Mr. Speaker, I listened to the question asked of my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst with regard to future debt and how ordinary workers would have to pay for that debt if we did not accept the budget as is. Ordinary Canadians are already paying that debt as a result of lost services. I will talk about some of the things ordinary folks, the people who really need those services, do not get and the reasons why.
I am pleased my colleague from Ottawa Centre moved the amendment that would take away corporate tax cuts. The budget was not balanced. It favours large corporations with enormous tax breaks. Everyone else may get a few tax credits, and that is good, but ordinary Canadians have to spend that money first to get it back. A lot of people cannot afford to do that, so there will be no tax credit or savings for them. If we allow Bill C-28 to pass unamended, it would make everything in our ridings harder to achieve.
People in my riding who are responsible for administering a lot of services tell me that the greatest need is housing. I live in a rural area and we do not see people on the street like we would see in greater centres. They do not congregate on the streets as they do in big cities. They live in campsites and in their cars. People do not realize this because our homeless do not live downtown where everyone can see them. We only realize this when we look to the service providers and find out that people are in dire need. These are not unemployed people. A lot of them are underemployed or they work part time. Some are young families with children.
We are doing everything we can to help them in our communities, but we are doing it with scarce dollars. This could have been addressed in the budget. Some money should have been put into a national housing program like the one called for by the NDP for many years. The program was eliminated, but we would like to see it resurrected so people can get into affordable housing.
The situation with respect to housing on reserves is very sad. Sometimes 18 to 24 people live in a house that was only designed for a family of four. They are living in very crowded conditions. Because the houses were not built to a very good standard, they are mouldy, or leaking or falling apart.
Money needs to be invested in these communities to ensure aboriginal people have the housing they deserve, which would give them the ability to live in dignity. It is quite shameful that we are forcing first nations to live in Third World conditions on reserves. I cannot say in strong enough words how shameful it is on Canada's part.
The $14 billion going toward large corporate tax cuts could have been invested in a child care program. Hopefully, my colleague's amendment will pass in the House and we will have a national child care program in the country very soon. All parents have been calling for a child care program. It is sorely needed and it would help ease the debt burden for a lot of working families. I fully support that. I look forward to the day when parents do not need to have bake sales to raise money to fund child care centres. It is important for all our communities.
There are other things that we do not see in my riding, especially where I live on coast. A lot of our communities used to be dependent on fishing resources. We have lost a lot of that. What we have lost is habitat protection and part of that is because there is not enough money in the system. We need huge dollars invested in our habitat protection on the coast so we can ensure we have a viable fishery for the future, but we have not seen that. It is sad. There seems to be enough money for so many things, especially for corporate tax cuts. We would like to see some of that money flow to our communities to protect our streams, rivers and lakes. We would like people there to protect those areas so we can have fish in the future.
My colleague from Acadie—Bathurst also talked about forestry, which is another area of concern in my riding. Because of the softwood lumber sellout, we now see the increase of raw log exports from all our forestry communities across the country. That is causing mills to close. I know the government has said that it will make some investment into mills and resources in Quebec, but I did not hear anything about the west.
I remember the finance minister saying in his budget speech that his Canada was from the Atlantic to the Rockies. I live on the other side of those Rockies. I remind him there is a whole province out there with a huge forest industry, which is in big trouble. We need an investment in our value added manufacturing. We want to see our communities stay alive. Instead we are seeing all our raw logs being shipped out of the country and being processed elsewhere. It is having a devastating impact on our communities and something has to be done about it. The government had an opportunity with billions of dollars in surplus to do that.
At the beginning of my remarks I mentioned that workers were paying for the debt. They pay for that by a lack of jobs. We have seen a loss of jobs in our forest sector and our fishing industry. There is the lack of child care and housing. People pay huge amounts of money out of their own pockets to the detriment of being able to pay rent, or mortgages or even living decently in a community. That money is being stolen out of their pockets and their tax dollars with nothing given back to them. It is shameful.
Education and training is another area where the government could have made a real difference for our young people. It could have invested in our colleges, universities and other institutions. It could have ensured that education was more affordable for our young people so they would not have to pay such high tuition fees to get an education, to further their skill building and to get a better career. A few million dollars into the education sector could have gone a long way to help young people reduce their debts, which would help them start their working lives on a more even footing, not having to start off with thousands and thousands of dollars of debt. Some of that debt is probably why they have to live in their cars and campsites rather than in a home. It is another shame on the part of the government.
One group I have not talked about is seniors. A seniors charter was passed in the House, but has never been enacted. The government could have invested in some of the things in that such as home care program and long term care for our seniors who really need it. This would help them and the system save money because they would not end up in hospital. They could stay home and be looked after with dignity. It think we would all like to see that for our aging parents.
Prescription drugs should have been made much more affordable, if not free for seniors, as well as dental care. These things were in the seniors charter, which has never been enacted by the government. Again, that is a shame
For all these reasons, I support my colleague's amendment to Bill C-28.