Debates of March 13th, 2009

The Economy

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians have two options. They have the option of the Conservative plan of cutting taxes, providing help for those hardest hit, investing in roads, in bridges and in infrastructure, or they can have the Liberal approach, which is no plan at all and a not so hidden agenda of imposing a crippling carbon tax and taking the money away from families who need it for child benefits.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the choice for Canadians is between 3.2 million new jobs under the Liberals and nearly 300 000 jobs lost under the Conservatives. For visible minorities, the unemployment rate is two to three times higher than for the general population. I think that the choice for Canadians and Quebeckers is clear: jobs with the Liberals or unemployment with the Conservatives.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, independent analysts, such as Dale Orr at Global Insight, have said is that it is not this government's fault and it was not Canada's fault that we have a weakness that was not foreseen. The weakness in the Canadian economy is entirely coming from the United States.

We reacted in order to get money into the hands of Canadians. It was the Liberal Party that stood in the way and continuously indicated that there was an overblown fear of what may in fact happen, and it was wrong.

Employment

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's employment numbers have plummeted for the fourth month in a row. In February alone, 111,000 full-time jobs disappeared—that is nearly 4,000 jobs per day. And this is just getting started. The rosy outlook that the Prime Minister was pushing in his Brampton speech this week could not be more off base.

When will the Conservatives wake up and smell the coffee? When will they acknowledge the scope of the crisis and recognize that their budget is utterly insufficient and inadequate?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, that is ironic coming from a party that voted against every initiative. As critical as I have been of the Liberal Party for standing in the way and taking political advantage for short term benefit, I completely condemn what the Bloc Québécois has done in terms of stopping the budget initiatives that we brought forward.

The Bloc members voted against every initiative that would help ordinary working people and now that member has the audacity to stand and make that kind of a comment.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely proud of the Bloc Québécois' work because we are here to fight for Quebec, to fight for workers.

Under the Conservatives, Canada has lost 330,000 full-time jobs in the past year. That is a far cry from the 190,000 jobs that the Prime Minister promised we would see by the end of 2010. The Conservative budget will put thousands of workers out in the streets. That is why we voted against it and that is why we will continue to speak out against it.

Do the Conservatives realize that the budget is not good enough to deal with the crisis and job losses, and that the manufacturing and forestry sectors need much more vigorous measures?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, that is the member who said that cutting taxes was not a good thing to do. That is the member who said that providing help for those who are hardest hit is not a good thing to do. He said that investing in roads, bridges and other infrastructure and helping people in the forestry industry was a bad thing to do.

He voted against the budget, the budget that would have helped all of these industries and would have helped the ordinary working people in Quebec. He turned his back on the people of Quebec. This party stood up for the people in Quebec and Canada.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today we are talking about the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs because of the economic crisis. A great many of them cannot collect employment insurance benefits and find themselves in dire straits. The criteria are so restrictive that, according to the department's own numbers, only 46% of those who lose their jobs collect benefits.

Does the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development realize that she must improve access to employment insurance and stop depriving 54% of those who lose their jobs of benefits?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, the fact is that 82% of those who contribute to EI actually do receive benefits. The budget, which the member opposed, and all the processes that we put in place, do contain provisions. It contains provisions to help those who are unemployed. Five additional weeks of employment insurance will help 400,000 more people. Work-sharing agreements will be extended to a maximum of 52 weeks. There all types of provisions for retraining and skills upgrading and that member opposed each one of them when the budget was before the House.

[Josée Beaudin, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, adding five weeks to the end of the benefit period is not good enough because it will not benefit all claimants.

Does the minister agree with the Bloc Québécois that eliminating the unjust and unjustifiable two-week waiting period would be the best way to help claimants who certainly need help during these tough times?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I am not so sure what difficulty the member has with understanding that five additional weeks is greater than two additional weeks. Those who need assistance more and are looking for jobs longer need those benefits extended. These benefits are extended. In fact, the budget provided for those who are not even part of the employment insurance program. There are moneys for that as well, $500 million, to help those people. The member and her party opposed each and every aspect of those proposals.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, since the election the Conservative government has presided over the loss of 300,000 jobs. There were 129,000 Canadians thrown out of work in January, in February 110,000 full-time jobs disappeared and the unemployment rate is closing in on 8%. What is the finance minister saying? He says he is not surprised. He even expects the losses to continue for the whole year, admitting that Conservative policies are not working.

When will the government change course and actually create the jobs that Canadians need?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, we understand that this economic downturn is part of a larger global downturn. We sympathize with every Canadian affected, but I want to say that the member demonstrated that she does not care about some of the poorest in the country, which she represents in her riding. She voted against the budget that would have helped the very poor in this country. Why would she do that? Why would she turn her back on the poor of our country?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that budget failed Canadian workers and the lowest-income people in Canada. In fact, one factor increasing job losses is foreign takeovers, even though agreements are in place to protect Canadian jobs. The government is not enforcing them, and jobs are being lost. It happened at Vale Inco, Xstrata and U.S. Steel.

Instead of making it easier for foreign companies to pillage our industries by raising the value for reviews to $1 billion, why will the government not follow the example of Germany, which just passed a law tightening the rules for foreign takeovers? That would actually protect these jobs here in Canada.

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I can report to the House--and if the hon. member had read the budget implementation act, she would know--that for the first time in our history we have a national security test to ensure that we preserve our national security against foreign investors who seek to undermine that. I think that is an improvement.

We also, however, are open to foreign investment. Unlike the NDP, we think that when foreign companies invest in jobs and opportunities in Canada, that is a good thing. It is good not only for us here in Canada, but it also helps Canadian businesses invest overseas and create jobs elsewhere around the world, as well as new business opportunities for Canadians.

Obviously the NDP does not agree with that. It does not believe in that. It wants to have us shelled in. That is the NDP's choice, but it is not the choice of Canadians.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is not working very well for those workers who are losing their jobs.

This Tuesday the House voted to bring fairness to the EI system. The House voted to eliminate the two-week waiting period, to lower minimums to qualify, to include self-employed workers, to increase the wage replacement rate and to get more training for workers, but the government cannot even process EI claims properly. It takes three or four or five weeks to get any help.

If the government will not respect the will of the House to improve EI, will it at least get its act together to ensure those who can access EI are not delayed?

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly sympathize with people who need to access EI because they have just lost their jobs, and we will do everything possible to ensure that their claims are expedited quickly. We have dedicated resources for that. We hired more people and asked for the hours to be extended for processing claims. We have done that. We have brought in people who had retired and we have included those who want to work overtime on a voluntary basis.

We will do what we have to in order to ensure people have their claims expedited.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for decades Ottawa-Gatineau has been Canada's silicon valley north. Now we learn that for the first time in seven years, Canada's knowledge-based job sectors lost over 2,500 net jobs, and all evidence indicates that job losses are now accelerating.

At Dell corporation, 1,500 jobs were lost; at Nortel, 500 more jobs were lost last year; at Mitel, it was 200-plus jobs; at March Networks, 20 jobs; at DragonWave, 20 jobs. The list goes on and on.

What is the government doing to support today's IT workers and to help create the knowledge-based jobs of tomorrow?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, obviously we are not pleased with the results of these job losses. This is something we are very concerned about.

The fact of the matter is that the very budget this hon. member voted for has a number of science and technology investments. They are found in Canada's economic action plan. For the Canada Foundation for Innovation, there is an extra $750 million. For industrial research and development internships, there is another $3.5 million. For the Institute for Quantum Computing, a world-class institution, there is $50 million.

These are all science and technology investments and they will pay dividends in the years ahead.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, here is what the government is doing. In four consecutive budgets, there has been no innovation strategy. On the venture capital front, on their watch, there was a drop in this region from $350 million in 2005 to $130 million last year. That is a 65% decline. There was only one venture capital deal last year in support of a new start-up.

Existing companies cannot raise money, they cannot commercialize and they cannot get any money in BDC's venture capital pools, because there is no new money. There are no new tax breaks for risk capital and no matching federal funds to match angel investments.

Once again, what are the minister and the government doing to support knowledge-based jobs?

[Tony Clement, Conservative, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is completely incorrect. In fact, the BDC is still in the venture capital business. In fact, we have invested more money into the Business Development Corporation, so that they can lend to small and medium-sized businesses.

We continue to invest in our knowledge infrastructure. That is what the knowledge infrastructure fund is all about. There is an extra $2 billion in this budget, which he voted for, to help our colleges and universities deal with R and D investments and S and T investments in the future. There is $87.5 million more money for graduate scholarships.

We are doing our part and we will be part of the renaissance of S and T, of new jobs and new opportunity.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the job loss figures published today are so high that it is hard to take them in.

With 18,500 jobs lost in Quebec, it is as though two cities the size of Coaticook lost every job in one month.

What will the Conservatives do to get these people working again?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, the benefits of our economic action plan would have taken effect sooner had the Liberals passed the budget earlier and not played their political games. The Liberal leader, the Liberal Party and the member from Wascana should apologize to all Canadians.

The hon. member is cashing in on hard economic news, yet for weeks was standing up to say he would not pass the budget. Now the opposition is complaining about a two-week delay in EI. They are the ones who wasted over a month of Parliament by stalling this economic action plan.

[Lise Zarac, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's answers are still very theoretical and abstract. Good intentions will not put bread on peoples' tables.

For the 250 Cascades workers in East Angus who will not be going to work next week, the situation is much more concrete.

It is also concrete for the workers in the Consoltex factories in Cowansville who took a salary cut of 15% in order to keep their jobs, leaving them with $100 less each week.

Is the minister sure that he understands that?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing theoretical about people having to wait inordinate periods of time for employment insurance, yet that member and her party were responsible for delaying its implementation. People in places like Cowansville who may be affected by the downturn should look at their member and ask why she blocked this economic stimulus. Why did she stand in the way of getting this money into the hands of Canadians through infrastructure programs?