Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House to discuss the federal budget again and to raise a few other points.
It is unfortunate that so few members have the opportunity that I have today. The time allocated to a debate on a very important aspect of government has been limited. How will programs be implemented? How will services be provided to Canadians? I believe these questions deserve a good debate and some good discussion.
I have the honour to be a member of the House Standing Committee on Finance, where the Conservatives wanted to eliminate the opportunity for Canadians to appear before the committee to share their opinions on budget 2007. I found that most unfortunate.
We had to negotiate to bring even a few people before the committee, and even then, their testimony was restricted. For example, Premier Calvert was given only a few minutes despite having been promised a whole hour.
What has been interesting to me in this debate today is not the question of whether or not this budget represents a betrayal to Canadians. The only discussion has been on what is the biggest betrayal. Is it the income trusts or is it the Atlantic accord? What is it? The fact that there are so many betrayals is very worrying and the fact that nobody can argue that Canadians have not been betrayed.
The government has flip-flopped on the issue of summer jobs. What bothers me is not the fact that the government has flip-flopped. It is the fact that there are some issues that it refuses to flip-flop on because it comes out instinctively with an incompetent position, which causes us to fight all the time within committees and within this House to get the government to understand and to get the item out in public so the government will be forced to retract its position or improve it.
We have mentioned many examples in the House of government flip-flops but I will name one that might not get much attention. There is a small area of the scallop fishery in my province called area 29. There has always been a huge debate as to who would fish there. Is it the inshore? Is it the Full Bay? Where does the Full Bay begin? Where are the offshore scallop taken? It has taken a long time to come to some accommodation.
When I was minister of fisheries, we came to an agreement on sharing within area 29 between the Full Bay fleet and the inshore fishermen. Having been asked by the Full Bay Scallop Association to maintain the current position, a letter was sent saying that the current sharing formula would be maintained in area 29. A few days later we found out that the minister was appointing a panel to revisit the allocations in that area, again causing consternation within the fleets. This is another example of the government's flip-flops. It is perhaps not one that gets national attention, but it is one that is very important and symptomatic of what we have seen.
We have seen cuts to summer jobs which has hurt little community organizations that need summer students to operate. Thank goodness for the work of the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour who brought this to the floor. All Liberals MPs worked very hard with him and we were able to get the Conservatives to retract on that . However, we are still not sure of how we will do in future years. This year the cut was only $11 million, and we saw the impact of that. Next year the government is forecasting a cut of $59 million. What will that mean?
Foreign investment is another issue on which the government has flip-flopped. The government came out with a knee-jerk reaction in the budget saying that an individual could not deduct for tax purposes any interest expense for investments outside of Canada. The government knee-capped Canadian industries that must compete internationally with other companies. It is a global market out there. We had to embarrass the Conservatives at committee to force them to retract on that decision.
Now the government is talking about stacking and about double-dipping. Nobody wants any corporation, Canadian or otherwise, to evade taxes but it is important that our corporate sector become competitive internationally. We worked very hard on that.
The issue of income trusts has been discussed many times. There is no doubt in my mind that we had to take action in that sector because there were problems. The Governor of the Bank of Canada pointed that out very well at committee, as did many others. He also said that it was an excellent vehicle for certain sectors of the economy and that there was a demand for that type of investment in the capital markets.
Rather than solving the problem, the Minister of Finance came out with a nuclear bomb, when a surgical strike would have been appropriate, and completely crushed the whole sector, eliminating $25 million of capital savings of mostly seniors across this country. He killed a very important sector and caused these companies and corporate assets to be sold abroad. The minister had an opportunity to retract and make changes. The member for Markham—Unionville made an excellent proposal that was adopted by the committee that would have solved that problem.
I have also mentioned the issue of the Digby wharf in the House many times. For over a year and a half now the government has had the arbitrator's report. It knows that the error was an error by the Department of Transport. It is not a huge amount of money on a national basis to solve the problem and give this port back to the people where it belongs.
I want to spend a bit of time on the question of the Atlantic accord, which is a huge betrayal because, like income trusts, the Prime Minister promised not to touch it. Further, when the Conservatives were in opposition they were so in favour of the Atlantic accord that they wanted it split from the full budget so they could vote in support of that element but not in support the entire budget.
In last year's budget, the government sent out a message that it did not like the Atlantic accord and that it was not very well received in certain parts of the country. We could debate that. We could debate as to the value of that type of an agreement between the provincial and the federal government or special agreements with any province, but that is not a matter to debate. That debate happened in the House a year and a half ago and the Conservatives agreed to it. An agreement was signed between the federal government and two provinces and that agreement should be honoured.
A promise was made by the Prime Minister to the people of Saskatchewan and that promise should be honoured. A promise was made in the campaign by the Prime Minister to the people of Atlantic Canada that the accord would be maintained, and that promise should be honoured.
It is those flip-flops and betrayals that we object to and the way that people are treated.
We had the member for Central Nova stand in the House, when I questioned him before the first vote on the budget, saying that if Nova Scotians did not like the budget that he would see them in court. We thought that was some buffoonery until yesterday when we heard the Prime Minister make the same challenge, so we now know that it is the position of the Government of Canada.
While the Minister of Finance said that we would have peace in our time and that the bickering between the federal and provincial governments is over, the Conservatives have now gone fully 100% to the American way and the judiciary can resolve all these discussions. We will sue one another rather than discuss and negotiate.
We then had the same highly placed minister of the government stand in this House and say that there would be no whipping, no flipping, no hiring, or firing and that no member of caucus would be expelled for voting his or her conscience and voting against the accord. The member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley did not have a chance to make it to the curtains after he showed courage by voting in favour of the people of his province before he was expelled from his caucus.
What does the member for Central Nova, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, say in the media after that? He said that he did not think anyone would vote against the budget. He did not mind misleading the House because he thought no one would take him up on it, no one would make him show his cards. Well, one member had the courage and we now know what I believe is an egregious misleading of the House by a member saying that there would be a free vote when there was not.
We then heard from members within the Conservative caucus that they had to stay within caucus because they were negotiating and trying to find accommodation between the federal government and the accord provinces and that the discussions were ongoing.
On Saturday, in the Chronicle-Herald in Nova Scotia, we see a letter signed by the Minister of Finance of this country saying that no such discussions were happening, that it was impossible and that there could not be some discussions. What is more, we learned that the Prime Minister's Office had written a letter and tried get the member for Central Nova to sign it, which would have been a complete suicide note.
However, I want to help the member for Central Nova, the member for South Shore—St. Margaret's and the member from Newfoundland to find a resolution to this problem. I want to give one last opportunity to the Conservative government to honour its accord. Therefore, I seek unanimous consent of the House for the following motion: That the previous question on Bill C-52, the budget implementation act, 2007, be deemed withdrawn and that the bill be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Finance for the purpose of reconsidering those clauses dealing with the Atlantic accord and equalization.