Debates of Feb. 10th, 2009

Budget Implementation Act, 2009

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster and I share the city of New Westminster. It is known in British Columbia as the “Royal City” and has a long and proud history. Part of the origin of the city was as a lumber town. Just a few years ago there were mills all along the Fraser River, providing high-paying, family-supporting jobs not only for the people in the New Westminster community but in Port Moody and Coquitlam as well.

Three mills have shut down in New Westminster. Mills have shut down in other parts of my community, and I know the hon. member from Burnaby—New Westminster shares this. People call my constituency office today and every day to tell me they are waiting far too long to receive their EI cheques. They tell me they are now waiting six, eight and ten weeks for the first payment to be processed. Worse than that, over 40% of Canadians who are working no longer qualify for EI benefits.

What this government is doing is a disgrace. It is not putting the needs of working families first. It has turned its back on working Canadians.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today on behalf of my party, the Bloc Québécois, and remind the House just how opposed we are to Bill C-10 and how disappointed we are with this budget, which is so lacking in breadth and vision. In addition, it simply turns its back on working people, on people looking for a job, and on women, in many regards on the equity question.

We are also concerned about the possible intrusion of the federal government into jurisdictions that are not its responsibility. For example, there is the announcement of $500 million to help municipalities build new leisure facilities such as arenas and swimming pools. These are important to communities, of course, because they are health determinants. We know that at the time of the centennial of Confederation in 1967, the government helped to build a lot of these facilities, but now many of them are reaching the end of their useful lives.

We were very surprised to see that the federal government might be preparing—we hope so, in response to the representations made by the hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel—to change its approach and go through the official channel which is the National Assembly of Quebec, rather than taking it upon itself to deal directly with municipalities.

The national securities commission has the same potential for intrusion. This idea has been around for quite a while and the previous government mentioned it in some of its documents. The government justifies the notion that we need a national securities commission, even though securities are regulated by the various provincial legislatures, by saying it is a question of mobility, of a single market, and the need for a national commission, despite the opposition of the Quebec finance minister.

Ms. Monique Jérôme-Forget addressed this issue at the last federal-provincial conference of finance ministers. The parties in the National Assembly of Quebec even passed a unanimous motion. Despite all that, the government is preparing to override the will of the Quebec National Assembly.

We are also disappointed that there are basically no positive steps in this budget for people looking for a job. For the first time in many years, the months of January and February saw mounting unemployment rates. More and more of our fellow citizens are looking for work and the unemployment rate is rising.

When Mr. Lloyd Axworthy, the hon. member for Winnipeg, was the minister responsible for reforming employment insurance, he introduced a reform to change unemployment insurance to employment insurance. I was in the House at the time and we predicted that large numbers of people would end up being disqualified by the measures we were voting on. Our view proved correct because only about one working person in two now qualifies for employment insurance.

In some regions it is clearly more difficult to qualify. We do not think it makes any sense to increase the amount of time for which benefits are received by five weeks if the requirements for entering the system are not amended.

The Bloc Québécois said there should be a single rule to qualify, that is, a minimum qualification rule. Everyone who worked 360 hours in the previous year should qualify for employment insurance, regardless of regional employment rates.

We also repeatedly suggested that the benefits our fellow citizens receive should be increased. At the present time, the insurance system covers 55% of a person’s earnings. We suggested increasing this to 60%. We also wanted to eliminate the distinctions between new entrants and re-entrants to the labour force. In addition, we wanted to make sure that related persons were not presumed not to deal with each other at arm's length. We fought as well to make it possible for self-employed workers to qualify for the employment insurance system. We hope too that the amount our fellow citizens receive from the system could be determined on the basis of the 12 best insurable weeks.

The budget is therefore disappointing. It turns its back on whole groups of people who were hoping for some help. So we are obviously tremendously disappointed. We are disappointed too by the fact that the tax cuts in it are very poorly targeted. There are not many tax cuts for the middle class. There are some for the upper middle class, but not for people with incomes under $25,000 a year, or even $40,000 or as much as $50,000, if the first eligible tax rates are considered. This is therefore not a budget for the middle class as we know it and experience it in our various ridings.

It is a budget—as the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert said several times—that lets down our artists. We know that artists are the soul of our societies. We know that if we want creativity, we have to make funds available. I am not an artist personally. I do not have much talent in that regard. I am sometimes asked to sing in seniors’ clubs and my voice is not all that bad, actually, but I would not presume to say I am an artist.

As the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert said, the government has abandoned artists. We have repeatedly asked for the studies of the various programs that were cut just before the election campaign to be made public. I must say that I find absolutely spineless, cowardly and inconsistent this idea to carry out cuts without allowing parliamentarians to evaluate their relevance. It would have been advisable for the minister to present those studies. I am very pleased with the initiative by my colleague for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, who is our heritage critic. With the backing of some hon. members on the committee, she will be presenting a motion to invite artists, people from the artistic community, to come and speak of the difficulties they are encountering as a result of the policies adopted by the Conservative government.

We are also disappointed that there is nothing in this budget to bolster, to add a bit of substance, to this recognition, to date an extremely hollow recognition, of the Quebec nation. That is why the members of the Bloc Québécois have introduced, or in some cases will be introducing, bills that will allow the creation of the Conseil québécois de la radio et de la télédiffusion. If there is any real desire to recognize the Quebec nation with all its distinctive features it is also important to allow Quebec to opt out of the Multiculturalism Act. As hon. members are well aware, there is consensus in the National Assembly. When they were in power, both the Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois rejected the multiculturalism model in favour of interculturalism. This policy was adopted in the National Assembly by Robert Bourassa.

Why are we rejecting this concept of multiculturalism? We know very well who the French speakers in North America are.

My time has expired? If that is the case, I will be pleased to answer questions and I hope there will be many.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that you still recognize me after all the years that I have spent here. I would like to congratulate my colleague on his speech. He is a talented orator. I have heard many others speak about this as well. Even if he is not a talented artist or singer, I am sure that he would able to hold his own in a discussion on the topic.

That being said, I would like to hear him speak about the two week waiting period. I am sure that in his riding, where poverty definitely exists, this two week waiting period really hurts his constituents and the people who work in different businesses. Perhaps he could tell us a bit about this. He could also tell us what the five extra weeks of employment insurance would do for his riding since, in my view, people will have already found work. I would like to hear his comments about this.

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her very pertinent question. I would also like to reassure her that there is not a single parliamentarian here who would not know who she is, given how well-known her contribution to this House is.

She is right to remind us that the employment insurance system, as we know it, does not offer the protection that it was constitutionally created to offer. We know that employment insurance was constitutionally amended. She is right to say that the problem is not so much in the five extra weeks. Obviously, those who can benefit from it are free to enjoy it. However, when close to 50% of people cannot qualify for benefits because the number of hours required by the system is too high, the provision to add weeks is astonishingly unsatisfactory.

I hope, as she does, that the economy will improve and that our constituents will find work. However, economists think that the recession could last throughout all of 2009 and that our economy will not get back on track until the American housing sector rebounds. In this context, we have to hope that the amendments repeatedly proposed by the Bloc will be adopted.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned his interest in the arts and his interest in some kind of performance. I look forward to hearing him perform someday.

I know members of his party and my party have been very concerned about the arts and culture and the funding the Conservative government has provided to those organizations across Canada as well as for Canadians to travel overseas to showcase the arts and culture of Canada and Quebec.

Could the member comment further on the cuts the Conservatives have made, and which they refuse to restore, to programs like the trade routes program and the promart program, which were very important?

I understand the Minister of Canadian Heritage, in the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage the other day, also floated the idea that CBC/Radio-Canada might soon have to start carrying paid advertising on its programming to pay for its services. I know this would be a huge setback to public broadcasting in Canada. Could he respond to that development?

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and his friendship. He will obviously have to be patient when it comes to hearing me sing. But who knows what the future holds?

In any event, during the election campaign, I met many of our citizens who talked to us about the impact of the cuts to culture, not only on those who wish to do exhibits or shows abroad but also on those working in studios who need help to market their creations and purchase equipment. We are obviously disappointed.

Once again, the bottom line is this. If a self-respecting government wants to cut several millions of dollars from a sector as vital as the arts, we are entitled, as parliamentarians to know the reasons for its decisions.

Why does the government refuse to release the studies on which its decision is based? That was the intent of the motion put forward at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to a bill that was only tabled on Friday. The bill contains rather substantial and vast changes to legislation, which would normally pass through the process of input by parliamentarians and the Canadian public.

For the purposes of brevity and the time allotted to me, I want to talk most specifically about an area I am familiar with, as are those who have worked with me for the past 15 years or so, and that is the area of competition policy.

The 500 page document, known as Bill C-10, contains within it about 50 pages amending the Competition Act. For most of us here, it may seem very arcane legislation, but for those of us who have worked on it we know full well that there are a number of stakeholders, views and ideas that germinate from an idea as to how our economy functions.

The last time a significant undertaking of the Competition Act took place was in 1986. In fact, its origins can be traced back to 1981, when the Business Council on National Issues wrote a report recommending a number of changes to the former Combines Investigation Act, which was seen as highly punitive and not very helpful toward promoting the competitive process. That was a very different generation. We know that the 1986 amendments, which took years of consultation, were also predicated on the Macdonald Royal Commission, a commission that very bluntly stated that Canada should accept a higher level of concentration in order to compete with the rest of the world. This is reflected in at least one particular document by the Red Wilson committee last year, and I will get to that in just a moment.

Since then, a number of attempts have been made to amend the Competition Act. We have led many industries to unacceptable levels of concentration, such as the pharmaceutical, food and oil and gas industries, particularly the downstream of the gasoline industry, with which I am somewhat familiar and in which I have a small and slight interest.

I can say with some certainty that amendments I have tried to bring forth to the Competition Act have been very hard-fought, for and against, by members on all sides of the House and a number of stakeholders more often than not representing the competition bar. So the public can understand what that means, it means only the largest of companies that have benefited from a competition act, arguably written by very large enterprises, have been able to take advantage of this. Some of our brightest minds, who articulate and are concerned and concentrated in competition policy, happen to be those representing well-endowed, well-financed and very well-placed large corporations in this country.

It is not surprising we have a Competition Act that has led to the eclipsing of competition in a number of areas. In regional monopolies, I cite the energy industry. One would be familiar with Superior Propane, which was allowed to use a loophole in the Competition Act, under the efficiencies defence, to create a virtual monopoly in the area of propane. The evidence of that is right across the country. We have re-sellers selling a company from one particular company.

Given the significance and the battles, particularly on the government's side, in its former Reform Party, the Canadian Alliance and the former Conservative Party, and given the advantage the Americans have of telling the world how much energy they have, one would think some of the recommendations that came out of the appointed Red Wilson committee of last year, which the government appointed, would at least be given the opportunity to be challenged or given the time of scrutiny in our legislative bodies in order to object to any changes to the Competition Act, or even suggest that we could have an oil price monitoring agency that would give Canadians transparency and provide it on a day-to-day basis. However, that is not the case.

We have before us a rather dramatic and significant change to a very important lever in economic policy in one foul swoop. Arguments on both sides are coming out now. Some say it is too dramatic and too drastic, while others have suggested it is too little, too late. I tend to be in the camp of too little, too late.

Let us be very clear about what the changes entail. They entail some restrictions in terms of how we look at conspiracy, price fixing and collusion. I agree with those, with respect to the removal of the test of undueness. However, I am most concerned by the fact that there is a number of measures, recommended by those who have attended, that have now found their way into law, or will find their way into law should we accept the bill.

It is as if we have decided that we cannot withstand the various arguments about the need to ensure we get competition policy right and modernize it to reflect the fact that we are a nation in which many of our major industries are highly concentrated. Many of those decisions are made overseas.

My first concern is about the process. This is the biggest undertaking in a generation. It was certainly done without great consultation, post the depositing of this legislation. The last, of course, in 1986, took effect after a number of years of consultation and, as I indicated earlier, was predicated on intensity and concentration. This time I think it is fair to say that what is proposed here, right or wrong, does not have the benefit of input.

I am concerned about several points in the competition amendment sections. In my view the threshold in deciding values is too high. That is a decision that has been made here that if we are going to determine a foreign takeover or a merger, we are going to look at the issue of threshold. Right now it has not been changed since 1986, when it was some $400 million. It is proposed that it go incrementally up to $1 billion in the next couple of years.

All that would have been fine last year, but the economy has changed. What is promoted in this bill and the budget which underlies it, and I note the finance minister has put an emphasis on that, really describes the fact that there is declining value, which means that there may be opportunities in the private sector for assets to be acquired at fire sale prices.

I think it is clear that when businesses and companies might be had for a lot less, the last thing that needs to be done is increasing the threshold. That might have been applicable last year when prices for everything were fairly high, but this year we seem to be dealing with bargain basement prices. I think it is important for us to recognize that it may be the wrong prescription at precisely the wrong time.

Regarding merger review and the Competition Bureau, this is asking that the time in which a merger takes place be somewhat complementary to the United States. There is one distinct difference between antitrust legislation in the United States and here in Canada. That is one of the reasons that in the gasoline industry we see a lot of competition down there and here we do not. The reason is simply this, it is properly resourced. The Competition Bureau is now being asked to look at mergers without the concomitant resources in the budget or in this plan to ensure that it can be effective and prevent the competitive process from being eliminated.

The second point is that we talk about administrative monetary penalties. If this party or another party, and I am referring to a business, decides to put another party out of business in a scheme to be anti-competitive under abuse of dominance or under conspiracy provisions, under reviewable matters, the damage is not in stopping the activity from taking place. It is that the company that has offended is subjected to an administrative monetary penalty which goes into the pockets of the government as opposed to addressing the aggrieved party, as it is done in the United States and in many other parts of the world, where we actually provide damages.

It is a significant difference between ourselves and the United States. We have tried to model part of the legislation on the American model, but we are not prepared to give an effective defence to companies in Canada that may find themselves the object of a proven anti-competitive act. Of course, once the damage is done, the government gets the money, the company is out of business, and the competitive process is damaged forever.

It is not lost on some of us who have studied this that these are some of the illustrations of ideas that should have come out in a proper and normal process in which bills are debated, bills are brought before committees, and experts are allowed to give testimony before they pass the acid test of change.

I can say that there are changes in here that I support, but a lot that I cannot. I will continue on that point.

The Red Wilson committee also talked about the need in foreign review to look at something that might be contrary to Canada's interest as a test for rejecting or accepting a foreign takeover of a company versus the net benefit to Canadians.

This is rather nebulous because it does not tell us what is contrary to the Canadian interest. I can understand that from a security point of view. Some will remind us of the case of Minmetals. It is a far weaker standard in protecting that Canadian interest, let alone the competitive interest in this country, than the net benefit. The net benefit must accrue to Canadians.

It seems to me that we have tried to cast too far a line in terms of trying to attract international investment. We may lose the opportunity to demonstrate that we are prepared to stand up first for businesses that are going to be making investments in Canada. In my view no other nation would consider the test of contrary to our national interest over the net benefit. There may be arguments to that effect, but we will not hear those arguments, neither in this House nor in committee nor among Canadians.

The other area that concerns me is the area of foreign ownership of transportation, particularly with respect to pipelines. Many of those pipelines were made by public investments. These are public pipelines given to the private sector for a song as part of an agreement to create national energy efficiency and now given as part of a potential takeover by foreigners. I think it is a concern.

I mentioned administrative monetary penalties, but there is nothing in this that talks about the ability to tell Canadians on a day to day basis what the energy picture is or what the consumption picture is in Canada. Every day, starting Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock and 10:30 a.m. the Americans and the world would know where countries are with respect to energy. That could have been in this bill. It is not. It ought to be. This bill certainly needs to be looked at, but it is the wrong time to be proposing this.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed in this new Liberal-Conservative coalition. It is a gross understatement to say that I am disappointed. The budget presented to the House and passed by this new coalition fails the people of London—Fanshawe as it fails all Canadians.

I would like to outline the problems I have with the budget and in particular how it fails to address the following: infrastructure and housing, energy and the environment, employment insurance and women.

I think it is particularly important to highlight the specific impact that this budget is going to have on my riding of London—Fanshawe and surrounding communities. Our area is particularly dependent on the manufacturing sector. We had desperately hoped this budget would give it a much needed boost. Unfortunately, the budget is a missed opportunity to implement a made in Canada procurement policy that would have benefited the area.

As we all have heard, our military is making a purchase of $250 million in trucks from Texas while the same company is laying off hundreds in Chatham, Ontario. This is an absolute insult to Canadian workers. We need to have a made in Canada policy. We need a government that is willing to have a procurement policy that accesses the goods and services provided by Canadians, and that creates and maintains jobs in our communities.

I am pleased to say that the Conservatives did not get everything wrong. In response to NDP pressure the budget commits to the creation of the southwestern Ontario regional development agency. This agency which was proposed in the 2008 NDP platform would be able to develop a focused and productive manufacturing sector in our area. Unfortunately, this was not paired with a commitment to invest in the environment and our future.

A good example of intelligent investment in the environment and jobs would be an investment in more fuel efficient cars, something that would assist the struggling auto sector and help the London area get a jump start on the new green economy.

Overall, the Prime Minister's plan lacks any real green initiative. His plan on clean energy includes clean coal which we all know is not environmentally friendly. The actual investment in clean energy is less than 1% of the total stimulus package, about four times less per person than the U.S. plan.

There is money for nuclear energy and the unproven technology of carbon capture storage. Big polluters like the oil companies once again will be receiving breaks with this budget. It brings back the accelerated capital cost writeoffs for the fossil fuel industry. While the budget does include a green infrastructure fund, it is slight on details or criteria. This fund still requires matching funds from cash strapped municipalities. For many communities around London it will be difficult to tap into the fund because the money is not there at the local level to match the federal dollars.

It is reminiscent of the 2007-2008 $33 billion building Canada fund that never flowed because municipalities could not fund their share of the projects.

The home renovation program included in the budget has no mention of energy conservation measures or savings. In particular, there is no support for renovating or retrofitting the large rental housing stock in the area.

For the many people in London who are currently out of work and struggling to find a new job, real and positive changes to employment insurance eligibility are badly needed. Sadly, this did not happen in the budget and many Londoners will have no help during this economic downturn. It really speaks to the priorities of the Conservative-Liberal coalition. The budget includes $60 billion in corporate tax cuts and only $1.15 billion for the unemployed.

Sadly, in this budget, the poorest Canadians will see no real benefit. The budget does not include any increase in the national child benefit supplement or Canada child tax benefit for children from the poorest families. It provides nothing for families with incomes under $20,000. Imagine that. It provides nothing for the poorest families. The budget provides only $36 more a month for families with incomes under $35,000. It does not include any action to improve public pensions or shore up employer pension plans. It does nothing to address skyrocketing tuition and debt loads for post-secondary students and does not include any money to create child care spaces.

Canada ranks last among developed countries for access to child care and early learning. This is just shameful and these failures have the greatest impact on women.

The budget that is supposed to stimulate the economy will only plunge the government into debt. Twenty billion dollars in personal tax reductions over the next six years will have a negligible impact on spending and will provide minimal stimulus to the economy. What we need are smart investments.

According to the government's own figures, for every dollar in corporate tax cuts we get a 20¢ improvement to the GDP. Personal tax cuts create about a 90¢ improvement to the gross domestic product. Infrastructure spending creates a $1.50 improvement to the GDP. Other measures to help low income Canadians provide a $1.50 improvement to the GDP. As we can see, investments should be made to help low income Canadians, not corporations.

Investing in much needed infrastructure will do more for the economy than personal tax cuts, particularly since personal income tax cuts to the richest Canadians end up in savings instead of supporting job creation. According to the Canadian Labour Congress:

Corporate tax cuts are a poor way to create jobs and help troubled industries because they are of no use to companies losing money, and have little or no impact on real investment.

The new Conservative-Liberal coalition is not making smart investments. Instead of investing in Canadians who need it the most, the Conservative budget is focusing on corporate handouts.

I would now like to focus on the 51% of the population that the budget ignored. Women are not mentioned once in the budget. Some of the more critical issues New Democrats have with the budget stem from the fact that it maintains the attack on pay equity that was announced in the fall economic statement. The bill would create more obstacles for women seeking equal pay for work of equal value. The most vulnerable, 68% of women, will receive little benefit from budget 2009, with 40% seeing no benefit at all.

Sixty-five per cent of women remain ineligible for employment insurance. Improving eligibility for part-time and seasonal workers is essential to women. The budget failed to do this. It failed women. There is no money in the budget to address violence against women or poverty reduction strategies. Bill C-10 attacks women's human rights. The new public sector equitable compensation act is not pay equity. In fact, it attacks pay equity and is the antithesis of the recommendations made from the 2004 pay equity task force.

This new bill does not replicate provincial bills from Manitoba, Ontario or Quebec. It is completely different. The bill does not establish a pay equity commissioner to oversee its implementation and deal with complaints. It does not require the employer to set aside funds for increases in women's salaries.

The most shocking difference between the bill and the pay equity laws of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec is that pay equity negotiations in Bill C-10 are not separate from collective bargaining.

Human rights cannot be negotiated. Pay equity negotiations in provincial legislation all occurred separately from the collective agreement bargaining process, as they should. Furthermore, this legislation is punitive and spiteful. If passed, a union could be fined $50,000 for helping one of its members file a pay equity complaint.

The bill would also remove pay equity protection from the human rights act for public sector employees. The current pay equity regime is costly and lengthy, but the current and past governments are to blame for spending millions of dollars and many years challenging pay equity cases. Women deserve better.

It is not just New Democrats who take issue with the impact the budget will have on women. The National Council of Women of Canada has voiced particular concern with access to EI. It argues that:

And women, who have traditionally earned less than men, are at greater risk of becoming a welfare or homeless “statistic”, particularly as they age, if you take into account the fact that fewer and fewer women over age 45 are qualifying for EI.

It is critical that we improve access to employment insurance, especially in this tough economic period.

I want to point out what the YWCA stated in regard to “Investment in Social Infrastructure and Social Capital”:

Community recreational facilities, hospitals, public spaces, social housing, health centres and schools comprise social infrastructure that secures the health and safety of women and their families and the viability of communities.

This is absolutely what we should be doing. It is what Bill C-10 should have been doing. It is unfortunately not contained in the bill. I do hope that members of the House will see fit to reject the budget because clearly it has rejected the welfare of most Canadians.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite made an eloquent speech. However, I want to point out a couple of errors, and I am only going to take a moment to that.

Being that I am a woman of Métis descent, I want to point page 96 of the budget that speaks to the child care issue as raised by the member. Perhaps she has not read the budget. It clearly states:

Raising the level at which the National Child Benefit supplement for low-income families and the Canada Child Tax Benefit are phased out, providing a benefit of up to $436 for a family with two children.

Therefore, we do mention the child care component, yet she had indicated we did not.

Did the member also read page 100? It speaks to maternity and parental benefits for the self-employed, again mentioning women who the member indicated were not included in the budget.

Then page 105 speaks to aboriginal Canadians. We all know aboriginal women are some of our poorest and most vulnerable. I would encourage her to read that page, where we take care of their needs as well.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I must disagree with the member opposite. These oblique references simply do not address the problems that face women.

I point out the chart on page 110 in the same document that she suggests I have not read. The chart makes it very clear that the changes being made to the child tax benefit will glean nothing for families that earn less than $20,000 a year. If there were any real intent on the part of the government to make a difference in the lives of women and their children, families and community, it would have provided something for families earning less than $20,000.

I would like to hear rationale in terms of what on earth the government was thinking when it excluded the poorest families in the budget, the families that struggle most in society in a time of profound economic insecurity, and did not provide any help for children and their parents.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member does not mind if I take this opportunity to say something I forgot to say in my speech.

Danny Williams has suggested he feels alone in not being consulted and having this dramatic change. I would like him to know that people from as far away as the Yukon understand his point and he is not alone in not being consulted. I am sure the member will remember when the Conservatives, in their first term, cut Status of Women offices, tourism, museums and literacy, of all things. What we heard in spades about those cuts was that there had been no consultation. They were done out of the blue. They might have been made more acceptable, but they were done totally out of the blue.

Maybe the member can carry on with the good areas she covered about women and comment on how these dramatic changes are done without consultation with the women involved.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad my colleague mentioned Premier Danny Williams. I do not know if he knows, but in the last election Premier Williams supported me. He endorsed my candidacy. I have yet to thank him publicly and would like to take the opportunity to do so now.

With regard to the lack of consultation, it is absolute with the government. We know from what was done to Status of Women Canada, that it clearly did not talk to women across the country. Once research, advocacy, lobbying and the mandate to pursue equality for women was removed from Status of Women Canada, there was an incredible outpouring of concern.

I heard from women from across the country. They were perplexed because they could not understand how any government could come up with policy if it did not consult or make use of the research that had been conducted by women's groups across the country. They were angry because all access had been cut off in terms of their needs in the community. Consult, no—

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

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—

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

We have to move on to questions and comments. The hon. member for Churchill.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member a very specific question about what is happening in the Canadian economy. What does he see in his region?

I know that people in my riding of Churchill, in northern Manitoba, are losing their jobs. They see nothing in this budget that meet their needs in terms of their experience with housing or employment insurance,

I would like my colleague to share with me some specific examples of what is happening in his region and say why this budget does not address the situation.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very relevant question. In my part of the country—and probably in hers as well—we need social housing for the homeless, especially in the country since there is a fair amount in the cities.

Since 2001, funds have been allocated for the homeless. This has more or less met the needs in the big cities. But in small towns, in outlying areas and in the regions, we are not at all meeting the needs of people who have lost their jobs or who are depressed and need housing, maybe temporarily, that is built and subsidized by the government.

At present, people in the regions who lose their jobs move to the big cities, put a strain on municipal resources and leave behind their family ties in order to find social housing.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted the member outlined the disgraceful record of the government related to supply management, as also so brilliantly delineated by the oratory of the member for Malpeque.

When the member talked about culture, it really struck a chord with me. I wonder if he is as angry as we are with the responses we are getting from the Minister of Canadian Heritage who gives the impression that the government has not cut culture or that it has given more to culture when the cuts that we all keep asking about are the cuts in the programs for international marketing of our artists.

Thousands of people marched across Quebec and the rest of Canada. The artists are not all wrong. These programs were cut and they have not been reinstated. The museum exhibition program, which took exhibits so that Canadians outside Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver could see our wonderful heritage and the tremendous historical exhibits we have, was cancelled and never replaced.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question, which I find most pertinent. It is indeed important to revisit the cultural sector, one which has already suffered cuts and continues to do so.

The government is determined not to restore programs that it deems, wrongly, to have been inefficient. If the efficiency and the administration of the program needed changing, the government ought to have done so. We want to keep those programs.

The minister insists on telling us he has put in more money. That is not what we want to know. We want to have the funding back that was there before, in programs that were in place and were useful. Artists liked those programs.

What I am hearing in my riding is just what my colleague has said: artists are dissatisfied with the cuts to their exhibitions and even their opportunities to seek work abroad.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the hon. member mentioned the importance of renewable energy to his constituency. I wonder if he could tell the House what kind of renewable energy Quebec is interested in and what the budget should provide.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

I thank my colleague for this new question, because renewable energy is a topic very close to my heart.

In my riding, there are people on the leading edge in developing new energies, particularly passive and active solar energy. They are working on equipment that could be distributed and sold, and incorporated into buildings, even existing 10- to 15- storey social housing blocks. They are also working on extremely high efficiency windows.

There is, therefore, a lot of work that could be done. People are also working increasingly on geothermal power in particular. This is the energy of the future. It is non-polluting. It is the only energy that is hazard free, unlike nuclear and all other energy sources. For retrofitting social housing, for reducing the economic and tax burden on governments for maintenance, geothermal energy is the answer.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, once again it is my privilege to address this budget on behalf of the residents and constituents of Vancouver Kingsway and all British Columbians and Canadians.

In general, this is a budget that can fairly and only be described as one of missed opportunities and misplaced targets. All Canadians know that the Canadian economy has, for months and months, been in need of stimulus that works on behalf of families. The budget could have been much more effective at providing this stimulus and much more helpful for Canadians but, unfortunately, once again the Conservative government has put right-wing ideology ahead of good and sound government.

There are a few good things in the budget and I would applaud the government for these measures. There are also some measures that go some distance and, although insufficient, do go in the right direction. However, the many bad aspects of this bill vastly outweigh those and I will point out some of them here today.

We will start with infrastructure. The government claimed that $12 billion were allocated for infrastructure in this budget, but that is not exactly accurate. This budget ties almost all of that money to matching contributions by other levels of government and, in some cases, to community members themselves, whether those are the provinces, the municipalities or, with the new RInC program, the communities raising funds.

Almost all of the funds targeted for infrastructure are conditional. For instance, I read carefully the language used in the budget and it explicitly says that there could be infrastructure money for the evergreen transit line, the SkyTrain in Vancouver. Although I hope that money will flow, there is nothing in this budget that actually obligates the federal government to do so.

There is a lot of red tape with respect to this infrastructure and a lot of this red tape surrounds the allocation of this money to provinces and municipalities that now must co-operate with the federal government in order to get this money flowing. I suspect, as in previous years, that many of these infrastructure dollars will actually not be delivered, notwithstanding the crowing that has been done by the opposite side that this money will be injected into the economy.

I turn next to science and research cuts. This budget, fairly read, can be said to have disappointed the scientific and research community in this country. Whether it is aerospace, genome research or green technology, such as solar, wind and geothermal to photovoltaic communities, all feel neglected by this budget.

This is disappointing because investing in green infrastructure not only is a positive way to stimulate our economy now and in the days ahead, but it would create the jobs of tomorrow. It is incredibly short-sighted that the government has failed in this opportunity to put moneys into these areas. Instead, it has put its money into what I think are two of the most misguided areas in the environmental movement in this country, and that is in carbon sequestration and in the nuclear energy industry.

From all of the reports and research with which I have come into contact, carbon storage is an unproven technology. And, of course, we all know that the problems with the nuclear industry and the difficulties in dealing adequately with the waste that is produced is no answer, as well as being an incredibly expensive way to generate energy.

The people of this country want a strong and sound environmental policy that focuses on renewable energy such as sun, wind, geothermal and tidal. These are the economic drivers of the future. This is what the Americans are doing in the United States. I deplore the fact that this budget seems to go in a different direction.

On tax cuts, just about every economist in the land has been unanimous that broad-based tax cuts are simply a weak way to stimulate the economy. For instance, 80% of the tax cut that goes to a middle class person will be used to pay down debt, be saved or be used to purchase offshore goods which will help to stimulate a different economy than ours. While some of it does in fact make its way into the Canadian domestic economy, a lot of that is leaked and that is why it is not considered to be an efficient use of tax dollars.

There were some good measures and I would pause to commend the government on its tax policy for small business. The increase in allowable income used for the low small business tax rate is a step in the right direction and will be of some use, particularly to businesses in Vancouver--Kingsway.

Employment insurance has to be commented on. I spent 16 years prior to coming to the House representing workers. I spent many hours and many days with people who had been laid off and who had experienced the hardship of losing a paycheque. Without any ideological basis or approach, I can say that the changes to the EI program simply miss the mark. What workers in this country need and deserve when they make an EI claim is to have EI funds applied from the day they lose their jobs, and not a two-week waiting period.

They deserve to have a rate that they can live on. Unlike many members of the House, I would venture to guess, I know what EI is like. I was on employment insurance 18 years ago. It was then called unemployment insurance. The rate I received was $409 a week 18 years ago. What is it today? It is approaching $450. There has been hardly any increase at all.

To expect people now to live on a maximum amount of $450 a week--and many workers get far less than that--simply enshrines a poverty level that I think is actually designed to make it very uncomfortable to be on EI and to force people back to work by making them live on poverty-level wages. These changes that the government has made to EI really do nothing to address this issue.

I also want to point out something that many other members of the House have pointed out already, which is that a shockingly low number of workers who pay into EI actually qualify for benefits.That is not only a national shame, it is a form of governmental fraud.

If a worker pays into an insurance plan and does not actually qualify for benefits, the worker might rightly ask what he or she is paying for. This is an insurance plan. Workers pay into it with their own money, as do their employers, so that when they are unemployed, they can draw on the money that they put into it. When they put money into a plan that at the end of the day rejects them when they make a claim, it is not in any way whatsoever an insurance plan.

These are the changes that Canadian workers and their families in this current economy need to be made to the Employment Insurance Act, and these are precisely the changes that have not been made by the government. Adding five weeks onto the end of a claim that one does not qualify for at low wages is not going to help hardly anyone.

I found out today that the cost to the government of that one change of adding five weeks to the end of unemployed workers' claims is estimated to be $11 million. A paltry $11 million has been allocated to the unemployed workers of this country. When billions of dollars in corporate tax cuts have been given to the banks and to big oil companies that are making a profit, that is a disgrace.

Another matter is housing. In my riding of Vancouver Kingsway, in Vancouver, and in British Columbia there is a crying need for affordable housing. We need more cooperatives, we need more rental stock. We need more social housing for low-income people, housing for seniors, seniors complexes, and housing for the disabled.

While there is some movement in the budget to provide some housing for low-income seniors and the disabled, the rest of the population that needs housing is shut out. That is a serious deficiency in the budget.

Not only that, a national housing strategy would also help stimulate the B.C. forestry sector. At a time when the B.C. forestry sector is experiencing one of the most difficult times in history, we could be stimulating it, putting mills back into operation, putting workers back to work and building the kind of housing Canadians need.

I want to briefly mention that the budget could be used and should be used to help many of the groups in my riding who are working every day to help people, from Collingwood Neighbourhood House to the Multicultural Helping House to the Cedar Cottage and Mount Pleasant neighbourhood houses to the Little Mountain social housing complex. These community-based developments require infrastructure funds, funds that would actually provide shovel-ready capital as well as drastically needed services to the members of our community. I want to take this opportunity to point out their good work to the House. With help from the federal government, we can actually help stimulate the economy in Vancouver Kingsway, in British Columbia and across the country.

I look forward to questions.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member opposite. One of the points he made in his speech was that there was nothing in here for science and technology. I want to remind the member that this budget includes a great investment for science and technology: $750 million to the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

I have had the privilege of being on site where some of these projects are funded and seeing the good work they do. This is great news in our budget.

There is also $50 million to the Institute for Quantum Computing; another $1 billion for clean energy research, development and demonstration projects; and $87 million over two years for Arctic research.

I would like the member to indicate how he can say there is nothing in here for science and technology.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the question is not whether there is anything in the budget for science and technology and research; it is whether or not there is sufficient money in the budget for science, research and technology.

If we were to ask the aerospace industry today if it thinks this budget provides enough support for the aerospace industry in this country, it will say no.

It has been notorious in this country over the last week and a half that genome research funding is completely unstable. Scientists and researchers associated with genome research in this country have publicly stated that they are unsure of the stability of the funding for the next couple of years.

I have read this budget. We have done a word search on this budget, and in terms of green technology, “solar power” does not come up once, “wind power” does not come up once and “photovoltaic power” does not come up once. Not one of the technologies that we need for the green technology sector is funded adequately by this budget.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, we just have to check the figures on adding a five-week extension to the EI program. The member mentioned $11 million. My understanding is that over the term of it, it would actually be $500 million. Also, finance studied what the member suggested in relation to eliminating the two-week waiting period, and that would have only been another $900 million that could have been allocated from areas he said were not efficient in the budget.

The member started out with infrastructure. I want to ask about an area he did not get into, the process to flow those funds. I wonder if he has heard from his mayors or councillors. In my area, of course, they like the money, but they would prefer it to flow, if it is going to get there faster, through the gas tax mechanism. That has been very efficient. It gets out the door and it is through their priorities. The member for Willowdale has made the same case. Some of the members from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have also made the same case, so it seems to be universal across the country. I am sure the FCM has said this to the Minister of Finance.

I wonder if the member thinks that would be a faster--