Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to this important motion, a motion with which I agree.
This has been probably the worst economic depression in Canada since the Great Depression. Many young people have lost their jobs. Some 1.6 million Canadians have no jobs and half of them have no access to any kind of unemployment benefits. We are facing a recession. We have been told by the Minister of Finance that the deficit is $56 billion and the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that it could be over $125 billion within the next five years. We are living in a very bad time. Jobs are being lost. Many important businesses in the manufacturing and forestry sectors are facing a kind of recession from which they will never recover.
It was in that environment the Liberal opposition decided that we would support the Conservative government when it came out, kicking and screaming, with an economic stimulus package in January. While we did not think the package was perfect, we supported it, albeit reluctantly. We had hoped it would provide the stimulus needed for jobs and that it would assist Canadian businesses, workers and their families in these desperate times.
Before even seeing the stimulus package, the New Democratic Party decided to vote against it, and it did so 79 times in six months. How quickly those members cast aside their principles this week.
We gave the Conservative government three chances. We put it on probation in March, June and September to see whether or not its stimulus package would provide results, whether it would work, whether the money would be out there for Canadians, and whether it would meet the desired outcome of jobs and economic stability.
The Liberal opposition has, after that period of time, lost confidence in the present government on many counts, but I will only mention four. The first one is the broken promises by the government. The second one is the government's continual misrepresentation of facts to Canadians. The third one is the government's lack of fiscal responsibility, accountability and its plain incompetence. The fourth one is the government's failing its citizens by picking and choosing which are worthy of its support.
Let me speak about broken promises.
About 114,000 unemployed construction workers have been waiting since February for infrastructure money to flow. Saying that the wheels of government move very slowly is not a good answer. It is rather cavalier. Families cannot hang on for six months without paying their rent, without having any access to food and clothing for their children. They are finding it hard to make ends meet.
Construction work is seasonal and many of the workers are not eligible for unemployment benefits. Many are on welfare. The majority of workers in this country do not wish to go on welfare. Welfare rates have doubled in this country. People want to work.
The government vowed never to raise taxes. That is another broken promise. Last week there was a stealthy little grab of $13 billion in payroll taxes. That was a cruel thing to do. Small and medium size businesses actually create 80% of the jobs in this country and they are having a difficult time with credit. Retail sales are down. Many people are losing their jobs. The domino effect of lower sales and not supporting small and medium size businesses is high. To add a payroll tax at this point in time is cruel. It certainly will not help to create jobs.
Another broken promise involves the pine beetle and the fires in B.C. In 2006, $200 million was promised and $200 million was promised in 2007, but none of that money has flowed to any of the communities. In fact, they have only seen $80 million of it. Everyone predicted the raging forest fires. Money was needed for research for new employment opportunities and for dealing with the fires.
The government also broke its promise to aboriginal people. Not too long ago there was a moving apology in the House to the aboriginal people where the government across the way cried tears of apology. Today we see that the health, education and housing of aboriginal people has worsened.
The second thing concerns the misrepresentation of facts. The Minister of Finance reportedly said, “We cannot ask Canadians to tighten their belts during tougher times without looking in the mirror”.
In December 2008, the Minister of Finance said that there was a surplus. Earlier this year, he said that there was a paper recession only, then that there was a $34 billion shortfall, and then that there is a $56 billion deficit. As I said earlier, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is predicting a $156 billion deficit over the next five years. That is the first misrepresentation of facts.
The second misrepresentation of facts is brazenly taking credit for the Canadian banking system being so stable when the government knows who made it so.
I also want to talk about misspending. The Privy Council Office, which serves the Prime Minister, spent an extra $20 million this year. The government spent $84.1 million in advertising this year. We saw that the federal cabinet expansion in the fall cost taxpayers another $3.9 million in salaries for ministers and their staff. The Privy Council has said that the professional policy advisors for the Prime Minister and ministers will cost $124 million this year. We have a government that promised to tighten its belt and a finance minister who said that the government was directing government ministers and deputy ministers from every department and agency of the government to reign in their spending. This is unacceptable. Canadians are tightening their belts. They are doing without but the government does not know how to do that.
Since it came in, the government has spent 30% more than any other government in the history of this country. That is extremely unacceptable, irresponsible and lacking in accountability. It also shows incompetence and mismanagement of fiscal affairs.
Another case of unaccountability, mismanagement and incompetence that I want to talk about is H1N1. When the Department of Health sent body bags to the aboriginal communities, which, because of overcrowding, poor housing and poor water, had high incidents of H1N1, the minister said that she would investigate it. The minister is supposed to know what is going on in her department. Nothing should go out of her department unless she is briefed first and accepts it. To investigate it after the fact is unacceptable. The minister did not know what was going on and to say that she was not going to accept responsibility and investigate what was going on is a joke.
Finally, I have one last piece. The government has been failing citizens by picking and choosing who are worthy. Bill C-50, which was just recently introduced in the House, is a fine example of that. Seventy-two percent of single parent Canadians cannot afford to miss a paycheque. We were just told this by the Canadian Payroll Association. Many people are two paycheques away from bankruptcy. Seventy percent of those Canadians are in the age group of under 36. These are the people with the lowest wages because they are at the beginning of their careers. These are the people with very small children. These are the people who just bought a house and are facing a huge mortgage. These are the people who will be laid off first and yet this bill does nothing for them. It does not even recognize their plight.
The bill also said that it was for long-tenured workers. Forestry workers will not benefit from the bill. In British Columbia, where the forestry sector has been going down, people have been losing their jobs on and off for the last four to five years. They do not qualify for employment insurance because they have been collecting unemployment insurance over the last four years. People need to have been paying 30% of the maximum premiums and been working for 12 to 15 years to qualify. That rules out a whole lot of people, especially contract workers, women, seasonal workers and workers in the IT sector who are now working on contract and are losing their jobs.
Nothing has been done for our youth who have a 20% unemployment rate, the second highest since 1977. Two hundred and ten thousand youth had no summer jobs and they do not know how they will pay for school. Seventy-five percent of skills training for youth has gone to Conservative ridings.
We have no confidence in the government. It has shown itself to be utterly unworthy of the trust of Canadians as well.