Mr. Speaker, when members rise and speak to this bill, the immediate thing that has to come to mind is the missed opportunity, the missed opportunity for us as a country to invest in our country, to make our economy stronger, and to create greater benefits for all citizens of our country. This mini-budget fails on all counts. It lacks vision; it lacks a plan.
It is like listening to the Conservatives over and over again say their mantra that tax breaks are going to solve all the problems of the world. We know that just does not work. We look in particular at what happened with the corporate tax breaks and the vast majority of the dollars which will go to the large corporations.
Let us do a quick history. In February-March of this year the government brought forth the budget. In that budget there were substantial tax cuts for the corporate sector. That would have had the effect over the period of 2007 through to 2011 of reducing the effective corporate tax rate in this country, which is at this point actually lower than the corporate tax rate United States, which is a point the Conservatives constantly forget, but the Conservatives were going to reduce it from 22% down to 18.5% by 2011.
That budget passed with the assistance of the Bloc Québécois at that time. We then come forward through the summer and the Liberal Party is collapsing around itself and its new leader. We see the government, because it really did not have a plan, finally decide to prorogue Parliament and come back with a new throne speech.
In the new throne speech there are a number of provisions of an economic nature, but there is no particular mention of any further substantial reductions in the corporate tax rate.
As we just heard from my colleague from Outremont, lo and behold, shortly after the throne speech, the leader of the official opposition is up proclaiming that not only do the Liberals support the corporate tax breaks that have already been granted but that if they were in power they would give even greater tax breaks.
Within a day, if not the same day, the Minister of Finance is publicly proclaiming that in fact we are going to get greater corporate tax breaks. Within a month an economic statement came down which is encompassed to some significant degree in Bill C-28 in this mini-budget, and now what have the Conservatives done?
They are going to take that 22%, which is dropping already because of the earlier budget of 2007 and they are going to further reduce it. Now by 2012, the corporate tax rate in this country is going to fall to 15%; 22% this year. In five years or less it is going to be 15%, a full third of the corporate tax is no longer going to be required.
Inevitably, what do Canadians say about this? We have two political parties which have no substantial difference in how they deal with the revenue coming into the coffers of the government. We have to say, let us take a look at where these corporate tax breaks are going to go. We have done the analysis and this has not been contested by the government.
A full one-third of those two corporate tax breaks is going to go to the big banks in this country, the same big banks that in 2006 made $19 billion in pre-tax profit and are on line so far in 2007 to at least make that and probably break over the $20 billion mark. These are companies that we can see are poverty stricken, that are in absolute need of assistance from a government that feels compelled out of a sense of deep compassion to give them a tax break.
Where else is the money going? The next big chunk goes to the oil and gas industry. Natural resources is a bit broader, but primarily to the oil and gas industry. It pays because of its huge pre-tax profits due to all the oil and gas Canada is exporting to the world and contributes quite dramatically to environmental consequences in the form of global warming and climate change.
Those companies are making huge amounts of profit. One-sixth, in fact, of all the pre-tax corporate profits will be in the oil and gas sector, as it was in 2006. Chances are that those profits will be somewhat higher in 2007. Those companies will be picking up a huge chunk. In total, between those two sectors of the economy, they will be getting almost half of all these tax breaks, billions and billions of dollars.
If the government had not given this tax break, where could average, hard-working Canadians and their families have benefited? We have heard over and over again about the ongoing problems with waiting lists in our hospitals and in our medical system. More money could have been put there to deal directly with those waiting lists so that people do not have to wait six months, a year or 18 months just to be diagnosed and then many more months, if not years, beyond that to have surgery.
It could have built a national housing program. We heard from our colleague in question period today of some of the deaths that have occurred across the country as a result of homelessness.
We could have begun to create some child care spaces, one of the promises in the last election that the government likes to conveniently forget about. We are still waiting for the 125,000 or 150,000 new spaces. The government has abandoned that completely. Rather than use some of this revenue to assist in creating child care spaces for young families that need that assistance, what do we see? We see corporate tax breaks, revenue not coming in because the big banks and oil and gas companies need assistance.
Given the problems we are confronted with on the environment, we could have dramatically expanded the funds in many retrofit programs, both in the private sector and the government sector. However, we did not do any of that. We have the mantra that corporate tax breaks and tax breaks generally will solve all the problems. It is obvious, because of the problems we are faced with, whether it is waiting lists, lack of a housing program, homelessness or problems with the environment, that tax breaks are not the be all and the end all.
I want to step back, and this is really hard, and pretend for a minute that I am a Conservative. This is probably more creative than I usually am able to be, but let me pretend to do that for a minute and say that I do not really care about housing, the environment, unemployment and health services. All I really care about is helping big corporations, and that is where my--