Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to rise on behalf of the people of Nipissing-Timiskaming and participate in the ongoing debate on what should be included in the upcoming federal budget.
I have been listening very carefully to the comments that my colleagues from all parties have been making throughout this debate, which highlight the priorities that they would like to see dealt with in the next federal budget.
Like most Canadians, I am hopeful that the current government, including the Prime Minister and the finance minister, will take each of these priorities into account while crafting the budget. Although recent history would suggest that the current Conservative government is rarely open to input from hard-working Canadians, I am cautiously optimistic that our voices will be heard and incorporated this time around.
With that in mind, there are several key priorities that I would like to see addressed in the upcoming budget, including health care, research and development, and education. I also want to see a firm commitment to infrastructure programs for our cities and communities, as well as regional development programs such as FedNor.
My Liberal colleagues and I are also calling on the Conservative government to take greater action on climate change, to take steps necessary to ensure that the Canadian combat mission in Kandahar will end in February 2009, to fight poverty in Canada, and to bring forth proposals that will build a stronger economy.
It has been said before, and in this case it is certainly worth repeating, that when the Conservatives took office in January 2006 they acquired the strongest economy in Canadian history and campaigned on a platform of fiscal discipline. Since that day, the Conservative government has raised federal spending by over $25 billion and yet the average Canadian has yet to see any benefit from any of those expenditures.
And while Canada faces the impact of instability in international markets, Conservative fiscal policies have done little to stimulate the Canadian economy, notably our ailing manufacturing, forestry, livestock and tourism sectors.
The manufacturing industry has been facing significant challenges in recent years as a result of the rapid, unexpected rise of the Canadian dollar, increased competition from emerging economies, and higher energy prices. Over 130,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the last year. In the month of December alone, over 33,000 manufacturing workers lost their jobs, just in time for the holidays.
For months now, my Liberal colleagues and I have been calling on the government to do something about the challenges facing our economy, particularly in the forestry and manufacturing sectors. Earlier this week, the Prime Minister finally reversed his plan to tie community development trust aid money for ailing sectors of the Canadian economy to the budget.
Sadly, however, this money was merely a drop in the bucket compared to the crisis we are facing and helps Canadians only after they lose their jobs. The workers themselves have expressed the point that focusing aid programs on retraining is useless for many single industry towns.
Retraining workers in a town where there is no work available does not really solve the problem. What we are doing is retraining people but retraining them for something they cannot find. There is nothing there for them once they have retrained.
This aid package is another slap in the face to an industry already straining under the terms of the Conservative government's flawed softwood lumber agreement. The Conservatives are offering less money to Canadian forestry workers than they left on the table for the American forestry industry.
Granted, the Prime Minister's fund will provide some help for those who have lost their jobs, but it will not reopen a single mill or manufacturing plant or prevent others from closing in an economic downturn. Instead, the focus should be on helping our industries become viable again.
The upcoming budget should include measures like those contained in the 2005 Liberal $1.5 billion forestry strategy that was killed by the Conservative government two years ago, which would have helped the industry make the transition to competitive strength and sustainability and was widely lauded by both industry and workers alike.
The aid should also be geared towards providing long-term solutions to industries affected by the rapid value increase of the Canadian dollar. Otherwise, taxpayer dollars will only amount to an artificial respirator for businesses that are no longer able to compete on world markets.
At a time when the economy is facing serious challenges and needs government support, the Prime Minister and finance minister have told Canadians that they can expect very little from the federal government. What they said was that Canadians need to buckle up, that it is going to be a bumpy ride. Thanks very much, Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. Finance Minister, but that is not what we need to hear. We need help.
In response to this, my Liberal colleagues and I are calling on the Conservative government to introduce specific measures that will benefit the Canadian economy, especially in sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture, and that will lessen the impact of the government's mistakes on income trusts and interest deductibility.
Another way of ensuring that our economy remains strong and that Canadians have a prosperous future is to invest in infrastructure for our cities and our communities.
By simply rebranding existing infrastructure programs, the government has failed to invest additional resources needed to meet the challenges facing Canadian cities and communities. Clearly, the budget surpluses of recent years demonstrate that the government has the resources to provide tax relief to Canadians and invest in our cities and communities, yet the government has chosen to forgo this opportunity.
Constituents in my riding and throughout northern Ontario are looking for substantial investment in infrastructure and are urging the government to finally do the right thing and reinvest in Canada's cities and communities.
The Conservative government would like us to believe that the $33 billion infrastructure investment announcement in 2007 is the largest infrastructure program in Canadian history. In fact, the Conservative government actually cut infrastructure programs, and cities are far worse off under the present government than they were before.
As a former municipal councillor, I understand what crumbling infrastructure is all about. We have it in most of our communities. The average age of our infrastructure is anywhere between 85 and 100 years, maybe even more, right across the country.
Without help for our cities and communities, we will see more and more of this happening, to the point where the basic building blocks for our communities will be destroyed and we will have to live with what we have. That is no way to have building blocks toward a strong country when our cities and communities are not strong at all. This is something that we have to look at.
In November, municipal leaders met with the finance minister. The response that came from the finance minister turned my stomach. Basically, it was “stop whining”. That is no way to treat our cities' mayors in this country. It reminds me of 1793, when there was a revolt going on. The people were about to overthrow the monarchy and Marie Antoinette said to let them eat cake. To say “stop whining” is not the way we should treat Canadians.
Not only has the Conservative government cut $7.5 billion from infrastructure programs launched by the previous Liberal government to address the growing infrastructure deficit, but cities will now have to compete against each other and against large-scale highway projects for funding under the Building Canada Fund.
Furthermore, if large-scale projects are approved under the Conservative funding plan, huge amounts of funding for Canada’s smaller municipalities will be wiped out. This is not an acceptable outcome by any means, and I am therefore calling upon the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to make substantive infrastructure investment in the upcoming budget.
Unfortunately, the Conservative government has jeopardized the Canadian economy by cutting the wrong taxes and spending more money than any government in Canadian history. My Liberal colleagues and I understand that for the Canadian economy to succeed we must continue the tradition of balanced budgets, debt reduction and competitive taxation.
A closer look at the Conservative government's decision to forge ahead with an additional cut to the GST reveals that the Conservatives' tax plan is largely benefiting higher income families over those who need it most: low income and middle income families.
The GST cut was made despite the fact that every serious economist in the country agrees that it is poor public policy and a misuse of about $4.5 billion in federal fiscal flexibility every year. To improve disposable income and help build greater productivity, the first target for tax reduction should be income taxes, not consumption taxes, but the Prime Minister has chosen instead to raise taxes for low income and middle income Canadians to help pay for his regressive and expensive GST cut.
Tax cuts like these set the stage for more pressure for spending cuts. The obvious concern for most Canadians is that the Conservative government will continue to make cuts to programs that have been proven to be effective and necessary tools in helping individuals and communities.
Simply put, the Conservative government cannot be trusted to implement substantial and long-lasting solutions to critical problems. Its “politics first and policy second” approach to governance is evidence in many ways.
Take the issue of child care for instance; during the last election the Conservatives pledged to make up for the shortfall through a plan to use tax incentives to create 125,000 new child care spaces. Last fall, the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development admitted that the Conservatives cannot deliver on this commitment.
Since coming to power, the Conservative government has made the biggest child care cut in Canadian history, slashing $1 billion in funding for child care services in 2007. The Conservative government’s policy of handing over small amounts of money to individual parents instead of investing in a child care system is simply not delivering the support that young Canadian families need.
This piecemeal approach to government has been a trademark of the current Conservative government. Canadians simply cannot trust the Prime Minister to produce comprehensive and effective solutions to priority issues. Further evidence of this exists with the Conservative environmental plan.
The Conservatives have an obligation to reduce their weak approach to combating the climate change crisis with real action. Canada will not meet Kyoto targets because the Prime Minister scrapped all climate change programs upon coming into office and then implemented weak substitutes that ignore our obligations.
The Conservatives have admitted that their so-called plan will result in absolutely no reductions in Canada's total greenhouse gas pollution during the first phase of Kyoto and will not even be in place until 2010. Under two consecutive Conservative environment ministers, there has been no attempt to move forward seriously, and I emphasize seriously, and not even an honest and full effort to curb greenhouse gas pollution.
In fact, one of the Prime Minister's first acts in office was to scrap a fully funded plan to meet Canada's Kyoto obligations and to then do nothing. This is simply unacceptable to Canadians who are looking for action and leadership in the fight against climate change, but are being presented instead with a Prime Minister and a government that would much rather deny climate change even exists. The time has come to invest in Canada's environmental future.
The Conservative government also owes it to Canadians to end nearly two years of inaction in the fight against poverty in Canada by building on the good work of the Liberal government in funding such initiatives as the child tax benefit, affordable housing, literacy, the Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative, SCPI, and the working income tax benefit.
In the upcoming budget, the Conservative government can take meaningful action to reduce poverty by improving the Canada child tax benefit and by supporting working families in making the non-refundable child tax credit into a refundable credit so that even people with the lowest incomes will receive a benefit.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister can do his part to help lift vulnerable seniors out of poverty by increasing the guaranteed income supplement payments for the lowest income seniors, thus ensuring that the loss of a partner does not drive the surviving spouse below the income threshold, and encouraging and rewarding those seniors who choose to participate in the workforce.
In addition to these supports, the Conservative government should commit to working with all levels of government to provide better access to services that are essential in the fight against poverty such as affordable housing, universal child care and public transit.
In today’s speech I have listed just some of the main priorities that Canadians from coast to coast believe should figure prominently in the upcoming budget. Now the responsibility lies with the Conservative government to take on the challenge of addressing these concerns, and providing effective long-term solutions to problems that have been all but ignored since they first took office two years ago.
On behalf of the people of Nipissing-Timiskaming I will be working very hard to ensure that the gaps in the Conservative agenda are replaced by policies that have a positive and long-lasting effect on Canadians. Furthermore, my Liberal colleagues and I will remain committed to building a richer, fairer, greener Canada together.