Debates of Dec. 2nd, 2008

Economic and Fiscal Statement

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to begin, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Sherbrooke, for the opportunity to join the debate and to take 10 minutes to express my views on this economic statement. Before doing that, since this is the first time that I have spoken officially in the House in this session, I would like to thank the voters of Terrebonne—Blainville who, for the fourth time, have given me their confidence. I thank the voters, the volunteers and my own staff who helped me to a great victory. I will not hide the fact that all the members of that devoted group are ready to start again tomorrow, if necessary.

One would have expected, after an election fought over the economy, that the economic statement would be filled with figures. You will remember that we were thrown into an election campaign because this Prime Minister and this government said it was time to talk about the economy. Regretfully, we have been given an economic statement that resembles nothing so much as more laissez faire. It is an ideological statement that shows no signs of compassion towards the people and the companies having trouble getting through this crisis, because this is now a global economic crisis.

We know that all the countries around us—even the European countries—have injected billions of dollars to support their economies and to help people get through this crisis. The European Union has injected $200 billion and the United States has injected $800 billion. We believe that if our government had not been so disconnected, if it had shown the compassion it should have for the people who do not receive the same salaries as we do, and who do not live in the same conditions, possibly this government could have injected some money and introduced economic measures to help the people of this country.

As the head of the Bank of Canada said, we could even go into a temporary deficit that could be repaid over a period of time. But this government does not want to hear about deficits, anything but that. We know that, in economic terms, when we are faced with a crisis we must expect a little deficit that can be offset later.

Instead of stimulating the economy and providing some breathing room for the country, this government chose to strangle it. Most appalling of all, instead of the economic measures one might expect in an economic statement, what we received was a big slap in the face; a real blow. It is as though there were only some sectors that needed to be knocked down, instead of helping the country in general.

Those blows, that slap in the face, have led to the formation of the present coalition. The Conservative leader, and this government, decided to abandon our businesses and our people. All countries agree: when there is a full economic crisis, in principle, we should be creating jobs. We could have people working to build houses for those who need them. We could, perhaps, put people to work developing transportation and transportation infrastructures. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Nothing was announced.

The Bloc Québécois has already put forward proposals. We put forward a whole series of measures but those measures were not listened to and not taken into consideration. They could have suspended the compulsory repayment to the home buyers’ plan for a year.

We are all familiar with these young couples who are in trouble. They were told they could use virtual RRSPs as their down payment on a house. Not only must they pay their mortgage, but they must also pay for their virtual RRSPs—which do not exist and were loaned to them—and their taxes. Both spouses must work, and they feel economically and socially suffocated. That is also difficult. No one ever thought of giving these people a little breathing room.

They could have done that by giving people jobs, by creating a fund that provides money for home renovations that will improve energy efficiency. In my riding, people tend to heat their homes with oil. I have an older house and heat with oil. Why? I could not heat it with electricity because it would cost more. The house is not insulated for electric heat. I for one would have liked to see an eco-energy program.

The equalization formula could have been fully respected. It was a brutal slap in the face to Quebeckers when they were told they were being denied the equalization surplus. The guaranteed income supplement for our seniors could have simply been increased gradually. Their old age pensions increased by about $2 a month, sometimes only $1.09. That is barely enough to buy a cup of coffee. Also, seniors who were eligible for, but cheated out of, the guaranteed income supplement could have been gradually reimbursed.

They could have expanded access to employment insurance and eliminated the waiting period. They could have provided more support for people who work in agriculture. They could also have extended the ecoAUTO rebate program that suddenly disappeared. These were good programs. Unfortunately, they are not being given any consideration. Those programs could have helped ordinary people. But ordinary people are not important to these people. What is important to the government opposite is industry. But there again, they have not helped it. They have not created loan guarantee programs that would have provided cash to invest, for example. Last week, two companies in my riding closed down for lack of cash flow. The cuts to the technology partnerships program could have been stopped. They could have given them a shared risk program.

They could quite simply have modernized Canada's outdated antidumping laws and brought them up to the same level as what other countries in the European Union have. In fact, I introduced a bill to that effect, Bill C-411. They did not do it. They can also, as the Bloc said, even use government procurement as a lever for economic development. How many of our businesses would be happy to help Public Works and Government Services Canada, but are not allowed to because PWGSC buys from American subsidiaries? They could have implemented specific policies for the industrial sectors that are facing special challenges, such as traditional industries.

They could have done a lot of things, but no, what we got from this government was a slap in the face. That is not what an economic statement is. Unfortunately, the present government is the author of its own misfortune. We who believed when they talked about action, and compromise, and openness, at the time, we have, in a sense, been had. The public has been had, because it was not expecting this kind of economic statement, not remotely. We get email after email from people who are disappointed, even anglophones in the western provinces.

This statement is clearly devoid of any compassion for the people of Quebec. We will therefore quite obviously be voting against it.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that we are seeing as the economy is affected by the total collapse of the normal streams of capital financing is that for everyday people, the benefit methods that they have had in the past need a lot more assistance.

One of the things that we have noticed is that for people who are being given pink slips and thrown out of work, particularly in the resource-based and manufacturing economies, the waiting period for EI assistance has really been a barrier for families. Members can imagine being thrown out of work, having to wait a couple of weeks and not having that bridge financing.

I would like to ask the member particularly about helping those families out. A member of the faculty at Carleton University noted that probably one of the best ways to put some stimulus into the economy is to reform the EI system, and I would like her comments on that proposition.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. NDP member for his question, because it gives me an opportunity to go back to this issue of compassion towards our fellow citizens.

Currently, in my riding, there are many people losing their jobs and this waiting period is a problem. Let me explain why. First, there are businesses that offer work sharing arrangements. When employees are laid off, they can no longer use the waiting period.

Second, it is a fact that the employment insurance account is funded in part by employers and in part by employees. That fund does not belong to the federal government but, rather, to the employees.

Those employers who find themselves in a bind and who must lay off employees are pleased that these employees do not have to go through that waiting period. As for the employees, they are pleased to be able to get immediate assistance. Personally, I do not see how this government can stick its nose in something that belongs to employers and employees, and how it can manage this account, when both sides are eligible to that fund, without any consideration. They are entitled to that fund, because it is theirs, since they are the ones who put money into it.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member opposite for the opportunity to hear her perspective on this financial and economic update, and that is what it was. It was not a mini budget. I know that some people have heard from the community and the media has reported it as being a budget. The finance minister and the Prime Minister were clear that it was going to be strictly a financial and economic update on the situation where we are today. The budget will be tabled on January 27 as long as this new coalition government does not proceed.

I know there are a lot of concerns about helping our seniors with their stock portfolios, particularly in retirement communities across the country. I represent Kelowna--Lake Country where approximately 19% of my constituents are 65 years of age or over, and they are very concerned about the RRSP and the RRIF withdrawal limits. I am just wondering if the member supports that initiative and thinks it is a good initiative for Canadians.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first I must say that the hon. member's face does not seem familiar. I suppose he is a new member here, or else I did not recognize him. Perhaps he just never caught my eye.

I want to tell him that, for the past two years, we have been waiting for this government to come up with a budget that will help ordinary people, a compassionate budget. We were told that another budget would be tabled at the end of January, or in early February, but that will be much too late. That said, the 25% rule currently advocated by the government is not sufficient. We are saying that it should even be increased to 50%.

Mr. Speaker, you are indicating that my time is up, and that is unfortunate. There are some whose skin is darker, and those people are more easily noticed.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the constitutional psychodrama cooked up by the three opposition parties to get around the will of the people and further their partisan interests is not an innocent political game. It has serious consequences for national unity, Canada's economic prosperity and Canadians' financial security.

I will leave it to others to expose the incredible flimsiness and irresponsibility of the arguments the opposition parties are making in an attempt to justify their undemocratic tactics. Others will no doubt also want to point out how the utopian coalition imagined by the opposition could threaten our economy.

However, as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, I want to draw the attention of this House to how this political crisis could affect our country on the international stage. Here in this place, we are not isolated from the world around us, which is continuing to turn, while our government could be paralyzed by three leaders who were recently rejected by Canadian voters.

The world will not stop turning while the leader of the opposition tries to turn his loss into a win. We must not forget that the Liberal-NDP junta, with its Bloc accomplice—the survivor, the socialist and the sovereigntist—says it does not have confidence in our government.

However, the people of Canada quite recently and quite clearly sent a message that they did not have confidence in these parties to lead the country. And the three would-be putschists will never manage, with the stroke of a pen, to wipe out the ballots of millions of Canadians who did not vote for them. We must not forget that nearly 38% of Canadian voters supported our party on October 14.

A little over 26% voted for the Liberal Party—the worst election result in that party's history—while just over 18% voted for the NDP and 10% for the Bloc Québécois, because Bloc votes have to be counted on a national basis now that the Bloc leader styles himself as a national leader who can dictate policy for Canada while he waits to separate.

No subterfuge, no theatrics can change the fact that Canadians gave the Conservative Party more votes and more seats in this House than any other party.

As my colleague the Minister of Finance has reminded us many times over the last few weeks, Canada is not an island. I would add that, sitting atop Parliament Hill, the opposition members should not imagine that they are above the democratically expressed will of the people.

Why would the votes that got them here in the first place as members of the House, as representatives of their constituents, count for more than the votes that gave our party a strong plurality in the chamber? How can a man who led his party to its most disastrous showing ever think he can anoint himself prime minister with the help of the leader of a party that has never held power and another whose mission in life is to destroy our country?

This is not a scenario that is easy to explain to our allies and partners who are striving mightily to achieve economic prosperity through political stability.

On October 14, when our party was returned to power, Canadians chose a government which they trust to manage the economic crisis that is affecting the whole world.

There are limits to this notion of “strategic voting” that some commentators love: no one in Canada voted for the Conservative Party in the hope that the leader of the opposition would become prime minister, that the New Democrats would become part of the government, and that the sovereignists would hold the keys of power.

Canadians know that hard times require energetic action and courageous choices. They also know that uncertainty and instability scare away investments, increase the cost of money, reduce credit and kill jobs. Let us take a moment to put ourselves in the situation of a foreign investor who is hesitating between a number of countries, because he wants to get an attractive return. Would he be tempted by a country where the government is being held hostage by opposition parties that want to gain power without the support of voters? Would he have confidence in a prime minister living on borrowed times, whose lone ambition could only be to turn over power to another unelected Liberal minister? Would that investor be reassured by the presence, behind the scenes, of a party whose raison d'être is to sabotage Canada, a party that would put Quebec in the worst economic situation of its history?

And no one here is suffering any illusions: the Bloc leader has not become a federalist, and he is definitely not abandoning his sovereignist ideology. In this regard, here is what he said yesterday, immediately after putting back his magic pen into his pocket: “We can have common objectives while remaining committed to who we are. I do remain committed to who we are, and I believe that in making this move, I am helping the cause for which I am in politics.”

By contrast, our plan is geared to the demands imposed by our economic situation and by the international situation. We want to help reform global finance, ensure sound budgeting, secure jobs for Canadian families and communities, expand investments and trade, and make government more effective. In order to achieve these goals, we will cooperate with our international partners to find ways to bolster employment.

That is why the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister recently teamed up with their G20 counterparts, gathered in Washington. I personally had the privilege of representing our country at the APEC summit, held in Peru, where I had the opportunity to meet privately with officials representing some 20 countries. All expressed respect and admiration for the way our economy, and particularly our banking system, is serving our country in these very difficult times.

Since we were elected, we have also taken the necessary steps to ensure growth and stability in our economy. Since 2006, need I recall, we have reduced the federal debt by $37 billion; cut income and other taxes by $200 billion for 2007-2008 and the next five years; lowered the tax rate on new business investments, giving us the lowest rate of all the G7 countries from now to 2010; made unprecedented investments in infrastructure; and invested in science and technology and in education and training.

More recently, to keep our financial system strong and stable, our government took steps to inject liquidity so that financial institutions could continue to lend money to consumers, home buyers and businesses at an affordable cost. We have created a safety net to ensure that our financial institutions are not at a competitive disadvantage in the world.

One of the things we have done is to institute new rules for mortgages guaranteed by the government, so that Canada does not experience a mortgage bubble like the one we have seen in the United States.

We have already taken significant steps to stimulate our economy and we took them before many countries began to take action. Those measures are proportionate to our economy, and in fact are much more significant than the measures taken by the other advanced economies.

Next year, Canadians will pay $31 billion less in income and other taxes, amounting to nearly 2% of GDP, as a result of the tax relief we provided in 2006. Because we were the first to take action, we are in a better position to face the storm today than are the other industrialized countries. In fact, the experts agree that Canada's economic performance is the best among all the G7 countries.

Certainly we can be proud of this economic performance in this time of worldwide financial turbulence. Canada is not immune to the economic slowdown, however, and no one can say with certainty what the future holds for us. In recent months, projections have fluctuated widely everywhere in the world, mainly because of the collapse of financial institutions and the credit freeze. Given what has happened to financial institutions around the world, and in particular in the United States, we have be prepared to face every risk that might arise.

In these difficult times there is at least one thing certain: political instability is particularly bad, and even dangerous, for an economy like ours that is very open to the world and therefore faces strong competition.

I also cannot ignore the situations that our foreign policy will have to deal with, immediately and directly, because of the crisis created by the opposition. For example, because all our ministers had returned to Ottawa, Canada was not represented by any elected member this week at the Summit of NATO Foreign Affairs Ministers, where matters as fundamental as the military operations in Afghanistan and the accession of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO are being discussed.

Tomorrow, in Oslo, Norway, more than 100 states will sign an historic ban on cluster munitions but Canada will not be represented by a minister. So engrossed in its own political games, no opposition party was willing to pair one of its members so that Canada might be present at those important international meetings.

Today or tomorrow, I will be speaking with the new United States Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton.

Is there anyone in this House who believes that our most important trading partner and closest ally is unfazed by what is happening here?

What does the international community think when the main photo from Canada shows a smiling sovereignist leader making a pact with the leader of the sponsorship party, the party of the fiscal imbalance, the party of over centralization, whom he has always vehemently denounced?

The Liberals and the New Democrats are trying to play down the pact they signed with the only party in this House that is an avowed and zealous opponent of national unity. Did they even think of the message this outrageous situation is sending to our partners?

Even President Sarkozy, who recently stated that Canadians are the friends of France and Quebeckers members of the family, must be wondering.

How will the father of the Clarity Act, the heir to Laurier and Trudeau, a student of both Chrétien and Martin, explain to our partners his new-found friendship with the sovereignists? How will he convince the members of the Forum of Federations, whose creation he strongly supported, that the best way for a federation to prosper is to invite anti-federalists to help govern?

In closing, I invite the members of the opposition to look beyond their fantasy scenarios, their partisan concerns, the ministerial positions they covet.

They will see, in our neighbours to the south, a new president who would like nothing better than to strengthen our countries' relations. They will see the President of France and of the European Community working hard to reform international institutions. They will see that ancient hatreds and new terrorism are just as virulent in many regions of the world.

Perhaps they will also see a great country, one that is respected, admired, even envied by countries everywhere, one that needs everyone's good will, and all its energy to continue to make a name for itself in the world and ensure the prosperity and security of its citizens.

That country is Canada and all of us—almost all—have sworn to serve to the best of our abilities.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, while listening to the speech of the hon. minister, it seemed to me that he was forgetting a great deal of what has happened in recent years. He forgot that it was his own party that was prepared to enter into an agreement with the Bloc Québécois and be reliant upon its support to govern. I do not understand how he can suggest now that something his party was prepared to do can be so awful. That, to me, is the height of hypocrisy.

A few years ago his party accused the previous government of acting like it had a majority when in fact it had a minority. The fact is that in the recent election his party did not receive a majority of the seats in the House. He ought to understand, having served in elected life for quite some time, here and provincially, that in the Canadian system, based on the British model, for a government to exist it needs to have the confidence of this chamber. The current government has lost that. Why will it not recognize it?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member raised the issue about the height of hypocrisy. It is an interesting question given the fact that if he were to take the total number of seats the Liberals have and add them to the total number of seats the New Democratic Party has, he would rapidly realize that he is in a minority and that he does need the support, unfortunately, of the separatist party in the House.

In other words, he is saying to me that he justifies his action in this putsch to take over the reins of government despite the fact that his party, along with the NDP, do not have a majority of seats and need the support of the separatist party. That is the height of hypocrisy.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, many of my colleagues would love to question the Minister of Foreign Affairs. First of all, because we have just heard some outrageous statements. The first of these was the reference to ministerial positions, which I am not interested in, and we are not interested in. I get the impression that his main concern was to protect his ministerial position. That was what I was hearing. What I was hearing was a panicky man anxious to keep his portfolio.

The question I would like to ask is this: Could he list for me one strong measure that has been taken to deal with the present crisis as far as the unemployed in regions like ours are concerned? Can he name me one single strong measure that the government intends to take, or has taken in recent months, to deal with the crisis as far as the unemployed in the regions are concerned?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and would refer him to what we did via the 2006 budget, that is Advantage Canada. The Bloc Québécois felt it appropriate at that time to support the budget speech and we were very glad they did. We did not need any coalitions with the Bloc Québécois to be able to do that.

Nevertheless, it must be kept in mind that, at the time of the last budget, when we proposed personal income tax cuts and when we proposed lowering the GST in order to provide the people of Quebec with more leeway, more opportunities, more purchasing power, the Bloc Québécois opposed it.

The real question today is to find under what conditions you, the holier-than-thou Bloc Québécois, sold out your right to veto because you decided to blindly support the budget the new government would like to present, on two occasions. This was either done blindly, or it was done knowingly.

Will the leader of the Bloc Québécois tell us the truth? Will he tell the whole truth? Will he table his secret agreements?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we should ensure we address you when we talk to each other in this place. That is the way we conduct ourselves. I know the member is used to the legislature in Quebec.

I have a question for the foreign affairs minister. Why is it that when there is a problem the government seems to always blame someone else. It never looks in the mirror and says that maybe it had something to do with the problem.

I will give an example. We are being accused on this side of working together and of somehow putting out the country and making it vulnerable. I would ask the foreign affairs minister, and he intimated this a minute ago, how the Conservatives passed their first two budgets. I think the answer is pretty obvious and that is exactly what we are talking about here.

Why is it that they need to blame everyone else and not take things into account on their own? Why do they always blame someone else?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the only point I am making is that something important happened on October 14. Canadians looked at the NDP's program and the Liberals' program which proposed a carbon tax and they rejected both of them.

Therefore, when my hon. colleague tells me that his party has changed all that, that it has no more program, and that it has made a deal with the separatists to drive the Canadian economy, do members think that is serious? Do they really think that will fly with the Canadian population?

[Rick Casson, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first chance I have had to stand in the House since the election so I want to thank the people of southern Alberta for sending me back here to help stand on guard for this country, and, in this last week or so, we have been doing that, as we need to.

I want to maybe change the picture here a little. The foreign affairs minister has had the opportunity to travel with the Prime Minister outside the country to some of the international meetings that he goes to. I understand that the Prime Minister is looked to for guidance from some of the other leaders of other countries. I know the minister was at the APEC conference. Does he have a comment on just exactly the presence that our Prime Minister has when he is dealing with other leaders from around the world?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly the opposition party does not seem to think it is important. A couple of weeks ago the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance were in Washington, where they signed the Washington declaration, along with the other 20 leaders of governments and heads of state who were there.

It is an important initiative. The program covers three general items: first, domestically, get our house in order; second, increase trade because that is the clear direction we need to take; and third, Canada will respect all its obligations that it has taken under its engagements in terms of the millennium objectives.

I, as well as my colleague, the Minister of International Trade, brought that to the APEC, where more countries came onside. They listened to the Prime Minister, who did an excellent job in representing Canada. When we left the APEC meeting, we had more countries in favour of the Washington declaration than we did when we arrived.

It is important for us to go in this direction. It is important for us to support it. The most important thing was the leaders of other countries turned to us and said that our banking system was fantastic, that we had done a great job. This is thanks to the guy sitting beside me, the right hon. Prime Minister.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly are in a bit of a mess. It is kind of ironic that the Prime Minister does not want this matter to come to a vote. It is apparently because he is afraid of what the House might say, so he is doing anything and everything to avoid facing the House and trying to obtain the confidence of it in the measures he has proposed in the fiscal update.

We have just been through an election recently. I congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, on the result, as well as all members. It is in fact an honour to be here.

One thing I heard repeatedly during the election was Canadians expected us to co-operate with each other, to act like adults, to show that we would work toward the betterment of the nation and all of those things. I know other members heard exactly the same thing.

Everyone will recollect that we had a five round election in this very House for the Speaker. The central issue in that election was none other than decorum in the House. We all commented on it. We were embarrassed about it and embarrassed by the fact that when people, particularly school children, were in the gallery, it was not an impressive display of parliamentary decorum. That was the number one message from my electorate.

I gave a speech a week ago Friday and was asked by a member of the audience whether decorum in the House might improve and we would show more respect for each other, et cetera. I hesitated and in doing so I probably disclosed my answer before I spoke. I really had no faith that this would occur. I have been in the House 11 years and the House is what it is. At times what we see on television is an embarrassment.

We heard the Speech from the Throne and there was some respect and an exchange of views. In fact, the Speech from the Throne was amended by the Liberal Party and it then enjoyed the support of the party. The conviviality and the respect seemed to last maybe three, four or five days and that was pretty well it. Then the fiscal update was announced.

The fiscal update is supposed to be an economic statement. It is supposed to reflect what the Department of Finance thinks are the economic numbers and projections going forward. It is supposed to reflect inflation, GDP, growth in nominal GDP, anticipated revenues, et cetera. It is simply that; it is an economic statement.

When I was in the Department of Finance and worked on these numbers, we thought that if the discussion about the fiscal statement lasted more than a day, then it was a failure.

Inserted into the fiscal update were several things that had absolutely nothing to do with it. The signal was laid down by the Prime Minister that this was gotcha time. This was a time to attack democracy. There is nothing like using a crisis to advance one's political cause. He decided to launch an attack on women, unions and political financing. I have no idea what any of those things had to do with the fiscal update.

We had the chorus of Conservatives launching into this irrelevancy and we had, unfortunately, a political statement made for ideological purposes in a fiscal update, which, in effect, ended the civility of Parliament. All three parties had an immediate reaction to this launch of attack on democracy.

I have watched the Prime Minister in action for a number of years now. I wanted to believe he got the message, that he wanted to set a better tone in the House and that he would set a tone which would create a level of stability that would not embarrass us all when we went outside the chamber.

Unfortunately the Prime Minister cannot help himself. It is not in his DNA. It is as if every waking moment of his political life is spent dreaming up new ways in which he can basically eliminate any opposition to his views.

I do not think he is going to rest until he has the rest of us goose-stepping our way down the halls of Parliament chanting heil Harper—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member knows full well we cannot use names of members in the House.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

The member for Scarborough—Guildwood is familiar with the rules of the House.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the sentiment is quite clear. The Prime Minister wants to squash any opposition whatsoever, notwithstanding the fact that he is a minority prime minister and still has not figured out that he got less than 40% of the vote. After all the millions of dollars he spent on advertising, he was able to bump his vote up 2% and a few seats. Still the people of Canada had the good sense to deny him a majority. They have denied him a majority twice now.

The opposition members in the House represent over 60% of the popular vote and 55% of the members in the House.

One person calls the shots in the Conservative Party, and it is the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister only. The rest of the ministers and members of caucus are decoration only. That is it. Therefore, the decision to insert these statements into the economic statement was the Prime Minister's and the Prime Minister's only.

I do not have a very high opinion of the Minister of Finance, but even I do not believe the statements of attack on democracy were inserted by the finance minister. This has created quite a controversy and I want to read part of a column from Margaret Wente in this morning's Globe and Mail.

I know some members have heard this, but it bears repeating. As member know, Margaret Wente is not exactly enamoured with the Liberal Party or any of the other opposition parties. She said, “[The Prime Minister] was supposed to be the steady hand at the helm”. This is a bit of nonsense in and of itself. He never told the Canadian public that we were in deficit and have been in deficit for months now. She went on to say:

But now, even his long-time loyalists whisper that he's lost it. They are right. You can put up with a bully. You can even put up with a paranoid, controlling bully. But a paranoid, controlling bully with catastrophic judgment is another matter.

She said that the insertion of this attack on democracy in the fiscal update was in fact a “catastrophic” error in judgment. She went on to say:

Their leader is a brilliant brain with the emotional intelligence of a 13-year-old. The magnanimity of victory eludes him. He can't seem to shake the simmering resentments of the outsider who knows he's the smartest guy in the room but still can't get respect.

That is what Conservatives' friends are saying.

In the same Globe and Mail this morning Gordon Gibson, another somewhat less than an absolutely friendly person to the Liberal Party of Canada, stated:

—you put one lifeline in place before severing the other...This attempt to cut the funding, however, was petty, vulgar, intemperate, low-down, mean-spirited, nasty, smart-ass, ignoble and sleazy, in every way unworthy of a great political party. And in a way that any voter can understand.

That is what the Conservatives' friends are saying.

I, along with probably everyone else in the House, have been receiving an enormous flood of emails, some in favour of the proposed coalition and some clearly not in favour of the proposed coalition.

When one is in a government controlled by a paranoid bully, who has made a catastrophic error in judgment, the Westminster Parliamentary democracy has a way of dealing with that kind of person. It is called a confidence vote. It is a very simple thing.

From time to time in Westminster parliamentary democracies, there are paranoid bullies who make catastrophic errors in judgment and the system is built to address those issues. However, in this case the paranoid bully with catastrophic errors in judgment is afraid of the House. I guess that is the paranoid part. He is afraid to put the vote.

Today's entire question period could have been ended very easily by a simple statement from the leader of the Conservative Party, the Prime Minister of Canada. He could have said that tonight at 6 o'clock we would vote and the whole thing would go away. One way or another it would go away. But no, the Conservative Party is going to adopt a carpet-bombing initiative between Friday and when this House resumes. The Prime Minister is going to prorogue Parliament.

The entire amount in the Conservative piggy bank is going to be spent on advertising campaigns to convince Canadians that parliamentary democracy should be subverted and that the Prime Minister should be allowed to carry on.

It is a very simple concept. When a prime minister loses the confidence of the House and the prime minister has a minority government, he or she has to get the point. In one way or another a coalition of some kind has to be cobbled together.

I have heard members over the day complain about the separatists. It is highly ironic that for the first two budgets of the Conservative government in the 39th Parliament apparently they were good separatists. They were nice separatists. The Conservatives loved those separatists because those separatists made sure that the government could survive on those two budgets. Now we are in the 40th Parliament and those formerly really good separatists have become bad separatists, nasty people. Those bad separatists are now saying that they have reviewed the fiscal update and for reasons best known to them, they think a coalition form of government would actually serve the interests of Quebec and our nation better than the Conservative government would.

It is kind of interesting and somewhat ironic, and completely hypocritical, that somehow or another just a year or two ago those separatists were really good separatists and now apparently they are bad separatists.

Mr. Speaker, you are a student of history. You know that the Liberal Party is the party of Paul Martin, the party of Jean Chrétien, the party of Frank McKenna, and the party of John Manley. We have a rich heritage. Our coalition partner is the party of Roy Romanow, the party of Tommy Douglas, both of whom in their time were fiscally responsible premiers of Saskatchewan.

It is therefore not an unusual arrangement whereby the parties of those two heritages say, “We have a fiscal mess on our hands and we are headed over a cliff. While the Prime Minister decides to fiddle and Rome burns, we are going to get together and propose to the nation a way out of this mess”. The first thing to do to get out of this mess is to be a touch honest with the numbers; just start with the numbers.

I looked at the fiscal update and there is a projection of a $6 billion deficit. The finance minister said that under no circumstances would he ever be a finance minister that would introduce deficits in this country. Now he is talking about structural deficits. I heard one commentator say that deficits are a little like potato chips: once we eat one, we keep on going and going.

Before we get to the airy-fairy stuff in this economic update, we have a $5.9 billion deficit. In two years the surplus is gone. That is hard to do, and I am amazed that the Conservatives have been able to do it. In two years we have gone from a $13 billion surplus to a $5.9 billion deficit, but the Conservatives do not want to say anything to anybody.

Then we get to the fairy numbers. The fairy numbers follow the $5.9 billion deficit, and the Conservatives talk about effective management of government spending. Apparently until now there has been ineffective management of government spending, but now the Conservatives have religion and there is going to be effective management of government spending. That is really good phrasing and I admire the creativity of the Department of Finance in terms of its ability to put lipstick on a pig, so to speak.

The truth of the matter is that we are going to sell off significant assets in order to cover off the deficit. We are going to sell off about $4.3 billion in assets.

Mr. Speaker, I know you are from Haliburton. It is a nice spot. I like Haliburton. However, most of the folks in Haliburton would not be spending the money from the sale of their house before they even put the “for sale” sign on the house. That is fundamental. There is no set of accounting principles, inside or outside government, that allows us to book a sale of an asset prior to actually putting a “for sale” sign on the asset, or even identifying the sale of the asset. In very simple language, this is spending the proceeds from the sale of the house well before the house has sold.

It would not be all that difficult if the finance minister just admitted that we are in deficit. Why is it that he is incapable of recognizing what the Parliamentary Budget Officer said, which is that the deficit we presently have is a result of the policy decisions that have been made by the Conservative government.

We live in an international economy, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that we are in deficit, not because of the difficulties in our local economy and in the international economy, but we are in difficulties because of policy decisions that the Conservative government made. Our Liberal Party has warned the government time and time again that it cannot continue its free-spending ways and reduce its fiscal capacity over and over again without consequences. The direct result, we have said to the government, is that the government is spending itself into a fiscal deficit. Surprise, surprise; we are in a deficit. The finance minister refuses to tell the Canadian public the truth and so we are where we are.

The economy is stalled and we need a fiscal stimulus. Every other country in the world is instituting a fiscal stimulus. The Americans are stimulating their economy by $1,859 billion, which is $1.8 trillion. That is a lot of money. Even China is stimulating its economy by $726 billion and Japan by $341 billion. Canada's idea of a fiscal stimulus is -$4.3 billion.

The Conservative finance minister has said that we will be having zero deficit over the next three years. The reality is that we will have a far more substantial deficit than that.

The Liberal Party of Canada has warned the government time and time again and all we have got for our troubles has been ridicule, a massive advertising campaign to destroy the reputation of the leader of the Liberal Party, but surprise, surprise, the Liberal Party is right, the Conservative Party is wrong, and the nation will suffer.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in this House to actually relay some true facts, because the hon. member is very bad with math. I guess that is no surprise on the other side of the House. That is partly why the Liberals are there. They think that the $40 million they have not paid back in the sponsorship scandal is irrelevant. However, we are not here to discuss that. We are here to discuss the economic stimulus that this government has already put in place.

I listened with great interest when the hon. member actually refused to recognize the truth. Last year alone, Canada provided 1.4% of gross domestic product, and that is permanent. This coming year it will be 2% of our projected gross domestic product.

The member referred to the United States. The large number that he had trouble spitting out is 1.2% last year of its GDP, and it is temporary. In Japan, it is .7% of GDP, and it is temporary. In Australia, it is 1.1% of GDP in 2009, and it is temporary.

The point the hon. member does not get is that this money that we have put into the economy already has actually kept us in a strong fiscal position. He refuses to accept the fact that we realized this before the Liberals even saw it coming.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is more amusing than anything else, sadly amusing really.

Here we have a government that inherited probably the strongest fiscal situation in the G7 and in two years it has been able to run a $13 billion surplus into a $6 billion deficit. It is a talent but not much of a talent. I doubt it would be considered to be much of a talent outside these four walls. Not only did the Conservatives run it into a $6 billion deficit, they refused to tell anybody that they were in fact in deficit.

During the election it was see no evil, hear no evil and smell no evil. The Conservatives said, “Of course we are not in deficit; we could not possibly be in deficit, and by the way, do not invest in Ontario”. Unfortunately some people took their advice and did not invest in Ontario and have not invested in the economy.

We have had three quarters of negative economic growth and our economy is teetering, but it did not have to be that way. If the Conservatives had listened to the advice of the Liberal Party of Canada they would not be in this mess. The Conservatives are in a mess and it is one of their own creation. If they do not believe me, they can believe the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am the member for Jeanne-Le Ber, and it gives me great pleasure to ask our Liberal Party colleague a question.

Today, during question period, we heard something rather strange in the House. The Conservatives changed their tune depending on whether they were talking in English or in French as they tried to point their finger at the opposition party that was the biggest sell-out.

We heard the Prime Minister say, in English, that the Liberals had sold their souls to the Bloc Québécois, and we heard his political lieutenant for Quebec say, in French, that the Bloc had sold out to the Liberals. I get the impression that they are trying to pull a fast one on either Quebeckers or Canadians, or possibly both.

I would like my colleague's opinion on the credibility of a government that engages in the kind of double-speak where the English version is the polar opposite of the French version.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the credibility of the government is pretty well done. I read the financial pages in the newspaper this morning and saw various quotes by Conservative commentators that the government has taken us over the cliff. It is extremely frustrating because it did not have to be this way.

We are now faced with a difficult situation. The country needs an economic stimulus, one which is well thought out. The auto industry, which is in the part of the world from which I come, needs some thoughtful, intelligent stimulus in an appropriate way, as does the forestry sector. There is nothing in the economic update that would give any reasonable person a shred of hope that the government actually knows what it is doing.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member from Scarborough has done a really good job of demonstrating that the Conservatives and the Prime Minister have been ruling as though they had a majority when they do not.

I would like to add that if we had proportional representation, as 97% of the democracies in the world have, the Conservatives would only have 117 seats, the Liberals would have 81 seats and the New Democrats would have 57 seats. There would be 23 greens in the House. Under such a system, the separatists, of which the Prime Minister and the Conservatives are so fearful, would have 19 or 20 seats.

Would the hon. member from Scarborough care to comment on whether the Liberals have come to the point where they would like to support proportional representation as we move toward real democracy?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a legitimate point of debate and an interesting response. I did have a conversation with the Prime Minister of New Zealand on this very point. New Zealand had introduced proportional representation. It had other problems, which we could get into at another time.

I do want to point out that the history of Canada is the history of coalition. Members will recollect that Macdonald governed with a coalition. The Macdonald-Cartier coalition was a well-known coalition that governed this country both before and after. In addition, the Macdonald-Taché coalition worked.

The members opposite fail to recognize that coalitions can actually bring stability to a parliamentary democracy. We have, through this agreement, effectively created a 30-month period of stability, as opposed to a Prime Minister who just seems to want to run from every vote.

This whole problem can be settled very simply. The Prime Minister could stand in his place and say that we vote tonight and it will be all over.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member from Scarborough, who was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance, has spoken with a great understanding of the fundamentals of our budgetary and fiscal situation.

My question is related to the sense of urgency around the economic update. We have heard that young families are depleting their RRSPs just to pay mortgages. Yesterday in the Financial Post there was an article concerning the whole question of designated benefits and the need for pension insurance. We are talking about a liability of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Does the member think that, within the context of the independent budgetary officer and what he has heard from the Minister of Finance, it is possible to put a counter-proposal through a budget that would deal with the urgency of these issues? Does he not think that is what the people of Canada are looking for?