Mr. Speaker, this budget is a missed opportunity to help our economy recover and help Canadian families make ends meet during this increasingly deep and painful recession. As such, I will be opposing this fiscally and socially irresponsible budget.
The Conservative-Liberal budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year pushes ahead with a treasury-draining $60 billion in corporate tax cuts that can only go into the well-lined pockets of shareholders of the most profitable Canadian companies. While shovelling money into pockets of the wealthiest companies and shareholders, this Conservative-Liberal budget also ensures that ordinary Canadians will continue to suffer throughout this long and painful crisis. The appalling $84 billion deficit will ensure that the children of ordinary Canadians also suffer unjustly.
The government continues to sit and collect interest on the $54 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund and offers no help to the 73% of workers who pay into this fund but are unable to draw from it once they lose their jobs. Even more appalling is that making employment insurance more accessible to those neglected 73% of Canadians and their families would not have added even a single dollar to the massive deficit in this budget. It would have come from the $54 billion stand-alone fund that sits untouched.
To those Canadians who need access to employment insurance funds but are denied, I say that Canada's New Democrats are here, standing with you in spirit in this House, to oppose this budget and the social injustice that it perpetuates and in many cases intensifies.
On the issue of forestry, this government has the nerve and arrogance to table a budget that contains $60 billion for permanent corporate tax cuts and just $170 million for the struggling forestry sector that provides employment to nearly one million Canadians and which has been in its own recession for more than five years.
Thought of another way, this Conservative-Liberal budget provides just $170 million to help struggling forestry families get through this crisis while handing out $60 billion to the well off shareholders of Canada's most profitable corporations. It is as if the Minister of Finance thinks the people of our northern communities and forestry towns simply do not exist. We do exist and we are proud to stand here today in opposition to this budget.
Contrary to what this Conservative-Liberal government thinks, and indeed contrary to what the Premier of Ontario thinks, forestry is not a sunset industry. New Democrats have come to expect the sort of cold-hearted and irresponsible policy that is contained in this budget from the current government. After all, it is the one who destroyed the fiscal capacity of the Government of Ontario before moving on like locusts to destroy the once robust fields of our federal treasury.
The government can do so in this budget only if it is enabled by the official opposition. Sadly, it would appear that this will be the case and I dare say the federal treasury will never be the same. Each and every member of the official opposition that stands in support of this budget should hang their heads in shame for the fact that they have turned their backs on the most vulnerable Canadians they said they would protect just 72 short hours ago. I will leave it to them to explain to their constituents why they think the current government is better suited to deal with this crisis than they.
The people of Thunder Bay—Rainy River told me what our riding needed from this budget and I am sad to see that our needs are not being met by the contents of this document. There is no extension of VIA rail service to Thunder Bay and rural communities, just more trains between Canada's two largest urban municipalities. There is no mention of shipbuilding at our facilities in Thunder Bay.
The money in the budget for first nations infrastructure and health is welcome but it is not adequate. There is next to nothing in this budget that will improve rural access to family doctors, physiotherapists and mental health and emergency care facilities.
There is a significant amount of money allotted for the upgrading of border facilities in British Columbia and southern and eastern Ontario but apparently no money for upgrading the Rainy River, Fort Frances and Pigeon River crossings, the three international border crossings that are in my riding.
There is some new money for infrastructure but no mention of support for small projects like the Royal Canadian Legion in Kakabeka Falls. Municipalities in my riding cannot afford matching funds for the infrastructure projects they need. Non-profit organizations cannot afford large loans to improve their infrastructure and operations so they can continue to provide services to seniors, children and families in rural communities like Rainy River, Upsala and Atikokan. Because these and other local concerns are not adequately addressed in this budget, I will vote against the passage of this budget.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to thank the liberal, green and progressive-minded constituents in my riding who voiced their support for our attempt to form a Liberal-New Democrat coalition government. I and the entire New Democrat caucus entered into that endeavour for the right reasons: to provide a stable, progressive and cooperative government that reflected the values of 62% of Canadian voters. Because of the shortsighted and ill-advised capitulation of the official opposition to the government on this budget, our progressive endeavour did not succeed.
I want to thank those in my riding, particularly progressive Liberals, who reached out and extended a hand in partnership and trust. Their support and efforts in this common cause were greatly appreciated and will not be forgotten. My door remains open today and tomorrow.
It is in the spirit of social justice, fiscal responsibility and progressive values that I will be casting my vote in opposition to this budget.