Madam Speaker, I looked at the Conservative-Liberal alliance budget implementation bill and I was disappointed. I was disappointed to see little for Canadians and especially little for the citizens of communities in northwestern Ontario. I was equally saddened to see that the Leader of the Opposition had chosen to lead the Liberal Party, as his predecessor did, condemning the budget with one breath while rubber stamping it with the next.
Recently I held broad public consultations on the hoped-for budget in my riding and what was asked for is not in the budget. The budget implementation bill does not address the major issues my constituents brought up during those public consultations.
The things that were especially at the forefront of those consultations again and again, in 13 communities, by hundreds of people and dozens of organizations, were a fairer employment insurance system, support for our struggling forest industry and workers and real money for local infrastructure needs.
Employment insurance remains in desperate need of reform. Most workers who pay into it are not eligible for benefits. In Ontario almost 70% of the unemployed do not qualify even though they have paid into it. Paul Martin's Liberals gutted EI and the Conservatives have not fixed it. Nothing was done in the budget to make EI eligibility fairer. The program still maintains regional disparities, keeps the waiting period and there is still a clawback of severance pay.
Over half of the casework at my constituency office, the work of two people, is about EI problems and the failure to access EI fairly and efficiently, and it is growing by the week. Constituents often are unable to get through to the toll-free call centre and do not get the promised callback within 48 hours, or 84 hours, or sometimes weeks. Claims are delayed, deadlines are missed, appeals stretch out for months.
The system is not serving hardworking Canadians who have paid into it, sometimes for decades. This is simply not acceptable. We need a responsive EI system that works for workers laid off through fault of their own.
Thunder Bay—Superior North relies on the forestry sector. The industry has been just about done in by years of neglect by Liberal governments and now the Conservative government. The $170 million over two years announced for marketing is woefully and totally inadequate tor the needs of this industry, which has the potential to sustain northwestern Ontario and many northern Canada communities for many years and decades.
There was no mention of loan guarantees to help companies like Thunder Bay Fine Papers, Longlac Wood Industries and others. In northwestern Ontario and across Canada mills are shutting down and many are in danger of being scrapped. When will the Minister of Industry support the mills and workers in northwestern Ontario?
The AbitibiBowater plant recently announced shutdowns, affecting 1,100 workers in Thunder Bay. Just days ago the Thunder Bay Fine Papers mill narrowly avoided being sold for scrap metal. Three hundred and twenty direct workers and thousands of indirect jobs in Thunder Bay still face an uncertain future due to the credit crisis because the Minister of Industry will not act.
The Minister of Industry has done absolutely nothing. He has one more chance to help this mill survive and the citizens of Thunder Bay are praying that he will take that chance. I have asked him repeatedly and I implore him again. When value-added mills like these are closed, the capacity and workers may be gone for good.
On municipal infrastructure, the lack of vision and strategy is problematic as well. Alleged municipal infrastructure money is a rising tide of red ink and red tape.
There are glaring omissions in the government's implementation of the budget in that there is no preference for Canadian products or Canadian materials, even when billions are planned in stimulus spending, allegedly. What a waste of Canadian dollars to stimulate the economies of the U.S. and China.
Our domestic procurement policies were in the news recently with the buy America amendment to the stimulus bill that was before the U.S. senate. The U.S.A. already had strong domestic procurement rules in place since 1933 and even stronger in the last seven years. Most other industrialized countries have similar rules.
Canada sits alone among the G7 countries in failing to defend domestic jobs and industries with our own made in Canada government buying policy. Where direct federal procurements are somewhat constrained because of NAFTA and WTO agreements, federal transfers to provinces, or states or municipalities for infrastructure are not. All of our other trading partners have already figured this out.
Conservative and Liberal governments in Canada have ignored our rights to buy Canadian. This is a consistent failure of our governments to show courage and resolve in trade negotiations and disputes and to stand up for Canada.
Canada must pass an act mandating made in Canada requirements. Let us really stimulate the Canadian economy and not just the economies of the U.S., Mexico and China. Let us get the most value from hard-earned Canadian taxpayer dollars.
Abandoning key rights in the free market makes no more sense for our industrial strategy than it does for the banking industry. These measures will just bring us in line with other countries. For example, the buy American act has mandated 60% U.S. made products in federally supported transportation projects. The new buy American amendment would take that even further.
In Canada in the last three years we have had B.C. ferries purchased from Germany, York region buses purchased from Belgium, Vancouver sky train, the Canada line, sourced from Korea, just to name a few. Instead let us stimulate Canadian shipyards like the ones in Thunder Bay, vehicle assembly plants and rail production like Bombardier. Millions in tax revenue and spinoff jobs would be created in Canada for a change.
When will the Minister of Industry of the republican party of Canada buy into Canadian industries and stick up for our Canadian workers?