Mr. Speaker, the budget passed last week by the Conservative government and its Liberal allies is totally unacceptable to Quebec and the people of Quebec who are entitled, in times of economic crisis, to expect appropriate action on the part of the federal government.
Just two years ago, the Conservatives had the House agree to recognize the nation of Quebec in a spirit, they said, of openness. The bill we are discussing today shows that this openness has suddenly disappeared.
Last January 15, the National Assembly of Quebec voted unanimously in favour of a motion demanding that Ottawa provide assistance to Quebec to help it get through the economic crisis. It is obvious that Quebec will lose a lot of money as a result of the tabling of this budget, especially in regard to equalization. The changes to equalization will cost it a billion dollars in 2009-2010. In addition, the bill sets the stage for the establishment of a Canada-wide securities commission and reiterates the government’s intention to trample over Quebec’s jurisdictions in this regard.
The Prime Minister is choosing once again to ignore his past promises to respect Quebec’s jurisdictions. It would have been good if the Quebec Liberals had been allowed to vote against this budget in order to oppose the loss of a billion dollars to Quebec, just as the Newfoundland and Labrador Liberals were allowed to do. Right now, among the Quebec contingent, only the Bloc Québécois and the NDP member are opposing this loss of a billion dollars.
When I meet people in my riding, I am ashamed of our government because it does nothing to help them. People see it helping big corporations, like automobile companies, oil companies and banks, but they themselves are left by the wayside in an exercise based more on ideology than compassion for the people who are hurt most by the current situation.
The affluent people in our society will manage to get along fine despite the shaky economy. The tax cuts benefit people earning at least $81,000 a year, which is well beyond the middle class. Older people, retirees, the unemployed and middle class families will not benefit from this budget as the rich people will.
As for seniors, the Bloc Québécois has often raised the issue of the guaranteed income supplement and the fact that seniors have not been getting their fair share. According to FADOQ, the Quebec federation of seniors, the 2009 budget is most certainly not the route toward improving the lot of low income seniors. Despite numerous urgings to do something, the federal government has neglected to provide any additional support to the least well off of seniors, the guaranteed income supplement recipients.
Thanks to the mismanagement of the federal government, seniors who receive only the old age pension and the guaranteed income supplement will not even have the opportunity to get up over the poverty line, because their income is so limited. The government is therefore keeping them poor.
Yet, during the recent prebudget consultations, FADOQ called for improvements to the guaranteed income supplement, specifically through automatic enrolment—not the case now—along with improved benefits and full retroactivity, as called for in a bill introduced by me in the last Parliament. We are not talking riches here, just a minimum income that should be guaranteed to everyone in a society that claims to respect its seniors.
Incidentally, that adjustment to the guaranteed income supplement would dovetail with the recovery plan. If seniors had a little more money, that money would be spent in the immediate community, thereby creating an economic revival with the activity that would be generated. That money would not be going out of the country.
As far as employment insurance is concerned, this past January the Quebec National Assembly called upon the government in Ottawa to improve the employment insurance program by loosening the eligibility criteria and enabling workers in training to continue to draw benefits. Turning a deaf ear to the requests from the National Assembly, the government responded by increasing the duration of EI benefits by five weeks for the next two years.
According to the statistics, only 10% of workers eligible for employment insurance use up all the period of benefits they are covered for. Since we know that less than half of people are eligible for EI, of that group only 10% use up all their benefits and would therefore benefit from what is in this budget. If the government had instead abolished the two week waiting period for workers who lose their jobs, all workers who lost their jobs would at least have been able to benefit from one provision in the budget, by immediately drawing EI benefits.
With regard to social housing, there are measures that affect people, and people want their government to come up with solutions. The current budget includes $2 billion for social housing, but only $400 million will be used to build new housing units.
It is estimated that Quebec needs 52,000 social housing units. In Laval alone, 1,062 needy people are waiting for social housing from the municipal housing bureau. This program is administered by the cities, and demand is high. In fact, demand is so high that people come to my constituency office to ask us to support their application for social housing.
It is difficult to step in at the federal level. We have to refer people or try to convince the municipal government to provide them with housing as soon as possible. But the government lacks the will to build new units.
In my riding, there is a federal penitentiary that was decommissioned 20 years ago. For 20 years, the penitentiary has not been used for anything. It was built by the federal government in 1978, and people moved into the surrounding area. Most of these people worked at the penitentiary, which explains the construction all around it. Now that the penitentiary is no longer used for its intended purpose, the government is dragging its feet on converting the building so that people can use it.
I have represented this riding for four and a half years. I have had access to studies the government has conducted into how the penitentiary could be converted or repurposed. I have always stressed that plans should include affordable social housing for the local community. People currently have to leave the neighbourhood because there is no space available.
The recovery plan was a perfect opportunity to act on this proposal, which previous governments had considered. I have been calling for this for four and a half years. Of course, it would have taken political and financial will. This government's recovery plan, which includes investment to stimulate employment, was a golden opportunity to use federal facilities to benefit people and to provide the social housing they need so badly.