Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives really do not like a dose of reality. They are waking up. They are becoming upset. My goodness, somebody is talking about reality here, the NDP member for Victoria and now the NDP member for Burnaby—New Westminster are talking about what is really happening out there and the Conservatives cannot handle it. They will have to go back to another corporate lobbyist party to get those pats on the back that they love so much for their massive corporate tax cuts.
What has happened to the middle class? The average middle class family over that same period has lost a week's income each and every year since 1989. They are working 52-week years, but they are being paid now for 51 weeks. They are trying to make do with less.
People in the lower middle class, the next income sector, have actually lost two weeks of income. Working class families, hard-working Canadian families have lost two weeks of income for each and every year since 1989.
What about the poorest? The member for Victoria referenced that earlier. They have lost a month and a half of income over this same period. They are working 12-month years, but they are only being paid for 10 and a half months now. There is no secret why we are now seeing hundreds of thousands of Canadians sleeping out on the streets and in the parks of our cities. What we have seen for the poorest of Canadians is that their income has basically fallen through the floor.
That is the economic reality the Liberals and the Conservatives have completely ignored over the last 20 years while they have been putting in place their massive corporate tax cut agenda. The only priority of the former Liberal government and the only priority of the current Conservative government is to cut corporate taxes. They have done that massively. I will come back to that in a moment.
We are now in this prebudget debate. We have now had two years of Conservatives acting like Liberals, as the Liberals acted like Conservatives. Most Canadians cannot tell the difference because they have the same priorities, except at election time when both parties try to sound like New Democrats. What we are seeing in this prebudget debate are calls for more corporate tax cuts.
We hear the Prime Minister say that the corporate tax rate has to be driven even lower. Then the Leader of the Opposition says that the Liberals will go even lower, that their corporate tax cuts will be even faster than the Conservatives' corporate tax cuts. Then the Conservatives say, “No, we will be faster. We will slash those corporate tax cuts. We will give the banks, big oil and big gas more money than they can imagine”. And the Liberals say, “No, we will do more”. This competition back and forth of who has the biggest corporate tax cut is clearly not in the interest of Canada.
What about our health care system that is deteriorating? Many seniors and other people who have health difficulties can tell us about the longer and longer wait times because there has not been sufficient investment in our health care system.
What about the homeless? The only money that has gone into housing in the past 15 years was from the NDP budget amendment that we forced on the Liberals. The Conservatives have tried to take credit for it. The Liberals have tried to take credit for it. The only injection in housing, and it was only a start, has come from the NDP budget.
What about the environment? What about the transportation deficit? The transportation and infrastructure deficit is estimated by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to be over $100 billion. What about that?
What about the poor state of housing for our military personnel? There is substandard housing on military bases across the country. Our military personnel are being treated with contempt by the Conservative government.
What about returning veterans? They have come back from often traumatic situations in Afghanistan, and they have not been provided with mental health counselling or addiction support. It is absolutely appalling how the Conservatives will talk a good line about the military, but when push comes to shove, they prefer giving huge tax cuts to their corporate buddies rather than supporting adequate housing on military bases and adequate programs for returning veterans.
What about our police officers? What about our justice system? They were chronically underfunded under the Liberals. It has reached the point where they simply cannot prosecute and they simply cannot investigate to the same extent as if they were fully funded.
What about citizenship and immigration concerns, a system that has completely broken down? What about women's shelters? What about the record levels of student debt?
These are the priorities that the government should be tackling. The Conservatives said they would be different from the Liberal government and they are exactly the same. They are concerned about one thing and one thing only: an appalling obsession with corporate tax cuts.
What has the result been after two years of the Conservatives doing the same thing as the Liberals? The cumulative fiscal impact is about $190 billion, with the most recent corporate tax cuts going to banks, big oil and big gas companies. The cumulative effect of the fall economic statement is about $12 billion a year. Over six years we are talking about over $70 billion. We are talking about huge amounts of money being shovelled off the back of a truck to the corporate sector, when all of these crying and important needs are simply being ignored.
Coming back to Burnaby--New Westminster, what about some of the issues that people have raised, such as the issues of housing, and the issues of underfunding and health care that we see at the Royal Columbian Hospital and at Burnaby Hospital? What about funding for the World Police and Fire Games that was given to Quebec City and has been systematically refused by the Conservative government, even though it honours our police and fire personnel? What about funding for the renewal of Burnaby Lake? Again it was refused by the Liberals and refused by the Conservatives, even though they found money for Wascana Lake in Saskatchewan.
What about our citizenship and immigration centre that Burnaby city council has offered up essentially to the federal government for funding? What about addiction programs and supporting our police officers, the city of New Westminster Police and the Burnaby RCMP? What about those priorities? What about women's shelters? What about supporting the students that are going deeper and deeper in debt as the Conservatives shovel more and more money at their corporate CEO buddies?
The most appalling thing is that the government does not prioritize these when it knows that the average corporate CEO earns more in the first seven hours of the year than the average Canadian worker earns in the entire year, even though hours of work have increased.
Those are the priorities that the government should consider.