Debates of Feb. 12th, 2009

Budget Implementation Act, 2009

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have a second opportunity to respond to the budgetary policies of the Conservative government.

Much has been said in this House about whether this budget is adequate in terms of providing the economic stimulus necessary to lift our country out of this deep recession. Members on all sides of the House have evaluated whether we have done enough to stabilize our banking industry, to free up credit, to assist corporations, to fight the unprecedented trade deficit, and to live up to the Prime Minister's international commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on stimulating our economy.

Many of the speeches, particularly on the government side of the House, have focused on whether the budget in the end will help those who in many cases actually contributed to creating the crisis. Much less has been said about whether and how this budget addresses those who are the innocent victims of this crisis. To a large extent, that is due to a fundamentally different view of what the economy is in the first place.

To the Conservatives, the economy is an almost supernatural construct that is and ought to be controlled by some invisible hand rather than by the government. From that perspective, it is the role of individuals simply to serve the economy. For me though, it should be the other way around. Our economy must serve Canadians. The economy is a man-made construct and the rules and regulations we put in place to guide it play a crucial role in determining its winners and losers. In that way, the economy becomes a moral issue. It must be judged by how many people it leaves behind. Since this budget was designed to stimulate our economy, it too must be judged by who it leaves behind. From that perspective, this budget is an abject failure.

We can do better for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have lost and who will lose their jobs because of what has happened to our economy. They did not cause the economic crisis that has robbed them of their livelihoods. Neither did the thousands who have seen their life savings and their dreams for a comfortable retirement taken away because of the rampant greed that right-wing governments unleashed and let run wild in the financial markets. We can do more for them and we must do more for them, so let me spend a few minutes this morning talking about these unwitting victims of the recession.

In January alone, 129,000 Canadians lost their jobs, and as many as half will not qualify for employment insurance benefits, yet the Prime Minister has pushed through another budget that leaves laid-off workers out in the cold. With this budget, not one additional unemployed worker becomes eligible for EI. Unfair waiting periods are kept in place and modest EI extensions only apply to those who already qualify but do nothing for those who do not. As Ken Georgetti, the president of the Canadian Labour Congress put it so succinctly, 60% of the unemployed were not getting benefits prior to this budget, and they will not get benefits now.

Here is what the government should have done in this budget. It should have improved eligibility. It should fix the rules so more workers who pay into EI can get benefits when they need them no matter what region or sector they work in. It should have ended unfair wait times. If most families are only two missed paycheques away from poverty, it is cruel to make people wait weeks for EI benefits to kick in.

Economists say that improving EI will help spark our economy, generating $1.60 worth of economic growth for each dollar that is disbursed in benefits. At the same time, that helps families find new work instead of falling into poverty and onto the welfare rolls. That is a win-win solution for tough times and yet it is nowhere to be found in the budget.

What about younger workers in this country? The deepening economic crisis is dimming the hopes of hundreds of thousands of young workers, but they are not getting any help from the Prime Minister's government. The numbers speak for themselves. In just three months, a jaw-dropping 75,000 Canadians aged 15 to 24 have lost their jobs. In January alone, 28,000 young Canadians lost their jobs, pushing their jobless rate to 12.7%. What the numbers do not show are untold thousands of young people who have given up hope or who are still looking for their very first jobs.

The recent Conservative budget provides nowhere near the economic stimulus needed to safeguard jobs in these troubled times. On youth joblessness, it has no strategy at all. That is not good enough. Today's young people will build tomorrow's Canada. They deserve the same chances that earlier generations enjoyed. By ignoring their hardship today, the government is creating bigger problems for the future.

But the victims of this recession are not just the young and working Canadians. Seniors were devastated when they saw their life savings and their dreams disappear in the stock market crash. They were being hit on all sides. For those who had workplace pensions, their sustainability was suddenly thrown into question. For those who had RRSPs, the value of their retirement nest egg plummeted. And for those who were already in RRIFs, they were doubly disadvantaged because the minimum withdrawal requirements meant that they would be eating deeply into their capital. For seniors, the crisis is perhaps even more impactful than it is for the hundreds of thousands of other Canadians who are also suffering.

When the Prime Minister takes his wait and see approach to providing further stimulus, he is suggesting that Canadians just need to hang in there and wait out the storm. However, seniors, by definition, do not have a lifetime to wait. They have spent their whole lives working hard and playing by the rules but now, everywhere they turn, every bill they open, they are paying more and getting less. That is hardly a retirement with dignity and respect. At a minimum, this budget should have increased the old age security so that seniors would not have to choose between paying for food to eat or for fuel for heat.

Seniors built our country and they paid taxes all of their lives. Now that they need those tax dollars to work for them, the government is abandoning them. They deserve so much better from this budget.

There is one group that is also predominantly made up of seniors who deserve special mention here, and that is our veterans. These men and women were willing to sacrifice their lives for our country and this budget could not even sacrifice a few dollars to live up to the commitments that the Prime Minister made to them.

The Conservatives made very specific promises to our veterans. They promised allied veterans that they could receive the Canadian war veterans allowance. They promised all widows of second world war and Korean war veterans access to the veterans independence program. They promised full compensation to veterans and civilians exposed to agent orange. They promised to redress the issue of reducing the SISIP LTD payments for medically released Canadian Forces personnel when they receive other disability pensions under the pension act. And they promised the so-called atomic veterans compensation for their nuclear exposure during trials in the South Pacific and during decontamination efforts at Chalk River after two accidents. Not a single one of those promises has been kept. The government should be embarrassed and ashamed. It is time to put veterans first; in fact, it is long past time.

Mr. Speaker, you are indicating that I am almost out of time, so I will not get the chance to talk about one more group that this budget failed.

I have talked about young Canadians, workers, seniors and veterans, but I very much wanted to talk about children as well. This budget has had a profoundly negative impact on their future.

The Prime Minister's decision to “get out of the child care business” means that his budget fails to renew an annual $63.5 million transfer that funds 22,000 child care spaces in Ontario alone. This approach is painfully short-sighted. We know that quality early learning builds better futures for young people and a stronger economy for all of us. Each dollar invested in child care would inject at least two into our economy, a vital stimulus in times like these. It locks Canada into last place among industrialized nations on early learning. I wish I had just a little more time to expand on this very important issue, but I want to get one last issue on the record.

We are failing our children by not acting seriously on climate change. We did not inherit the earth from our grandparents; we have borrowed it from our kids. Yet, instead of investing seriously in the green economy, the government is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into unsafe nuclear energy, coal and the unproven technology of carbon capture and storage. Anything green in this budget is purely cosmetic.

We had an opportunity to do the right thing for the environment, for jobs and for our children, but we failed to turn over a new green leaf. This is a decision that likely will haunt us for decades to come.

On behalf of all of the victims of this recession who this budget leaves behind, I cannot do anything other than vote against Bill C-10.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the official opposition has a greater responsibility than the other opposition parties. The NDP has said that its members are opposing the budget. They always will. They did not care about reading it.

I want to ask the member about the issue of putting the interests of the people ahead of partisan interests and dealing with one's principles. At some point in time, parliamentarians have to consider that if we bring the government down, this place will close down for another couple of months and it will take about another month before it gets cranked up again. Some members will leave, and new ones will come; there is the start-up thing. In the meantime, the condition of the people of Canada will have deteriorated even further. By the time yet another budget was introduced in a budget speech, it would be months.

In my own view, notwithstanding the concerns I have about some of the things in the budget, I am pleased that at least some of the collective opposition's suggestions have been incorporated into the budget. They will be stimulative. They will be helpful to Canadians. It is a lesser evil, but it is a better outcome than going to another election at this time. I want to know what the member's view is.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this question because, frankly, I think the people who are watching the debate today do not care at all about political parties. They do not even care about politicians. Right now, they are worried about whether they are able to keep their jobs and homes and whether they actually can provide a brighter future for their kids.

We have an obligation in this House not to do what the Prime Minister did, which was to create a budget to save his job, nor to do what the Leader of the Opposition did, which was to look for some strategic advantage to buy himself enough time to grow as a leader in his new role and worry about his job. I think it is time that all members in this House made worrying about the jobs of their constituents their number one priority.

We lost 129,000 jobs in January alone. We have lost 250,000 jobs in the last three months. We are presented with a budget that purports over the next two years to create 190,000 jobs, if we are lucky. That still leaves us 50,000 jobs behind and the numbers are growing. Canadians want us to put their jobs first. Leave the partisan politics aside. We need to do what is right for our constituents. Even the Leader of the Opposition has enumerated all of the ways in which this budget fails his constituents. I would encourage him to join us by voting against this budget implementation bill.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the points which I think is missed by the official opposition is that there is an $8 billion hole in the budget. I know the Liberals are going to ask for reports three or four times a year. The document we have in front of us says that the government will sell off $2 billion in assets, that is, the government will sell buildings in a buyer's market, and it is somehow going to find $2 billion in government savings through cuts. Does the member think that is a sensible thing? Does she think that the official opposition actually read the document earnestly, or did the Liberals just want to pass over that $8 billion hole in the budget?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hole is very much a real one, and as the budget numbers show, it is a hole of $8 billion.

It is outrageous that in this fire sale the government is contemplating selling public assets that Canadian tax dollars helped to build and maintain. Now, to balance its own books in this shell game, we are seeing the shuffling around of potential sales at a time when the value of those assets could not be any lower. Canadians deserve better. More important, Canadians deserve a budget that puts their interests first, where the dollars that are in the budget are actually accounted for and not just by the official opposition saying that it will hold the government to account and demand a report. That opposition party truly is soft on crime. The Liberal Party is letting the government get away with things it never should, and that is a crime.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues in the NDP today in speaking against Bill C-10, the budget implementation bill.

I, like many members of Parliament, held consultations in my local community of East Vancouver to talk to people about what they wanted to see in the budget. People really focused on the essential bread and butter issues of what they need to see happen in order to get through their daily lives, to make it to the end of the month, to put food on the table, to make sure that they have enough money for housing and for their kids to go to school, and to be able to afford a decent quality of life. That is what people were most worried about, particularly in the middle of an economic crisis where so many people were losing their jobs.

In examining the budget in detail, we have come to the conclusion that it fails on two fundamental levels. First, it does not address those essential issues that people are facing in their communities, and second, and what is particularly offensive and outrageous, is that the budget is being used as a cover to move in all kinds of outrageous proposals and rollbacks that would impact working people right across the country.

The Conservative government is not the first government to do that. I remember a Liberal budget that was billed as an education budget. The Liberals moved in proposals that would dramatically impact students in terms of bankruptcy laws. Those proposals were buried in the back pages.

Just a couple of budgets ago the Conservative government used the cover of a budget to bring in massive changes to the citizenship and immigration system. We have not forgotten that either.

Today, the government is using the budget to bring in a wage restraint and a wage freeze program, and to rollback collective agreements. The budget is being used to leverage an attack on women's equality in this country and to turn back the clock on decades of struggle for pay equity. It is doing this by removing the choice that women have to negotiate for pay equity and the use of the human rights system and the court system to ensure that their grievances and legitimate claims for pay equity are heard.

Why on earth would that be in the budget? The answer is because the government is focused on an ideological agenda that is about dismantling the rights that people have fought for and won over many decades. On those two fundamental levels, the budget is a failure.

When I talked to the people at the budget consultations in my riding, the issue that came forward most forcibly was the issue of the crisis in affordable housing.

In B.C. there are up to 15,000 homeless people. In metro Vancouver the 2008 homeless count was 2,600 people in a 24 hour period. The overall homelessness rate in Vancouver has risen 32% since 2005 and street level homelessness has increased by 364% in greater Vancouver since 2002. That is from the metro homeless count.

What is even more disturbing is that aboriginal people make up over 30% of the homeless population in Vancouver even though they make up only 2% of the overall Canadian population.

What makes this housing crisis in my community even worse is that it is facing a vacancy rate that is in effect zero. Tenants are being evicted. They cannot find any kind of affordable place to stay. Renovations are going on and people are being booted out on the street. The crisis in the city of Vancouver is really hitting people hard.

We had seriously hoped that the budget would provide a real stimulus to housing construction not only in Vancouver but right across the country. Instead of a long-term strategy to build affordable housing in this country, we see a one shot deal that will not even address the broad spectrum of housing needs.

Although there is money earmarked for people with disabilities or seniors, there is nothing, for example, for aboriginal people who live off reserve. There is nothing to develop or actually guarantee that new social housing units will be built or that cooperative housing, which has been a huge success story across Canada, will be either refurbished or new units developed. It is no wonder that people like Mayor Gregor Robertson was quoted in the press as saying:

It looks like we'll need to be creative and more aggressive at trying to ensure these dollars create housing for those in greatest need in Vancouver.

He went on to say:

It's confounding, because our homelessness crisis, and specifically the aboriginal homelessness issue, is well-known across the country. I don't know why they would limit our ability to apply these dollars where they're most needed.

That is the mayor of Vancouver who is grappling with a serious housing crisis in our city. He is doing his part and even the provincial government has begun to make some movement to address this issue, but what has the federal government done? What is there really in the budget that will ensure that money flows to the municipalities?

Yesterday the Federation of Canadian Municipalities held a briefing and pointed out that it has serious issues with the way the infrastructure money will be flowing. It wants to see a per capita formula, so we can ensure that the money gets directly into those projects and into those municipalities.

At this point there is no knowledge and no understanding, so we are faced with the very real possibility that just like the billions of dollars that were earmarked in the previous budget for infrastructure, that these dollars will never be spent because they have to be matched by other levels and because the process for having the money actually implemented is so onerous that it may actually never be spent.

Maybe that is what the Conservatives had planned all along, that they would book the money there but would actually frustrate the system so much that it would never get to the people who really need it.

I also want to add that people in British Columbia are suffering under double injury. Not only are they facing the consequences of the recession, the loss of jobs and not being able to get EI or adequate housing, they are also facing cuts from the B.C. government. We have just experienced a whole slew of cuts in our legal aid system. It is very serious when we have a study from the Legal Services Society of B.C. that found that more than 80% of low income British Columbians are dealing with legal issues that are serious and difficult to resolve, yet both the quality and quantity of legal services available to low income people continues to erode.

When people are facing the lack of support and services on the provincial side and then they see on the federal side that they are getting hit again, it makes people feel pretty bad. It makes people feel that they do not have a hope about what will happen in the future. These are just some of the examples of what people are actually experiencing.

When I did my budget consultation, one of the issues that came through very strongly was the fact that Canada is at the bottom of the OECD ranking for child care provision. There had been hope that the budget finally would include a commitment to a national child care program.

The NDP worked very hard in the last Parliament to get through a bill by a majority of members of Parliament to set up a universal, accessible, affordable, not-for-profit child care system. The government had the opportunity to build on that strength and on that vote and to finally include something in the budget that would recognize this importance, not just focusing exclusively on the number of child care spaces but also on the affordability of child care and ensuring that there were adequate wages for child care workers and stable, long-term funding for our child care centres. None of those things were in the budget.

I want to end by just making a point about EI. Surely, this was the greatest travesty in the budget. What a horror story that workers who have been laid off or thrown out of work, who have paid into their EI diligently over so many years, only to find that they are no longer eligible. We have 65% of women who are no longer eligible for EI. We find this the most reprehensible thing that is contained in the budget. It is appalling that in a recession, when people most need help because they have been thrown out of work, they do not even qualify for the program to which they themselves have contributed.

For all of these reasons, we in the NDP find this budget to be a failure. We have fought it as hard as we can. It is very disturbing that the official opposition members have fallen right off the job and have capitulated to this budget. That is what they will have to live with. We know what we have done in terms of opposing the direction this budget has taken because it does not serve the people of Canada.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP had already predetermined that it was going to vote against the budget, regardless. We should explore the regardless because what that would have meant was that Parliament would be dissolved, there would necessarily be an election, after which there would be a formation of government by either my party or the party opposite, the selection of a cabinet, the recall of Parliament, a speech from the throne, and a presentation of the budget and a budget implementation bill.

If we add all of that up on a parliamentary calendar, we would probably be in the middle of August, with the greater likelihood that it could be October, before the Parliament of Canada could respond to the needs of Canadians. That is the choice that the NDP and Bloc have made.

I ask the hon. member this question. Is she comfortable with the choice that she and her party have made to essentially postpone the response to this economic crisis until at least the end of this year or possibly this time next year?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has some historical blinkers on or is trying to self-censor himself in terms of what happened. It seems to me he should be asking this question of the Conservative government that he is now apparently very close to in terms of what actually took place in the House. He will remember it was the government that suspended the business of the House. It prorogued the House and shut down all of the business that we in the NDP were prepared to do.

The member was one of the members on this side of the House who signed the letter which made it clear there was an alternative, and we did not have to have an election. This idea that somehow the choice is to either go along with a terrible budget or move into an election, of course, is a completely false premise, and the member knows that. However, I guess it is easy to spin things in a certain way now that the Liberals have made their choice to support the Conservative budget.

All I can say is that we in the NDP came to a very important conclusion that given everything that has happened, we do not have confidence in the Prime Minister nor the Conservative government in terms of the decisions they have made, the direction they are taking this country, and how they have so badly let people down. We made our decision based on principle and merit, and we feel very comfortable with it.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Vancouver East for speaking so passionately about the things that not only she believes in but the NDP believes in. I would like her to comment on some of the measures in the budget. There are many non-monetary measures in the budget. I would like her to tell me how they are going to stimulate the economy.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is one of the serious problems in the budget. When we examine it in detail, we can see there are many measures and proposals that not only will not contribute anything in terms of stimulating the economy but will actually hurt people.

One of the really serious things is rolling back the collective agreements. British Columbia had that experience with bill 29 when Gordon Campbell ripped up the whole principle of collective agreements and negotiating. That was fought all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Luckily and thankfully, the bill was overturned by the Supreme Court. Lo and behold, the Conservative government is doing exactly the same thing.

The member is entirely correct. Those measures in the budget have nothing to do with economic stimulus. They attack people's basic rights, whether they are women or workers. This is something people feel very demoralized about because we expect a budget that actually addresses budgetary priorities that will help people, not measures and broad proposals that are actually going to hurt people.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising to join in the debate on Bill C-10, the act to implement the budget measures. For the public who are watching this, I am holding up a copy of the bill, which is about an inch thick. The bill was tabled in the House a number of days ago, I believe on February 6, and it contains some 500 pages of measures that are used to implement the budget and amend a whole series of acts. Also contained in these measures, as the previous speaker just indicated, not just budgetary measures, but measures that are designed to change public policy in important areas.

I will use a couple of examples referred to earlier in the debate as poison pills as part of the budget. One example is the change to pay equity. Pay equity, as we know, is an important human right. The importance of equality of men and women is recognized in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is also recognized in the Canadian human rights code and the Canadian Human Rights Commission has been a vehicle for the achievement and the definition of those rights in this country for many years.

It is important to understand what the government has done. The Conservatives said that these rights were no longer subject to review, adjudication and enforcement by the Canadian Human Rights Commission but that they must be done through collective bargaining. Now that sounds on the surface reasonable, but I practised labour law for in excess of 25 years in this country and I will give a bargaining 101. Bargaining 101 is when one side puts its proposals on the table and the other side puts its proposals on the table and then both sides negotiate. Since when did human rights become negotiable? In every set of bargaining, people put their wants and their demands on the table, which could be 5, 10 or 12. They might want a pay increase, more holidays and so on, but now they are asking for equality too. The other side agrees but wants to know what the people will give up to get equality. The answer should be “nothing” because people are entitled to equality as a human right as recognized in the Canadian human rights code and embodied in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

However, the government has now made that a subject of negotiation. In the public sector there are men and women. The men are being told that if they want equal rights for women, then they must give up something in terms of pay, in terms of vacation or in terms of benefits. What are we doing here? Are we setting up a conflict between men and women in the public sector? Is that what the government wants?

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

It seems to be.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

It seems to be, my colleague says. That is what I call a poison pill and it should not be put up with.

That is one good example of the kinds of things contained in this budget that are not really economic stimulus measures or even budget measures at all.

Another one is the changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. One might wonder what that has to do with stimulating the economy. The argument is that any project less than $10 million is no longer subject to any review whatsoever or any standards set by the Navigable Waters Protection Act that protect our environment and the environment of the streams and rivers that are navigable waters. Is that an economic stimulation? No, it is not. It is, in fact, a diminishing of the standards of protection of the environment just because the project is less than $10 million.

Many a bridge, many a diversion and many an activity in this area cost less than $10 million and the amount of damage that can be done is considerable. Is this time sensitive? At the end of two years, is this gone? Is this designed to fast-track projects? No. This is designed to lower environmental standards and the protection of navigable waters, something that obviously the government desires and the official opposition is supporting.

Those are two of the many examples of how the budget fails in its own standard of providing economic stimulus in attempting to, supposedly, get the money out the door.

The government likes to criticize the NDP for holding up the government from getting economic stimulus out the door. We are doing our job to ensure that the people of Canada know what the government is doing, that we cannot take a bill like this and push it through the House in two or three days and expect no one to debate it or even know what is going on. This is the means for the public to know what the government is doing in this one-inch thick piece of legislation.

I have talked about a couple of poison pills. In addition to poison pills in the budget bill there is something that I would call more of a bombshell. That is the treatment of my province, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, by a significant huge penalty. The government decided to change the rules in the O'Brien formula and the application of the Atlantic accord to the detriment of my province to the tune of $1.5 billion over the next three years.

To put that in perspective, this is not about capping equalization payments. This is not even equalization payments. This is a formula designed to ensure that Newfoundland and Labrador is the primary beneficiary of its offshore resources. That fight was fought by Newfoundland and Labrador. It started off with the Atlantic accord of 1985. What we have is the government changing the rules because the rules work in favour of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The government does not like that, so it is going to change it: $1.5 billion of backdoor changes to the rules, unilaterally effected by the government with no consultation and no foreknowledge. In fact, it was only ferreted out in the budget lock-up by officials from the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador when they saw the number for transfers to Newfoundland and Labrador reduced by $460 million. It is a shocking treatment of a partner in Confederation.

We know that if the comparable number was applied to the province of Quebec, it would be $14 billion. If it were applied to Ontario, it would be $22 billion. The number is $3,000 for every man, woman and child in Newfoundland and Labrador. That is a bombshell and it should be recognized as such.

I know my colleagues from Newfoundland and Labrador in the House voted against the budget once but I understand that was a one-time permission granted by their leader and that they will be supporting the budget implementation bill and all other budget measures. That action speaks for itself and I will not say any more about that.

We have a budget bill that not only has these poison pills but it also does not do the job for the people who actually need the help. The previous speaker, my colleague, referred to the fact that not one other person in the country is now eligible for employment insurance in the worst downturn that we have had since the Great Depression. The government has added five weeks to the back end. If people are unlucky enough to be on employment insurance for the full length of the existing measure, they will get an extra five weeks.

We have had someone cost out that measure and it will cost the government $11 million. “Thank you very much”, say the unemployed in this country. It is $11 million when the budget that was presented to the House projects a $64 billion deficit over two years. That is not helping people who need the help.

The budget has failed those people and the people of this country. It does not deserve the support of the House and certainly does not deserve the support of the official opposition.

What is ironic is that every time members from the official opposition ask questions in the House and complain about the budget what do they get? The government answers, “You supported it. You're with us on this one”, and the official opposition can say no more.

We are not prepared to do that. We are here to fight the budget and we are here to fight the government.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for St. John's East for a very detailed criticism of the budget. It shows what the real intent is behind the budget bill and the real direction the government wants to take.

We have in the House the official opposition, the Liberal Party, endorsing the budget despite the fact that for Newfoundland and Labrador, as the member so clearly pointed out, there is a major grab basically taken out of the pockets of the men, women and children of Newfoundland and Labrador of thousands of dollars for each and every inhabitant. The Liberals, even those from Newfoundland and Labrador, are supporting the budget. By voting for the budget implementation bill, they are supporting the Conservative government in its attack on Newfoundland and Labrador.

Today, unfortunately, we will see for the 50th time the Liberals prop up the Conservatives. I would like the member to comment on the inappropriateness of the official opposition to simply be here to prop up for the 50th time a Conservative right wing agenda.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians must be very discouraged, when over 60% of them voted against the governing party in the last election, to see it now carrying out its agenda with the help of the second largest party in the House, the Liberals. The expectation seems to be that the Liberal Party will somehow be rewarded for that in the next election. I think Canadians may have another point of view on that because they well know that there is at least one party standing up in this House to support them.

I would like to read what a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School said about the budget:

Tuesday's budget shamelessly massaged numbers and tables to give a false impression that the tax cuts favour low-income earners. In true [Prime Minister] form, he has used the budget as cover to advance the Conservatives' vision of a good tax system – one that is less redistributive, and encourages heavier reliance on private savings to meet citizens' needs.

Whether one likes this vision or not, it is fundamentally inconsistent with the short-term goals of stimulating consumer spending and helping those who lose their jobs in the recession. The official opposition should have called him on that.

That fact is, it did not.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's dilemma with respect to his province and the unwarranted attack by the Prime Minister on Newfoundland and Labrador.

However, I would like to correct a statement about the Liberal Party agenda. The Liberal Party agenda is pretty straightforward. It is the well-being of Canadians. In our view, there is absolutely no question that that well-being is best served by immediate help given to Canadians facing this historic economic disaster.

Does the member believe that holding out for a perfect budget, which is a chimera, something we may never see, is a better strategy for the people who are losing their jobs than giving them immediate help rather than waiting months for the implementation of some other potentially perfect budget?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, we do not live in a perfect world but I am assuming, since the member is a member of the Liberal caucus, that she was one of those who signed a document back on December 1 offering to participate in a government that would immediately deliver the economic stimulus that was needed in this country. In fact, a proposal was made to form a coalition government to do just that. This was done while the government was projecting surpluses for the next three years, ignoring the fact that there was a real need. It obviously did not anticipate that there would be a job loss of 129,000 jobs in December. It did not recognize the need nor did it want the stimulus.

I am assuming that she was joining with us in saying that stimulus had to happen starting in December, not now or later. We intend to ensure that people understand that we were there to do just that. We are still ready to do just that but this is not the budget to do it with.

[Bill Casey, Independent, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member from Newfoundland a question about equalization. I know he is interested in this.

His province and my province of Nova Scotia were given the opportunity to have a different equalization formula as an option in the 2007 budget implementation speech. That option included a 3.5% escalator clause every year until 2020. The budget speech says that all equalization increases will be capped at the rate of overall growth of the economy, which is about zero percent. That contradicts the legislation that was passed just a little over a year ago that says that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have a 3.5% automatic cumulative escalator clause until 2020. I wonder if he is aware that that has been taken away now.

There is a contradiction. The words in the budget say that all equalization be capped, but the legislation says that Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have a 3.5% increase every year, cumulative until 2020. Which will happen?

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member has a great interest in that issue and has stood steadfast for truth, justice and the right thing to do despite some personal costs to himself. I congratulate him for that.

Unfortunately, I cannot answer for the government. The government says one thing and does another, as it did to Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. These rules that it talked about were actually imposed on Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. They were not agreed upon. Now that the rules work, whether in legislation or otherwise, to the benefit of these provinces, the government sets out the changes. These are not strictly equalization. These are designed to be offsets for natural resources.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the budget because it does not address the serious problems that Canadians are facing.

Over the past 20 years, the NDP has brought into the House the point that for most families in Canada, their real income has decreased. We have had a slow and quiet economic crisis in our country. For 20 years, incomes have continued to fall for the middle-class, for the working-class, for the poorest of Canadians. They are earning less now than they were 20 years ago. The NDP has been pointing this out, yet the Liberals and Conservatives have simply refused to address any of the economic realities.

That crisis has continued and, more recent, has become a full-blown economic crisis, which shows that the economic policies of the past 20 years have certainly not worked and have not provided a foundation to withstand this full-blown economic crisis.

The Conservatives support corporate CEOs. They support banking CEOs. They support corporate lawyers. These are the only people Conservative members are really worried about. They are giving lots of money in corporate tax breaks to the profitable banking sector and to other profitable sectors. They say that they are addressing these economic fundamentals. At the NDP end of the House, which overflows on both sides of the aisle because of our recent increase in the number of seats, we fundamentally disagree.

When a worker in Chicoutimi is earning less now to keep a roof over his or her head than he or she was 20 years ago, that is a fundamental economic problem. When Alberta families see their farm receipts go down, that is an economic problem. In fact, Alberta farmers have had the worst level of farm receipts than farmers anywhere in the country. All Canadians should share these problems. When a softwood lumber worker is laid off because of the government's ill-thought out and irresponsible softwood lumber sell-out, that should concern Parliament.

For 20 years, we have been sleepwalking with right-wing economic policies, whether it has been Liberal government or Conservative government policies. Nothing has really changed. They are similar. It is very difficult to tell them apart. Conservative and Liberal speeches might be different, but on the fundamental economic issues those members have exactly the same approach.

While governments have been sleepwalking for 20 years, the NDP has been warning them that the problems would come to a head, and they now have. We have seen the collapse of our economy in many parts of the country. Thousands of jobs have been lost across the country in the softwood industry, after the softwood sell-out. In the last 90 days, a quarter of a million families have lost a breadwinner.

Each one of these individuals is not a statistic. They are real Canadians. They are real human beings who are suffering because of the absurdly ideological economic policies of the government, rather than putting into place sensible economic policies that would help families sustain jobs in our country.

I represent the riding of Burnaby—New Westminster, one of the epicentres of foolish Conservative and Liberal policies. The softwood lumber sell-out has led to the closure of three softwood mills in my riding and in my community. Hundreds of softwood workers lost their jobs because of the softwood sell-out. They can be added to the tens of thousands of Canadians across the country who have their job because we have no manufacturing policy in place, no real export policy in place, aside from an ideological rant around free trade, and no sectoral industrial strategies in place.

All of those foolish decisions, the deregulation that Conservatives and Liberals have put forward, have led to the crisis we are facing now.

Since we are not talking about statistics but real people, let me read an email I received from one of my constituents, talking about employment insurance. He says, “I'm a 49-year-old licensed heavy duty mechanic who recently got laid off in my line of work. I was at my local Canada Service Centre in Westminster this morning trying to fill out my reports for benefits”.

He talks about another older worker, a 60-year-old truck driver, who tried to electronically make an application for EI medical benefits. He has cancer in his eye. He has never used a computer in his life. The guy helping him had to leave him on his own. Later on in the email, he talks about it being virtually impossible to talk to a human being.

On top of all that, those workers, half of them being laid off, will be unable to access employment insurance. That is a fundamental tragedy. How Liberals and Conservatives could work together to pass a budget that does not give a single Canadian, of that quarter million who have lost their jobs in the last 90 days, access to employment insurance is a fundamental tragedy.

The budget does not help those Canadians. It does not provide a social safety net. It continues the gutting of the social safety net because successive governments, Liberal and Conservative, have favoured big banks and banking CEOs rather than those people on Main Street who pay their salaries. They has completely forgotten about ordinary Canadians. Shame on them.

The budget provides a smoke and mirrors approach to economic stimulus. Essentially, as we well know ,virtually all the money is tied funding. Taxpayers at a city and provincial levels have to cough up first before the government will provide any sort of economic stimulus.

Contrast that with President Obama in the United States, who is putting forward federal funding first. He is saying that, under the buy America act, it has to be spent on an American workers.

In Canada we have this ideological right-wing whacko theory that we cannot protect Canadian jobs and we cannot invest in Canadian workers. Any of the stimulus package that does come out will go to foreign firms, foreign workers. It is absurd.

Half of the taxpayers who have paid their taxes with diligence and who have paid for employment insurance for years in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of 1930s are essentially cut out of getting employment insurance. Whatever stimulus that grudgingly comes out of the government will go to support foreign workers overseas.

We certainly cannot trust the government for reasons that I do not need to go into. It said that it would not nominate senators and it has put 18 of them in the senate. It said that we would have fixed election dates. It broke that promise, too. The government is a serial promise-breaker.

If there is any funding that comes out, if it does not break the promise again, essentially that money will go to support foreign workers overseas. There is no buy Canada provision in place, unlike in the United States where it has put in place buy America provisions.

This is the real tragedy of the principle around this budget. Liberals, for the 50th time tonight, will prop up the Harper agenda, a right-wing agenda. Yet the Liberals have gall to go back to their constituents and pretend that somehow they are fighting that agenda. They are not. They are the major contributing party to the agenda. They are ones who, for 50th time, have allowed the government to continue many of the former right-wing Liberal policies, running roughshod over the lives and quality of life of ordinary Canadians.

What is in the budget? We are the only party that has read the budget implementation bill. We are the only party that brought it in. If Conservatives and Liberals have read the budget implementation bill, why are they in agreement with gutting environmental assessments?

Are they in agreement with gutting pay equity for women, essentially eliminating that right of the majority of Canadians to press for equal pay for work of equal value? Liberals are supporting the gutting of pay equity.

Foreign ownership will be increased, as set out in the bill. Canada student loans will be bludgeoned. Students who are highly in debt will be pursued by the government because of new powers. Collective agreements will be gutted.

For those reasons, we are voting against this act.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is very straightforward. Since the weekend, I have heard from a number of constituents who do not understand one thing. It seems to them, and it certainly seems to me, that there are lot of non-monetary, non-money, parts to the bill.

Would the member like to make comment about why that would be? It is supposed to be a budget bill.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. Essentially, it is an attack on any sort of progressive legislation. It is an attack on collective agreements, ripping them up after the fact. It is an attack on students, creating new penalties around Canada's student loans when we know student debt levels are at record levels.

It allows unrestrained foreign takeovers of Canadian companies. We have seen how well that has worked with some of the so-called guarantees the government received, which are worth nothing. The government is basically saying, “Take over whatever is left that is in Canadian hands”.

It also attacks the principle of pay equity, a principle for which the New Democratic Party has long fought in the House, and we continue to press for that.

It is an attack on environmental assessments. How could anybody who has been involved with the environment simply allow the ripping up of environmental assessments? It is absurd.

However, the Liberals are supporting all of these polices. They will stand in the House and say that they are supporting the budget. They are propping the government for the 50th time. Then they will call for some broad principle and say that they are really opposed to all these right-wing measures, but they will vote for them anyway”.

Canadians should not be fooled. The Liberals and the Conservatives have the same agenda.

If we really want a progressive government, we will have to triple the NDP caucus again. In the next House the NDP will be able to provide the progressive leadership most Canadians seek.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the comments of the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. I want to acknowledge the member as being a master of righteous indignation. I appreciate the member's list of deficiencies of the current government, and I share those views. I agree with much of the critique of the budget. It could have been much better, and I would give it a C-. It was disappointing to see what was tabled.

The member talks about principles. Listening to all the speeches about the past 20 years, the past fall, and so on is all very interesting, but for people who has lost their jobs, it is not very relevant. The member's principles seems to be to oppose, no matter what. That was demonstrated when the NDP members stated they would oppose the budget well before it was written.

The choice is clear. Have laid off sawmill workers in his riding asked the member to make people wait for months for any assistance at this time, or would they prefer the member clear the way for immediate action to stimulate the economy, help people—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I will give to give the member for Burnaby—New Westminster time to respond.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is the problem. We are the only party that actually read the budget implementation bill. We know that not a single additional Canadian will have access to employment insurance at a time when the number of employed is exploding, a quarter of million in the last 90 days alone. The Liberals are saying it is okay, that the unemployed sawmill worker in New Westminster does not have access to employment insurance. They do not care whether workers cannot feed their family or keep a roof over their head.

We disagree. We had an agreement and that agreement included substantial changes to employment insurance. This was the alternative that the new Liberal leader faced, and he betrayed Canadians by going with the Conservatives and their right-winged economic agenda.