Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to the amendment proposed by the member for Ottawa Centre to delete a portion of part 17 specifically dealing with corporate taxes.
In the recent economic statement and the throne speech, and in view of the substantial surpluses it has, the Conservative government had an opportunity to correct the direction it has been taking. Instead, it has continued in the wrong direction. It has continued to ignore the very serious prosperity gap that is growing in Canada for many of our working and middle class families. The government has failed to target tax relief to people that it would help the most.
The Canadian Labour Congress made a submission to the House of Commons finance committee during its prebudget consultations. The paper is dated August 2007 and contains an analysis on corporate income tax. It talks about the fact that despite increasing cuts to corporate income tax, what we have seen is an unprecedented lack of investment in companies, in the bricks and mortar, in training and re-education within companies, things that would actually make a difference to working and middle class families. The following is a quote from that paper:
Pre-tax profits have soared to record heights and after-tax profits have grown even faster. There has been no comparable increase in corporate investment. Simply adding $15 billion to the 2000 investment level would have increased total investment to nearly 13% of GDP in 2006.
Further on it states:
Business leaders are using this huge surplus to become net lenders to households, stockpile liquid assets, acquire other enterprises, and buy back stock. While these actions may be viable business strategies, it is not clear why the public should subsidize them through further corporate-tax cuts.
That is a very good analysis in terms of why we would support business decisions on where they are going to put their profits.
I mentioned in a question to a Liberal member that in the economic statement the Conservative government acknowledged the difficult times that manufacturing and forestry are in for a number of reasons, yet it simply failed to follow up on what it acknowledged is a very serious problem.
In the riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan, sawmills are laying off shifts of workers. A pulp and paper mill has filed for bankruptcy protection. There simply is not the national leadership around the forestry sector.
I have argued in this House previously and I will reiterate that forestry in British Columbia is not a sunset industry. It is a viable part of who we are as a province. We have the resources. We need to demonstrate national leadership around reinvestment in the industry, retooling where necessary and providing education and training for workers who need to transition into other jobs within the forestry sector.
The government had an opportunity in the economic statement and Bill C-28 to demonstrate that, but the government failed to do it.
There is a crisis in British Columbia caused by pine beetles. Although some money has been allocated, where is the long term, strategic planning for what will happen to those communities in five to ten years when all of the dead wood has been cut? Those communities are facing serious transitions and yet the government is failing to demonstrate the leadership that is required to make sure that those communities maintain their viability.
In addition to the challenges in our forestry and manufacturing sectors, we also are seeing the growing prosperity gap. Working and middle class families continue to struggle to make ends meet.
Many of us have been activists in our communities for a number of years. When food banks opened well over 20 years ago, many of us thought they were a temporary measure and that as our economy recovered, the food banks would close because they would no longer be needed. It is a very sad fact that there are more food banks rather than fewer.
In “HungerCount 2007” put out by the Canadian Association of Food Banks, there are a couple of startling figures. It says that the number of people assisted by a food bank in March 2007 was 720,231. There have been changes in food bank use. There is 91% more usage of food banks since 1989. There are 673 food banks in Canada with 2,867 affiliated agencies. The number of provinces and territories without a food bank is zero. It has been 26 years since Canada's first food bank opened in Edmonton. Seventy-three per cent of Canadians believe that hunger is a problem in Canada. Fifty-seven per cent believe that the government should take responsibility for solving the problems.
There are some very stark figures in that report which speak to the fact that there are men, women and children in this country who simply do not have enough to eat. I want to end the part on the food banks by saying that of the food bank clients, 38.7% are children. The percentage of households containing at least one child was 50.6% . It has been 18 years since the federal government promised to eliminate child poverty.
That leads me to the Campaign 2000 report that just came out entitled, “It Takes a Nation to Raise a Generation: Time for a National Poverty Reduction Strategy”. In 1989 the House unanimously passed Ed Broadbent's motion to end child poverty by the year 2000. Here we are in 2007 and it has not happened. Still there are children and their families, because of course there are no poor children without poor families, who continue to be the poorest of the poor in this country. The child poverty rate of 11.7% is exactly the same as it was in 1989. Forty-one per cent of children living in poverty live in families with at least one income earner working full time all year.
In my own province, despite a growing economy, British Columbia continues to report the highest provincial child poverty rate, which is 15.2%. In aboriginal and immigrant communities, the story is even worse. In aboriginal communities one in four children is poor, which means their families are poor. Aboriginal children and their families are living in substandard housing unable to access adequate drinking water, unable to access adequate medical care.
I recently put forward a private member's bill called Jordan's principle which talks about putting children first. It is a very good example that children on reserve often do not have access to adequate medical care. In Jordan's case his family had to surrender him to the province, put him in foster care in order for him to get the care he needed. Consequently, the federal and provincial governments fought over which one should pay for his care. The child ended up in hospital for four years. In the last two years of his life he could have been in a special foster home, but neither the federal government nor the provincial government would step up to the plate and pay for his care. He died in hospital instead of going to a foster home. That is a stain on Canada's reputation as being a caring and compassionate country.
Lest we only talk about problems, I want to talk about solutions because there are solutions. The winter 2007 report of the National Council of Welfare states that there are some real things that can be done. The report talks about childhood development care, access to education and training for adults so that they can better participate in the labour market, better jobs, income, social security for people who are not in the labour force, access to health care and other services, and affordable housing. The report states that in the absence of any leadership from the Conservative government on a national anti-poverty strategy, some of the provinces are taking some leadership around that, notably Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec. Those provinces are developing action plans. In Newfoundland and Labrador there is a cross-ministry initiative to develop an action plan with some real meaningful targets.
In this wealthy country of ours, the surplus was an opportunity to invest in Canadians. People talk about the rising tide lifting all boats, but it is not happening. We should have taken this opportunity to invest in child education, housing and other initiatives that would make a difference to families and which would close the very serious prosperity gap.