Mr. Speaker, today I would like to repeat, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, the position we have maintained since the budget was introduced. The Minister of Finance asked to meet with the opposition parties, and we met with the finance critics and deputy finance critics to inform them of the Bloc's positions and demands concerning the budget. But we were extremely disappointed to discover that the budget presented by the Minister of Finance did not contain a single measure that would truly address the demands of the Bloc Québécois and, in particular, of the people of Quebec. The Bloc Québécois members in the House of Commons represent the majority of ridings in Quebec. The Quebec nation and the people of Quebec expected much more from a federal budget.
I will remind members of the conditions we set for supporting this budget. We called for direct and immediate assistance for the manufacturing and forestry sectors. I will go into a bit more detail later, but there was nothing of note in this budget for these sectors. The budget does not offer adequate and fair assistance for the workers and communities affected by the crisis in the manufacturing and forestry sectors. It does not provide for any measures to reimburse the seniors who were swindled out of the guaranteed income supplement. The Conservatives made a promise about this during the last election campaign—yet another promise that was not kept. The Conservative government keeps breaking promises from one session to the next. It continues to take a polluter-paid approach, instead of adopting a polluter-pay approach. It refuses to do a 180-degree turn on the environment. The environment is very important to Quebeckers.
Once again, there is nothing in this budget to address that. It does not provide for any major investment in culture, nor does it do anything about the ideological cuts already announced by the Conservative government. Worse yet, it reiterates the government's plan to set up a single securities commission, an idea that has met with strong opposition in Quebec. Hardly anyone supports the idea of setting up a single securities commission. It is clear that the Minister of Finance and the Conservative government have chosen to give market forces free rein even though market forces are working against people in Quebec.
With their laissez-faire policy, the Conservative government and the Minister of Finance have slashed funding for many programs, suspended others, and encouraged cheap imports by leaving loopholes in trade laws and not acting on the recommendations of the trade tribunal. Everyone is talking about globalization nowadays, and this House's failure to do anything has given competitors the window they need to gain strength.
Quebec's economy is becoming less and less competitive, and job losses are piling up. There is nothing in this budget to help Quebec. That is clear. For example, Quebec's manufacturing sector, which used to be one of the province's strengths, has been turning into one of its weaknesses since early 2003. In Quebec, 148,000 jobs have been lost, 35,000 of those in 2006 and 43,000 in 2007. Some 78,000 jobs have been lost since the Conservatives came to power. That is significant. Those 78,000 jobs were lost in Quebec's manufacturing sector, one of our key sectors. The budget offers nothing at all to support this sector.
Rather than do something to alleviate the crisis, the Conservatives are making it worse with their laissez-faire approach. All they have done is lower corporate taxes. Cutting corporate taxes for companies that do not pay taxes because they do not make a profit is meaningless. That is the truth.
Overall, in 2007, businesses in Quebec did not turn a profit, so the tax cuts do not apply. One of these days, the minister is going to have to admit that these corporate tax cuts have not put an end to the devastation in the manufacturing and forestry sectors. At the same time, these cuts have enabled the oil companies to save millions of dollars.
A major share of the $14.1 billion in tax cuts the Conservative government announced in its economic statement last fall will go to the oil companies. Once again, by not taking action or by bringing in measures designed solely to reduce corporate taxes, the government is not helping a truly fragile sector in Quebec.
The banks are another sector that has received generous treatment from the Conservative government in this budget. While the oil industry in western Canada is rolling in dough, the manufacturing industry in Quebec is going through a serious crisis. High-quality, well-paying jobs with attractive benefits that created wealth in the manufacturing sector are being lost in favour of unstable retail jobs and self-employment in Quebec and Ontario.
According to the TD Bank, laid-off manufacturing workers will lose an average of $10,000 of income annually if they take jobs in the service sector.
I can give a striking example. In my riding, in Shawinigan, the Belgo pulp and paper plant, which employed 550 well-paid workers, closed last fall with almost no notice. The company closed a plant that paid very good wages. I am convinced that the Toronto Dominion Bank's statistics are accurate for the workers who found other work. They found new jobs, but at much lower pay.
The region's whole economy is suffering, and the same scenario is being played out all through Quebec. Well-paying jobs are being replaced by jobs in the service sector that often pay minimum wage or very low wages.
Meanwhile, after bringing down a budget that does nothing to help industries in trouble, the Conservative government is telling us that jobs are being created. But these are poor-quality jobs that pay much less, with the result that Quebec is becoming poorer.
The minister must stop spouting his Conservative propaganda and admit that the employment shift from the manufacturing sector to the service sector, to retail for example, has cost Canadian families more than $1 billion in revenue in 2007. That is a lot of money.
In addition to the strong Canadian dollar, which is bringing down the Quebec manufacturing sector, the financial crisis affecting the global economy will reduce Quebec manufacturing exports, thereby exacerbating the crisis they are already facing. The proof is in the numbers.
In the first three months of 2008, Quebec exports fell by 6% compared to the same quarter last year. Statistics therefore clearly show that the manufacturing sector is really suffering.
This Minister of Finance, who advocates economic Darwinism, says again and again that his government did what was needed by lowering corporate taxes. This drop in Quebec exports means lower profits and lower taxes, but lower taxes do not help a business that is not making any profits.
As I was saying earlier, the Conservative government's economic laissez-faire approach with this budget does nothing to help businesses that are not turning a profit—and that is generally the case in Quebec at this time. We definitely do not see how anyone could support this budget.
Yet the minister had the means to do something. Instead he chose to let things take their course, once again. Instead of allocating $10.2 billion to pay down the debt, the Minister of Finance could have put forward direct assistance measures to help the manufacturing and forestry sectors survive the crisis. This was a true error in judgment. Good judgment seems to be quite rare in this government.
The manufacturing sector needs a boost from the government in order to overcome the extremely rapid rise in the value of the Canadian petrodollar. The Canadian dollar is currently at par with the American dollar.
It is no coincidence that it has reached that level. It is in fact because of overproduction, the production of oil and the extremely generous help the Conservative government is giving that industry. That is what is behind the rising dollar, but, in the meantime, the adverse effect of all this is that the manufacturing industry in Quebec is suffering. The industry has a much harder time being competitive when our dollar is on par with the U.S. dollar and it is therefore less able to face international competition. Again, the government helps the oil industry, which harms the manufacturing industry in Quebec. What is more, the government is not doing anything in particular to help that industry.
The federal government, through the Minister of Finance, preferred to lower taxes rather than to help businesses make the necessary investments. For a long time now, we have been calling on the government to help by providing loan guarantees or doing something to support businesses, whether through subsidies or loan guarantees, in order to help them become competitive. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology had listed the conditions that would enable the manufacturing industry to survive, but the Minister of Finance ignored them all.
The Conservative government continues to allow the oil companies to benefit from major tax breaks through accelerated capital cost allowance. The minister said they would gradually abolish that measure. He gave himself until 2012 or 2013. If nothing is done for Quebec by then, what will remain of its manufacturing and forestry industries?
The minister has to take his blinders off and acknowledge that instead of adopting this laissez-faire attitude and focusing on the debt, he could have taken $3 billion or, at most, $4 billion out of the $10.2 billion to truly help the manufacturing industry. The hon. member who spoke before me said that when we are on the brink of bankruptcy, it is time to take action. When the roof is leaking, it is time to plug the holes. That is what the Conservative government is refusing to do.
Currently in Quebec, I cannot say that the roof is leaking, but it does not look good. It needs good support for some renewed vigour. This laissez-faire attitude and focus on the debt used by a government full of dinosaurs—those are not our words, that is what journalists called them the day after the budget was brought down—is causing the de-industrialization of Quebec and Ontario. The government could, for once and for all, adopt the real industrial revitalization strategy the Bloc Québécois has been advocating.
While the manufacturing sector is reeling from rising energy costs, oil companies reap record profits and the minister continues to subsidize them. Had he demonstrated a minimum of leadership, he would have immediately abolished the tax benefits given to oil companies and proposed real strategies to encourage research and development, particularly by introducing refundable tax credits. Will the minister wake up one day and abolish the tax incentives for oil companies and replace them with refundable research and development tax credits for the manufacturing sector?
At present, this government is a menace to the Quebec economy. By giving significant tax incentives to oil companies, failing to put in place a real plan to fight greenhouse gas emissions and introducing an equalization formula that only takes into account one half of oil and gas revenues, it has added more measures that favour the oil sector. These actions, which are irresponsible in terms of the economy and the environment, inflate Canada's petrodollar, and that, in turn, dampens the considerable efforts made by Quebec and its manufacturing sector to weather the economic disruptions affecting global markets.
Once again, could the government and its minister consider the interests of the Quebec nation rather than concentrating solely on quenching the thirst for oil of its Republican friends in the U.S. and encouraging Canada's bad environmental behaviour? It is not too late to take action. In spite of this budget—dubbed the dinosaur budget—the government could establish a plan to truly support the manufacturing sector.
The Government of Quebec has allocated $620 million—I will move on to another topic shortly—to support the manufacturing and forestry sectors, while the federal government injected $2 billion over three years for all of Canada. In light of the Government of Quebec's enormous effort, how can the federal government contribute so little?
It is very disappointing that the federal government allocated just a billion dollars over three years when it had a $10.2 billion surplus that it could have used to provide real support to the manufacturing sector.
As if that were not enough, it turns out that the $1 billion trust, which will subsidize jobs lost between 2005 and 2008, adds up to about $2,275 for each job lost in the manufacturing and forestry sectors in Quebec. In Alberta, that same amount over three years adds up to $20,000 per job lost. Clearly, that is not fair.
The government made a big show of announcing its $1 billion trust, but the trust is completely unfair to places where the manufacturing sector is really important. Alberta will get $20,000 per job lost, while Quebec will get $2,200. That is really unfair. Add to that the fact that industry is flourishing in Alberta. With an industry in such good shape, they do not need $20,000 per job lost.
How can the minister justify such an under-achieving, poorly designed plan? He has completely failed to understand the economic situation in Quebec.
I would also like to talk about another budget issue: the fiscal imbalance. The Conservatives pride themselves on having resolved the fiscal imbalance. However, the Séguin report in Quebec, which all Quebeckers agreed with, identified three major, specific deliverables with respect to resolving the fiscal imbalance.
The first was a new equalization formula that took into account total revenues of all provinces, which is not in this budget.
The report also recommended eliminating federal spending power in areas under provincial jurisdiction. We were expecting a bill during the last Speech from the Throne. Will this bill be introduced before the end of the session? This was a promise from the Conservative government. Will we see yet another promise broken? They talked about this in the House yesterday.
The federal government is having a hard time understanding real needs when it comes to its spending power. We need to talk about more than just shared-cost programs—there are none anymore—as it announced. It makes no sense. The Quebec government made it clear that it would not support the bill that we are waiting for. Will the government introduce the bill? It is important that the government keep its promises, or at least try to.
Now back to the fiscal imbalance. I was talking about the Séguin report. It also recommended replacing cash transfers with equivalent sales tax and income tax points.
If we talk about the manufacturing and forestry sectors or the fiscal imbalance—which the Conservatives committed to resolving and claim to have resolved—we are still nowhere near the point where the Conservative government has truly thought about the needs expressed by Quebec, specifically in terms of a key component of its economy, the manufacturing sector, and in terms of the fiscal imbalance, which is still far from being resolved. There is nothing about this in the budget. The Bloc Québécois will vote against the budget, that is obvious.