Mr. Speaker, this is just about the last time we will have a chance to speak about the 2007 budget. We are drawing near the end but without losing hope that we can try to persuade the government to make amends for the errors it has made along this journey.
We have just seen a living example of that today in this House with the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, who stood up in the House today as an independent to speak for his province and his region against a government, his own government and his own party, that has broken its word and has failed miserably to address the needs of Atlantic Canada.
That member stood in the House today to plead with the government to reconsider, to simply stand up and say “we made a mistake and our word is good”, to say that the agreement it signed will be kept and that Atlantic Canadians can count on the government to be there as it promised.
It is not too much to ask, is it, when we consider what is involved? It is a written commitment from the government to the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador and it is an agreement with the province of Saskatchewan. These are agreements to address the fact that these are provinces in the developing stages of accessing their raw resources and oil and gas revenues.
It was not an extraordinary request today. It was based on an agreement. It was based on an understanding for the good of the country and for the good of those regions that are developing their resources and which need and have asked for and received from the government the agreement to develop those resources without being hurt in an equalization formula, without seeing a clawback at a time when they most need the revenue.
They are not asking for a favour to go to regions forever and a day, but simply that the government's word be kept, that an agreement be maintained so that those provinces could reap the benefits of their resources and ensure that in fact the very difficult economic and social circumstances being faced in those provinces would finally be dealt with.
This is the story of this budget. It is hard to believe that it has only been since March 19 that we have been dealing with this, because there have been so many issues.
Each and every day some problem has emerged, some new development has occurred, some story has been developed and some line changed, whether we are talking about the Atlantic accords or the deal with Saskatchewan and the promises broken by the government, or whether we are dealing with the change of heart with respect to interest deductibility and the earlier commitment by the government to crack down on corporate tax avoidance, or whether we are talking about the failure of the government to meet its commitment to our original peoples and to respond in the face of a very explosive situation.
The government has failed to act and has only compounded the problems and made the situation worse.
We are here making our last plea for the government to come to its senses in a number of areas. We do not expect that we will agree on everything, but we are asking the government to deal with some very critical issues and to make some significant changes in this budget.
The fundamental problem with this Conservative budget is that it has failed to be honest with the Canadian people, just as the budgets of the previous Liberal government failed to be honest with the Canadian people. As a result, decisions have been made in the absence of full democratic participation. Decisions have been made that will set back the human development of this country many years.
Decisions have been made that will prevent the Conservative government from taking action when human crises emerge. Today we are hearing news of such looming crises, some actually happening before our very eyes. The news out of British Columbia about floods in Skeena--Bulkley Valley is mind-boggling.
Some of us can remember what it was like when we went through the flood of the century in Manitoba. We remember the way the Liberal government spurned us in our time of need. I remember how former prime minister Jean Chrétien came into my riding and threw one sandbag, un sac de sable, and continued on with his election despite the crying need of Manitobans.
The people overcame. The people persevered. The people of Winnipeg, with the help of volunteers from all parts of the country, with the help of members of the armed forces and with the commitment by the local and provincial governments, averted a situation of most dire consequences.
Will this be the case when it comes to British Columbia today? Does the government have the flexibility, the foresight and the compassion to actually intervene in this very difficult situation? As we speak, artifacts are being evacuated from the Ksan Historical Village. Hundreds of families are awaiting flood notice, from B.C.'s northwest to the Fraser Valley.
This situation demands swift federal action. Has it happened? Have we heard anything? Has the government moved to help people who are being evacuated or to help prevent the loss of precious artifacts that are part of our original peoples' history? Is this a priority for the government? That is the big question mark today.
At a time when we are looking at a budget and dealing with the needs of this country through the fiscal means of the state, surely we can expect the government to immediately announce a plan of attack to deal with this kind of situation. We have not heard a word yet.
I will raise another issue. Just this week we learned of tellers who work at the CIBC in this country being forced to begin a lawsuit to get money that is owed to them because they worked overtime and have never been compensated for that overtime. This is at a time when the profits of the big banks have never been so great, when the compensation packages, payouts and executive salaries of the CEOs of our five major banks have never been so exorbitant and enormous, and this is at a time when the vast majority of workers at these banks are being exploited, taken advantage of and not being paid their rightful salaries.