Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-10. It has been an interesting journey for us to get to the point where we have a budget for us.
This is a very interesting story. When we go back to before the last election, in this House we actually passed a fixed election date law. The election was supposed to be held on October 19, 2009.
We had an election. One has to wonder, if we look at all the things that have happened, whether there is something more to the story. I looked at it very carefully and listened to how the government explained this.
In the November economic statement, the government indicated that there would be four years of surplus ahead of us and that everything was fine. The Prime Minister was happy that a recession had not occurred in Canada and had clearly indicated that if we ever to go into recession it would have already happened. That was out of line with virtually every private forecaster and with the parliamentary budget officer who has been under attack by the government. I do not know why.
The government started to change its tune as things started to come out. All of a sudden, in the January budget, instead of four years of surplus, we are looking at four years of deficit and at a recession.
The government says that we are in good shape. The Prime Minister's original assessment was that our banks were stronger than the banks in the rest of the world, so we did not have anything to worry about. On top of that, all these other countries that are boasting about being ready for the impending recession and the financial crisis, will be spending a lot of money. Since we are a trading nation, all the money they spend will benefit trade with us because we are a good trading country. It was basically an explanation that somehow we did not need do anything. We just needed to sit back and let other countries do the job and Canada will be just fine.
As we well know, that is not the case. In the January budget, we now have four years of deficit. The government's latest jingle line is that this is a global economic crisis. That means that everybody who is a player in the global economy is in crisis, and we are all there.
This is an absolute miracle, when we consider that last November there was no problem. We had an economic statement that said there was no problem. However, between November and January, when the budget came out on January 26, there was a global financial crisis. Instantaneously, the entire world was in a global financial crisis with no indication whatsoever that there was any problem out there. This is a lot of hogwash. The whole world does not go into an economic crisis without people knowing it.
The government knew it and the parliamentary budget officer knew it and told the government about it. The Governor of the Bank of Canada knew about it and told the government about it. I have heard from far too many people that the Prime Minister simply did not want to listen to the facts. He did not mind if the finance minister was left hung out to dry by giving numbers that were clearly a terrible indication.
The House knows that under the rules of budget day, the budget secrecy provisions, and even in general developments, the finance minister should never make commentary that may have some impact on the marketplace or on other financial indicators or instruments that might be involved. It is hard to believe that he actually gave that November economic statement that was basically panned by virtually everybody who knows anything about economic forecasting. It was clearly wrong but the government will not admit it now.
We now have a situation where the Prime Minister has said that we need to rush this through because we need to get the money flowing, and if we do not do it, there will be an election. I thought that was a little over the top because the official opposition has decided, notwithstanding the flaws in the budget, to support this one because we need to get that economic stimulus package moving and in place.
The only alternative would be to defeat the government now, go into another election and probably not come back until just before the summer or maybe even after the summer, depending on what happens. That would be unacceptable for the people of Canada. We need to put the people's interests before partisan interests.
However, the Prime Minister is still playing this partisan game saying that he has to get this going because he has to take care of the country and he is the only one who can take care of the country. I am not sure whether or not that is the assessment of the people.
As a consequence, when we think about it, there were indicators. Most people, who had any investments in RRSPs or direct investments, probably received the economic forecast letters that I received and I have seen others receive where it said that we have had a long good run of balanced budgets. We ducked the last recession that the U.S. had. We had low interest rates. We had the highest employment rate in 30 years and everything was going very well. We paid down debt and gave tax breaks. However, eventually it has to turn. Fat builds up in the system, the system gets lazy, the system gets undisciplined and things happen. Of course we are now into a more cyclical scenario.
Is it not a shame that the government broke its own law and called an election a year before it should have called it? Then, is it not a shame that it decided that it was going to go forward with an economic statement that made absolutely no sense, but wasted time? Then Parliament was prorogued, for how long again, so that the government could go back and figure out what would be its next political step. It came back with a budget.
What is in the budget? It is not just budget information. It turned out to be like an omnibus bill. There were things in there that had nothing to do with the budget, nothing to do with the financial crisis, and nothing to do with the need to get an economic stimulus package out.
It included an all out attack on pay equity. It included an all out attack on the public service, on the Competition Act, and even on the Navigable Waters Protection Act, things that have taken up time because they are in the budget and members have to address them, but they should not have been there in the first place. They could have been separate bills.
The Prime Minister says that he wants to get the stimulus out. Canadians want that stimulus out. However, we cannot just flip a switch and say, “Here's the cheque, go do it”. Obviously, we have to pick the projects, we have to appropriate the money, we have to come to an agreement and work out the details. Could that be going on now before the budget is passed? Could that be going on now before the cheque is cut? Absolutely.
As a matter of fact, if the government is not happy about that, why is it that over the last two years there was $2 billion of infrastructure spending that was budgeted, approved, appropriated and a cheque ready to be cut but never spent? It never got spent. It is called lapsed, promised but not spent.
If the government was clearly committed to doing something about the financial crisis that we now face, and when the January budget came out and the Prime Minister recognized or apparently recognized at that point that there was this financial crisis, why is that he did not accelerate or get out the already approved money and not have to wait for this? That would have put shovels in the ground or at least all the work would have started to move forward. There is no reason why money should not be out there.
The other issue that I would like to comment on is what I read in the paper, which I found a little disturbing. It was on the front page of the Globe and Mail where a minister of the Crown had a meeting with the representatives of 65,000 academic and general staff of universities and colleges. He started yelling at them and telling them that they did not understand the budget.
Why is it that we want to change the channel when the issues are creating jobs, saving jobs that are at risk, and taking care of the most vulnerable in our society in this financial crisis? Those are the priorities. The tools are available. The Prime Minister has to stop playing games saying that there are somehow delays going on here. This budget has gone through faster than any other budget in the history of our country. The official opposition is supporting it. It will pass quicker than any other budget. The tools are there. The government should get on with the job.