Mr. Speaker, I want to start by commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Halifax explosion, when over 2,000 people were killed when two munitions ships collided in Halifax Harbour. On that 90th anniversary today, we will all be saying a prayer tonight and thinking of all those people who unfortunately were taken from us far too soon in the great city of Halifax.
I want to thank my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. He has been a historian of this event in Halifax. I also want to thank him for the Bloc Québécois commemoration of this event.
We are talking today about a motion brought forward by the Liberal Party regarding infrastructure and transfer of funds, et cetera. It can all get muddy in terms of who is responsible for what. In reality, I do not think anyone can clarify 100% the different responsibilities for what is going on.
The reality is that most citizens really do not care. If they cannot drink their water, if they cannot ride on their roads, if there is congestion in and out of their cities, and if they cannot have adequate services in terms of transportation, housing and so on, then they are going to look at all politicians at all levels and get really upset with all of us.
The hon. member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca stood and made it sound like life was just great, so where do I sign up for this program? It is wonderful, he said, and we will not have a problem in the world. Let me remind my Conservative colleagues of what Mayor Pat Fiacco said. He is the mayor of Regina. An article states that he “blasted” the Ottawa government for “the estimated $123-billion deficit in rebuilding the country's roads, bridges, water and sewer systems” in his annual year in review address.
Mayor Fiacco is the chair of the Big City Mayors Caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. He blasts the federal government. It is simply not doing anywhere near enough. He is from Regina and I do not know his political persuasion, although he is probably a Saskatchewan Roughrider fan, as I am. Again, we congratulate the Riders on their great Grey Cup victory recently.
However, Mayor Fiacco is not the only person saying this. We had a protest on the Hill the other day by local Ottawa politicians. We have had big city mayors from across the country express their point of view regarding this. What response did they get from the finance minister? He said to quit “whining”. They got condescending remarks.
One would think that the finance minister of Canada would be a little more judicious in his comments. Instead of complaining about the comments made by the Big City Mayors Caucus and the FCM, he should actually sit down and meet with them to discuss these various serious issues.
Lately I have noticed a trend not just in this Parliament but in other governments across Canada. The government starts to relinquish some of its tax ability, its revenue ability, and then of course when services are required the government says it does not have the money to do that, but it will go to the private sector to get it done. In other words, that means the P3 system. We have seen, as I have stated, certain examples of how P3 systems have been simply fiscally irresponsible.
I am not here to say that all P3 systems are bad or wrong. For example, I think the Confederation Bridge is a very good example of a P3 system that works well. However, the reason it works so well is the accountability of that project. Other projects had no accountability, at least none as far as we can see, and the taxpayers, municipal, provincial or federal, were on the hook for a long, long time. Sometimes the projects cost three or four times more than if they had stayed in public hands.
Another concern is from CUPE, the Council of Canadians and many other organizations. They are very worried about water systems and water management going to the private sector, as we have seen in England and in other countries. The cost for water services has skyrocketed in England, because the corporations or the private entities must make a certain return on their investment in order to satisfy their shareholders.
In cases of that nature, where water services are really a mandatory item for a community, we think it should remain in public hands.
I remind my colleagues that the federal government does not own construction companies, as far as I know. It does not have water treatment experts in that particular regard. The government works with various companies in order to get the work done. If the federal government needs a certain project done, it generally puts it out for tender. Usually the best bid will come in, hopefully for the best value, the job gets done and hopefully everything is satisfactory, not just for the contractor who does the job but also for the taxpayer at the end of the day.
The reality is that there is nothing wrong with governments owning infrastructure in terms of municipalities, provincial or federal, as long as it is responsible, accountable and reasonable. In many cases, as I stated before, sometimes things go off the rails and we as taxpayers end up paying a lot more further down the road.
We have seen evidence before where the federal government sells a building and then leases it back. Even within its own departments as we heard over the last months evidence of where that was the wrong way to go.
I heard my hon. colleague, the parliamentary secretary, say that it was not a question of his integrity, that it was a question of the previous government's integrity and the present government's integrity in ensuring that taxpayers will be absolutely protected and get the best value for their money.
There is just not that much trust happening. I would recommend to the parliamentary secretary that he talk to his government, because it has a long way to go in order to enshrine that trust in the hearts and minds of many Canadians.
On the aspect of surpluses, I would remind Canadians that a large part of these surpluses came from the employment insurance fund. I remember the Conservatives when they were in opposition lambasting the Liberals for using EI funds for purposes other than for what they were intended. Now they have been in power for roughly 22 months and they are doing the exact same thing. They are taking the surpluses in the EI fund and putting them into consolidated revenues, something they said that they would not do. However, that is a side bar issue and one for discussion on another day.
I have said before that it is the government's responsibility to pay down debt and to look at strategic tax incentives and relief in order to help Canadians and small and medium size businesses. What I think is irresponsible is to take $14 billion and apply it on one thing, the debt. I would never advocate spending $14 billion on social services, if that was the entire amount of the surplus.
However, what I do advocate is a one-third, one-third, one-third approach. One-third of that $14 billion would have been applied to debt relief; one-third would have been applied to strategic tax relief, for example, removing the GST on home heating essentials across the country or over the counter drugs or something of that nature; and the other one-third would go to reinvestment into programs such as: national housing; student debt relief; a pharmaceutical plan; increasing a promise the government made on the VIP program for all veterans and widows of World War II and Korea, something it promised to do immediately, which has not quite happened yet; and for infrastructure. Some of that money could have gone to help those areas that are most desperate.
I want to remind the government and the Liberal opposition that I just did a tour of Resolute Bay, Arctic Bay and Iqaluit. They are in desperate need of housing and infrastructure. If we invested in hydroelectricity for Iqaluit and got it off the 13 million litres of diesel fuel that it burns for heat and energy, it would be Kyoto compliant tomorrow.
