Mr. Speaker, I am glad to participate in the debate on Bill C-50.
The employment rate in my riding of Windsor West in the last two years has lead the nation. It had historically high amounts prior to that. For many years, I have raised alarm bells in the House, both with the previous Liberal administration and now the Conservatives, that the lack of auto policy would cost my region jobs. We saw an erosion in the auto industry. Now it has totally dropped off the cliff, with Canada moving from first in auto assembly to tenth.
Bill C-50 will not particularly help the auto sector and workers, as the member for Welland noted quite correctly. However, I will support the bill because I know what it is like for families when they run out of benefits and do not have the necessary supports. The effect it has not only on families but communities is terrible and it can be avoided.
The bill has some positive elements. If we can cover 150,000 or 190,000 people for $1 billion, which is the estimated cost, or whatever it might be, then I am willing to vote for it. I and people in my community do not want other people going through what we are going through right now.
We are faced with even greater complications. Not only do we have the loss of jobs, but also the loss of an industry due to a lack of policy. In my opening comments I noted that Canada did not have an auto policy. The minister is convening a meeting with CAPC this Friday, which is a good move. There will finally be some action there.
The actual competition, which is the United States, has sprinted almost to the finish line with a new energy economy. In fact, George W. Bush, not Barack Obama, set up a $25 billion fund for the U.S. auto industry prior to the sector's fallout and the repercussions from that. As a consequence, Michigan, for example, will get two new car factories and four new battery factories because it has been very assertive in procuring the technology, development and evolution to ensure things happen.
There are congratulations to extend to Ken Lewenza, president of the CAW, but there are also some difficulties. Once again, he has negotiated an investment in Windsor, Ontario for a new engine. Unfortunately, the St. Thomas plant in the London area will be closed, I am very concerned about the workers there. London is now quickly approaching the Windsor numbers for unemployment insurance, at 11%. I am worried people will continue to fall off the system.
The bill will help those who in the past have not had claims in the system. It targets some older workers and that is very important. I have seen the fallacies of some policies, especially with older workers. The government has claimed that they need retraining, that everything will be fine and that the market will settle itself.
My region has a mould, tool and die manufacturer, which is the best in the world, hands down. It has engineered change to the industry and has led the world for many years. However, now jobs are being shed because of trade policy and the lack of enforcement of a number of trade issues, such as dumping and the whole procurement process that leaves Canada many times outside the door.
I would point to one in particular. The Department of National Defence shamelessly out-sourced a contract to Navistar International. It is building Canadian vehicles for our military in Texas, instead of Chatham, Ontario doing it. Canadian men and women could have been working building those vehicles and we would have been paying less unemployment insurance than retooling the factory, which was a small undertaking. Ironically, while those trucks are being built in Texas, our workers are sitting at home. It is unacceptable that this policy continues.
That procurement was allowed under our current trade agreements, but we are the only nation that does not do it. The United States does this on a regular basis and it is unacceptable.
I want to briefly talk about what we can do for employment insurance by increasing the benefits and what it means to individuals. They are able to save their homes, ensure their kids continue to go to school, pay their bills during difficult times and there is a sense of stability. We are making choices about how we want to use our resources.
This government and the previous administration had an EI surplus windfall of $57 billion provided by the workers and the actual companies and their contributions. To take that money away is nothing more than thievery. It is a slap in the face to all those who have paid into the system, especially when they need it at a time when we have an economic downturn as we have right now.
Ironically, this downturn was not brought on by workers' wages and pensions. Rather, it was brought about by greed and mismanagement, often incubated in the U.S. housing market and other markets. It has now been turned on its head to be an attack on workers' wages and benefits, and is now what the new benefit descriptions have called a legacy cost, which is absolute nonsense.
When people sit down at a table and work with an employer and negotiate a pension instead of a wage increase, instead of a benefit increase, that is a deferred wage that they are entitled to, that they should have. It is something they have actually sweated for and is something they actually deserve to have for themselves and their family later. It is important for this country to continue to work on its pensions. As a New Democrat, I am glad that we have been able to move the ball on this issue as well.
What could we do in terms of economic policy to change things around now, to provide the resources to expand the employment insurance system to make sure that people can continue to have their homes and be able to move forward and get some new employment?
One thing that has been missed in the public debate, and it is very interesting, is that this country has been making large corporate tax cuts since the year 2000. I commissioned a paper, because as things stand right now we are going from about 29% down to 15% by 2012.
Independently of doing my own research, I had the economists and other supports through the Library of Parliament, which every member of Parliament here is entitled to, run the numbers on estimates of what corporate tax reductions have cost from the year 2000 to today and then, on top of that, what they are going to cost from today to 2012 in order to bring us down to the 15% mark.
Interestingly enough, the first wave, from 2000 to about two months ago, represents $85 billion in terms of overall revenue that we have forgone as a country, which we no longer have to put towards a number of different measures. Now, the second wave, which is still coming up, is going to cost us $86 billion. Another $86 billion is going to be necessary for that.
What is interesting is that right now the government is borrowing money from future generations to provide a corporate tax cut for the oil and gas companies, some of the pharmaceutical companies, and the insurance companies, profitable industries that do not need this type of incentive and that will not change the way they conduct their operations in the market.
That loss of revenue means not only that we do not have that money to spend currently on targeting different industrial areas, but also that we will have to pay it back with interest. We are borrowing at record low rates right now, 0.25%. It is going to be interesting later on, over the years, when we pay this off, especially if we are in a structural deficit, which I believe we are, because we have gutted our capacity to get out of this economic downturn quite significantly.
All we have to do is point to the fact that everybody is hoping for a market recovery and for shares to go up based upon speculation on the price of oil and other things, but our unemployment rates still climb.
We have seen some recovery, in things like the Ford plant and the new investments that were made by the CAW during negotiations at the table. These things have been done in isolation; the government was not there. They have been able to increase the numbers of jobs but not to the level that historically we would have had to pull ourselves out of the system.
For the automotive sector in particular, this is a structural change. It is not a cyclical one. We are going to see some problems in terms of the overall recovery.
Canadians want to know right now why on earth we would continue to have large corporate tax cuts at this point in time. Seeing as we have shed record numbers of manufacturing jobs across Ontario and Quebec, obviously lowering corporate tax rates has not worked. Obviously those industries that are under attack because of the economic and trade policies of other countries are not preserving actual jobs. The numbers of jobs are shrinking anyway.
We need to turn that around and have good sectoral strategies. One of the things we can do is invest in green technology, not only for the consumer element but also for research and development. That is going to require investment. Where does that come from?
I would suggest that one of the first things we should do is stop borrowing from our children to provide corporate tax cuts to the corporations that do not need them right now. Let us instead put that money back into their future, so that they can actually be part of the solution instead of dealing with this continued policy of the problem.