Debates of Feb. 12th, 2009

Budget Implementation Act, 2009

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise proudly today to oppose Bill C-10, the budget implementation bill.

It is quite interesting when one does a quick analysis of what has happened since the financial crisis hit, which is a huge indictment of a capitalist system run amok and now attempts are being made to salvage it by bills like this one and other attempts by other right-wing governments around the globe. It is so symptomatic of how the crisis came about. It was based hugely on greed, incompetence and corruption, particularly in the United States, but its tentacles have spread right across the globe. Because we in Canada are so integrated, part of the globalization formula which both major political parties in this country have advocated for so long, we got caught in the crisis and we are going to get caught in it even more. In spite of the Bank of Canada's prognostications, the reality is we have not hit bottom and we are still some distance from hitting bottom based on the way our economic system works.

We saw the government, both during the election and even more so after, continue to be in complete denial of the crisis we were faced with. That has not ended. The budget is a continuation of the government's psychological bent of refusing to recognize reality. It is living in a fantasy world and the budget reflects it.

It also reflects a good deal of cynicism on the part of the government. It follows the same pattern the Prime Minister personally has followed for so long in taking every opportunity to push his ideological right-wing agenda. We see it in this bill in so many ways. It is a continuation of his broken promises, as we have just heard from my colleague, whether it was in appointing people to the unelected Senate, which he promised so vehemently he would never do, or whether it was calling the election in the fall. I remember watching him a number of times give speeches in advance of making that decision, and in advance of fixing the dates for elections in this country, a policy our party has supported for a long time, and the vehemence with which he spoke, and then watching him breach that promise so easily at the first possible opportunity to pursue his own personal objective of trying to get a majority government. We see that continued in the budget.

The Prime Minister stood in this House and he stood before the cameras of all our TV channels, all of our media, and said that he was going to change, that he was going to stop having every single item, no matter how important, be a confidence vote. He was not going to do that anymore.

Then what do we see in Bill C-10? Buried in this bill, which of course is a confidence vote since it is the budget implementation bill, there are at least half a dozen items that have nothing to do with the budget. They are policy issues in a number of different ways, but they are items that the Prime Minister wants from an ideological standpoint. Whether it is attacking the labour movement in this country, or whether it is attacking women over pay equity, he has buried a whole bunch of provisions in this bill, which is now going to be a confidence vote, which compels the so-called official opposition to support it, given the pledges it has made.

This bill is going to go through at some point, unless the Liberals finally come to their senses and maybe stand on principle, but that seems to be a contradiction in terms when we are talking about the Liberal Party. Unless that happens, a bunch of bills will go through the House comprised in Bill C-10, which should not be confidence votes and we should be allowed to vote on those bills without that hanging over our heads. I do not think there is anything more offensive and I say that personally.

I remember watching the finance minister speak about pay equity in his November financial update. In terms of the tone, the words he used and even his body language, I was offended by the vehemence with which he was attacking women and the movement around pay equity that has gone on for decades and still has not completely resolved itself. Then at the next opportunity the government almost hides it in Bill C-10.

We listen to the President of the Treasury Board try to justify it by, quite frankly, as my colleague from Winnipeg said, misleading the House about the provisions in provincial legislation and claiming it is the same. It is not. It is nowhere close. The epitome of it is the government is saying it will get done through collective bargaining. It was interesting to hear my eloquent friend from Newfoundland and Labrador point out that human rights are not bargained. It is either a human right or it is not and it is not bargained. That is what the government is doing in trying to lead us to believe that is the mechanism it is going to use.

To put the lie to that, one only has to read the bill, and I invite the Conservatives to do that to understand what is really in it, if collective bargaining does not work and a number of women say they did not get their pay equity and they want to pursue it, there is a mechanism to pursue it, but their union, their organized support mechanism, cannot help them. In fact, if it tries to help them, it will be fined $50,000. For every incident it will be fined $50,000 for doing what it should be doing in terms of its responsibility vis-à-vis its membership. If that does not put a lie to the real intent of the government, I do not know what would.

Madam Speaker, are you signalling that my time is up?

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

No, I am concerned about the language. All hon. members in the House know that the word “lie” is inappropriate parliamentary language and I have just heard it repeated, so I was concerned.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I think within the context, Madam Speaker, it was not unparliamentary, but I will go on to other items.

There could have been so many other things in the budget as opposed to trying to hide things. We have heard about the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the attack on the environmental movement, and all of what we have accomplished so far being undermined by that.

When I read that part of Bill C-10, the budget implementation bill, it immediately brought back a conversation I had with a public servant at the municipal level in my riding when I was doing the prebudget consultation work. I asked to be provided with a list of all the projects available if we could get a decent stimulus program going. I specifically asked whether these projects were ready to go, including if they needed an environmental assessment and if it had been done. He said to me in response, “Every single one of these has had an environmental assessment, if it is needed”. That is true generally with municipal projects across the country. Therefore, this provision is absolutely unnecessary. It is simply an attack.

I want to conclude by saying there is so much hypocrisy and ideology in this bill. The bottom line is there is not going to be an effective mechanism to stimulate the economy.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, the Conservatives continually tell us to read the bill and read the budget, but they certainly do not expect parliamentarians to do that, because if all parliamentarians read the budget bill, the vast majority of them would actually be appalled at what is in the bill.

I am particularly concerned about the attack on the Canadian Human Rights Act. What that has to do with the supposed economic stimulus package is clearly worthy of debate. It states specifically in the budget bill that an employer who has been found to be engaged in a discriminatory practice against women is now protected by all the legal weight in Canada. That is sitting right on page 388. It clearly lays out how employers who have been engaged in discriminatory practices are protected. It is not even a question; if they have, they are protected. Yet that is in a supposed budget implementation bill that is supposed to be addressing the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s.

I would like to ask the hon. member, how can it be that members of Parliament representing such diverse regions of Canada could sit in the House and allow the Canadian Human Rights Act to be so arbitrarily trashed in such an ideological fashion against women workers in this country?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, the point my friend from Timmins—James Bay is raising is in keeping with the line I was making in terms of the ideological underpinnings that are quite obvious in the budget bill. I will extend that, because he has caught the point already that there is an attack on the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

In the justice committee there is a motion from the Conservatives, which has now been approved, for us to study that, with a clear indication from that side of the table that they want to gut the human rights legislation with regard specifically to section 13. There are reflections of that here.

Going back to that $50,000 fine, one of the areas one would want to access would be the Canadian Human Rights Commission if one were in a pay equity dispute with the government or one's employer. By making it impossible, in effect, to take that on as an individual, it is undermining the usefulness of the commission and the serious important role it plays in protecting human rights in this country.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh.

International Women's Day is coming up in March. Yet this budget directly attacks pay equity, while women today already earn only about 71¢ for every dollar earned by a man.

What is more, we heard one of our colleagues say today that the NDP is not prepared to stand up for Canadians. But that is precisely what we do in the NDP: we stand up for what Canadians are really asking for.

Can my colleague comment on the impact this budget will have on pay equity for women?

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh has one minute to respond to the question.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will reply in English, since I speak faster in English than in French.

The reality is that Manitoba actually increased the ratio of the amount that women make in that province vis-à-vis men, by a significant amount in the way it treated pay equity. We will see the opposite with this legislation.

In particular, the Conservatives are changing the way pay equity is being defined. They are not even using that term, other than one occasion in that part of the bill, and they are coming up with new terminology which clearly will undermine the role the legislation can play in protecting women. It will be just the opposite and we will see that gap between men's and women's wages in this country more than likely widen rather thank shrink.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am very proud to rise on the issue of Bill C-10 and its implementation.

The context in which we have to discuss this issue today is the root causes of how we came to this international economic catastrophe, how the Conservatives completely failed to understand the implications, and the implications of what they are doing now on the long term, because they all fit together in a very straightforward pattern.

I am sure members will remember the glib comments we heard from the other side of how we avoided a recession. When we saw the U.S. housing market collapse, there was a belief from Mr. Magoo of finance that Canada would not be in any way impacted by a downturn in the United States, even though that has never, ever happened--

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Timmins—James Bay just used some fairly unparliamentary language in the description of our finance minister. I ask that he retract that comment.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I had referred in the past to a Liberal leader as Mr. Magoo and the Conservatives laughed and supported it. It is not unparliamentary. We would not find it on any unparliamentary list of words. Mr. Magoo is obviously a cartoon character and so it is perfectly straightforward. However, if the hon. member is feeling a little touchy this morning, Madam Speaker, and I hope this is not coming off my time responding to him, I would say that I have used it as a symbol.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

I had not heard the first comment. I do not believe that it is unparliamentary. I would ask the member to continue.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, speaking of comical, it is the glib response that we saw from the Conservatives when they saw the storm clouds coming, everyone saw this technical, this synchronized recession or whatever the words were that they used, they saw it coming for a long time. What did they do throughout that period? They stripped the fiscal capacity of the country to respond.

They were coming with one tax break after another, which were absolutely useless tax breaks in terms of GST, stripping the country's capacity to be ready at a time of crisis. But that speaks very much to the typical attitude of the neo-conservatives, the attitude of what we saw in the United States, and what we saw in Europe. They created this situation that we are in now.

We are dealing now with the government's response. It is supposed to be 500 pages of economic stimulus. However, the government in November told us that we had missed the recession and the recession was past, then Conservative backbenchers said they had already done their economic stimulus the year before. That was their tax cuts and in fact they were so smart they were ahead of the economic stimulus package. Then, of course, we found out that 130,000 jobs were lost in January and 250,000 since they were making such glib comments. Now they have settled down their tone somewhat.

However, within Bill C-10 we see the real direction of the Conservatives. They are not all that interested in an economic stimulus. They are looking to create the old Reform Party pinata. If we smash this like a pinata, we will find all the ugly little slugs of the Reform ideology start to fall out, for example, their attack on the human rights code. It is right there. What does it have to do with budget implementation? Zero, but the attack on the human rights code is laid out. The attack on environmental protection, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, is in there. What does that have to do with economic stimulus? Zero.

The attack on student loans is absolutely appalling. We have student debt that is crushing middle class families across Canada and yet we see the government adding brass knuckles in its budget implementation bill to attack students who are suffering from student loans. What does that have to do with economic stimulus? Absolutely zero.

Then of course we see the move to strip Canada's foreign investment rules. What does that have to do with economic stimulus? A great deal, if one is a foreign corporate raider and dealing with a Canadian company that is on weak legs, the government has just made it easier.

Let us put all of this in the context of the times. Right now we have the situation of Xstrata in Sudbury, an absolute debacle in the community. It has hit the region like an economic neutron bomb, but it is not just an isolated plant closing. This is the result of the twin pillars of Conservative ideology, which are indifference and incompetence, in addressing the economy.

Let us back up two years to the former industry minister. Some day it will be a Trivial Pursuit question to ask: who was the minister at the time when we lost the two great mining giants of Canada overnight?

I am sure many of the listeners back home will be wondering. I will give two clues: Julie Couillard, the whole “Mom” Boucher thing. That famous member. He was the industry minister. At that time Falconbridge and Inco were attempting to get a merger so that we could make the synergies of the industrial basin of Sudbury actually come together. Inco was having problems with its regulatory approvals and the industry committee, not just the New Democrats but the industry committee said, “Hold off on the hostile takeover by the corporate raider Xstrata until we can ensure that at least there is another bid on the table”. It was not to say, force Falconbridge to marry Inco, but to give Canadian companies the chance because they were being held up by international regulatory approvals.

The minister did nothing because it was not the role of the Conservatives to be involved in the economy in any way unless it was to sell off the great assets of Canada. Therefore, overnight we lost the twin jewels of Canadian money. Falconbridge went to Xstrata and Inco went to Vale of Brazil. We lost the synergies in the Sudbury basin.

At the time there were guffaws from the government side because it was the good times. In good times any idiotic company can make money. That is not a problem. In good times no one is worried about who is paying the bills but the question we asked again and again is what happens when the bust comes? What happens when the bust comes because nickel mining is cyclical? Now the bust has come. The only thing that the people of Sudbury had to protect them was an assurance by the government that a contract had been written to say that Xstrata would agree, in exchange for taking one of the key assets of the Canadian mining industry, that there would be three years without layoffs.

We have not even reached the three years. Now we have heard the industry minister claim, “Oh, don't worry, I stepped up to the floor and got Xstrata to offer some new money”. That is a lark. That money was on the books from Xstrata because it is simply moving ahead with what it planned all along.

If anyone knows nickel mining in Sudbury they will say at $5 a pound, nickel can be mined profitably. Nickel is about $5 a pound. What Xstrata is doing, as part of its corporate plan along, is to move away from the lower grade deposits, move to the nickel rim mine which is a phenomenally rich mine, which will allow it to continue to high grade the assets. Officials knew that if they simply ignored the agreement that they had a toothless, indifferent and incompetent government on the other side of the floor that would do nothing to make them stand up to the signed agreement with the Canadian people. That is exactly what happened.

For the people of Sudbury and all of the northern Ontario economy, the loss of 700 jobs is going to have an impact with long-term implications because anyone who has less than eight years seniority is gone. So sure they will be getting the bus ticket to Fort McMurray, but we are losing the new generation of miners. We are seeing families who do not have this extra six months. Whatever payout they get they are going to have to spend it and lose it before they ever get employment insurance.

In the 500 pages and all the talk we have heard from the Conservative Party, there is not a single provision anywhere in the budget for one extra family in Canada to be allowed access to employment insurance. Nothing. That has profound implications because Canadians pay into these systems. They believe, because they are working, that they do not have to worry about it, that if things go wrong that their government has a system in place.

The surprising fact for the people of Sudbury, Abitibi, and for the people all across my region, is that they have come to realize that the government has complete indifference toward those who are falling through the cracks. The only model applied for employment insurance is the Minister of Human Resources saying that the government did not want the benefits to be lucrative because it wanted to ensure that a hungry belly would ensure that people would get up off the couch and went looking for a job. That is absolutely intolerable.

It is intolerable that we have an indifferent government that has allowed such key resources, such as Falconbridge deposits, to be so cavalierly wasted. It is appalling that we have a government that will not make this foreign corporate raider stand up to the commitments that it made to the Canadian people when it acquired Falconbridge in the first place.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for bringing up the subject of Xstrata because a lot of people who have been laid off not only live in Sudbury but they also live in Nickel Belt. I would like the hon. member's thoughts on the fact that the industry minister this week stood in the House and, I cannot say the word “lied”, misled the House of Commons into believing that he was involved in the strategy--

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order. Hon. members must be careful about the language. It is not acceptable to use words like “misled the House”.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The industry minister tried to make us believe that he was involved in negotiations with Xstrata to put new money on the table, when all along this was old money dating back to 2008. I would like the member's thoughts on the industry minister misleading us.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, we have been fighting this issue so strongly. The issue is really clear. This is a government that through its indifference and incompetence has allowed Falconbridge to be taken off by this corporate raider. At the time we were told not to worry because we have protection for three years, but Xstrata knew that the government did not really care and would not actually stand up for the people of Sudbury because it has not stood up for any other industry in this country.

When our new industry minister stands in the House and says “Listen, I'm taking this seriously”, I am glad he is actually standing up. He seems to have a little bit more backbone than some of his predecessors. But when he is saying there is new money, it is simply not true. Xstrata had money on the books for developing nickel rim because it is a fantastically rich mine and everyone knows it, and it wanted that deposit. It did not want to have to deal with the larger issues of the Sudbury basin and that is again the misuse of our resources, the misuse of commitments that were made to the Canadian people, and the misuse of information in the House of Commons. The government has to at least say, “We had no intention of holding them to any agreement in the first place”. That is a fundamental of Conservative ideology.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Timmins—James Bay for his intervention. One of the things he pointed out was the record of the government, not just in this budget but in previous budgets, saying that it is going to do one thing and ending up doing another.

My question is specifically on how it has treated those who are most vulnerable, those who are right now suffering job losses, particularly in his area but also right across this country. Does the member believe that this budget can really actually help people who need the help right now? Are the changes that are contemplated in this budget going to make matters worse in the long run or better?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, every day my office deals with the front lines of this economic crisis. We hear from the families who are not eligible for EI, who do not have enough weeks for EI, and the older workers who do not have enough funds to bridge them to a pension and end up losing everything along the way.

When we met with bankers, the business communities and labour, we found a surprising unanimity on one issue, which is that we have to allow greater latitude for EI in a time of economic crisis. We have to poverty-proof our communities.

We heard that from all kinds of sectors. Obviously, the Conservatives did not hear it because they continually go back to their basic Reform Party message. They do not want lucrative benefits because they think people are lazy. They want to accuse anyone who comes forward, who says anything about the issues of older workers, that we are not being positive enough. They want this whole Horatio Alger claptrap to be danced out in this House of Commons, and that we should encourage people to be more positive to find jobs that do not exist.

It is simply not acceptable. Families are losing their homes, they are losing their savings, and they are looking to the government to do more. What they see on the government side benches is absolute indifference.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to speak today to Bill C-10, the budget implementation bill, and make some comments about the current situation of the government.

The government has introduced a budget that contains a lot of the stimulus package and ideas that were promoted by the opposition. However, at the end of the day, we have no confidence that this budget will ever see the light of day in terms of implementation. Budgets get passed all the time but governments will underspend budgets. One member was heard to say recently that we are confident that the recession will end, that we will start coming out of the recession within three months and that we will not need to spend a lot of this money.

That is why, fundamentally, we cannot trust or believe the government. It is a Jekyll and Hyde sort of government. The sweater comes on during the election campaign and then, of course, it comes off. Now, I think it is back on again. Some of the members, such as the President of the Treasury Board, have not figured out yet that it is sweater time again. I want to take a few minutes to explain what I mean by that.

In my riding in Winnipeg, we have a serious situation where a freeway and two bridges will be closed for a year and a half, inconveniencing about 200,000 people. For whatever reason, the mayor has decided to punish that quadrant of the city by refusing to stop the closure by allowing two extra lanes to be built. These two extra lanes are envisioned to be built by the city in the next 20 years anyway. In fact, they have been costed out at around $50 million. This has been an issue for almost a year now. When I spoke to the President of the Treasury Board about this, he was really surprised. Given all the publicity on this issue, he felt that the problem could be solved if he could just get the parties together and do a cost-share on the extra two lanes, split into thirds. The federal share might then only be $17 million. He agreed that he would try to get the parties together to do that.

That was back in the early part of November. I have followed up with him since and he told me that he had talked to them but new infrastructure money could not be applied to an existing project. Any project that was on the city of Winnipeg list would be excluded because it was already being dealt with. The issue then became how we would consider this project. I suggested to him that it would be a separate project. The first project had already been approved and it was a triple P, a totally different concept. This should be conventionally financed and they should find a way to do it under infrastructure money. We all remember the shovel-ready talk that this should be done because the city already owns the land.

I have had occasion to speak to the minister a couple of times over the last couple of weeks. On the first occasion, he said that I had better vote for the budget because there would be consequences if I did not. I just attributed that to him having a bad hair day and I let it slide. About a week later, I had another conversation with him. I asked him the same question and he repeated the same thing. He said that I should vote for the budget or there would be consequences. He kept referring to consequences. I do not think that is a good approach. He is out of sync with the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister is back to the sweaters. This minister should get on side and be a little warmer and friendlier.

In the Manitoba provincial legislature, I sat beside the highways minister. This is nothing new. It has been going on forever, regardless of the party that is in power. Conservative and opposition members, who sometimes ask very good, tough questions of the government, would come up after question period and talk to the highways minister, who was sitting right beside me, and ask about the bridges and roads that needed rebuilding in their areas. We need to be able to separate these things. We did not get all excited because the guy had voted against the budget. Of course he had. He was a Conservative in opposition and that was his role. He was supposed to be voting against the budget. He was doing his job by opposing the government and pointing out things the government should be doing.

However, we never held it against the member because he voted against the budget by not giving him his road. What kind of nonsense is that?

Let us flip it back. When we were in opposition, the same thing applied. We would ask the Conservative minister of highways a tough question about something to do with roads and a few minutes later we would cross the floor, have a chat with him and he would give us the answers. That is just the way things operate.

All I have tried to do is to get these parties together. However, we have a stubborn mayor who refuses to listen to over 5,000 people have responded to my surveys. It is not as if there are people opposed to this. Ninety-seven percent of the people are in favour of providing the two extra lanes.

Do members know that last June the Prime Minister announced $70 million, which is a third of the money, would go toward a bridge in Saskatoon? That bridge in Saskatoon carries only 21,000 cars a day. Our Winnipeg bridge, which is 50 years old and falling apart, carries twice as many. It carries 40,000 cars a day and the mayor says, no, that the city will wait the 20 years to add the extra two lanes and the 200,000 people up in that quadrant can just suffer.

I want to make it very clear that it is not the minister's fault that this has happened. I do applaud him for trying to take a leadership role in this, but he should follow through. He should try to convince the mayor that there is money available for these extra two lanes, that if he will put in his third, which he seemed very agreeable to do in the beginning, then we could continue this project and get it done. However, he seems to now have double-shifted back and is saying that it is all contingent upon how we voted for the budget, which is just not the way to do it.

The Conservatives have a new-found alliance with the Liberals but they have to be pretty confident that will last. As the leader keeps moving up in the polls, the Liberals may not pass that big report card the Conservatives need to answer to in a few months.

One would think the Conservatives would get those sweaters back on and be a little extra friendly with all the members over here in the opposition because, guess what, they might need our help some day.

In any event, I would once again appeal to the minister to find a way to get the infrastructure money out to deal with this issue that we are talking about in Manitoba.

We talked yesterday to the municipal people who told us that the infrastructure money was really not there for bridges anyway. They said that it was for shovel-ready projects that had to be finished within two years. They have a list of projects that might apply and those are basically renovations. If a community centre needs a little bit of renovating and it can be done in two years without any environmental assessment, then that is the project that will be funded.

Why, in this omnibus bill, is there a provision dealing with environmental assessments? Just what kind of environmental projects do the Conservatives think will qualify under their rules for the infrastructure money? The answer is, none. There are no environmental projects that will apply here because they will not be able to get their assessment done in time to get the project done in the two year allotment.

Once again, I made the argument about the two lanes. I said that because we already had the land, we probably would not need an assessment because it was already in the plans. I said that this project should be considered as a separate one-off project to avoid people suffering an inconvenience. It is not only me who will be inconvenienced. The member has a colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul who is also in the affected area. Conservative councillors in the area are all in favour. Every elected official, at all levels, is in interested in solving this problem. It is simply the mayor of Winnipeg who is the intransigent one in this particular project.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like my colleague to comment a little further with regard to employment insurance and the changes in the budget that the Liberals are supporting.

I understand, from what I have read in the budget, that there will be five additional weeks of benefits afforded to people who are entitled to them. However, it does not deal with the two weeks prior, which means that if they cannot get the first two weeks, they wait about 28 days before they get their first cheque.

I was just wondering what impact my colleague feels the changes to EI will have and whether he feels these are as lucrative as the Minister of Human Resources feels they are. I had applied way back when for EI when I was a young teenager and I did not feel that what I was making was lucrative.

In 1996, people used to make $647 a week and now it is down to a maximum of four hundred and some dollars, but on average people only collect about $355 a week. Does my colleague feel that this is lucrative or that it benefits the people who have lost their job? What is the impact on his community?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, we know that perhaps 65% of unemployed people are ineligible for EI benefits under the current system. We are not helping matters by not making changes. Given the conditions that this country is under at the moment, we definitely should eliminate the waiting period for EI because that would be the proper thing to do.

All the government has done is add an extra five weeks on at the end. The pain is up front. I would expect that we would keep pushing the government to see the light in this case and do something. We only need to look at the unemployment stats just in the last month and in the last quarter to see the huge increase in unemployment numbers. The signs point to matters only getting worse, not better, in the short term.

I know the Tories are holding on, hoping that we will come out of the recession so they will not have to spend any of this money. They want to be able to go back to their Reform Party cousins and say that they did it because they had to in order to save the government, but that they did not really have any intention of spending the money. They want to hold on long enough so that the economy will begin to come out of the recession.

However, it does not look like that will happen. Things are starting to look like they will be even worse. If those people in that party are aghast at the deficit they see the government looking at running right now, they will need to take another look at what could happen in another six months to a year from now when conditions might be far worse. We would hope that the government will take a look at this EI situation now and make the changes now before conditions get even worse than they are.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like the hon. member from Winnipeg to enlighten me on how the non-monetary measures that have been added into this budget, which is supported by the Liberals, will help stimulate the economy.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am quite familiar with the Tories in Manitoba doing the same thing. They also brought in big omnibus bills with poison pills in them.

When we were in opposition for the 11 years under the Filmon government, we had to deal with one of these bills every year. They were about 400 pages long and we would send our staff in to read it over and reread it to find these hidden poison pills. There were all kinds of them, which made it very difficult for us at times to vote against the bill because the government always put something in there that would be hard for us to vote against. That was just tactics on its part but that is what the government is all about, tactics.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for standing up in opposition in a constructive and critical way. It is important for us as members of Parliament to understand our role, and our role is to be critical when necessary. We are not always critical. We have been constructive in our criticism and have put ideas forward. It is important to make that statement to begin with.

Before I get into the substance of my comments on the budget bill, I want to take a moment to pass on condolences from the Ottawa community and my caucus to the family of Madame Michèle Demers on her sudden and tragic death. Madame Demers was the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. She was a leader not only of her union and for the people she worked for, but also for the Ottawa community. We are saddened today for her family and quite frankly for the labour movement. I had the opportunity to meet with Ms. Demers on many occasions. She was always clear in her convictions about what she was doing and served her members well. We will all miss her greatly.

If we look at the trajectory of the budget, we have to look at the fiscal update, of course. Three components in the fiscal update were obviously not satisfactory to all members of Parliament, save the government. Included in the fiscal update was the well-known political financing issue. My colleague spoke of poison pills. The political financing issue was a large dose of poison.

However, that was not the focus for us in the NDP. We focused on the fact that the government wanted to ban the right to strike by public servants the day after it had just negotiated a contract with one of the public service unions.

In both the economic statement and Bill C-10 the government wants to take away the right of women to have pay equity. It also wants to take away the right to challenge if they do not receive equal pay for work of equal value.

In the fiscal update there was also a $10 billion assumption. It was a whopper. It was that the government was going to find savings in government operations by selling off enough assets to gain $10 billion.

In his own comments, the finance minister admitted that his numbers were a bit rosy. We will have to give him the new nickname of “Rosy”. Actually, I think “Rosy” is being polite.

Every single economist who looked at that $10 billion assumption, and this is especially for our friends who used to be reformers, thought it had no credibility. The finance minister was also criticized by the government's own parliamentary budget officer. The Conservative government pretends that it knows how to manage a lemonade stand, but it has a $10 billion assumption that was laughed at from every corner.

The government grabbed onto power and prorogued the House. Then it did a Hail Mary pass, which is the budget. The Hail Mary pass is sadly being caught by the official opposition, as those members like to call themselves.

The rosy $10 billion number from our rosy Minister of Finance came back in the budget in front of us as $8.7 billion. The government has managed to figure out some of the math. However, the government forgot to tell us where the money is going to come from.

This year in the budget--and I say this to all those who purport to be fiscal conservatives, be they in the official opposition or be they on the government benches--the government is going to get $4 billion from the sale of government assets and from finding government savings.

We all know what the game is. The game is that the Conservatives are going to have to do one of three things: increase the deficit, not spend the stimulus or have a fire sale of government assets in a buyer's market. Does anyone find that credible? I certainly do not. That is what bothers me most about this budget.

My colleagues have underlined the importance of looking at what this does for people, and I applaud that. It does not do much for people. What gets me more than anything are the assumptions made and the rhetoric put forward by a government that pretends it actually knows what it is doing when it comes to managing the nation's finances.

I will give another example. A couple of years ago the government said, and I go back to its assumptions in this budget, that it was going to find $2 billion through savings in government operations and through selling off assets. It was going to find $2 billion that was booked by the previous government, I might add, in government operations.

What it did was a real whopper. It hired a consulting company by the name of A.T. Kearney out of Chicago. The company has a branch office in Toronto. The consultant racked up a bill, and I know my friends know this one well, of not $1 million, not $2 million, not $10 million, not $15 million, not $20 million, but $24 million. Does anyone know what the government got for it? It got zero.

Public works had the blessing of the cabinet. The former minister of foreign affairs is nodding and smiling. He knows it well. The government got shaken down for $24 million by A.T. Kearney. The problem is that we were shaken down.

One member looks as if he does not know what this is about. He should look it up. I am going to send it to him, actually, because he is a minister now in cabinet. He is walking away now, and he should. He is hanging his head in shame, I hope. A sum of $24 million was spent, and we received zero value for the money.

These are the people who are now responsible for bringing us out of the recession. God help us all. What we need right now are people who understand how finances work. That is why I will not only be opposing this budget, but doing so vigorously and with clarity.

The government wants us to believe it has the best interests of the country in mind. When a government signs on for a $24 million contract with a consulting company from Chicago and gets zero value for the money, I am sorry, but I do not trust it, my constituents do not trust it and neither should anyone in the House, including its own members.

In the time I have remaining, I want to talk about some solutions.

It is interesting to note that south of the border there is an entirely different situation. There are people who actually listen to those who want to pull us out of the recession by investing in people and communities. One of the most exciting things happening south of the border is the green collar momentum. It is a move toward taking us from this economic recession and transforming our economy to one that is not only environmentally sound but also sustainable.

One of the alliances is different from the alliance we see in the House. It is called the Blue Green Alliance, an alliance in which labour and those pushing for environmental change have come together. They have said they need to come together to provide stimuli and solutions for the economy. We see this being applauded, lauded and supported by the federal government in the states.

My final comment is that instead of paying $24 million for bogus reports, we should be investing in blue-green alliance solutions similar to those we see south of the border. That is what this party will be doing, it is what we will be advancing and it is why we will not be supporting this budget.