Mr. Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about Bill C-10, Budget Implementation Act, 2009. This bill opens the door to the deregulation of foreign investments—which then opens the door to foreign control—without taking into consideration the economic interests of Quebec and Canada. As well, this bill allocates funds through bills which are poorly targeted, notably in terms of social housing, and which are poorly distributed, as demonstrated by the community development trust fund. The Bloc Québécois will therefore vote against this bill, and I would like to explain some of our reasons.
I will start by talking about the money that has been taken away from artists. The government keeps saying that it is giving more money for cultural endeavours. Speaking from experience, my riding has many artists. But these artists have no funding to go and get the awards they receive outside Canada.That was the case recently: a filmmaker in my riding won an award for the best full-length documentary at the Breaking Down Barriers film festival in Moscow. With no funding available in Canada, Mr. Langlois' trip to Russia to pick up his award had to be funded by the American embassy. It is false to say that they have given more money. Perhaps more money was promised, but it has not been put back into the arts programs that were cut. There is still a shortfall, and that shortfall will still exist until the money is put back in. This budget does not meet the needs of artists. They will continue to have these needs, such as the need to leave the country to accept awards or go abroad to perform in order to get future contracts.
In general, this budget clearly demonstrates that the present government has not grasped the urgency of the situation and has taken only a very few emergency measures of the sort that would have resulted in immediate new revenue in the real economy.
I am thinking of the money that could have gone immediately to people who lose their jobs. When people lose their jobs, they get nothing for the first two weeks. If they did get some money, they would not tuck it away for a rainy day. They would plough it back into the economy, and that would get the economy moving right away.
I am also thinking about the short and medium term assistance for job losses among workers aged 55 and up when companies close down. That is not in the budget. We have been calling for this for a long time and that money would also have ended up back in the economy within a week.
Extra money added to the guaranteed income supplement for seniors would also have been promptly reinvested in the economy. Those people are not putting their money into savings.
Immediate assistance to the struggling manufacturing and forestry sectors to retain jobs would also have been money ploughed back directly into the economy.
Farmers are in immediate need of direct aid, but the programs will provide money in a few months or a few years. We will see the results in the long term.
There was also need for immediate assistance to small business and the green economy. They have talked about the green economy, but are they immediately going to create small and medium enterprises, SMEs, that are prepared to go into action? No, all that is being set aside for infrastructure. Now, we are not opposed to the idea of municipal or provincial infrastructure funding, but the government has dragged its feet on this for so long that we feel that the economy cannot be helped immediately with such measures.
We can see the thinking of the Conservatives, with their insensitivity to the common man, but their high sensitivity to high finance. Yes, they have helped the banks, they even helped them before the budget, to the tune of $75 billion, which is nothing to sneeze at. But had only a few billion dollars been invested immediately into the economy, that would have made a huge difference.
Two weeks for unemployed workers is too much, but $75 billion for big banks, that is just fine, especially considering they are the ones who created the financial crisis.
One part of this bill is particularly dangerous. It has to do with amending the Customs Act. Part III of the bill amends the Customs Act, on the one hand, in order to eliminate duties on a range of equipment and products used in manufacturing and on the other hand—which affects me directly—in order to amend the tariff treatment of milk proteins. I have been dealing with this problem for some time now in my riding: milk proteins enter the country subject to little, if any, customs charges.
Concerning tariffs on milk proteins, the federal government is issuing this regulation to comply with a Canadian International Trade Tribunal ruling. However, the government must immediately get the situation under control. This dispute allowed a Swiss company, Advidia, to challenge the regulation directly to the tribunal. The Bloc believes that this regulation cannot be opposed, since its intent is that we comply with the ruling from the CITT and the Federal Court of Appeal.
Nevertheless, we will continue to fight to ensure full protection of the supply management system. It is very important for the dairy producers in my riding, in Quebec and in Ontario. We will continue to pressure Canada's lead negotiators at the WTO to ensure that no concessions are made that could in any way contribute to the collapse of supply management. We will keep a close eye on negotiations to take full advantage of article XXVIII of the GATT. Lastly, we will monitor the case currently before the Federal Court of Appeal concerning cheese composition standards.
In addition, Quebec and Canada produce very high-quality yogourt, and manufacturers are afraid that Canada will not adopt the standards needed to maintain that quality. People who eat yogourt are entitled to quality products. The government must see to this and not leave private enterprise in the lurch, as some would like to do.
These three things are crucial to the future of the supply management system in Quebec and Canada. They are enormously important to us, and we are going to work as hard as we can to make sure they are not neglected.
I would like to touch on another issue, and that is housing. The budget implementation bill provides for a one-time investment of $1 billion over two years to renovate social housing and vaguely increase energy efficiency. The budget would have been the perfect opportunity to introduce a green economy, put it to work and get it involved in these renovations. But the government did not do that, which is too bad. The Conservatives talk vaguely about the green economy, but there is nothing about it in the budget.
In its budget, the government provides $400 million over two years to build social housing for low-income seniors. That is good. It also gives $75 million for disabled persons, aboriginal peoples and people in the north, which is also good. But what is there for families who need social housing, the working poor, people who are working and cannot afford regular housing, but might be able to some day? There is nothing for them.
The government's philosophy is not to help with social housing. It has found a way to help just a small proportion of people in need, instead of helping the majority, such as single people, those who have lost their jobs, people who are depressed or people who need a place to live.
For social housing, the government is providing half of what—