Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate again in this debate on Bill C-28, the budget and economic statement implementation act.
The first time I spoke to the bill at second reading there was a lot of discussion on what exactly the government's direction was in how it dealt with financial planning.
Colleagues today have been stressing the fact that the measures included in the bill and in the government's other economic measures are gutting the fiscal capacity of the federal government. It is gutting it by a total $190 billion over the next six years. That is money that is taken away from the government and Canadians collectively to address the problems that face our society, the needs in our communities and the important aspirations of our families.
When we do not have that money and we take that money out of the capacity of government to respond, it is very hard to get it back, if at all possible. We need to pay attention to the direction of the government when it comes to gutting the fiscal capacity of government.
We also need to pay attention to the way that surpluses have been dealt with, both by the Conservative government and by the previous Liberal government. The constant refrain of “surprise, it's bigger than we thought” and “surprise we're going to put all of that money toward the debt and the deficit”, that is not good financial planning. To take that money out of any financial planning process related to this place and to the needs of Canadians is not a responsible course of action.
We have seen it time and time again where those huge sums of money that could be helping Canadians, that could be going to meet our obligations to our neighbours and to people across the country, are taken out of that discussion and do not become part of the priorities of the government.
There is a real problem with how we set priorities for government spending, both with the present government and the previous Liberal government.
In this corner of the House, we have had some success in trying to draw back governments from making that mistake. When the Liberal government was in power, the NDP negotiated to bring an end to a corporate tax cut that was being proposed at that time. We knew that corporate tax cut would not help Canadians in the way it was proposed. We knew that it was not the way to go. We knew that it was wrong. We proposed instead that the money that would have gone to that tax cut go to important programs that would actually help Canadians: lowering student tuition fees, building affordable housing, supporting public transit projects that help the environment, and to help our neighbours around the world by ensuring that Canada was doing a little bit better in meeting its obligations on foreign aid.
We were successful in that and now the only major money that we have seen spent on social programs in recent years is the result of our action in this corner of the House turning back that last Liberal corporate tax cut in favour of spending in those very important areas.
I am proud when I walk down the street in Vancouver now and I see the new blue and grey buses that are part of the Coast Mountain bus fleet in Vancouver. I know those buses were possible because of the money that the NDP fought for and obtained in that last Liberal budget. It is making a difference in people's lives.
Unfortunately, it is not enough. More needs to be done in the area of public transit and in the area of housing. We know that money went some way to helping and it is being spent now by provinces across the country but we need more to do that. It is not dealing with the crisis in affordable housing and in homelessness that confronts our communities and our citizens every day.
We know that students still face high levels of student debt. We know that was only a beginning in what needs to be done in continuing efforts to address those important issues.
On the foreign aid issue we are still nowhere near the commitments we made years ago to dedicate a certain percentage of our gross national product to ensuring assistance to people around the world.
We have a record in this corner of the House of showing what we would do when confronted with corporate tax cuts, corporations with high levels of profit that do not need our assistance right now. We know that big oil and gas companies and the big banks do not need our assistance because they have sky-high profit rates and are doing very well. They do not need the kind of assistance that the Conservative government is putting forward.
I am pleased we are debating an amendment to Bill C-28 that would remove the corporate tax cut completely and ensure that money is available for important programs. Hopefully, the government will engage in a process that will see the ideas and needs of Canadians engaged so that money could be spent more appropriately.
What are those areas where spending needs to happen? One of the areas that I want to talk about is the need to deal with the levels of child poverty in Canada. Back in 1989, this place made a commitment to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. The Conservative government and Liberal governments of the day failed miserably in even approaching that commitment. In fact, child poverty has gone up in Canada over that same period of time. That was a failed process. It did not happen because nobody in the governments of the day paid attention to that commitment. It is still an issue.
Firstcall is a cross-sectoral, non-partisan coalition in British Columbia made up of 79 provincial organizations, anti-poverty and community organizations, and 25 mobilizing communities of which I am happy to say the city of Burnaby is one. Last week, Firstcall released its annual report card dealing with the issue of child poverty. Sadly, British Columbia has the worst record on child poverty in Canada. Statistics in 2005 showed that almost 21% of B.C. children lived in poverty. That is absolutely shameful in a country as wealthy as Canada and a province as prosperous as British Columbia.
In its report card, Firstcall proposed setting targets where governments could be held accountable for reducing child poverty. We know the importance of setting those kinds of targets. We often do it in other areas but for some reason we cannot seem to bring ourselves to do it in important areas of social policy.
Firstcall is calling for a minimum 25% reduction in the child poverty rate by 2012 and a minimum 50% reduction by 2017. It has some suggestions about how that could happen and what kind of policies could deal with that. It suggested that the federal government increase the Canada child tax benefit to $5,100 per child. It said that cuts to employment insurance should be rescinded. It also said that we should be working with the provinces to provide universally accessible, affordable and high quality child care. I am proud to say that New Democrats have all of those things on our agenda.
We know that the child tax benefit needs to be increased. If the Conservative government had put that taxable $100 a month toward the child tax benefit, we would be approaching that $5,100 figure. That would have put it up into the high $4,000 range, which is where it needs to be to provide significant assistance to families and children.
The NDP has fought long and hard for that. Our colleague from Acadie--Bathurst has been the prime figure in terms of restoring EI. The NDP's bill to establish a national child care program would do exactly what Firstcall is calling for. We will continue to push for that because we know it will make a difference to children and families in communities in Canada.
As the spokesperson on cultural issues for the NDP, the government needs to pay attention to CBC service. My colleagues from Hamilton East--Stoney Creek and Hamilton Mountain will agree with me when I say that the CBC proposal to ensure local radio programming in communities all across this country needs to go ahead. It is not an expensive program, which makes me wonder why it is not in the proposals that we have before us from the government.
Eight million Canadians currently do not have access to CBC local radio programming, which is one of the most successful aspects of CBC work. Local radio programming increases the cultural life of Canada. It has brought Canadians together. It has increased the democratic participation in Canada by informing Canadians about what is happening in their communities. However, 15 communities need that kind of service, including Kitchener, London, Montreal South Shore, Barrie, Kingston, the Laurentians, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Drummondville, Red Deer, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Fort McMurray, Chiliwack, Saskatoon and Cranbrook, not to mention Hamilton. Canadians living in those places deserve to be connected in the same way that the rest of us enjoy CBC services.