Debates of Oct. 1st, 2009

Opposition Motion--Government Policies

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, because it is a crucial issue.

I find it absolutely deplorable that the New Democratic Party, which claims to be a party that looks after the interests of workers and the unemployed, would buy the government's argument, because it just does not hold up. First, we must remember that the criteria to qualify for these 5 to 20 additional weeks of benefits are extremely tight as regards the benefits received in previous years. This means that a seasonal worker, in a sector where people are laid off intermittently, would not qualify. Moreover, a worker must have paid EI premiums for a certain period of time. The first thing that is unacceptable in Bill C-50, which, unfortunately, the NDP is supporting, is that it creates two classes of contributors and claimants. We have the good ones, namely those who have worked for a long time—good for them—and who have not had to rely on the EI fund. Then we have the bad ones, who have paid premiums but who, unfortunately, have had to rely on the EI program too frequently. Again, Bill C-50 should be defeated for that reason alone.

But there is more. The government is telling us that 190,000 workers will benefit from these measures if they lose their jobs. That is impossible and I can explain why very quickly. We currently have 1.6 million unemployed people in Canada. Half of them, that is 800,000, are entitled to benefits. The others do not qualify because they do not meet the eligibility criteria. So, roughly 800,000 people are getting benefits. Out of that number, 200,000, or 25%, are coming to the end of their benefits. This means that between 85% and 90% of these 200,000 people would be entitled to extended benefits. Given the criteria that are set out in Bill C-50, that is impossible. So, what the government is saying, and what the NDP is supporting, is just smoke and mirrors: it is simply not true.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, because he did not get the unanimous consent of the House, my colleague could not finish his brilliant presentation. He barely had time to mention one extremely important issue, namely, the environment.

We are well aware that the environment is not at all a priority for the Conservatives. Over the years, our country has become the caboose of the international community, when it comes to the environment. We are among the G20 countries that invest the least in that sector. We recently learned that only a very small amount of the money earmarked for renewable energies has actually been spent. It is obvious that the Conservative government has no intention to innovate in that area, it has no intention to invest in clean and renewable energies. I find it extremely unfortunate, because we in Quebec decided a long time ago to go green and to act accordingly. We have resources that allow us to develop renewable energies. Earlier, my colleague told us that the Lower St. Lawrence region had been abandoned. Without a carbon exchange, the town of Rivière-du-Loup is losing close to $1 million annually. As we can see, the Conservatives still do not understand that the environment and the economy easily can be—and must be— promoted together.

I wonder if our House leader could elaborate on this.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Repentigny, who comes from the beautiful Lanaudière region, as I do, for his question.

The approach taken by the Conservatives and the Prime Minister is completely outmoded. Today, there is not one advanced economy left that sets the economy up against the environment. That is what the Conservatives are doing, although green measures are extremely important in all of the current recovery plans, whether in the United States or Europe. This is understandable when we see that while in the case of the Liberals, decisions are made in Toronto, as the member for Bourassa said at the beginning of the week, in the case of the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister, decisions are made in Calgary. The economic development strategy is designed to meet the needs of the oil industry and the oil sands companies, and not to meet the needs of industry, of the economy of the future.

It is also not surprising when we consider that this Prime Minister reneged on Canada’s signature on the Kyoto protocol, that he reneged on the vote held in this House to ratify the Kyoto protocol, and that he described that protocol as a “socialist plot”.

It is also easy to explain when we consider that the Prime Minister preferred to have coffee and a doughnut at Tim Hortons, probably a nice chocolate glazed, rather than attend the UN’s extraordinary session on climate. It is extremely symptomatic.

Again, this environmental choice, a choice in the interests of the oil industry, is contrary to the interests of Quebec, because Quebec does not produce oil. Every time we spend a cent on oil, that money leaves Quebec. This explains a large part of our trade deficit with the rest of Canada and the world. As Quebeckers, it is in our interests to reduce our dependency on oil. That is very much not the approach taken by the Conservative government. And that is one reason why it must be banished from this place.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Joliette. We know he is an experienced economist. If the Conservative government had bothered to consult him about the economic crisis that was developing during the last election campaign, we would not be here today. The crisis was in fact hitting hard in the United States, Europe and virtually the entire world. Only in Canada did the government put on its rose-coloured glasses to persuade the public, in the middle of an election campaign, that we would be immune to the crisis.

A moment ago, my colleague referred to the ideological statement that came after the election campaign, in which this visionless government included no measures to combat the economic crisis. After that, it was politics as usual, with measures that addressed only very specific problems, like auto workers in Ontario. Again, I want this to be very clear: we are not opposed to providing assistance for auto workers in Ontario.

But how is it that this government has acted so inequitably toward workers in the manufacturing and forestry industries in Quebec, while it has been so generous to Ontario workers?

It is not just the Conservative government that has no vision, there is also the party that claims to want to replace it and that is saying today it no longer has confidence in this government, with good reason, by the way. That being said, the Liberal Party of Canada also has no vision, since it has not proposed any kind of measure to combat the effects of the economic crisis, while the Bloc Québécois has made serious proposals.

I would like my colleague to give us a few examples of what could be done to help Quebeckers who are dealing with this economic crisis, the crisis whose existence the Conservative government was still denying not so long ago.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska for his question. I think he raised a point that is worth elaborating on.

The Liberals and the Conservatives share a similar approach, even though they use different words. In terms of the economy, when did the Liberals ever stand up on behalf of the forestry industry? We moved a motion in the House one opposition day, but they voted against it. In terms of the environment, did the Liberal government, which allowed greenhouse gases to increase by 22% until 2006, do any better than the Conservatives? No. In terms of the Quebec nation, are the Liberals doing any better than the Conservatives? They deny Quebeckers working for employers under federal jurisdiction the right to work in French. They will support increasing political representation for the west, which will undermine representation of the Quebec nation in the House. In other words, both of these Canadian parties are fundamentally opposed to Quebec's interests and values.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Timmins—James Bay.

It is not every day that we have a motion of confidence in the House, so it obviously is a very serious matter. It is a matter that New Democrats take very seriously. We have had serious debate not only within our caucus but with our constituents. To put forward a motion that the House has lost confidence in the government is something that needs to be looked at very carefully.

If we look at the record of what has happened since the Conservative government was elected in 2006, it will show very clearly that the NDP has been the toughest critics of the Conservative government and its policies, right from day one.

In fact, we never had confidence in the government. We have been very clear that the overall direction it has taken on the economy, social programs, its attacks on workers, women, pay equity and the billions it has given away in corporate tax cuts have been disastrous courses of action. We have been very tough on the government. I think many Canadians have seen the New Democrats as the official opposition, that we were the ones who took on the direction of the government and stated how wrong it was.

While being the toughest critics of the government, we have also always done our very best to make this minority Parliament work. Again, if we look at the record, it will show a number of bills have come forward that have passed the House, that have gained majority support and the actions that have taken place in committees and the studies that have been undertaken have come from New Democrats.

We have all the statistics to show the number of bills we have put forward, whether it is Bill C-311, the climate change accountability bill, or Bill C-304 for a national housing strategy, which historically passed second reading last night. It only took 12 years to get back from the disastrous course that the Liberals took in the 1990s when they trashed and eliminated the great housing programs that Canada had. Look at the EI bills, some of which are now in committee, or our motion that was passed on the need to protect our seniors.

We feel very good about our work and our record in being very tough critics of the government and the direction it has taken. At the same time, we make every effort, more than 100%, to make this Parliament work for Canadians, to get things done. That is what people sent us here to do.

That is a really important point to make today. For two years the official opposition propped up the Conservatives and gave a complete green light to their agenda, whether it was those billions in corporate tax cuts, or the attacks on pay equity and women, or the attacks on the unemployed and on workers' rights. We know there were 79 substantive confidence votes they let slide.

The big question today, which is left hanging in the air, is what did they get for that? We are here now at this point with a confidence motion. After all of that record, what did the Liberals get for supporting the measures of the direction of the government for two years? We have seen the report cards, the government was put on probation, but what did the official opposition actually get?

The Liberals claimed, over and over again, that EI was their top priority. How many times did we hear this in the House? We know that in the summer they walked away from that, and they got nothing for it. All of sudden, they have decided their first priority is an election.

Clearly the New Democrats are more interested in helping the unemployed than we are in provoking an early election that people do not want. That is a very important consideration.

We talk to our constituents. We go back and we find out what people think. We ask if they think this is the right time for an election. People have clearly said that this is not a good time for an election. We have had four elections in five years. People want to see this Parliament work.

I am very proud of the New Democrats. When we came back on September 14 and the Liberals had taken the disastrous course of saying that it would an election at any cost, that they would pull the plug, we saw that as an opportunity to tell the government if it did not want an election, it had to reach out and put something on the table to make it clear that it was willing to work with the opposition parties to produce the things that Canadians needed.

The NDP are pleased to see that, finally, the Conservative government put $1 billion on the table for the EI bill. That just passed second reading in the House and it has now gone to committee. It will be studied there and come back to the House, at which time we will have a final vote. We saw that as a positive first step.

The NDP leader has been very clear with the Conservative government that the NDP does not support its overall direction and we will continue to be the toughest critic on any anti-people measures it takes. If it slams workers or cuts programs, we will continue to be its critic. However, we are prepared to look at individual proposals it brings forward. In fact, we have been very transparent about what the priorities are.

There have been no back room negotiations or deals. It has been the NDP day after day in the House that has put forward political priorities, whether it is reforming the EI system, providing help for pensioners, ensuring that consumers have protection, asking the government to come clean with its record on the HST and stop trying to duck the issue or coming clean with the people of B.C. and tell us when the negotiations started. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are now trying to run for cover on that one.

We have been very clear that the government needs to be prepared to bring forward other initiatives around EI. The question I raised earlier today with the government was whether it was now prepared to help self-employed workers. This is a very critical question.

I do not know about other members, but when I talk to folks in Vancouver East, the biggest response is from self-employed people who are really hurting because they have no cushion on which to fall. They have no protection during this recession. It is very tough for people who are self-employed, who at one time were doing quite well but in the recession are finding they cannot get the consulting work or contracts. Small businesses are going under, as well as people who are self-employed in other ways. Again, is it prepared to bring forward further changes to the EI system that will help self-employed workers?

New Democrats believe this is a constructive course of action. This is where we need to focus attention instead of playing these political games, like the Liberals now saying it is their way or it is an election.

I heard the Leader of the Opposition state earlier today in his speech, “We use elections to bring people together”. I thought that was very ironic. An election is about accountability for sure, but it is also about ensuring that people do not become weary from dealing with elections and being concerned everyday with what is going on in a recession that it divides people and further turns people off the political system. This is what the leader of the official opposition is now doing.

This election is not about bringing people together. From the Liberal point of view, this election is about serving its own political agenda. We need to call it that and be very clear.

New Democrats are prepared to work in the House and to do it in a genuine way and in good faith. We will take on the government. We will be critical of its policies, but we also want to ensure nothing stands in the way of getting the $1 billion of assistance to people who need it. We think that is a key priority. We want to ensure other measures are brought forward that will help people. That is the priority right now in this recession.

I am glad we are having this debate because it brings everything into the open. New Democrats are very clear that the priority is trying to make Parliament work. As long as that measure exists, we will certainly support it.

We hope other proposals will put on the table by the government that will help the unemployed, seniors and consumers deal with the recession they are facing every day. That is what is really important to people.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy listening to the words of my colleague, who is always clear. In a sense she is interpreting what is going on in the House today for her constituents and for Canadians in general who are wondering why the Liberals have decided now to do this.

I have a question that is specific to the British Columbia context, although it has ramifications across the country.

The first issue is the so-called harmonized sales tax, which is anything but harmonized and will bring no harmony to anyone. It is a tax hike in many areas for consumers and a rip-off from those companies who are paying right now. The second issue is the so-called softwood lumber deal, or the rip-off of the Canadian softwood lumber industry.

On both of those fronts, bills are very likely going to come forward from the government.

Canada is going to have to slap a $70 million tariff on the softwood lumber industry, which it can little afford. Thousands of jobs have been lost in the industry. This is another tax self-imposed by the government, which will go into general revenue and by law will not be returned back to lumber producers. That has to come in the form of a bill to this place.

The Liberals supported the softwood lumber sell-out all the way through its stages. They first came up with the terrible idea and then the Conservatives followed. Members may remember David Emerson flipping sides by keeping that mandate and he pushed it all the way through.

The Liberals supported the softwood lumber deal, but now they say that when the bill to rip-off lumber companies comes forward, they will vote against the very thing in which they believed.

It is the same with respect to the HST, which I think the Liberals support. They have twisted themselves into a pretzel, saying they will vote against the HST. Perhaps the member for Wascana could make it clear because nobody can truly understand. However, they support the HST but will vote against it if the government brings it forward.

The Liberals have made no sense strategically and therefore cannot maintain a narrative at all in this—

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Vancouver East.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley has raised some of the key questions that have been before Parliament and will probably come back in a legislative form.

With respect to the HST, since we came back and learned about the deal between B.C. and the federal government, we have not heard one question from the Liberals on this. The NDP has consistently raised this question, trying to find out when the negotiations began with the federal government and the B.C. government. People in B.C. would like to know whether there were discussions and, as we suspect, whether they were during or prior to the provincial election that was called.

The member is perceptive in outlining the very strange and twisted record of the official opposition, as those members try to manoeuvre around what their position has been.

When the Liberals voted 79 times to support the Conservatives on the budgets in particular, the HST was there. I do not remember hearing a peep out of Liberal members at that time, not even the ones from B.C. or from Ontario, where we now know this deal is under way.

It is the same with softwood lumber. Anybody who has followed the softwood lumber debate and the agreement that was made, knows the NDP members fought that tooth and nail the whole way.

Unfortunately, the official opposition has done this manoeuvring. The Liberals are really dealing with a self-interested, partisan question around the election as opposed to the priorities of Canadians and what we need to work on in the House.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the New Democrats and the member who just spoke, the New Democratic Party critic.

Considering everything the Conservatives have done or not done, how can she, in her comments and her way of seeing things, vote against this motion? The question is whether the House still has confidence in the government. Given everything that has happened until now and the New Democratic Party's statements, the answer is self-evident. The question is simple: does she have confidence in the current Conservative government?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in my earlier remarks I said quite clearly that New Democrats actually never had confidence in the government from day one and we have been its strongest critics on many of the policies it has brought forward.

However, we have also done our very best to make this Parliament work. We think it is most important at this particular time, when people overwhelmingly do not want an election, to say to the Conservatives that if they are prepared to bring something forward that will actually help the unemployed, and we do have the EI bill before committee, we are prepared to consider looking at supporting the bill, and that is what we are doing.

We will continue to look at that bill, and we will not stand in the way of it getting through.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am always proud to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay. When I stand in the chamber I am always reminded, whatever the form of debate, that this is the place where the great moments in Canadian history have happened. With respect to the defining debates of our generation, whether it was the debate on capital punishment, and even the debate on the extension of the mission in Kandahar, this is where we come together to debate. That being said, not all the debates are great. Some of them are rather mundane. Some of them are fractious. Parliament and democracy is a messy business, but this is where we come to discuss the various aspects of bringing this country forward.

I cannot think of a moment in recent political history where we have had a motion brought forth by the Liberal Party, or any party, that is using the pretext of creating a parliamentary crisis to set up a sideshow to divert citizens' attention from the rot and collapse of what is happening within the Liberal Party. The party looks like a deflated balloon. The Liberals are telling us that this is the moment when they will come forward, and they have brought forth nine lousy words: to bring down a government and force an election. There is no vision and no plan whatsoever.

Let us get to the point of what this is about. We can talk about the problems of the Conservative government any day; the New Democrats have done that consistently. We have never had confidence in the government, because when they brought forth motions under the guise of stimulus that stripped environmental protection on riverways, we opposed that. We opposed the Conservatives when they used the economic stimulus to strip the rights of women workers to get pay equity. We opposed them when they tried to use the economic stimulus as a cover to gut Kyoto.

However, our friends in the Liberal Party never used their position in opposition to push back or demand changes, because they have a fundamentally different view on power. We could perhaps call it the hyena rule of politics, where they would lie in the long grass waiting for government to stumble and then come in and pick up the spoils. They did not see their role in opposition as pushing back, of proposing, of demanding, alternatives.

That is what we in the New Democratic Party have done. We have pushed the government. We have opposed it. We have also said to bring forward motions in this minority context so something can happen. If that happened, then we have achieved our role as opposition.

We now have a $1 billion on the table to help the unemployed. Will it help everyone? No. We understand clearly in politics that we move incrementally to bring forward progressive change. However, the Liberals are not concerned about the $1 billion for the unemployed. They have never been interested in that. It has always been about getting back to power.

We are seeing a sideshow today, where the Liberals are trying to divert attention from the media, from the spectacle going on in their riding associations, their nomination battles and their backstabbing. They are trying to precipitate a parliamentary crisis.

That would not be so bad if they were serious. It reminds me of when I was a child and my granny would take us to see the wrestling. All the ten-year-old boys would be up there shouting and threatening to take Killer Kowalski in a fight. All it would take was for the Killer to look up and glare at us and we would all go running to our seats. We know that the Liberal Party is terrified of the polls. The member for York West said that 99% of the Liberals do not want an election. I am looking at their ranks. They do not have 99 members. That means that perhaps even the leader is saying, “yes, yes, yes”, but his knees and legs are saying, “no, no, no”.

This is an absurd spectacle, and it has to be framed this way. This party has to grow up and realize that if it is to be a 21st century party involved in participatory democracy, then the members have to start coming forward with some progressive, credible ideas that are based on the principles of parliamentary democracy.

Let us look at this farce that is taking place within the Liberal Party right now. It could be a reality TV show; it could perhaps be a tawdry Graham Greene novel. We have the butler, the would-be contender in Outremont, the butler who worked for the power corporation, the butler who was seen as a threat to the Quebec lieutenant, and the Quebec lieutenant who worked for the Count. But then there was the man in the shadows from Toronto Centre, who is also tied to a power corporation and of course tied to the puppet master, the former prime minister. We have the butler, the Quebec lieutenant, the man in the shadows and the Count.

It reads like some kind of bizarre Graham Greene novel, but what it speaks about is that not one of these players in this Outremont farce ever said that the riding association should be making the decision.

When a party loses power, it has to go back to its grassroots. It has to get revitalized. It has to come back for new ideas. People waited. They waited through five Liberal leaders in five years for these new ideas.

We may say what we want about the former Liberal leader, but he was a man who came to this House and said where he stood. We could disagree with him, but he stood on principles and he did his job. The present Liberal leader has presented us with no vision except that he believes he is fundamentally entitled to power.

We have come to this non-confidence motion: nine measly words. We have waited for this vision. Where is this vision? We have waited for an alternative to the gang of Conservatives, but there is none. There is just a sense of entitlement. They say, “Here is our list. We want power back.” There has been no attempt from this party, at any point, to come forward with a vision other than “trust us”. If there were a vision, we could debate it.

I personally think that the present Liberal leader is profoundly out of touch with average Canadians in his defence of torture, his flag-waving on the Iraq war and the very scurrilous comments he has made in the last few years about Canada's tradition of peacekeeping. He thought we took the easy way out when we were building bridges and schools overseas. That is profoundly out of touch with Canadian values.

I would like the Liberal leader to bring his vision so we could debate it in the House. Perhaps there is another way, but we have seen none of that.

We come back to the motion of today. The government has been on the wrong track for some time. We have tried to push back, but we have had a party in opposition that has sat back and allowed, time after time, the Conservatives to push through key elements of their agenda that progressive Canadians are fundamentally opposed to. We finally now have them at the table saying that they will bring forward some motions. It is not great. It is not the end of the world. It is not going to solve everything, but we finally have them at the table saying they will do something.

The Liberals are saying, “We do not want to talk about that. We want to talk about coming back to power.” We have not seen any credible position or vision from this party. Like the rest of Canadians, we are going to have to sit back and watch Tout le monde en parle to see the next steps in the reality TV show that has become the Liberal Party.

If a leader has a vision, he invigorates his party members and they stand behind him. They do not stab each other in public and try to create regional battles, pitting one city against another. That is not a party that is ready for power.

I would ask my hon. colleagues in the Liberal Party to calm their leader down, to explain that in Canada one has to go with something other than a sense of entitlement. Perhaps we need to say that this party needs to spend a little more time in the political wilderness. It needs to reinvigorate itself a little more, and it needs to spend more time understanding that in the 21st century its grassroots count, new ideas count, that it is not simply a letter of entitlement that allows it to walk in and assume power.

I do not think anybody is in the media gallery today watching this spectacle of the Liberal Party clashing its paper swords. I do not think anybody up front is watching it. They are waiting for us to get back to business, because the business at hand is very serious. We are in the worst economic crisis in a generation. We are on the verge of perhaps the most serious flu pandemic in 20 or 30 years. We are before Copenhagen with a government with no plan to deal with the serious issues of climate change.

Our role as opposition is so important. It is to propose and push the government to action. I would like to see our colleagues in the Liberal Party work with us on how we take the government and make it responsive to the Canadian people. However, there has to be something more to it than suddenly saying to the Canadian people, “We want power. We want it now. We are not going to provide you with any reason of why we want power other than the fact that we are the Liberals.”

That is why they got tossed out in the first place, and that is why their motion is seen as a farce today.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Madam Speaker, while there were some things in the hon. member's speech that I would disagree with; I want to focus on some of the things I do agree with. We are in a minority Parliament in a fairly serious global economic turndown right now. In this minority parliament the government has put forward legislation that we think is in the interests of the country. We hope that the three opposition parties will make decisions based on principle as to whether they agree with that.

On the EI bill we have put forward, the NDP has made a decision to support that one bill on principle. What we have seen from the Liberal Party is a decision not to make decisions based on principle at all. Instead it has made a decision that it is going to oppose everything on the basis that it simply wants an election, that what Canadians decided a year ago in an election is not good enough, that Canadians got it wrong and the Liberals know what is right.

There is a quote that the Liberal leader actually put in writing in The New York Times about two years ago. He said:

--politics is theatre. It is part of the job to pretend to have emotions that you do not actually feel.

I thought about that quote as I was listening to his speech today. I want to know from the hon. member if he agrees that politics is simply theatre and that we need to pretend, as the Liberal leader says, to have--

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Liberal leader said it is like theatre. The member's party is more like a reality TV show these days. There are days I come into the House and feel it has become like a grade nine cafeteria. I have heard Liberals jokingly say, because they are not really serious about it, “Oh, what's the matter? Is the NDP afraid?” Afraid of what?

There is only one thing I am afraid of, and that is going to residents in places like Smooth Rock Falls and Cochrane, where the mills have shut down, and saying that I had the opportunity to help them get that extra amount of EI to get through the winter and not lose their homes and I decided we were not going to help them because the Count from the United States was entitled to take power in Canada and they would have to wait until he gets power. That is the only thing I would be afraid of saying to a constituent.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am taken by the appearance of principle and seriousness by the member. For those of us who were here in 2006, and perhaps he was not here, and maybe there is a disconnect, some of the very dear principles that his party held with respect to early childhood education, the cities agenda, the housing strategy, public transportation, the dedicated tax for gas, the Kelowna accord with aboriginal people, and post-secondary education in the knowledge economy were all part of the principled budget put forward by the Liberals. The NDP saw there was an opportunity to play that act out in its theatre and vote against the government, which came down and those principles were lost.

What principles are driving the support for the government when in the last vote on employment insurance it was not serving the very people he just talked about? If there is any reason, the reasons are before us. How can he explain that absolute hypocrisy?

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay has one minute to respond.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is so unfair.

To respond, we saw a party that was rife with corruption, that for 13 years did nothing to help the first nations communities, stripped EI, stripped the whole plan for a national housing program, and when the Liberals were on their deathbed, they wrapped all these promises into a giant Liberal pinata. They smashed that pinata just before their death, and they threw these promises across Canada and said, “We delivered.” They delivered nothing, and that is why the Canadian people threw them out. Their big problem is that they want to blame us. Canadians were fed up with their sense of entitlement, and the Canadian public threw them out.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Madam Speaker, there are many reasons why we on this side of the House have lost confidence in the Conservative government. Some of those reasons were outlined earlier today in the speech by the Leader of the Opposition. Others will be advanced by my colleagues through the day. In that regard, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

For my part I want to focus specifically on the economy, on the government's ongoing economic incompetence and why it simply cannot be trusted. On the Conservative government's watch, nearly half a million full-time Canadian jobs have disappeared. Now, this country is on its way to a multi-year, multi-billion dollar string of Conservative deficits, the biggest in Canadian history. It all goes to questions of competence and trust or the lack thereof.

The Conservatives brought Canada into deficit quite unnecessarily, not because of but before any recession began. When the Liberals turned over the reigns of power in February 2006, Canada's fiscal position was the best since Confederation and at the very top of the G8 group of world leading countries. Our economy had thrived through a decade of balanced budgets and more than 3.5 million net new jobs had been created.

Transfer payments to provinces for health care and other social programs were at an all-time high. Debt and taxes were falling faster than ever before. In fact, the debt ratio had been more than cut in half. Our financial system was strong. Canada's annual surplus was running at about $13 billion per year and over five years federal financial flexibility was projected at close to $100 billion. That is what the government had to work with starting in 2006.

However, by last year, before the recession, most of that financial strength had been frittered away. It was gone because federal spending between 2006 and 2008 ballooned to unprecedented levels. It was up 18%, in other words, twice the rate of inflation before the recession. The tax base was eroded before the recession. And, all previous financial reserves, safeguards that had been put in the federal books to protect against those external nasty surprises that come along, had been eliminated before the recession.

The federal treasury stood exposed like a goalie with no pads, no stick, no face mask and no nothing, just praying that there would be no shots on goal. With the greatest of respect, that is not a competent way to proceed. It was reckless of the government to assume that the economic good times would just keep on rolling indefinitely.

The Conservatives would have been briefed by the Department of Finance that a downturn was virtually inevitable. The country had enjoyed a positive business cycle since 1993. That was the longest unbroken period of economic expansion since World War II. On the law of averages alone, it was due to come to an end. Finance officials would have warned to be prudent.

Furthermore, risks were obviously rising in the United States. The overspending American consumer had long been living beyond his or her means as reflected by massive household debt and massive U.S. budgetary and trade deficits. An unsustainable bubble was persisting in the American housing market, which if and when it collapsed, as it ultimately did, would spell big trouble for Canada.

In those circumstances, finance officials would have advised the government to avoid profligate spending, to safeguard the tax base and to maintain decent reserves in Canada's financial statements to serve as fiscal shock absorbers in the event of that inevitable downturn. However, the Conservatives chose not to follow that advice. In fact, they did the exact opposite. They overspent, eroded the tax base and eliminated the safeguards.

As a consequence, while times were still good last year, the federal government went into the hole by some $6 billion dollars and there was nothing left to cushion the blow when the recession subsequently came along.

Another source of concern about competence and trust flows from the erratic explanations that Canadians have been given about the true state of our economy and Canada's balance sheet. All through last fall, we were told that a recession was unlikely. Indeed, even to ask about the risk of recession was labelled by the Prime Minister as fearmongering or, to use another one of his words, stupid. We were told that there would definitely be no deficit.

In November, the government outlined a plan, not for stimulus but for the opposite, fiscal restraint, and it falsely claimed four more surplus budgets. However, by January that storyline was abandoned. Instead, Canada would now have two years of deficit financing, $34 billion this year and $30 billion next year. Through February, March and April, the government insisted those numbers were absolutely accurate, all on track it claimed.

However, by May the Conservatives' story had changed again. The government had miscalculated it seems by an astounding 48%. The red ink this year would be at least $50 billion, not $34 billion, and the deficit would last for four years, not just two.

This month it changed again: $50 billion became $56 billion and the timeframe stretched from four years to six years. The cumulative damage will be something worse than $170 billion in new debt overall.

Constantly changing stories do not demonstrate competence or inspire trust. Where does that leave us? It leaves us with a government that failed to see a recession was on the way, a government that ignored all of the warnings, a government that squandered Canada's fiscal security before there was a recession, a government that was wilfully blind, still denying the recession even after it arrived, and a government that first tabled a wrong-headed austerity program, not a stimulus plan. It was going in exactly the wrong direction. When it finally and belatedly admitted that a recession was here and that a stimulus plan was necessary, it was slow and clumsy in bringing it forward. Its so-called plan was completely suffocated by Conservative partisanship.

The Conservatives were preoccupied with photo opportunities, with advertising and with claiming credit, but in fact, less than 20% of what they promised has actually been delivered to date. Even their own favourite independent economists predict that by the end of this year they will not get that figure up to 30%.

Meanwhile, 486,000 full time Canadian jobs have been destroyed on the government's watch. It promised 190,000 but it lost 486,000. In the coming year, the government is now promising to find, magically or mystically, 220,000 jobs. However, the Royal bank, the TD Bank, the OECD and every other credible forecaster is predicting another 200,000 jobs will be lost. Unemployment will be near 10%.

What does the wrong-headed government now propose? It proposes a new Conservative tax on jobs. It will increase payroll taxes in the form of higher employment insurance premiums, and not just by a little bit. Higher Conservative EI premiums will become the government's fastest growing source of revenue. Its own numbers prove it. Over the next five years, it will hoist its revenue from EI premiums by a whopping 60%. Just as Canadian employers will be struggling to generate new jobs, the government will hit them and their employees with a new Conservative job killing payroll tax.

Let us think about that. This is the government that said that it would never increase any taxes. The dishonesty is breathtaking.

However, just as the Conservatives increased personal income tax rates and just as they imposed a brutal new tax on income trusts, they have broken their word on taxes time and time again.

It is not just about taxes. It is about equalization, floor-crossers in the cabinet, fixed election dates, appointing more senators than any other prime minister in Canadian history and about demeaning women and minorities as unworthy left-wing fringe groups that need to be taught a lesson.

We have no confidence in the government.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Minister of State (Transport)]

Madam Speaker, after listening to my hon. colleague closely, I would like to clear up the record a bit and give him some information that he may not be aware of. That is not to say that he was misleading the House but that he obviously was not telling the whole story.

He talked about partisanship with regard to infrastructure. Well, I am in charge of infrastructure in Saskatchewan. As he is the only member from Saskatchewan who is not on the government side. I would like to let him and the people in his riding, who actually deserve a better representative, know that he has $4.5 million in an overpass project, $2 million in rehabilitation work for the 11th and 12th Avenues, and $1.5 million for drinking water upgrades. That is just to name a few projects in his riding which show there is no partisanship with regard to that. He does not tell that to the House.

He talked a lot about taxes and what happened in the good times. I would like to remind him and this House what happened in the good times. We paid down almost $40 billion in deficit in the good times. He did not mention that. He did not mention the $200 billion that went back to taxpayers over a five-year period in the fall fiscal update of 2007, which dropped corporate taxes down from 22% to 15%, dropped small business taxes down from 12% to 11% and dropped personal taxes.

What did that do? It gave every Canadian in this country tax freedom day 20 days earlier. That is the reality of what happened.

What did that do? It prepared us for the onslaught of what was happening in a global economic slowdown.

We are not just playing games with this motion today. Canadians do not deserve an election but if they are going into an election, I would like to know one policy direction that is different. I would like the opposition party that is calling for this election to explain that to Canadians.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Madam Speaker, I note that the hon. gentleman began his remarks by saying that Wascana deserved a better representative. I would like to point out to him that in media surveys, not conducted by me but by community newspapers in Regina during the course of this past summer, I am very pleased to say that for the seventh consecutive year I was selected as Regina's best member of Parliament. And that is after running against three Conservatives.

He also makes reference to the infrastructure projects in Regina. I would point out that two key people are particularly responsible for the progress that has been made. The first one is Pat Fiacco, the mayor of Regina, who has lobbied long and hard for infrastructure programming and is a national leader in shaping infrastructure programming in this country. The second one is the Premier of Saskatchewan, Premier Wall, who had to bridge the financial gap in infrastructure that was left by the current federal government that did not send the money.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that the previous speaker mentioned broken words from the government. Let us not forget, though, about the broken promises from the Liberals when they were the government of the day and continue with their broken words and broken promises with the Conservatives in the way that they have supported them during this whole time.

I still do not understand why the Liberals are actually calling for an election at this point in time given the fact that nothing substantial actually happened between the summer and now, except that they feel they are ready for an election.

Let us look at the history for a minute. For 13 years, the Liberals gutted EI, took no action on climate change and balanced budgets on the backs of municipalities and provinces, and also on the backs of the unemployed. Let us not forget that they are the ones who actually stole the money out of the employment insurance fund in order to give big corporate tax cuts.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I must ask the hon. member to retract the word “stole”. It really is not acceptable in the House.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I will take that back, Madam Speaker. I apologize. I guess I should have said took without asking.

[The Acting Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. The hon. member for Wascana. Although the time is up, there have been interruptions that were out of order and I would like to give him about 50 seconds to respond.

I would ask, in these heated times, for hon. members to listen to the person who is speaking without heckling or interrupting. I think that would be more respectful behaviour on all sides.