Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this matter. I want to welcome my colleague from Vancouver Quadra. Now that I know her better, I hope the 2010 Olympic Games will be held in her riding and that she will participate in the figure skating events because I think she has the required skills, having skated around the questions she was asked the way she did.
When one is against something, one does not vote in favour of it. We may possibly never form the government, in fact we will certainly never form it. Our goal is not to form the government; it is to reform it. It is not true to say that we are going to compromise our principles. The Bloc Québécois is voting against Bill C-50. We could have said to my colleague from Vancouver Quadra that there are very many possible arguments for voting against this bill. I will give just a few, as I seem to have only 10 minutes.
Take agriculture for example. As far as agriculture is concerned, this budget provides only $72 million over two years. A number of sectors in our country, in Canada, are currently dealing with an agriculture crisis. In the nation of Quebec, the agriculture crisis is present every day. Some $72 million over two years for all of Canada is certainly not enough. This government has not been listening to the demands of the farm workers.
Then there is employment insurance. I do not want to repeat the arguments of my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst, who gave many arguments on the employment insurance fund. The only thing I want to say to him is that he had better get back to his riding as soon as he can in the next few hours because his junior team from Acadie—Bathurst is going to have a hard time making it to the playoffs, let alone winning. Things are not going well right now, just like with employment insurance.
This government decided to create the employment insurance financing board. The government can go ahead and create whatever board it wants, but we want to know whether it will return the $57 billion it stole from the employment insurance fund, and that it stole from workers. This started under the Liberals. I understand why the Liberals will vote in favour of Bill C-50; it is becoming clear. They will have to deal with the problem if, by some misfortune, they return to power in the next few decades. The Liberals could end up dealing with the problem of returning the money they stole from workers.
I do not want to repeat what the member for Acadie—Bathurst said, but we could have done so many things with the $54 billion to address the terrible economic crisis going on in some regions in Canada, particularly in Quebec and Ontario, in the manufacturing and forestry industries. Obviously, this does not affect Calgary very much.
The Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec tells us that if there are not enough jobs in Quebec, all a person has to do is go work in Calgary, because there are jobs there. Try saying that to someone who is 55, 56, 57, 58, who has 12 years left on his mortgage, who works in Béarn in Témiscamingue or in Clairval in Abitibi. This person would say that he spent his life working in a sawmill, that he started at 18, and that he thought he was entitled to a decent retirement.
The employment insurance fund could have helped create a program for older worker adjustment, or POWA, which the Bloc has been calling for for over four years. I have been here for four years, and I have been hearing about it for four years. Neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are able to, want to, or have the political will to create a POWA. It would not be expensive. The Conservatives could have included it in the budget. But they put nothing in the budget about employment insurance and nothing about assistance for older workers.
Older workers will remember this. And so will seniors, whose situation is even worse.
The employment insurance fund has been stolen. I very much like the comment made by the hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst who said that at 3 p.m. today, thanks to the Conservatives with the support of the Liberals, the $54 billion theft will be legitimized. It is worse than the great train robbery. That is exactly what we will be doing by creating the new employment insurance financing board. That will be the end of the employment insurance fund. It will be gone, but will those who paid into it be reimbursed? No, no. That money was used to buy helicopters that barely fly, submarines that sink because they do not work very well, and rifles and guns. That money was used to invest $1 billion a year to go to Afghanistan, even though we have no business being there. I hope everyone will remember that.
All things considered, the worst theft is still the election promise the Conservatives made to seniors. I remember it; I heard it. They promised that, if elected, they would give the guaranteed income supplement retroactively to seniors. As soon as they were elected, they reneged on that election promise.
The Conservatives could have included that measure in the budget. They had the money to do so, with their $11 billion surplus. It would have cost less than $1 billion to help our seniors get by. I am saying this for the benefit of everyone aged 70 and older, particularly my mother, who lost $12,000 because of the Conservatives and their ridiculous promise. They would have been better off not to make a their stupid promise to give seniors full retroactivity on the guaranteed income supplement. Many seniors lost $4,000, $7,000 or even $12,000. They were entitled to seven years of retroactivity, but they are being given only one year's worth.
On the other hand, when someone owes the government money, I guarantee it can go back as far as five years and demand retroactive payments. The Conservative Party in power, however, decided to grant retroactive payments for only up to 12 months. Yet the Conservatives owe seniors the money that was stolen from them. Will they pay it back? No. That is another reason why will vote against this bill.
I am the Bloc Québécois aboriginal affairs critic. I have heard some good ones in my time. I do not want to bring up the Kelowna accord, like the Liberals, who turned it into their pet issue. I just want to say that the government could have helped and had the money to help aboriginal peoples deal with the terrible crises they are up against right now. Not far from here, just 165 kilometres north of Ottawa, in the community of Kitcisakik, people are living in 18th century conditions. They do not have running water, a water system or a sewer system, and they live in hunt camps.
The government promised to fix the problem, but it did nothing for aboriginals. The government will argue that it is spending $660 million over two years—$330 million per year—but aboriginal communities in Quebec alone need 10,000 housing units. Nunavik and the whole far north shore have to be totally rebuilt because of the melting permafrost.
Unfortunately, I have just a minute left. I have a lot more to say about this, but what I really want to say is that the government would not even have had to put more money into its social housing budget. The funds could have come from CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which has an astronomical surplus. The government could have invested $1 billion from that surplus— which would not even have made a dent—to help with social housing. Yet the government has shunted that file aside and refuses to talk about it.
This government made so many promises that it did not keep.
At 3 p.m. this afternoon, the members of the Bloc Québécois will not be afraid. We will stand up and vote against this budget.