Mr. Speaker, I was just reading from a press release.
In his Budget speech, [the] Finance Minister...responded positively to a number of Mississauga Board of Trade’s proposals to mitigate the impact of the recession and strengthen the economy....
Mr. Leiba said:
While the coming months will continue to be tough for many residents, employees and businesses, the fact that we now see a clear strategy should help to begin restoring consumer and investor confidence. We believe it is a positive step forward.
We were asked by employers and labour representatives to help laid-off workers by extending benefit periods to account for extra time required to find alternative work. We responded by increasing employment insurance benefit entitlements for a further five weeks.
Colleges and skills training organizations suggested that we assist workers forced to transition to new and different industries. We responded by increasing funding for training delivered through the employment insurance program by $1 billion over two years and by investing $500 million in the strategic training and transition fund and investing a further $2 billion to expand facilities at post-secondary institutions.
Skilled new Canadians in Mississauga and across Canada continue to struggle with the recognition in Canada of their foreign credentials to allow them to utilize their much needed professional skills and knowledge for the benefit of all Canadians. We responded by providing $50 million over two years for a national foreign credential framework in partnership with provinces and territories.
Business owners told us that they needed increased access to credit to continue to finance their operations in the normal course, to keep workers employed and to make new investments in competition enhancing production equipment and new technologies. We responded by providing up to $200 billion through the extraordinary financing framework through a variety of measures to allow businesses the financing they need to invest, grow and create new jobs and by creating the Canadian secured credit facility with up to $12 billion to support the financing of vehicles and equipment for consumers and businesses.
We were asked by the city of Mississauga, the region of Peel and community action groups to help protect the most vulnerable in our society by assisting the municipalities with the provision of affordable housing. We responded by providing approximately $2 billion through a variety of measures for renovating, retrofitting and new construction of social housing.
I would like to read from a press release from the region of Peel released yesterday in which it describes how the government offers to support families and businesses in Peel. The headline reads, “Peel Community to Benefit from Federal Budget”. The statement reads:
The federal government’s 2009 budget announced yesterday offers support to families and businesses in Peel.
Canada’s Economic Action Plan identifies budget measures such as the expansion of the Working Income Tax Benefit, the National Child Benefit Supplement, and the Child Tax Benefit that will support low-income working individuals and families.
“The priority areas identified in the budget are consistent with Regional Council’s recommendations to the provincial and federal governments,” said Regional Chairman Emil Kolb. “We are also pleased to learn of the new investment for infrastructure and remain committed to working in partnership with the provincial and federal governments to help expedite funding for our projects.”
At our town hall forum in Mississauga, ordinary, hard-working families and seniors told us that they needed tax relief and incentives to help them provide for their families. We responded by delivering meaningful tax relief to low and middle income Canadians.