House of Commons Hansard #59 of the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was seniors.
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
Mr. Speaker, I will try to keep it short. I understand that my NDP colleague's blood pressure goes up when he hears such things. The Conservative member said it best when he said that it was no accident that the budget was like this.
Does my NDP colleague agree with me that this is nothing but a right-wing budget? It focuses on war, nuclear power—
Financial Statement of Minister of FinanceThe BudgetGovernment Orders
Some hon. members
—and oil companies.
Yves Lessard Bloc Chambly—Borduas, QC
And oil companies as well. It focuses on war, nuclear power and oil companies, at the expense of social programs.
Is this not sad? There is no point in arguing, because the budget represents an inescapable right-wing ideological choice for them.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau
The member for Acadie—Bathurst has one minute to respond.
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Mr. Speaker, I first want to thank the member for caring enough to be concerned about my blood pressure. There is no need for concern, though, because my blood pressure is fine.
It is true that it is sad to hear such things. This is the government that eliminated the funding provided for status of women, to help women obtain equality in this country. Organizations worked hard, but the government cut that.
With the stroke of a pen, the government also cut the court challenges program, which helped minorities and francophones. The funding was only $2 million, which was not much.
It went against the Conservatives' ideology. They do not want to give money to organizations that can do things for our society. That is their ideology. The ideology of the Americans, the American machine, is that individuals have to take care of their own problems; the government is putting tax money back into people's pockets, but these individuals are realizing that it is costing them a lot of money because there are no more communities—
The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau
Resuming debate.
The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis.
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Mississauga—Erindale.
The budget reminds us of a popular sitcom of the 1990s, the same one the Toronto Star referenced in its headline the morning after the budget was delivered, a headline that called the budget speech a show about nothing.
The budget also reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, that charming fantasy set in the dust bowl of the depression. In other words, the budget is all smoke and mirrors, smoke coming from the big blue curtain the government hides behind, the distorting mirrors of the Conservatives' media machine that exaggerate and deform the truth.
It is a budget whose paltry economic vision has been amplified out of all proportion, using the tools of modern communication, including the studios of the Conservative Party's warehouse of wholesale untruths located on the outskirts of the nation's capital where Conservative spin doctors create their misleading ad campaigns.
First, the budget is without sense, the kind of good economic sense Canada needs to prosper in the 21st century.
Second, this is a budget without heart, the kind of heart needed to help the sick, the poor and the homeless.
Third, this is a budget without courage, the kind of courage needed to tackle the country's growing environmental and infrastructure needs.
Indeed, no matter how much the wizard tries to dress it up, this budget will lead Canada down the yellow brick road to long term economic stagnation.
As Jeffrey Simpson has said in the Globe and Mail, “The government's economic plans are rooted in economic illiteracy”. I must confess, for the longest while, I thought the Conservative government was simpleminded and simplistic in its approach to public policy, especially economic policy.
Now I see that the government overcomplicates things. It engages in policy contortions that would make the acrobats of the Cirque du Soleil envious. The government's overcomplication is either the result of an attempt to layer political gimmick on top of political gimmick or, alternatively, the product of a profound confusion about economic realities.
Allow me to delve in to some of the government's past economic actions because the budget speech references these so frequently that reading it we experience a kind of déjà vu.
In the past the government cut the GST to, as it today claims, stimulate the economy and counter a recession it did not even know was on its way. Now it says it wants to stimulate savings with a tax-free savings account, or is it trying to stimulate spending? It is hard to know.
The same wizard turned a deficit in Ontario into a surplus with a wave of his wand, at least until the auditors came in to tell us it was all Conservative sleight of hand and that he had left a $5 billion deficit for the good people of Ontario. The same wizard says he is encouraging savings through the tax-free savings account to allow for more spending.
All economists said it was folly to cut the GST. Now they say the tax-free savings account is a gimmick. The question that arises is the following. If the government believes in fostering choice, and it talks incessantly about choice for barley farmers and for families in choosing their child care, why has it not all along fostered financial choice, giving people the choice to spend or save by cutting income taxes? That is not only lowering the tax burden, but allowing taxpayers to decide for themselves what to do with those tax savings.
In any event the tax-free savings account will save a few wealthy Canadians a few dollars and earn Canada's banks a few extra dollars charging fees to open and manage such accounts, fees that could even wipe out the forecasted tax savings. It is smoke from the wizard behind the big blue curtain.
The budget provides that the government will pay down $10 billion of debt this year. That is wonderful. Let us be clear, it is important to pay down the debt. The previous Liberal government proved the importance of running surpluses and paying down the debt over and over again.
What rule is the government employing to decide how much debt to repay in a given year? Why will it pay down $10 billion of debt this year then only $2 billion next year and $1 billion the year after? Where is the consistency? Where is the logic? Where is the economic good sense? How does the government decide how much debt to repay from one year to the next? How does it decide how much of the surplus to put toward Canada's $123 billion infrastructure deficit that is growing worse?
It obviously does not have a financial rule or even a simple rule of thumb that it applies from one year to the next. Maybe the wizard uses a Ouija board.
As I said, the budget has no heart. It fails to address health care needs, child care or housing needs. Others have addressed these budget shortcomings in their speeches, so I will go on to the third point which is that the budget lacks courage.
It does not deal with the crucial issues of environmental infrastructure, especially those in the area of water treatment. I mention this because of my role as Liberal opposition water critic but also as a member of Parliament from a riding located in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin where water treatment issues have an important bearing on the quality of local watersheds.
There is nothing new in the budget for enhancing water treatment in the basin, even though the city of Montreal has recently announced plans to build a $200 million ozonization plant to disinfect Montreal's waste water and improve water quality in the St. Lawrence. The city, incidentally, has also committed to upgrading its water distribution system which is old and leaking.
To illustrate the glaring need for investments in Canada's water treatment infrastructure, one need only refer to a recent study by Statistics Canada on the state of this country's municipal infrastructure. The study showed that while the average age of public infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, has been falling in most provinces for the past seven years, there are ongoing needs in the area of water infrastructure.
Canada's stock of water treatment plants declined by 1.1% a year on average from 2001 to 2007. As a result, the average age of this infrastructure has edged up from 17.4 to 17.8 years. Last year 63% of waste water treatment assessments had passed their useful life. Moreover, while the stock of sanitary and storm sewers has increased 1% a year on average since 2001, this growth rate was not large enough to reverse their aging as the average age reached a record high of 17.9 years in 2007.
More specifically, the government needs to invest in upgrading water and waste water treatment in Ontario's areas of concern and in the zone d'intervention prioritaire in the St. Lawrence. According to Environment Canada, $3 billion is required over the next five years for plant upgrades in these areas, $2.4 billion for the areas of concern and $0.6 billion for the zone d'intervention prioritaire. I believe the federal government should cover half of this amount with the provinces of Quebec and Ontario providing the other half.
When one considers Great Lakes sites in Ontario outside the areas of concern, figures from the ministry of public infrastructure renewal in Ontario have indicated an infrastructure deficit of approximately $15.7 billion in water and waste water treatment. The total water and waste water infrastructure deficit for Ontario as a whole over the next 15 years will be $34 billion, including the areas of concern, of which $25 billion is required for renewal of infrastructure and $9 billion for new additional infrastructure.
According to the Green Budget Coalition, 80% of this funding is required for the Great Lakes basin.
In conclusion, the budget leaves a lot to be desired. In essence, what we witnessed was less a serious financial exercise than a performance with little meaningful content.
Rahim Jaffer Conservative Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Mr. Speaker, I was listening with some trepidation to that last speech. I was kind of surprised to hear some of the comments that the member was making, especially because the party that is now in opposition was always saying it was for municipalities. It was always talking about the importance of infrastructure. But when it comes to actually putting the money where its mouth is, it seems to be somehow absent, and I use that term loosely.
We have the gas tax, something that even the member supported in some of his previous work. In the budget not only have we said that the gas tax is now going to continue on but it is going to be permanent, something that I think the member supported at one point in time.
I want to challenge the member. If he hates the budget as much as he seems to suggest in his speech, then is he planning to vote against it tonight and put an end to its misery? Is that what he is planning on doing? Maybe he could enlighten us on that.
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Mr. Speaker, first, concepts like gas tax transfers, making them permanent, and money for infrastructure for communities and cities are all Liberal concepts. The government is operating within the framework of Liberal ideas because it has no ideas of its own. As the Globe and Mail has said, the policy cupboard is bare.
The budget is like a rickety old gas guzzler stalled by the side of the road. A person slows down to see if he or she can help but realizes it is hopeless. Besides that, the driver is absent, so the individual moves on. At most, the person notifies the authorities that there is a nuisance by the side of the road.
The opposition will bring the government down on an issue on which Canadians want us to bring it down. He can count on that.
If the Conservatives continue with meaningless budgets like this, as we move to serious and difficult economic times, the next time they produce an economic statement or something that they try to pass off as a budget, the Conservative government will not see the next morning.
Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is often said that the hallmark of a just society is how we treat our most vulnerable. If the member is not prepared to bring down the government based on this budget and how it treats the poor, on what exactly will it bring the government down?
The Liberal Party has had the member for York Centre travelling the country, saying that the Liberals really care about fighting poverty and that this time they really mean it. Yet, the Liberals are going to allow the budget to pass, and that does nothing to lift the poor out of their current condition.
The government's answer to lifting poor seniors out of poverty was to tell them to get a job. Instead of raising the GIS, it said that it would not claw back the first $3,500 of income earned. That is not what seniors wanted. Seniors wanted an increase in the GIS.
Let me provide a couple of other examples. There is no increase to the national child benefit supplement in this budget, no investment in child care, no new money for affordable housing, no increase to the minimum wage, no increase to maternity leave benefits and still no proactive pay equity legislation. Yet, the member's party will let the budget pass.
Could the member explain why his party is going across the country telling people that fighting poverty is the number one issue, yet, when it is time to stand up and be counted, it is not going to vote against the budget?
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
I do not believe, Mr. Speaker, that our party has any lessons to take from the NDP on the subject of adherence to principle. I have seen the NDP Party vote against principles it claims to embrace, whether it be the principles under GERD, the Kelowna accord or the child care agreements that the previous Liberal government signed with the provinces.
I remember the 1988 election and that reminiscence will be the subject for another time.
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be given the opportunity to speak to budget 2008, a budget, as in previous Conservative budgets, that has let Canadians down.
As a member of the official opposition, my job is to critically evaluate the performance of the Conservative government and hold it to account, and that is an easy job. It is an easy job to show how incompetent and incapable the Conservative government is. However, only exposing the weaknesses of the Conservative government is not good enough.
I think Canadians expect other members of Parliament to put forward their own ideas, to inspire them and to show a vision and ideas that will advance Canada further and improve the welfare of Canadians.
Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to focus on what I think a Liberal budget would contain. By the way, it is not because I am afraid of being sued by the Conservatives. It is because I think a lot of my colleagues here today have shown and exposed a lot of the weaknesses in the budget, and I have done that in my previous speeches.
Today I want to talk about what a Liberal budget would contain. It certainly would contain a lot of items that would advance Canada and would make it an even better place than it is today. It would pay attention to the concerns with which Canadians deal.
We have issues of the economy, the environment, infrastructure, health care, affordable housing, post-secondary education, smart integration for immigrants and poverty.
Let us start with the economy. There is very little doubt that we are heading toward uncertain economic times. A lot of industries are struggling, particularly the manufacturing industry, especially in Ontario. My riding hires about 50% of the jobs, so it is a very important segment of the industry of our economy, not only in Mississauga but also in the rest of Ontario and across Canada.
What is the role of the government when a sector of the economy faces some challenges? There are two ideologies.
One ideology believes that a government has no role, that it should not intervene and that it should let the so-called marketplace forces get rid of certain industries or fix certain industries. In the meantime, jobs are lost and industries are devastated.
On the other hand, some people believe government can play a positive role in society and can help smooth out transitions and help facilitate economic growth. If one believes in that, one believes the government, during these uncertain times, has a role to play to facilitate the transition or the challenges that manufacturing industries go through.
We know they are temporary. We know they are part of the economic cycles. The best thing for a government to do is to smooth out that transition, so in the future, the manufacturing sector can carry the burden for other sectors that may struggle, and continue to pay taxes and create jobs for Canadians.
A Liberal budget would have contained incentives to create an environment for private investment. It would have created some form of partnership. It would have created tax incentives to attract domestic and foreign investment. Other countries do that. Canada is falling behind. Given the ongoing economic and international economic conditions, our jobs are being transferred somewhere else because the government is not doing what it needs to be doing.
It also would have created a healthier environment for research and development. For example, in our system currently, there are tax credits for companies that invest in research and development, but those tax credits are not refundable. They can only get them accredited against a profit. Currently some of the manufacturing companies are not experiencing any profits because of the downturn. The forestry industry as well is not seeing any profits, again because it is facing some challenges. What does that do? It disincentivizes them from what they need to be doing, which is focusing on research and development and building for the future.
A Liberal budget would introduce some form of partially refundable tax incentive, which would mean that a corporation would get some of the tax credit refunded before they would be able to record a profit to help it sustain that research initiative so it could build for the future.
On the environment, there is very little argument, even from the Conservatives, that climate change is a big global challenge. Canadians expect their government to take a leadership role on that file.
A Liberal budget would introduce measures, not only to set targets for greenhouse gas emissions, but to create incentives for industries and individuals so they would be able to reach those targets. It is a similar to the manufacturing industry. We are going through a transitional period, from our current practices, whether at an industrial or at a consumer level, to a much more conscious level of carbon emissions and environmental footprints. We need a government to play a positive role in the transition period, and a Liberal government would have done that.
We heard a lot over the last while about the infrastructure deficit our country faces. Canadian cities are the economic engines of our economy. It is important that a government supports its cities in providing services, like roads, schools, community centres and bridges, so that the economic engine is sustained and is able to grow.
This is not just important for the people who live in cities. This is important for people who live in Canada. Everybody relies on those economic engines, whether we live in cities or in rural areas. Therefore, it is important for a government to play a partnership role with cities so they are able to confront the challenge of infrastructure deficit and build for the future. We do not want to leave the country worse off to our next generation than we have inherited.
I am proud to say that our leader, the Leader of the Opposition, has made a courageous and innovative announcement about investment in infrastructure. Therefore, again it comes down to what we believe in, whether we believe that a federal government has a role to play in facilitating the economic, social and environmental growth of a country or not. The Liberal Party does and would have introduced in a Liberal budget measures to invest in infrastructure.
On health care, today the medical associations are on the Hill. They have told us about the shortage of doctors and nurses. This is something where the federal government can also play a role in partnership with our provinces. This is an issue to which the Liberal government paid lot of attention to in the past. In 2005 the former prime minister signed a $41 billion deal with the provinces to increase investment in health care. I can assure members that a Liberal budget would have contained a substantive measure to invest in health care.
I know I am running out of time, so I want to talk about an issue that is very much debated, and that is payment toward debt. Canadians discuss this all the time. How do we use the surplus?
This year's surplus was close to $13 billion. A Liberal government, as it has historically done, would have approached it in a balanced approach. We would have paid down part of the debt, but we also would have recognized the fact that the country has severe needs and aspirations. We would have invested in the future of our country. We would have invested in infrastructure, as I said. We would have invested in the environment.
While it is important to keep the debt down, it is also important to invest in the future. Again, it is not only good for us but it is essential for future generations.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau
Because I will have to interrupt the member at 5:15 p.m., there is only time for one short question.
The hon. member for Kitchener—Conestoga.
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's comments and he repeatedly used the words “the Liberal government would have”. The Liberal government would have fixed the infrastructure problem. It would have solved the climate change issue. It would have solved the health care problem.
I have two questions. First, why did the Liberal government not do that in the 13 years it had to address these issues? Second, will the member have the courage tonight to come and support this budget or will he take the easy route out and stay away?
The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau
The hon. member for Mississauga—Erindale has one minute to respond.
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga—Erindale, ON
That is not fair, Mr. Speaker. He had more than one minute to ask his question.
The fact is that the Liberal Party is the reason Canada has been experiencing so much economic and social growth over the last 13 years. I want to thank the hon. member for helping me to remind Canadians of that fact. Canadians remember that we had eight consecutive surplus budgets, which never happened before in Confederation. We had unprecedented economic growth. We had unprecedented social development. I thank my hon. colleague for reminding us of what happened.
As far as the budget is concerned, he has no ground to stand on. The opposition leader at the time, who is now the Prime Minister, abstained in 2005 from a budget because he chose when to bring down the government. We will choose when to bring down the government and--
The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau
It being 5:15, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of ways and means Motion No. 6.
The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?
Financial Statement of Minister of FinanceThe BudgetGovernment Orders
Some hon. members
Agreed.
No.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau
All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.
Financial Statement of Minister of FinanceThe BudgetGovernment Orders
Some hon. members
Yea.
Financial Statement of Minister of FinanceThe BudgetGovernment Orders
Some hon. members
Nay.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Royal Galipeau
In my opinion the nays have it.
And five or more members having risen:
Call in the members.
The Speaker Liberal Peter Milliken
I declare the motion carried.
It being 5:47 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.