Mr. Speaker, as the Conservatives go to their riding meetings and open houses their constituents are yelling and screaming them down. People across the country are furious. I want to use my time today to talk about the 10 reasons this budget and the government have so upset and betrayed Conservatives across the country.
The first reason is that when the Conservatives were elected to government people thought that they would get a cut in government spending. For years the Conservatives, especially the Reform Party, talked about how the government was overburdened, how the socialists were spending too much money on all sorts of things. They talked about how the government was getting way out of size and was overrunning the country. Then what did the Conservatives do? They brought in the biggest spending budget in history. It is no wonder that Conservatives were shocked. They could not believe what they saw.
The second reason Conservatives are shocked is they expected another thing from their government and they were jubilant when they were elected because they expected to see tax reductions. Much to their shock and surprise they saw their income tax rates go up. This occurred mostly at the lower level for the most vulnerable people.
I have with me the revised income tax schedule one. In the last year of the Liberal government the tax rate was 15%. On the tax form that everyone filled out this year that tax rate was 15.25%. People across the country will get a shock next year when they see it is 15.5%. The tax rate will be going up again.
The third reason a number of Conservatives across the country are so angry and feel betrayed is income trusts. The Prime Minister made a promise during the 2006 election campaign that income trusts would never be taxed. On October 31, 2006 the finance minister announced a 31.5% tax. This took $25 billion from the personal savings of Canadians. The Toronto Sun reported on February 21:
This is not fair to hard working seniors who have saved all their lives and depend on the income trusts' high yields to pay their bills.
Whether or not it was the right decision, the fact is that the Prime Minister said he would not tax income trusts. People invested in that mechanism based on the word of the Prime Minister. Canadians expect that the one person's word that they can believe for sure would be the Prime Minister's. This was a tremendous shock and disappointment and betrayal to Conservatives across the country.
The fourth reason that Conservatives are upset with the government is the broken promise on equalization. I quote from the May 8 edition of the Leader-Post of Regina, Saskatchewan:
Premier Lorne Calvert has reason to be peeved by Saskatchewan's 12 Conservative MPs and their lack of backbone in fighting for the equalization deal they promised the province.... Instead these MPs have demonstrated far more loyalty to the [Prime Minister] than to the voters.
It is not the voters' fault. They had no choice. It was the Prime Minister and the finance minister.
What about Nova Scotia? There is the unheralded example of a province talking about taking the federal government to court over the budget. Was it an NDP or Liberal premier? No. It is a Conservative premier.
What about Newfoundland? Everyone knows about the huge expenditure of taxpayers' money to run full page ads in newspapers across the country. People in Newfoundland and Labrador are so furious at the broken promise. Once again it is not a Liberal premier, not an NDP premier, but a Conservative premier.
The fifth reason that Conservatives across the country are shocked and dismayed by this budget and the government is regulatory reform. Canadians thought that they would get reduced government spending, but they did not. They thought they would get a reduced tax rate, but they did not. They thought that at least they might get some regulatory reform so that the government would get out of interfering with their lives and businesses.
The pipeline minister responsible for northern affairs talked about how the regulatory regime in the Northwest Territories was stopping development and it needed to be fixed. What has happened? Nothing. There has been no change. We heard recently from Exxon Imperial Oil that the biggest project in the history of the north may not go ahead partly due to regulatory problems.
What about their boondoggles related to the environment? This is from the National Post, a quite Conservative oriented paper with Terence Corcoran:
After last week producing a sound and lucid report on how Canada's Kyoto carbon emission targets were unworkable and economically dangerous, the Conservatives yesterday set course for even greater lunacy than Kyoto, led by...the Environment Minister. In a speech that even Sheila Copps in full discombobulated flight could not have delivered, [the environment minister] invented, distorted, misrepresented and fabricated his way to a potential regulatory nightmare.
The fifth reason is this lack of regulatory reform the people hoped they would see when they elected Conservatives.
The sixth reason, of course, is the elected Senate that the Conservatives when in opposition talked about and talked about. A few hours into government, the Conservatives appointed a senator as opposed waiting for one to be elected. It was not just any senator. He was made a minister of the Crown. And he is not just any minister. He is responsible for the largest spending department relating to contracts in government. A party which talked about the importance of accountability put the minister with all that spending power in the Senate where he cannot be asked questions.
Some members of the public who are watching may think that a minister could be asked questions in the Senate. Question period in the Senate is not like the one in the House of Commons where the ministers answer all the questions. It is the leader in the Senate who answers. The unelected senator appointed by the Conservatives for all that spending power cannot be asked questions.
Lack of accountability once again is upsetting Conservative members. The Prime Minister will not declare his 2002 leadership donors. He refused to make time for the Ethics Commissioner in the Gurmant Grewal affair. They are complaining that they are the laughingstock of the country related to accountability because they put out a manual on how to block and stonewall parliamentary committees, where the business of parliament is done. Once again, I cannot actually blame the backbenchers because they probably did not have a lot to do with that.
The ninth reason is related to gas prices. Another big area the Conservatives when in opposition talked about at length was the problem of gas prices and what they would do about it. What they have done about it is close the gas monitoring office that was recommended in the last Parliament that would let Canadians know whether there was any collusion in the setting of gas prices. It would provide all the information and details in this very complex field and let Canadians know. The man in the street would have felt much more comfortable knowing the background to these huge recent increases in gas prices.
Then of course there was the promise the Conservatives were really looking forward to regarding addressing the double taxation, taking the GST off gas prices, which the Conservatives promised as soon as prices were over 85¢ a litre. A couple of weeks ago in my riding the price was $1.40 a litre which is a lot more than 85¢ and yet the GST has not been removed. That promise has not been kept.
The tenth reason they are upset is that unlike the old Reform philosophy, the Conservative backbenchers and even the ministers are not to allowed to talk against the government or to vote against the government.
According to the April 20 edition of the Whitehorse Star in the story about the hijab, “One government member said an order not to comment came directly from the Prime Minister's Office”.
Now they have even cancelled the November policy convention where ordinary members could talk and complain about these things.
Those are the 10 top reasons the Conservatives across the country are upset by their government, the one they were originally excited about getting elected. If those are not enough, in case someone disagrees with one of those reasons, I will give a spare reason, the elimination of interest deductibility which the past chairman of the Canadian Tax Foundation said is the single most misguided policy he has seen in Ottawa in many years.
Those are just what members of Parliament from all parties in the House of Commons have seen as reasons that Conservatives are upset.
There are Conservatives who are talking about starting a new party. According to the May 12 issue of the Globe and Mail May 12:
“This new party will never be infiltrated by Red Tories, special interest groups”....“Has the Prime Minister been 'Otta-washed?'” Mr. Byfield, a strong voice for small-c conservative Alberta--
The article goes on about being deluged with e-mails and calls from people who are frustrated with the direction the Prime Minister is taking.
I share the disappointment of Conservative voters across the country. They are getting all these things that they did not expect from the government. If the Conservatives have a philosophy, they should at least be true to that philosophy and the promises they made to voters. The Conservative government should not disappoint Canadians by breaking so many promises.