Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from New Westminster—Coquitlam—Burnaby.
For me, this year's prebudget consultation process included hosting a public town hall meeting in Victoria that was well attended, presentations and attending finance committee hearings in Victoria by the committee last December, reviewing hundreds of letters and emails from my constituents and having countless conversations with folks on the street.
Throughout this process, I heard two predominant messages from the residents of greater Victoria. First, invest with vision in a more socially, environmentally and economically sustainable future. Second, that investment in Victoria should begin with housing.
They asked the government to review the massive corporate tax cuts announced in the fall fiscal update in favour of targeted measures to restore balance in our communities and in our social and physical infrastructure and to tackle climate change.
I would like to highlight a few of the excellent presentations we heard in the Victoria meetings of the House of Commons finance committee. The non-profit group, Heritage B.C., spoke eloquently about the importance of conserving heritage buildings and rehabilitating them for modern use, especially affordable rental housing. Its very pragmatic proposal would strengthen the federal historic places initiative by restoring the commercial heritage properties incentive fund and creating a federal tax incentive to amplify the success of tax measures in Victoria and Vancouver that has allowed us to protect some properties but, unfortunately, has not been supported by the federal government.
We heard from the BC Sustainable Energy Association, which expertly warned not only of the environmental hazards of the government's non-response to climate change, but also the economic hazards of being left behind as the rest of the world shifts to clean, renewable energy while we stay wedded to an obsolescent fossil fuel economy of past centuries. We must put a price on carbon to turn this around. Left unchecked, global warming could cost B.C.'s economy in the billions of dollars.
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society identified six key actions that the federal government should take to protect healthy ecosystems in the face of climate change. I hope it considers those seriously.
The president of Results Canada made a compelling call to increase our foreign aid which he noted has actually dropped even further below our commitment of a 0.7% target from 0.34% of our gross national income in 2005 to 0.3% in 2006.
Before the finance committee came to town, I hosted a public town hall meeting to hear the priorities of my constituents that were not necessarily linked to the narrow focus of taxes. Overall, those in attendance expressed a strong desire to see the federal government re-establish its leadership role in the arena of social policy and to nurture the social contract we have together as Canadians.
However, overwhelmingly, the number one area of urgently needed investment in Victoria continues to be housing and homelessness. In October, the City of Victoria released its task force report on breaking the cycle of mental illness, addictions and homelessness after four months of work. The task force did an excellent job analyzing the problem and mapping a way forward, but many of its recommendations cannot be implemented without support from Ottawa. In fact, the report clearly identifies the past Liberal government's withdrawal from the social housing sphere in the early 1990s, along with cuts to federal transfer payments, as two of the contributing factors to our current crisis. Now the Conservative human resources minister does not even bother attending housing meetings with his provincial counterparts, pretending it is not his problem.
The chorus of voices pleading for federal help from the perspective of ethics and social justice has been joined by that of members of Victoria's business community who have come out as forcefully and unequivocally as they possibly could.
I would like to quote briefly from the testimony of the Victoria Chamber of Commerce. It stated:
...the Government of Canada needs to take a far more aggressive lead in solving the problems of chronic homelessness across our country.
So much for the absence of our federal human resources minister from the meeting with his provincial counterparts.
The Chamber of Commerce added:
In this time of record government surplus, it is absolutely necessary for the federal government to apply a focused effort to reducing homelessness across Canada, and in doing so improve the business environment for thousands of Canadian companies.
This sentiment from the Chamber of Commerce echoes what I have heard on the doorsteps in Victoria. Even in the more affluent areas, I frequently hear concern for affordable housing and homelessness mentioned on the doorsteps of homes that might cost $700,000 in Victoria. These residents understand that even if this issue does not afflict them personally, it is relevant to them because they are members of the Victoria community.
It is that community spirit, the truly Canadian quality of caring for one's neighbour and choosing to contribute solutions to our common problems, that is alive in Victoria and in communities across Canada, which the Conservatives do not seem to recognize in their obsession with tax cuts, especially corporate tax cuts that benefit the banks and large financial organizations. It shows that affordable housing is a fundamental issue that strikes the hearts of all Canadians and it shows that tax cuts are not universally popular if it means that some in our society go without.
That brings me to a couple of other areas that require targeted investment in the upcoming budget, according to my constituents.
First, it is time for the government to accept the majority will of Parliament and allow the NDP's early learning and child care act to pass. Bill C-303 has now passed two votes in the House and one in committee. Parents across Canada who desperately need affordable child care cannot wait any longer and parents who want to choose quality early learning over big box day care deserve that option.
Next, one million Canadians struggle to repay student loans, which have reached record levels, and they need help. The federal government expects to make $497.9 million in interest on student loans in the coming year. Every dollar in interest is one more dollar that a low or middle income student pays for his education compared to other students whose parents pay for theirs.
It will not be easy to level this structural inequality in our post-secondary education system. However, a good starting point in this budget would be to reduce the interest rate paid by students, to establish a system of immediate grants based on financial need, to improve options for lightening the debt load and to establish a student loan ombudsman's office to help students navigate this inefficient system.
Finally, public research informs good public policy, but it would appear that the Conservatives are allergic to both. They have cut key funding for the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network, eliminated the federal science advisor, overruled and fired Canada's nuclear safety regulator and continue to grossly underfund research in the social and human sciences.
Meanwhile, corporate influence on Canada's campuses and in university research continues to rise because the Liberal cuts from a decade ago have yet to be adequately restored. Our colleges and universities need stable, adequate core funding that corresponds with their economic growth in order to remain internationally competitive and provide the best possible education to our children.
We need increased funding for research in the public interest if we are to avoid letting profit become the guiding factor in public health, safety and environmental decisions. Budgets 2006-07 were colossal missed opportunities to invest in key strategic areas for more sustainable--