing to create or even protect thousands of manufacturing jobs. In 2006, the House of Commons industry committee made 22 unanimous recommendations to help Canada's manufacturing sector. To date, of the 22 unanimous recommendations, one has partially been implemented. That was the creation of a two year window for writing off capital investments at an accelerated rate as opposed to the committee's recommendation of a five year window.

Meanwhile, other sectors, such as the booming oil sands industry, continue to enjoy a much more generous accelerated capital cost allowance. These are industries that have immense returns on their investments, yet we see the manufacturing sector struggling in Canada and hear silence from the government.

Canadian communities are also feeling the pinch of this Conservative mismanagement. According to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Canada's cities and communities now face an infrastructure deficit of over $100 billion, yet only $4 billion of the government's $30 billion building Canada fund has been earmarked for municipal infrastructure. Clearly, this is simply not enough.

Canadian cities and municipalities need long term sustainable funding for infrastructure programs. This requires partnering at all levels of government, but the Conservatives have failed to come to the table. The Conservative finance minister accused mayors, my own mayor from Kitchener, of being whiners. He dismissed them. He said that the government does not deal in potholes and said to go home. Yet everybody lives in a community, whether it is a village or a city, and recognizes that there needs to be attention to infrastructure. How many bridges need to collapse and injure or kill Canadians before we recognize the screaming deficit that we have in investment in infrastructure?

Similarly, the Conservatives' immigration program shows no real desire to respond either to the needs of our economy or to the needs of new Canadians. Their approach has a narrow regional focus. It lacks long term objectives for our immigration system. It ignores the realities of the Canadian labour market, where there are severe shortages. In addition, the Conservatives' plan is targeted almost exclusively at western Canada and shows no real desire to respond to the needs of employers in other provinces.

In budget 2006, the Conservatives provided $18 million over two years to create the Canadian agency for assessment and recognition of credentials. This is for foreign-trained professionals who want to immigrate to Canada. This represented a $145 million reduction--and I underscore that, a $145 million reduction--in spending on foreign credential recognition and cut the shelf life of the programming in half from what was promised in 2005.

What is worse, budget 2007 continued this backward path by breaking this meagre commitment. Instead of creating a foreign credential agency, the government replaced it with a Foreign Credentials Referral Office that is worth $13 million over two years. This merely provides referral services for prospective immigrants to connect with appropriate provincial assessment bodies rather than actually helping the foreign-trained workers find jobs quickly.

Statistics show us that within the next 20 years immigration will account for all of Canada's net labour force and population growth. Passing the buck to provinces and territories hardly seems a responsible reaction in addressing this sector of our society and our economy.

Liberal governments implemented numerous infrastructure programs in the 1990s and the early 2000s to support the municipal infrastructure projects, culminating in $5 billion over five years with the transfer of gas tax funds to municipalities and continuing at $2 billion annually from 2009.

The Liberals also invested $263 million in the foreign-trained workers initiative in 2005 and over $100 million to improve the delivery of immigration services.

As a member of the Liberal Party, I have consistently advocated for the support of Canadian families while promoting fiscal responsibility and building a solid economic foundation for the future.

I find this budget short-sighted and irresponsible. Quite frankly, Canadians deserve better.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by first saying that I have tremendous respect for the hon. member who just spoke, but she talked about the values that Canadians wish to have, such as investments in health, education, infrastructure and so on, yet her own government announced, and she said so in her speech, $100 billion worth of tax cuts in 2000.

We said the same things in 2000 that she says now. We said that many people were left behind, including autistic children and veterans, as well as the shipbuilding industries and everything else.

Yes, it is indeed important to ensure that taxes are done fairly and equitably right across the board. If reductions need to take place, they need to be done with a proper and thorough debate in the House of Commons.

I would like to give the member an opportunity to elaborate a bit more on this style of government we are seeing, with a government that turns around and gives a massive tax break to very profitable corporations, usually in the financial and the oil and gas sectors, corporations that are already making record profits under the current tax system.

Yet the government turns around, and except for a penny or two off a cup of coffee or whatever, average Canadians will not realize any major tax reduction at all in their taxes. Yet the very wealthy who run some of these corporations will realize the lion's share of these cuts.

Does the hon. member not think it appropriate that we should be investing in those people who are going to be left behind by the government, including farmers, fishermen, Inuit, first nations people, children with autism--I go back to that again and again--and families who are suffering? What about homelessness? What about infrastructure and so on? There are so many things the government can and should be investing in, but it simply has re-gifted many things that we in the NDP pushed for in Bill C-48 of the previous Parliament.

Why does the member think that the Conservative government and its Conservative members, who individually are really decent people, collectively seem to have lost their minds? They have gone blank. I would like to give the member a chance to elaborate a bit more and enunciate to us why the Conservatives would be so cold-hearted on many of the things I have just mentioned.

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, lest this sound like a mutual admiration society, I would have to say that I have eminent respect for the colleague who just posed the question. I know that, in the main, members in all parties of the House come here to make this a better country for their constituents, their provinces and Canadians across Canada.

In direct response, I would look at the accelerated writedown of capital costs and ask why the government would choose to continue to have a richer writedown of capital costs for people in the oil sands, who have record profits right now, and ignore the plight of manufacturers.

I think there are many things the government has done that really underscore a philosophical bent. There is an expression, and I do not know if people viewing this on TV will understand, known as “retail politics”. It is what will sell at the ballot box. It is the politics of division in choosing winners and creating losers.

The government had a $14 billion legacy of surplus left over from the hard work not just of the previous Liberal governments but all Canadians, because we recognize that everyone collectively tightened their belts to get rid of the $42 billion deficit that we as a government inherited.

The government has cancelled the court challenges program. Philosophically, they have taken word “equality” out of the mandate of the Status of Women department. There seems to be an absolute philosophical bent to decide who votes for them and how to reward them.

Communities and cities right across the nation need the kind of partnership that we can create at the federal government. I look at Waterloo region and Kitchener Centre. I look at the homeless issue. I look at the supporting community initiatives of over $320,000 that went into my riding and at what the local levels of government and non-profits did to make sure that nobody was left behind in my community.

That is the kind of leadership and partnership Canadians deserve and should expect from the federal government. It is not the kind of leadership they are getting from this minority Conservative government.