Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak to Bill C-10. I want to talk about a couple of things that are important for not only my riding but also nationally.
In clause 10 of the bill, the government has done a very sly thing. I will give the House a bit of history, which you know very well, Madam Speaker, coming from the area that we come from, the greater Victoria area. Our dockside workers are the men and women who ensure our navy has ships that are functioning properly for our brave men and women in the Canadian Forces.
During the last several years, people in the trades nationally were earning a lot of money in the private sector and our workers in the dockyards could have easily left the civil service, gone into the private sector and made more money. Did they do that? No, they did not. Why not? They felt they were honour bound to continue to serve our country as civilian workers on the docks.
The government refused to negotiate their contract in good faith, so it went to arbitration. The arbitration was completed in January of this year with a fair and reasonable increase of 5% that goes back to 2006. What did the government do? In clause 10 of Bill C-10, it literally tore up that arbitrated agreement and has actually rolled back the moneys that our dockyard workers are owed. That is an underhanded approach.
My party, the Liberal Party, approached the government and asked if we could work for the betterment of the dockyard workers. We asked the government to negotiate a way to enable the dockyard workers to receive the pay and benefits that are their due. What did the government say? It said no. It said that it would not negotiate at all and that we must take this bill in its entirety. It would not allow us to change or amend the bill. It would not accept any of our suggestions to make the bill better for Canada and Canadians. It said that we had to take this lock, stock and barrel and, if we did not, since the vote on this bill would be a vote of confidence, it would invoke an election and ensure we wore it.
The government has refused to negotiate in good faith with the opposition on this bill. It has refused to allow us to work for our constituents. It has refused to negotiate to make this bill better in the interest of our country. It said that if we do not take this bill lock, stock and barrel, it will not only have an election but the stimulus package that is in the bill, which is important now for our workers, our economy and our country, will not go through. Therefore, after an election the stimulus package might get through some time this fall.
What kind of response is that from the government to Canadians at a time of need and at a time when all of us want to work together for the common good during a time of economic crisis in our country? We have a government that simply will not negotiate with the opposition to strengthen the bill in the interest of the public. That is what Canadians need to hear and what I hope they hear in the debate today.
The government is simply saying to Parliament and to the Canadian people that if we do not take this bill we will not get the stimulus package, jobs will be lost and we will have a $350 million election that nobody wants.
Is it not remarkable when we see events south of the border, where the U.S. president is willing to work across party lines in a bipartisan way. He is asking what the best solutions are that his country needs right now for his people. That is the kind of leadership that Canadians want and deserve. The Prime Minister is failing again to do this because he is playing politics. Why is he not listening to those of us in the other parties? Why will he not work with us to implement a series of solutions that will strengthen our country and help our citizens during their time of need?
Let us look at the stimulus package for a second. The stimulus package was intended to pass quite quickly. If last year is any indication, in 2008 in my province of British Columbia 75% of the moneys allocated for infrastructure projects are still sitting in the bank. What kind of infrastructure project is that?
The community of Sooke requires umpteen infrastructure projects. The west shore needs the E&N railway up and running, the Bear Mountain and Spencer Road overpasses need to be up and running, a storm sewage drainage system requires fixing, affordable housing needs to be implemented, and the federal government must work with the provinces to help post-secondary institutions from Royal Roads to the University of Victoria, Camosun College and the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence. These and many other infrastructure projects have their hands out saying we should use these moneys now in order to provide a long-term benefit for our economy and our country.
The president of the high tech parks in Canada, Dale Gann, has an exciting proposal that would enable the government to invest taxpayers' money into high tech infrastructure parks that will enable our economy to compete internationally. We are a trading nation. We are an exporter. The government has simply not responded. Why is it doing that? Unless we invest in high tech parks today, we are going to be so far behind the eight ball that we will be at a huge disadvantage in terms of the changing economies.
China, for example, is building dozens and dozens of high tech parks. India is doing the same. They are getting into the forward cutting edge of research and development, which are the central pillars of the ability of any economy in any country to be able to move forward and capitalize on the future challenges ahead of us.
If we also look at the ability of our workers to access post-secondary training, one of the great challenges now is the fact that access to post-secondary training is often dependent on the amount of money in one's pocket. That is not an egalitarian situation. How can we have a nation whose access to post-secondary training, to be the best that we can be, to contribute in the best way possible for our nation, is actually predicated on the amount of money in our pockets? If we do not have money in our pockets, we cannot fulfill our highest potential for ourselves and our nation. That needs to change.
The Liberal Party put forth a number of very exciting solutions that could have been beneficial and, frankly, ought to be implemented now by the government. A couple of those are that the interest rate would be prime plus .5% and that the time students have to repay their loans would only start two years after they graduated.
In the case of medical students, for example, and those in residency training, they should not have to pay their loans until their residency training is over. Why should students have to pay off very hefty loans when they are making $50,000 or $60,000 a year while they are still essentially in medical school, in training? They are not able to pay off all of what they owe.
Some flexibility must be put into play to enable them to pay back the amounts they can. Many students graduate and go into jobs that are just a bit above minimum wage. They cannot possibly meet the financial requirements that are placed on them. The government has to invest in post-secondary institutions in an intelligent way and enable students to access the post-secondary training they need.
The other issue is investment in research and development, from Genome Canada to the stem cell research taking place in various institutions. Canada is full of outstanding researchers. The lack of interest and attention the government has given in this particular bill to research and development is going to hamstring the ability of our researchers to save lives and to develop research and development initiatives that could massively improve the health and welfare of our citizens.