Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the implementation of the budget but it is not a pleasure to examine this budget. I and my party view it as an incredible missed opportunity for Canadians.
After years of sustained surpluses and the economy doing very well, we are seeing, however, that more and more Canadians are not doing well. The budget had a chance to amend the damage of deep cuts implemented by previous governments to social and physical infrastructures in our country.
It was a chance to bring Canada into the 21st century by investing in children's early education, post-secondary education in a meaningful way and in adult lifelong learning. It was a chance to ensure that no Canadian lives without shelter or goes to bed hungry. It was a chance to ensure that the most vulnerable Canadians, those with mental and physical disabilities, those suffering from addictions, seniors, those facing the barriers of racism, poverty and abuse get a helping hand and firm support. Frankly, the budget failed them.
It is a budget that has failed to close the growing inequality gap in our country. In addition, it has failed to adequately tackle the challenge of climate change.
I will first speak to the growing prosperity gap. With ongoing billions in corporate tax cuts, the budget will further widen, not shrink, the gap between those families at the top end and the rest of us, the middle and working class families.
After years of sustained surpluses, we now see the benefits primarily going to the top 10% of families as opposed to those in the bottom 10%, and this is at a 30 year high.
The budget fails to reinstate a federal minimum wage cancelled by the previous government and set it at $10 an hour, which would be the poverty level which should at least be the minimum in this country. We need to provide a living wage for people and it is time that our federal government took the lead with this important initiative.
There was nothing in the budget for affordable housing despite a growing crisis of homelessness on the streets of Toronto where I represent the riding of Parkdale—High Park. Parents and their children in my community continue to need a national child care program, although with the government and with the budget we have seen an ABC approach, which is anything but child care.
There is the money to sustain current spaces but this is not a child care system. It is not a system of early education and development. Parents in my riding tell me repeatedly that this is creating a crisis in their families. Parents are spending up to $1,500 a month per child for child care. Even at these exorbitant rates, hundreds of children are on waiting lists to get adequate care. It is simply disgraceful in a country with our wealth and where we pretend to be a modern society and a modern economy that we are behind the rest of the developed world in this regard.
I see on the streets of Toronto and in my community the growing signs of poverty. I see people homeless on the streets. I see the distress of families with young children who line up for breakfast programs and free meals on a Sunday evening. More than one million workers in the Toronto area earn less than $29,800 a year, many of them new Canadians who have been here for generations. Many workers of colour are women but they all share one thing in common: the work they do is often undervalued and under-paid.
In Toronto, over 200,000 children live below the poverty level, which is almost 20%, and this rate is growing.
I must recognize the passing of June Callwood, a journalist and social activist who, increasingly in her later years, became so distressed that as a society we could not marshal the political will to resolve the crisis of child poverty in a country so wealthy and especially with surplus budgets year after year and a growing economy. I am saddened that June Callwood passed without seeing a government that would take the initiative to come up with a plan to tackle this blight on our society today and for the future. We are still waiting for a government to do that but clearly in this budget the government has not.
Immigrants and newcomers make up about half of Toronto's population but 57% of them live in poverty. The child poverty rate among recent immigrants has been growing in every decade since the 1980s. I know an issue that newcomers tell me about repeatedly that is so tragic is that skilled workers, such as engineers, doctors, specialists and professionals of all kinds, who come to Canada cannot work in their field because they cannot get proper accreditation of their credentials.
I know the government said that it would study the situation but for the families that are living in poverty because the parents are driving taxis or working in bagel stops instead of practising in their profession as an engineer, a psychologist or a dentist, a study does not cut it. People want action and results and they want their credentials recognized. They want a system that welcomes them and recognizes their credentials now, not in several years to come.
The government did initiate the tax credit for low income people. Tax credits can be beneficial and protect the net incomes of earnings from living wages through compensating workers for income tax assessments and social insurance charges. The tax credits can address fluctuations and deficiencies in labour market hours which we know to be a big problem.
However, the adoption of living wage standards, that is a $10 an hour minimum wage, and the introduction of work tax credits must take place together. If not, then work tax credits become subsidies to employers for paying poverty wages. These subsidies would then provide unfair market advantages to less responsible employers over employers who pay living wages. The two must go together.
I also want to comment on the issue of infrastructure which is a huge issue in the city of Toronto. The budget has failed to deliver for large urban centres such as Toronto. In fact, I would argue that it is a step back for Toronto. My constituents in Parkdale—High Park tell me that they work hard, they pay their taxes and they want to see more of those taxes invested into our city in the critical social and physical infrastructure that we need.
So much of what we need in Toronto right now is borne by our property taxes. Property taxes are going through the roof. Seniors, especially in their twilight years, who are in their own homes are squeezed because they have fixed incomes and their property taxes keep going up. Property taxes are regressive and disproportionately affect working and middle income people and seniors are especially hard hit. Property taxes also make it hard on small businesses across the city.
Toronto is Canada's largest city and it has the sixth largest government in Canada. It is home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people. It is the economic engine of Canada and one of the greenest and most creative cities in North America. We need a national transit strategy like the one I have been calling for and the one outlined by the big city mayors. The economy and the environment of Toronto depend on better transit, more buses, streetcars and subways.
I know the government has announced funding to extend the subway to York University and Vaughan, which is a positive step, but we need ongoing, sustained, multi-year funding and a plan to grow transit in the city of Toronto as the city is growing.
Another huge disappointment is that culture has received such short shrift in the budget. It is only a part of a page in the budget. There is nothing for the big six projects in the city of Toronto and there is no new money for CBC which will affect not only the people who work in this sector, but will affect us as a nation because this is so important to our voice and to who we are as a country.
In summary I would like to say that with no urban strategy, with no help for the working poor and with very little in environmental protection, this is a budget that is a step back for Toronto and for Canadians in general.