Debates of Dec. 2nd, 2008

Economic and Fiscal Statement

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member's time is up. Resuming debate.

The hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I rise to give my maiden speech in the House as the member of Parliament for Edmonton—St. Albert, I beg the indulgence of hon. members as I make some acknowledgments.

First I want to express how humbled and honoured I am that the great citizens of St. Albert and northwest Edmonton entrusted me with the duty of representing them in the House.

With all due respect to the other members, I have the distinct honour of representing the best big city and the best small city in Canada at the same time. I commit myself to working on their behalf to the best of my ability.

For decades Edmonton has been among the most culturally vibrant cities in Canada, besides being the capital of Alberta. The University of Alberta is one of the elite universities in the country. Our river valley is a true gem. It is the longest urban park in the world.

Edmonton really is the city of champions. I have been an Edmonton Eskimos season ticket holder for many years. The Edmonton Eskimos have won 13 Grey Cups since 1954, more than any other team. The Edmonton Oilers are also champions and have won five Stanley Cups, which tops any other franchise outside of the original six. We are also proud to be the outdoor arena of choice for soccer in Canada. Commonwealth Stadium regularly brings in as many fans for international matches as anywhere else in North America.

Mr. Speaker, you probably know a lot less about St. Albert, a wonderful city of almost 60,000 people located just outside the northwest boundary of Edmonton. In a province barely 100 years old, St. Albert has a charming, well-established feel in its own lovely valley on the banks of the Sturgeon River. It also has a vibrant arts community and a great deal of cultural richness. St. Albert is the oldest non-fortified settlement in Alberta. In fact, in 2011 St. Albert will celebrate its 150th anniversary.

St. Albert is home to many small businesses and, like Edmonton, its industrial area is being shaped by the energy boom taking place in northern Alberta, the energy boom that has been the main driver of Canada's economic buoyancy in the last years when so many nations have suffered major economic losses.

As their representative, I will defend the interests of small and medium-sized businesses. I will also ensure that our energy sector remains robust, because government programs will never help sustain our economy in the way that the success of industry and private enterprise can.

The Edmonton Garrison is on the border of my constituency, and the former Griesbach base is in the southeast part of the riding. I doubt that many ridings in the country have the honour of being home to as many men and women who are serving and retired members of the military as Edmonton—St. Albert does. This is very important to me.

I take seriously our duty in the House to ensure that the people who have devoted their lives to keeping our country safe and respected are well taken care of. I will add that unlike most members of the opposition, I am extremely proud not only of our soldiers, but also of the Afghan mission itself.

It will not be easy to satisfy the expectations of the citizens of Edmonton—St. Albert, because my predecessor was such a distinguished and respected parliamentarian. John Williams served in the House for 15 years, arriving with the first group of Reform Party members in the heady days of 1993. Among other achievements, he chaired the public accounts committee for an unusually long period of time, and he did so because of the respect he earned as a watchdog on government waste.

The highlight of his tenure occurred when he put the spotlight on the sponsorship scandal and made sure that Canadians found out about the corruption and kickbacks the Liberals were engaged in with their hard-earned tax dollars. He will be remembered for his periodic publication “The Waste Report”, which served as a watchdog of mismanagement of public funds.

I am reminded every time I speak with voters that John Williams was correct. Our biggest job as parliamentarians is to ensure that government does not misuse the money we take from our taxpayers. Whether we are in opposition or whether we are in government, we have to stand up not only for the Canadians who are asking for the help of the government, but also for the ones who pay our bills. We have to think not only of the needs of the citizens, but also of the realities of the people who are employers and taxpayers. This is what I heard on the doorsteps of every neighbourhood in which I knocked on doors this fall.

Replacing a man like John Williams will be a tall order, but as one of the tallest members of the House, I hope that with some indulgence members will come to embrace me as they did him.

I proudly hail from Elbow, a prairie town in eastern Saskatchewan, which is also your home province, Mr. Speaker. Like a great Conservative prime minister who presided in this chamber, I am a lawyer by training and a proud graduate of the law school of the University of Saskatchewan.

The Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker--

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

He was from my riding.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

--from the riding of the hon. member for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin is to be honoured by this government by having his name put to a new icebreaker. He was a hero of mine when I was a small boy growing up in prairie Saskatchewan. I would love to go on about the constituency of Edmonton--St. Albert, but these are times of great peril, both in the House and in the nation.

This fall Canadians gave the Conservative government a clear mandate to continue taking action on the economy. During a global downturn, the last thing our country needs is for opposition politicians to claim entitlements for tax dollars and ultimately to take power without a mandate from the people.

The benchmark TSX index took a near-record dive Monday, dropping 864 points, or 9.3%. It sustained further losses today. That is a clear indication of the economic incentives we can expect from this proposed coalition government. The investors of Canada got a chance to vote early on this proposal, and they voted it down.

Under the current Prime Minister's leadership, our government was ahead of the curve in anticipating the global economic slowdown. We are and have been injecting billions of dollars in stimulus through tax cuts, investments in roads and bridges, and protection of the banking system.

Our focus is the economy, but the opposition parties have their own priorities. While all Canadians are tightening their belts, they feel entitled to make taxpayers pay for political party staff, for polls and for advertising. They want to replace the elected government just to preserve $17 million worth of entitlements. This is clearly unacceptable for a modern democracy.

This time of difficulty is indeed a great opportunity for us to invest in initiatives that will pay benefits in the long term, especially with regard to correcting the infrastructure backlog that exists across this country. However, we cannot afford to be hasty about it. Canadians chose us because they trust us to be prudent and not desperate.

In addition to the infrastructure investment, there is also a chance in this troubled period to make investments in key Canadian industries. I firmly believe, however, and I think Canadians agree with me, that it would be irresponsible to simply dump money into the coffers of any companies that have run into trouble, just as it would be irresponsible to start building roads and bridges everywhere for the sake of propping up temporary jobs.

Prudent economic management means measuring twice and cutting once. This is why I congratulate the efforts of the hon. industry minister, who has been working diligently on the industry file and requesting that the auto industry come up with detailed restructuring plans. Detailed restructuring plans mean Canadians can be reassured that any of their money directed to the auto industry is an investment in something that is sustainable and that makes Canada stronger in the long term, as opposed to using our money to prop up companies for a short time period, only to face the same scenario a few years and a few billion dollars later.

There has to be more consideration than that. Canadians elected this government because they trust us to act with deliberation and with the long-term well-being of this country in mind when we make these important decisions. They do not expect this government to throw billions of their dollars into anything if it is not going to reap dividends.

The opposition accuses us of failing to act as quickly as other industrial nations. To this I counter that there are two very good reasons for Canada to act with more deliberation and prudence than others.

First, we are in better shape than the other industrialized countries in terms of our economy and our solid banking system. They rushed to inject money into various sectors because those other countries' crises were well under way. We have been growing so robustly over the last three years that with few exceptions, we are not feeling this downturn, except perhaps in the stock market. I would argue that we could easily wait until the end of January before committing to huge investments, so that when we act, we can act with a well-considered plan and not a hasty one.

The second difference between Canada and any other country with which we are compared is that much of our economy is deeply intertwined with our neighbours to the south. This means we cannot act alone if we want to act effectively. The Americans, like us, have just come out of a national election and are in the process of deciding what they are going to do with their stimulus package. It would be irresponsible to risk moving at cross-purposes to American actions.

Among their big decisions is how to help the big three carmakers. Does it make any sense for Canada to decide by itself what to do in this regard? No.

Obviously the U.S. is a central player in our marketplace. Just as obvious, we should work in concert with what happens on the other side of the border and with the incoming American administration.

This is only one example of many interconnected aspects of our economy, which illustrates the point that until the U.S. makes its trillion dollar decisions, we cannot know that we will make effective choices with our billion dollar decisions.

I am here to speak about the fiscal update and I will return to the subject of the economy, because our crisis is about to get much worse.

The latest moves by the opposition are obviously making our good stewardship of the nation's economy, a side issue being replaced by their naked ambition.

Both my Ottawa office and my St. Albert office have been absolutely deluged by Canadians who are outraged by the coalition of the Leader of the Opposition, who has been lured into by a party that wants to make Canada a socialist state and by a party that wants to pull Canada apart. I share the outrage that so many Canadians feel.

It is one thing to say that a coalition government is better for Canada when no party clearly has a mandate from Canadians. However, that is not the case. Just six weeks ago, the people of Canada spoke very clearly. They said quite unambiguously that they did not want the Leader of the Opposition to be prime minister, not now and certainly not in the times of economic instability like the one we are about to face.

We learned soon after this coalition started that the leader of the smallest party in the House, a man who knows he will never be elected by Canadians into government because his NDP views are so out of touch with reality, had been plotting for some time to take over, with the separatists as his co-conspirators.

In the fiscal update the Minister of Finance announced our intention to lead by example in this period, where all Canadians must be prepared to tighten their belts, and proposed that all parties should give up their $1.95 per vote, which was brought in five years ago. When this happened, the opposition parties, especially the Liberal Party, panicked. Why? Because they cannot raise enough money from people donating to them voluntarily. As with most things in society, the members of those parties think the government should spend taxpayer money on their behalf because, ostensibly, the government knows better.

The panic on the part of the Liberals was just the desperation for which the NDP members were waiting. They immediately took the anger and the insecurity of the opposition parties and before the weekend was over, had committed the Leader of the Opposition to this undemocratic plot.

A lot of Canadians and a lot more sober-minded caucus members from the opposition are wondering why exactly he was lured into this unholy pact with the socialists and the separatists. We should not be too surprised since the Leader of the Opposition has two former NDP premiers on his front benches.

Let us consider his motivations for a moment. His unpopularity drove the Liberal Party to its lowest showing ever. Since Confederation, no Liberal leader has been rejected more strongly across the nation than the man who ran the Liberal Party down to 77 seats on October 14. He was humiliated and most of his caucus members held their noses when he announced he would stay on as interim leader until they found someone to lead them in May. Clearly, at this point, he has nothing to lose and he is desperate to do anything that might salvage his reputation.

Canadians see right through this and we cannot allow it go forward. They said in October that they did not want him as their prime minister and when they said it, they meant it. He is desperate to salvage his reputation, but he is selling his soul and also the soul of his party and, sadly, the soul of the Government of Canada to the people who will run our economy into an abyss that will take us decades to recover from and people who will set the cause of national unity back decades. People can call them devils if they want to. I call them socialists and separatists.

Unlike our government, this coalition never told Canadians what it would do if it took office, so we are left to speculate. Let us do that.

The leader of this gang has wild plans about how he can save the world with radical environmental schemes. Today we heard his friend, the leader of the Green Party, in a press conference, crowing that a seat in the Senate, or maybe even something better would await her, if this left-wing coalition ever flies. His green shift is not something he has ever disowned, even though so many of the Liberal candidates disowned it in the recent election campaign.

The NDP and the Bloc also have some extreme views on how we should take whatever steps we can to save the world, no matter what the costs to our economy or to our taxpayers. This is not what Canadians chose, especially in a time of economic crisis.

Not only is this not the direction Canada chose, it is not the direction western Canadians want. There is plenty of outrage in all parts of the country over this, but especially in the west. By getting into bed with people who want to pull Quebec out of Canada, the proposed coalition has given new life to those who have entertained the idea of pulling all parts of Canada apart.

We know perfectly well that the members of the NDP think that the oil sands, which are fuelling not only the energy independence for North America but also the Canadian economy, need to be shut down. We know perfectly well that they think Greenpeace is a more reliable source of information than any provincial government or independent study.

We knew all along that the Liberals green shift, in their uniformed zeal, would hurt the economy of the nation and especially the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Canadians did not vote for that, and they would not vote for it if they were given a chance tomorrow.

Normally, I would be happy about anything that would drag the Liberal name into great depths of unpopularity. However, the stakes are too high for the country I love to let the Liberals go ahead with this dangerous, undemocratic, unprincipled and un-Canadian plot.

Here is what Jeffrey Simpson from The Globe and Mail had to say about the prospect of these three unsuccessful leaders:

If this coalition takes power, therefore, Canada would be led by a temporary prime minister who almost every Liberal MP wishes were not the leader. Not having been successful in leading his own party, it would be fascinating to watch him run a coalition government....It will certainly be a shock to the 74 per cent of Canadians who did not vote Liberal, and the large majority who ranked Mr. Dion by far the least popular leader, to discover that he has somehow managed to become prime minister.

Don Martin of the National Post wrote today that the biggest Liberal loser in—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert is new, but I will let him know that even when we quote from other articles, we still cannot use proper names. If he is going to quote from an article and it contains the proper name of a member of Parliament, I ask him to refer to that member by title or riding name.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for that caveat. The National Post wrote:

The biggest Liberal loser in the party's electoral history, a self-admitted campaign failure who advocated carbon taxes as sound economy policy and lacks significant Western Canada representation, seems set to become prime minister next week....This means an electorate that cast a third of its votes for the Conservatives will have their representation replaced by a hodge-podge of lowest-common-denominator policies produced almost overnight by parties leaning left and toward leaving....While the discipline of power may keep the coalition together, more or less flying in loose formation for perhaps a year or even longer, this is not a system of sustainable government as much as it is a power grab minus a compelling reason to exist.

I pray for the sake of democracy and for the sake of Canada that this unholy alliance not be allowed to proceed. Governing is a privilege, not an entitlement. A leader that the electorate overwhelmingly rejected, surrounded by two former NDP premiers and six other socialists and the unthinkable, being propped up by a party whose raison d'être is to put Canada asunder, is clearly Canada’s worst nightmare. It is undemocratic, un-Canadian and unconscionable. I pray for the sake of Canada it not be allowed to proceed.

Today, I pray for the future of Canada.

[Jean-Claude D'Amours, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, where I come from, we call that talking from both sides of your mouth at the same time. I have listened to what the hon. member had to say. He finds it aberrant that there is a possibility of a coalition government. What was wrong with his party, the Conservatives, associating itself with the Bloc Québécois just weeks after the 2004 election? Why? In order to govern as a coalition. So why was it a good thing for them to associate themselves with a separatist party then, and now it is a shameful thing for the Liberals and the NDP to want to associate with each other in order to ensure that the economy can move ahead properly?

This is a mixed message. As I said, it is talking from both sides of your mouth, as we say where I come from.

As far as the economy is concerned, could the hon. member tell me if he is in favour, or not in favour, of eliminating the two week waiting period for employment insurance?

Quit using this double-speak, quit telling people to their faces that you will do this or that, and then saying something else behind their backs. In reality, you wanted to defeat the Paul Martin Liberals, and that is also what you wanted to do to the Bloc Québécois. What is the difference today?

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. It is against the rules to address another member directly.

The hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member has been here a lot longer than I, so he knows there is no parallel to what has occurred on Parliament Hill this week to what happened in 2004.

The media has reported that the 2004 letter asked the governor general simply for consultations. It was not a signed pact to form a government among the Leader of the Opposition, the leader of the socialist party and the leader of a party, whose motivation is to break our country apart. It was simply to ask for consultations.

I am sure the hon. member and all hon. members in the House will appreciate the difference.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is truly pathetic. It is a little like the burglar who is caught before he breaks into a house and says that it is okay because he was caught before he committed a crime. Come on. That is nonsense. The fact is that the Conservatives are concerned about only one thing, and that is losing power. That is the only thing they are afraid of.

I would like to tell my friend—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

I am almost done.

I would like to tell my friend that not so long ago, during the last Parliament, the Conservatives repeatedly asked this House for its confidence, and they asked the Bloc Québécois the same thing. In fact, the Conservatives were able to remain in power during confidence votes on the first two budgets of the 39th Parliament because they had the support of the Bloc Québécois.

At the time, that was obviously a good thing. It was fine for the government's survival to depend on the Bloc Québécois. But when it is not the government's survival that is at stake, but the survival of a coalition government, suddenly that is a bad thing.

Had my colleague been a member in the 39th Parliament and had he been forced to join with the Bloc Québécois on a confidence vote on the budget, would he have resigned? Would he have left the Conservative Party? What would he have done if he had had to vote with the Bloc Québécois?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member was in the 39th Parliament, he would know that the support of the Bloc Québécois for the current government was on a case by case basis, vote by vote. It was not carte blanche. It was not in a signed contract.

The hon. member suggested that the Conservatives were only interested in maintaining power. I suggest that never in the history of Canada has there been such a blatant power grab than what we saw yesterday, with the pact among the three leaders.

If opposition members are so concerned about holding on to power, why do they not put this pact to the Canadian electorate and let them decide?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the previous speaker on this side of the House. I want to quote from the actual letter that is the subject of discussion here. It was sent to the governor general on September 9, 2004, and it states:

“Excellency:

As leaders of the opposition parties, we are well aware that, given the Liberal minority government, you could be asked by the Prime Minister to dissolve the 38th Parliament at any time should the House of Commons fail to support some part of the government's program.

We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority“.

This letter was signed by the current Prime Minister, the current leader of the Bloc Québécois and the current leader of the NDP.

Why was it okay to try to replace the Paul Martin government, but today the idea is evil?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely no analogy or no parallel can be drawn between 2004 and 2008. That was a letter asking the governor general to consider all her options and for consultation.

Let me be clear about this. Yesterday on Parliament Hill three leaders appeared in this precinct and signed a contract telling the Governor General that they were prepared to become government.

What the hon. member for the New Democratic Party indicated was a letter to the the former governor general asking for consultation and encouraging her to consider all her options.

That is much different than a signed pact among the rejected Leader of the Opposition, the socialist leader and the separatist leader, telling the Governor General that her only option was to allow them to form government.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, we now know that this separatist coalition has been in the planning stages for months. The very disturbing fact I have heard from Canadians to whom I have been talking, and I am sure everyone in the House has heard the same thing, is that Canadians do not want a separatist coalition government. They want Parliament to respect the results of the election which was held just a few weeks ago, yet there was this sinister plan going on behind the scenes to take over and disrespect the decision of Canadians.

It is unfortunate that the member is experiencing this. I have been here for the 38th Parliament, the 39th Parliament and the 40th Parliament and I have never seen anything that would so disrespect the will of Canadians. It is undemocratic and it is unfortunate that our new colleague has to experience this.

Why does he think the separatist coalition would so disrespect the will of Canadians? Why are the coalition members not listening to Canadians?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak for the members of the coalition and I cannot speak for the separatist leader of the Bloc Québécois who is a party to it.

All I know is that the residents of Edmonton—St. Albert are universally opposed to it. They are outraged. My office has been absolutely swamped by phone calls and emails. People are calling it a crisis in Canada. They are saying that the proposed coalition government would be illegitimate.

We are in difficult times. Our country is at a crossroads. I ask all Canadians to look deep inside themselves and ask themselves if this is really what they want. Do they want to be governed by a party that was rejected overwhelmingly in the last federal election in coalition with the New Democrats and propped up by those who want to tear Canada apart?

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment.

Would the hon. member for Edmonton—St. Albert call it democratic when the Prime Minister got a mandate from only 22% of Canadians? He got 36% of the vote and only 60% of Canadians voted. That equates to 22% of Canadians who voted for the Prime Minister.

Would he call that democratic? Is the Prime Minister he would support, the same prime minister who wanted to build firewalls around the province from which he comes?

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the current Prime Minister has a caucus of 143 members which is almost double the size of the caucus to which the hon. member belongs. We have a first past the post system where a plurality elects members. Under the current system clearly this government won the last election with an increased mandate over that of the 39th Parliament. The Conservative Party ought to be able to govern.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today in the House to respond to the economic statement.

We can all agree that the pace of events on Parliament Hill are racing forward at an unprecedented rate. At this juncture in time, no one can predict an outcome. That is why I would like to address my constituents of Don Valley East and explain to them how we arrived at the current situation.

By all accounts, the events of recent days were triggered by the economic statement that was released by the Minister of Finance last Thursday. After the Prime Minister travelled to high profile international meetings such as the G20 and APEC, which were aimed to stabilize the global economy, it was widely expected that the Conservative government would deliver an economic stimulus package similar to those pledged by other leading economies. Unfortunately, the economic statement contained no stimulus package whatsoever.

Let us compare what the other G20 countries did. China pledged $700 billion; Japan, $65 billion; Germany, $36 billion; France, $30 billion; and the U.S., $1.5 trillion. What was the Conservatives' stimulus package? Zero, nothing. Instead they cut $6 billion, completely the wrong direction, which is not surprising because the Conservatives have been going down the wrong path. This is from a finance minister who brought Ontario into a deficit. He was the architect of the Ontario deficit.

The Conservatives and their finance minister are inept. They do not know what to do.

At no point in our 141 years of Confederation has Canada ever witnessed the completely self-induced destruction of a federal government by its own prime minister. In fact, at no other point in our history has a finance minister been forced to retract the main elements of an economic statement literally within 24 hours. That is a humiliation. It has badly wounded the reputation of the Conservative government in the midst of this global financial crisis.

Canadians do not have confidence in the Conservative government. Without question, last week's economic statement has seriously undermined the Conservative minority government, which is now facing an uncertain future brought on by themselves. Even now the Conservatives are frantically backpedaling, yet none of them seem to realize that the chain has fallen off the bike and they are going absolutely nowhere.

How did we arrive at this state of affairs so quickly? Let me provide a little synopsis.

During the election, the current Prime Minister misled Canadians by stating that he would never take the country into deficit. He fear-mongered throughout the whole election. He is fear-mongering here in the House and so are his members of Parliament. He claimed that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

The election was unnecessary. It was brought about only because the Prime Minister had seen the books. He was afraid of what the economic future looked like. The election cost taxpayers $360 million, plus a byelection that cost $3.5 million, which he supposedly eliminated in the process. The Prime Minister, in order to hide his economic failures, cost the taxpayers $363.5 million. As well, he broke his own election law of fixed election dates. The law had been passed and the next election was supposed to be in October 2009.

The Prime Minister thinks nothing of breaking laws, of wasting taxpayers money and of misleading the public.

The Prime Minister did not even have an economic plan during the election. He did not know how to create an economic plan so as soon as he was elected, he copied the Liberal plan. However, one cannot copy a plan if one does not know how to implement it. It is like a parrot that repeats words but does not know the meaning of the words.

The Prime Minister, who claimed to be an economist, is inept and so is his finance minister. That is why we are where we are today. Had he been a good economist, somebody would have hired him. Unfortunately for Canadians, he is their Prime Minister and he is a very high risk. Not only is he inept, he is so ideologically bound that he has no idea how to help average Canadians, those who have lost their jobs.

Instead of a stimulus package that all G20 countries had agreed to, the economic statement had no stimulus package, no plan, nothing for the manufacturing industry, nothing for forestry, nothing for the auto industry, and the list goes on. To use an analogy, while Rome is burning, the Prime Minister is asking, “Where is the fire?”

What did the economic statement put forward? There was no comprehensive strategy to navigate the country through a global economic recession. It was a mean-spirited, neo-conservative, Republican type of diatribe.

The economic statement attacked pay equity, the collective bargaining rights of public servants, and blatantly attempted to wreck the foundation of public electoral financing. People should remember why the public electoral funding system was introduced. It was introduced so as to remove corporate interference. However, the Prime Minister still has to come clean on who funded his leadership. To whom is he indebted?

Canadians need to be reminded that the RCMP raided the offices of the Conservative Party. Why? Because of illegalities. The Conservatives tried to shut down parliamentary committees because of the in-and-out scandal, the Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry and many more issues.

The public needs to know that political parties have to be free from rich money and corporate influence. We can say that, but nobody can say that of the Conservatives because they have shut down any inquiry and their books need to be audited.

Seven weeks ago the Conservatives released their campaign platform and there was no mention of pay equity, campaign financing or collective bargaining rights. It was just 14 days ago that the Conservatives released the Speech from the Throne and still there was no mention of these issues. In fact, the Prime Minister had stated that he wanted to turn over a new leaf and work in co-operation with the opposition. Yet, in six days, what did he do?

In the economic statement he became an ideologue and an autocrat, and tried to destroy democracy, but at whose expense? It is at the expense of thousands of auto workers who are wondering if their federal government will stick up for them during their economic crisis. It is at the expense of our forestry sector where we see pulp mills being disassembled and shipped off to China. It is at the expense of the average people who work in our manufacturing sector who are beginning to lose faith in their federal government.

The ancient Greeks had a term for this type of behaviour. It is called hubris. In Greek mythology, overwhelming pride and arrogance inevitably would lead to self-destruction. The Prime Minister has certainly discovered his Achilles heel. He is transfixed, if not mesmerized, by his own narrow-minded political agenda to wipe out opposition parties at any expense.

However, democracy means having opposition parties. We go around the world trying to teach others about our democracy, yet the Prime Minister wants to eliminate opposition. What sort of a Prime Minister is he? Perhaps he should go to Iran and rule over Iran.

By all accounts, the Prime Minister has not only lost the confidence of this House, he has lost the confidence within his own Conservative caucus. Most important, he has lost the confidence of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Holding Conservative pep rallies around the Governor General's house or sending out umpteen emails to members of Parliament is not only in very poor taste but also smacks of a lack of judgment, desperation and the desire of the Conservatives to hold on to power.

The Prime Minister was supposed to have addressed the economic crisis but instead engineered a political crisis that has placed his government on the brink of defeat. What sort of leadership is that? By all accounts, the Prime Minister has no one to blame except himself.

What needs to be done? In our Westminster form of government, the opposition is called upon when the government no longer enjoys the confidence of the House of Commons. In this instance, the opposition has already stepped up to the plate and informed the Governor General that we are prepared to govern on a co-operative basis and navigate our economy through the crisis.

If the Prime Minister thought t he had the confidence of the House, why did he eliminate or push back the opposition day? It shows that he is scared. In our democracy, it is the job and duty of the opposition to hold the government accountable and stand as a government in waiting when things go wrong. That is what opposition parties are doing, holding the government accountable.

The Conservatives do not like being held accountable. We have examples of the ministers of agriculture, the previous minister of environment, the previous minister of health, and the list goes on, who, when issues of accountability and transparency came up, they hid or they stopped the functioning of parliamentary committees.

What is the solution for getting Canada out of this economic recession? Recently, the head of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities pointed out that infrastructure spending would serve as one of the most beneficial tools of economic stimulus.

We heard some rumours or some rumblings of investment infrastructure but the $33 billion that have been promised for the past two years have been sitting and nothing has been done. Hundreds and hundreds of local projects are ready to go across the country. We need nuts and bolts investment in roads, bridges, water pipes and housing.

Right now we have the small town mayors ringing alarm bells about sewage treatment plants that are about to suffer catastrophic failure simply because no one in the federal government will listen.

The message is clear: Doing nothing will not create jobs or mitigate a recession. Canadians want to know where the $16 billion surplus is that was left to the government. What happened to that money? How could the government waste away that money?

No one has any faith in the finance minister, who, I remind the people, was the architect of deficit and left Ontario in a $5.6 billion deficit. That is the finance minister whose economic statement was abandoned by the government in less than six days. His talk about so-called technical deficits and fantasy surpluses in the next budget does not fool anyone.

The real question is this. How did the Conservatives manage to burn through a surplus in less than two and a half years? Now they want to sell the government assets. This reminds us of Mike Harris and his government strategy of selling Highway 407 to Spain. What sort of pride can anybody have in Canada if a government wants to sell its assets? Who will own the CBC and who will own the CN tower?

The inability of the Conservative government to be economically competent has led us to this situation.

Against the advice of just about every economist in the country, the Conservatives implemented a variety of ill-advised tax cuts that did nothing to spur consumer spending or stimulate the economy. At the same time, the finance minister launched the largest spending spree in Canadian history known as budget 2007. This is not rocket science. Any Canadian will say that one cannot blow endless amounts of cash when one's income is continually shrinking. The budget officer has stated that the current government is taking in $40 billion less than it is spending.

However, we would not be in a deficit situation if the finance minister had listened to good advice and not implemented the useless tax cuts. When my constituents ask me how we arrived at this point, I will be compelled to tell them the truth. It is the government and the Prime Minister who have taken the focus off of Canadians suffering due to the economy and placed all of its attention on a government that is fixated on nothing more than political brinkmanship and holding on to power at all costs.

The Prime Minister forgets that 67% of Canadians did not vote for him or his party. The rhetoric in the House today from the Conservatives shows that they are in panic mode. It shows they are clinging to power. They are so desperate that I have to let my constituents know that is what the Conservative government stands for. It does not protect Canadians. It is more bound by its own ideology.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I thought I had seen everything when I saw the member for Papineau, the son of Pierre Trudeau, actually join his leader in a standing ovation for the leader of the separatist Bloc. A few minutes ago, I heard him speak and, in defending this separatist coalition, he talked about putting aside the question of national unity. It is pretty astounding stuff.

I actually want to turn my attention to the economy. The member was talking about the economy. I noted that during the election her leader, the Leader of the Opposition, said that he would never form a coalition with the federal NDP. He stated:

--because its economic policies are based on “Monopoly money”.

they...have a platform that is full of Monopoly money that will come from nowhere except for the ability of our industry to become competitive in the world and it will cost jobs to Canadians.

He said that on September 24, 2008. Does the hon. member agree with her leader?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what I would like to bring back into focus is the economy and the issue of deliberately cooking the books.

I will read from emails that I have received from constituents. One states, “The issue of deliberately cooking the books regarding our surplus and deficit situation is unacceptable. The finance minister will need $10.3 billion to balance the books and he then assumes that the $10.3 billion can be treated like cash on one hand by selling undisclosed assets. Do you know anyone who would like to buy the CN Tower at a bargain price? How do you say fraud?”

A letter to the Prime Minister states, “I am writing to express my dismay at the economic statement the government made in the House on Thursday, November 27th. After your statement to the G20 and APEC meetings about the seriousness of the economic situation worldwide, I and I am sure most Canadians are shocked that your finance minister pretended that Canada was not in a deficit position”.

The real issue is the economy and the fact that the government has no stimulus package. It is the government's ineptness toward the economy and its inability to work with opposition parties that needs to be churned.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when the right hon. Brian Mulroney was the Conservative prime minister for eight years, he left this country on the edge of bankruptcy. The present Prime Minister has only been here three years and he is already taking this country in the same direction.

As the hon. member is a certified accountant, would she be able to tell the House and her constituents how we can draw similarities between the two prime ministers?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives like people to think they are fiscally prudent and economically responsible but we have a history. No Conservative government since Borden has ever balanced budgets. When the Liberal government inherited the books of the previous Conservative government in 1993, there was a $42 billion deficit and a $500 billion debt and it was compounding at an interest rate that was unparalleled. I was doing receiverships at that time and this was totally unparalleled.

What did we do? By 1997, we turned the books around and in 2000 gave a $100 billion tax cut, which was a stimulus for the economy. We invested in cities and in infrastructure. We made a lot of investments to the benefit of the general public.

It is important for the Conservatives to realize that whenever they take over government, they go into a deficit. When they inherited $16 billion in surplus, why did they whittle it away? What did they do? Where is their economic judgment? I think one has to question that.

[Thierry St-Cyr, Bloc, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the comments of my Liberal and Conservative colleagues.

Once again, we have the start of the Quebec bashing that is so characteristic of the Reform members. They attack those elected by the Quebec nation, whether federalists or sovereignists. Yet, they are all members who were democratically and legitimately elected. They are attempting to attack the separatists, I would go so far as to say the evil separatists, such is the ferocity of the attack. But in the end, they are attacking those elected by the Quebec nation. And what stands out is that the separatists are attacked in this way only in English. For example, the Liberals are being accused of associating with bad separatists. but when speaking in French to the Bloc members, they say the opposite. The Bloc Québécois is criticized for associating with the bad Liberals. It is ridiculous and an insult to the intelligence of Canadians.

I would like to ask my colleague whether she believes that when a government conducts itself in this uncaring way that it confirms that it does not deserve the confidence of citizens.