Debates of June 19th, 2009

Opposition Motion--Business of the House

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

moved:

That this House recognizes that its constitutional role of holding the government to account requires regular, orderly, timely and clearly understood procedural opportunities for doing so, while not unduly restricting the ability of the government to manage its legislative program; and therefore orders that section 10 of Standing Order 81 be amended temporarily for the balance of 2009 by adding, immediately after paragraph (c) thereof, the following:

“(d) In each of the supply periods described in paragraph (a), the first allotted day shall be no earlier than the ninth sitting day and no later than the thirteenth sitting day in that period; and no fewer than four nor more than seven sitting days shall be permitted to pass between allotted days within each period, provided that, in any case, the last allotted day in each period shall not be more than seven sitting days before the last sitting day in that period.”

provided that the Speaker shall, after consultation with the House Leaders, table in the House no later than December 1, 2009, a proposed formula for a fair and even distribution of allotted days in each of the supply periods of 2010;

and, with particular regard to proceedings in 2009 only, when the House adjourns on Friday, June 19th, 2009, it shall stand adjourned until Monday, September 14th, and, in order to avoid conflicts with G-20 meetings, when the House adjourns on Friday, September 18th, it shall stand adjourned until Monday, September 28th, provided that, for the purpose of granting Royal Assent to any bills, the House shall, during the aforementioned adjournment periods, be deemed to stand adjourned pursuant to Standing Order 28, and provided that the supply period ending December 10th, 2009 shall be deemed to commence on September 14th;

and, in addition to the accountability reports already required by the Liberal amendment to the 2009 Budget motion, the government shall prepare a further accountability report, meeting all the requirements of that said Liberal amendment, and table it in the House during the week beginning September 28th, 2009, and an allotted day for the Official Opposition shall be designated to take place on the third sitting day following the tabling of the report, provided that for the purposes of Standing Order 81(10)(d) above, this allotted day be deemed the first allotted day in the supply period ending December 10th, 2009.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Since today is the final allotted day for the supply period ending June 23, 2009, the House will go through the usual procedures to consider and dispose of the supply bills.

In view of recent practices, do hon. members agree that the bills be distributed now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, a number of serious issues have come to the floor of this House since the sitting of Parliament, which apparently will end today, first began with the 2009 federal budget in January.

Four of the most important of those issues, the ones that have dominated Canadians' attention for the past several weeks, are: first, the unfairnesses in the employment insurance system, especially, current eligibility rules, during a time of deepening recess; second, the progress, or the lack of progress, in getting infrastructure investments actually out the door and up and running; third, the exploding federal deficit, with no clear plan yet apparent to deal with it; and, fourth, the recent failure in Canada's ability to produce medical isotopes, causing a worldwide crisis in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, heart disease and many other serious health conditions.

These were the four issues that were specifically raised by the Leader of the Opposition# this past Monday as matters requiring explicit attention this week from the Government of Canada before Parliament could allow the government's estimates to be approved today.

With respect to employment insurance, there are two key problems that had to be addressed. One was fairness to the unemployed and regional equity across the country at a time when Canadians are facing a worsening economy. We are not living in the 1990s when Canada was coming out of a recession, when the economy began generating 3.5 million net new jobs, and Canadians enjoyed the start of the most protracted growth spurt since World War II.

The circumstances of 2008-09, sadly, are the opposite, and the old rules are, unfairly, leaving too many Canadians out.

That point about fairness was made not only by us in the official opposition but also by Premiers McGuinty of Ontario, Campbell of British Columbia, Stelmach of Alberta and Wall of Saskatchewan, as well as, incidentally, the Conservative Party in Ontario, including the spouse of the federal Minister of Finance.

With respect to effectiveness and affordability, without any premium increases, I would hasten to add, independent think tanks like the Conference Board of Canada, the Toronto Dominion Bank, the C.D. Howe Institute and others, agreed with the principle that were we arguing for. If we provide better access to EI benefits for the unemployed during a recession, we will increase their disposable incomes and, therefore, their purchasing power, and all of those benefits will be pumped right back into the economy almost immediately as those jobless Canadians buy the necessities of life for their families. Those benefits, therefore, become not a cost but an immediate form of economic stimulus; perhaps more effective than anything else that the government has announced.

Until Monday of this week, the government denied all of this about employment insurance. It claimed that it had already fixed the system and there was really nothing left to do. However, now, as of this week, that view has changed. The government now agrees there is an EI eligibility problem. The Prime Minister has confirmed that the current rules in a recession “don't make a lot of sense”, to use his own words.

So, we now have a process to at least try to fix that problem, as well as, perhaps, some others related to employment insurance. That is progress. That is better than where the problem stood on Monday.

With respect to infrastructure programs to get shovels in the ground and jobs created in this construction season, the problem has been that there have been a lot of announcements and re-announcements of many projects over and over again, but so far, nearly a third of the way through the current construction season, very few tangible results have actually been obtained. It has been a lot of sizzle but very little steak. Big hat, no cattle. And that view has been shared emphatically by many mayors in municipalities across the country who have been waiting for some action.

The Minister of Finance said in his budget in January that the first 120 days following his budget would be the most critical in getting stimulus flowing this summer, but those 120 days passed three weeks ago, at a time when the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was reporting a 96% shortfall in the government's actual delivery on what it had promised.

All of the PR campaigns aside, Canadians need to know what money was actually spent, not promised, not announced, not allocated, not advertised but actually spent on which projects, creating how many real jobs in those first 120 days. We now have a way to find that out faster than would otherwise have been the case.

With respect to the deficit, we know this. The government has been erratic and inaccurate in providing any reliable information. Last fall the government was telling Canadians that a recession was unlikely and that there would be emphatically no deficit. In November, it claimed four more surplus budgets. In January, that had flipped around completely to a projection of two years of deficits, $34 billion this year and $30 billion next year. In February, March and April it told us that was still completely accurate information. It was still “on track”, it said.

However, in May we learned the red ink for this year will not be $34 billion but $50 billion, a 48% increase. Deficits will follow not for two years but for at least five years and the cumulative damage will be something worse than $170 billion in new debt.

Worse still, Conservative deficit financing began not because of but before there was a recession. It destroyed Canada's fiscal security during good times long before the trouble hit with a vengeance last fall. There is to date little evidence that the spending that has been announced is having any constructive effect and there is no apparent plan, other than wishful thinking, to deal with the new mortgage that is being placed on the future of our children.

Because of the events of this week, the government will be obliged to be more forthcoming with Canadians about the actual debt and deficit situation and the government's plan to deal with it. It will also be required to produce and implement a plan to deal with the crisis in medical isotopes. Confusing snippets of information will not suffice. Neither will it be sufficient to try to pass the buck.

The government must shoulder the responsibility that comes from being in power for more than three and a half years. It inherited nuclear facilities that were in fact duly licensed. It, itself, renewed those licences.

There was no unplanned disruption in the flow of isotopes during the previous years of Liberal government. Neither was there any disruption during the Mulroney years before that, as far as anyone can remember. However, there have been two serious failures in the last 18 months.

It is time to stop the spin, stop the excuses and just produce a plan to tell worried Canadians how this crisis is going to be fixed going forward. That is what matters. That is what patients waiting for cancer treatments want to know. On Monday, the Prime Minister finally said he would comply and produce that plan.

Those are the four key issues. The vehicle for achieving some progress on them is the motion that we are considering this morning. If this motion is adopted, the estimates will pass, the House will adjourn today for the normal summer period, we will return one week earlier in September, and our sittings will avoid any direct conflict with the G20.

The government will prepare an extra probationary report on the economy, the fiscal situation and the fight against the recession. The report will provide details about infrastructure spending and the deficit, among other things. It will coincide with the advice that will be coming from a working group of MPs and others on how to fix EI eligibility. Shortly thereafter, there will be a vote scheduled in the House to test the government's performance and further opposition days for all parties will be scheduled in an even-handed manner through the fall and into December.

There is some progress on the four important issues and there is enhanced accountability in a minority Parliament. For these reasons, this motion should be passed today.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I listened, as I always do, with great interest to my colleague from Wascana. As is the custom with the member for Wascana, his speech was basically another example of his propensity to revise history.

We have heard many things from the member for Wascana in relation to the four main points the leader of the official opposition had leading up to the meetings between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. However, the official opposition House leader, the member for Wascana, fails to mention that basically none of the four points the official opposition leader felt were paramount to be answered prior to his decision on whether to force a spring election were really dealt with.

The resolve that the Prime Minister and the leader of the official opposition had at the end of their meetings, while very encouraging and beneficial to all Canadians since they resulted in no election call, did not really address the points that the leader of the official opposition had going into those meetings.

I will give one clear example. For weeks and weeks we heard the Leader of the Opposition and many members of his party say that the main reform to EI must be a threshold of 360 hours across the country. There was no mention of that. There was no agreement to that when the agreement was finally reached between the two leaders.

I would ask the official opposition House leader why he did a 180 on the 360? If that was the hill the Liberals were going to die on, why was this not agreed upon, or even raised, in the meeting between the leader of the official opposition and the Prime Minister?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, obviously I was not in the meeting, and neither was the hon. gentleman across the way, so perhaps we should both be a bit careful about saying what was or was not discussed in that meeting. The fact is that the topic of eligibility for unemployment insurance was expressly a part of the discussion. Both of the leaders have said that. They both agreed on a process by which to address that issue.

It is significant that before that meeting the government denied that there was any problem with eligibility for employment insurance. It said that apart from its last election campaign promise, which had to do with parental leave for the self-employed, everything else had been addressed by what the government had done with respect to the five weeks of additional benefits and that there was no point even discussing EI eligibility.

As it turns out, in his news conference following the meeting with the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister said he agreed there were inequities in the rules with respect to eligibility and that he was prepared to make a good faith effort to try to address those with the Leader of the Opposition. Let us hope the process works, because that would be beneficial for unemployed people in this country.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am fascinated by the debate this morning, particularly the exchange between the Conservative member and the member for Wascana. There seems to be the first crack in this new coalition government. I think Canadians will watch what unfolds with great interest.

The question I want to ask this morning is also about EI. It pertains to the so-called blue ribbon panel. I thought this might be interesting, that there might be representatives from the CLC appointed to this panel, that there may be experts on the worker and employer sides who deal with employment insurance every single day.

What do we get? We get a panel of Liberals and Conservatives, two MPs from each party and a political staffer. I am not sure why that is necessary, because frankly all the MPs in this House have already voted on EI.

We already know what this House has decided should happen on EI. The NDP motion on EI passed by a majority vote. Canadians are simply waiting for its implementation. They do not need more study. One and half million Canadians are unemployed. They need action, not more study.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Wascana, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to say that the discussions this week have actually broken the logjam and a process is now in place that can lead to better results for unemployed Canadians across the country.

I am encouraged by the remarks of the representative of the NDP, because it sounds like she would like to participate in the process. Hopefully there is a broad consensus across the country that can be arrived at.

In terms of this working group, it will be able to reach out beyond its membership to receive good advice from wherever that may come.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the opposition day motion moved by the hon. member for Wascana, the Liberal House leader.

The motion recognizes the role of the House in ensuring government accountability. As we know, that is the primary function of Parliament in our Westminster system.

More specifically, the motion at hand calls for three things: first, that the Standing Orders of the House be changed with respect to the scheduling of allotted days this fall; second, that the House calendar be altered to accommodate the G20 meetings in September; and third, that the government table an additional report on the implementation of the 2009 budget.

I will touch on these three points very briefly, as it is the government's intention to support the motion. I will devote the remainder of my remarks to a more general discourse on the successful functioning of Parliament and my experiences of this past session.

The opposition day motion provides for a change to the rules of Parliament with regard to how the government may allocate opposition days this fall. Since coming to office in 2006, as a general rule our government has always tried to evenly distribute the opposition days in the parliamentary calendar. In certain circumstances we recognize that legislative priorities can force a deviation from this practice. However, we do support the idea of amending the Standing Orders to ensure that this usual practice becomes a rule.

The second provision of today's opposition day motion provides for a change to the House calendar for the fall of 2009. Under this provision the House would open a week earlier than currently scheduled and it would then adjourn for the week of September 21. This will enable the government to focus on the G20 meetings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 24 and 25.

The G20 is the chief forum for the world leaders, as a group, to address issues resulting from the global economic crisis, and Canada has played an active and important role in these discussions. At the fall G20 meetings, the Prime Minister and other world leaders will discuss progress in promoting economic recovery and they will consider new ways to address global economic and financial challenges.

I think we can all agree that there is no more pressing issue before Parliament than dealing with the global economic downturn, which has caused personal hardship and job loss around the world. Unfortunately, as we all know, Canada has not been immune.

Our legislative program of this past session has reflected that the economy is the number one issue for Canadians. As such, I am pleased to support a motion that permits the Government of Canada to give its undivided attention to the critical economic discussions that will be taking place at the G20 summit in September.

The third provision of today's opposition motion requests that the government table an additional report on the implementation of the 2009 budget. In the face of global economic uncertainty, this government presented a budget in January with a comprehensive economic action plan to stimulate economic growth, restore confidence and support Canadians and their families during this global recession.

This economic recovery program is unprecedented in our history, and it is working. Canada was the last group of seven country to enter recession and the International Monetary Fund expects that we will have the strongest recovery coming out of it.

The government has also taken unprecedented steps in reporting on our economic action plan. We tabled an initial budget report in March. A week ago we tabled a second budget report, which outlines how 80% of the measures in our economic action plan are already being implemented. This government welcomes the opportunity provided by today's opposition day motion to table a third budget report in September. In fact, we committed to such a report in our budget presentation earlier this past winter.

The Minister of Finance announced at the time that he would be tabling an economic report in the fall. This being the case, I commend the official opposition for echoing the government's pre-existing intention and commitment to provide quarterly reports on the economy in and through the House to all Canadians. As we debate this today, I think it is important to remember that the government was already committed to providing that report in September.

As all members in the House know, the last few weeks have not been easy in this place. In fact they have not been easy on Canadians from coast to coast to coast. During this time of economic challenge, Canadians did not want to hear about the possibility of an election. Canadians want us to continue to work to achieve results for them. They know we cannot afford an election, which would put Canada's economic recovery at risk, halt stimulus investment across the country and limit our ability to continue to implement our economic action plan for Canadians.

By avoiding an election, we have enabled the government to continue its course of doing everything possible to turn this global recession around on our own soil. The cooperation we have seen emerge over this week, spearheaded by our Prime Minister, has not only avoided a costly and unwanted election but has clearly demonstrated to Canadians that their Parliament can work for them.

Despite the partisan political drama played out during the daily 45 minutes of question period, Canadians may be surprised to know just how cooperative and productive this past session of Parliament has been. Since January, our government has worked with all opposition parties to advance many important bills that will help Canadian families. We have moved forward on our electoral commitments, and I am pleased that much more has been done.

Since January, the government has introduced a total of 54 bills. By the time the Senate adjourns for the summer next week, I expect we will have royal assent on 26 of those bills, including such important legislative initiatives as Bill C-33, which will restore war veterans' allowances to allied veterans and their families; Bill C-29, to guarantee an estimated $1 billion in loans over the next five years to Canadian farm families and co-operatives; Bill C-3, to promote the economic development of Canada's north; Bill C-28, to increase the governance capacity of first nations in Canada; and Bill C-14, a critically important justice bill to fight the scourge of organized crime.

Although much work has been accomplished, a good number of bills that continue to be priorities of our government remain on the order paper, including Bill C-6, to enact Canada's consumer product safety act to help protect the health and safety of all Canadians; Bill C-8, to provide first nations women on reserve with the same rights and protections enjoyed by all other Canadians; and Bill C-23, to open new doors for trade between Canada and Colombia.

Furthermore, our government has continued to demonstrate an unwavering commitment to fighting crime and violence in this country. Our justice minister, the hon. member for Niagara Falls, has been unrelenting in his determination to hold criminals accountable and protect victims and law-abiding Canadian citizens.

Over a dozen justice related bills have been introduced since the beginning of this parliamentary session, which include Bill C-15, Bill C-26 and Bill S-4, to help fight crimes related to criminal organizations, such as drug-related offences, identity theft and auto theft; Bill C-25, which will return truth in sentencing and eliminate the two for one credit; Bill C-36, which will repeal the faint hope clause, and Bill C-19, the new anti-terrorism bill.

Unfortunately none of these bills have completed the legislative process during this session of Parliament. Again, due to the leadership of our Prime Minister, thankfully our country will not be plunged into an election and these bills will remain on the order paper. We hope to pass them into law in the fall.

I look forward to continuing the spirit of cooperation in this place in September to accomplish this unfinished business for all Canadians. Five of these bills have already passed one chamber of Parliament and they are before the second House for consideration. On behalf of vulnerable Canadians in particular, we have to keep moving to get the job done on this important legislation.

In closing, I am pleased that the government has been able to develop today's opposition day motion in cooperation with the official opposition. This House of Commons should more often focus on what all of us have in common rather than what divides us. While I would have liked to have seen some debate on some of our newer bills that we have just introduced and passed more of our justice and safety bills, this parliamentary sitting is winding down in the age-old Canadian tradition of compromise.

We all know that this place is about debate, trade-offs, negotiations and compromise. This is how Parliament works. This is how our very country was born, has grown and continues to develop and flourish.

As I have already indicated, the government will be supporting today's motion. I again salute our Prime Minister for his leadership in staving off an election, which I think would be dreaded by the vast majority of Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, I wish you, and all colleagues in this House, a very happy summer.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague for his speech. It was certainly more statesmanlike than the deputy House leader for the government's was.

I want to ask him specifically about EI and the issue of regional fairness.

It is not just the opposition parties in this House who say we need to have regional fairness and a 360-hour standard, but that is the overwhelming feeling of business, labour, social policy groups, analysts and anti-poverty advocates. There are people who would argue whether it should be 360, 395 or 420 hours, but even his own premier in B.C., as well as Premier Stelmach, Premier Doer and others have said we need to have regional fairness.

I ask my hon. colleague, very seriously, does he not think that the people of his constituency should have the same access to EI as any other Canadian?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, despite my hon. colleague's preamble and sharp partisan jab against my hon. parliamentary secretary, who spoke so eloquently a few moments ago in reply to the address by the member for Wascana, I will address his question.

Something that has been overlooked thus far in the debate, certainly in the remarks by the member for Wascana, is the fact that our Prime Minister, our Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and our entire government have always maintained that we are prepared to do more. We are prepared to do whatever is necessary to address the economic challenges, the hardships that Canadian families are facing during this global economic recession.

In answer to the hon. member's question, I commend his leader, the leader of the official opposition, and my Prime Minister for working together co-operatively in striking the working group that will be investigating options over the summer to make the employment insurance program fairer for all.

The Prime Minister has put forward the idea of including self-employed people, on an optional basis, in employment insurance. We have extended benefits. We have already made substantive changes about which we have often remarked.

I must also be very clear. The statement made by my parliamentary secretary is accurate to the word. The official opposition and its leader did a dramatic 180° turn on their 360. That no longer is the hill on which they are dying.

I commend the official opposition for seeing reason and working with our Prime Minister to put forward the working group on employment insurance reform.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the House leader is about one particular part of the opposition day motion before us today, and I will talk a bit more about it later when I get the opportunity to participate in the debate.

My question focuses around the need to adjourn the House during the meeting of the G20. As I understand it, traditionally the Prime Minister and usually the Minister of Foreign Affairs would participate in those meetings. That is two people out of a House of 308 members. I also understand that the government might want to take more people along, but I am assume it would not be more than about half a dozen. That would leave more than 300 people here ready to do the business of the nation.

Could the government House leader explain to me why it is necessary to adjourn the entire House of Commons for one whole week when we are facing an unemployment crisis, a crisis with respect to isotopes and a crisis with respect to job creation? Could it be because the Little Mermaid is opening in New York theatres that week and he wants all of his members to be able to go?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I remarked in my speech, the New Democratic Party is always so negative all the time, and it is very unfortunate. Canadians are tired of that. It is reflected in the rapidly diminishing support for the New Democratic Party in the polls from coast to coast to coast. That party is falling into disrepute because of its actions. Those members are always negative. They vote against every solitary thing that we bring forward on behalf of Canadians. They have to vote against something before they even read it, and they brag about it.

Canadians do not support parliamentarians of any political stripe who come here to automatically oppose everything that is trying to be done.

On the issue of adjournment, I would point out for the hon. member, the media and Canadians watching at home, that not a single solitary day of debate is going to be lost by having the House rise. The G20 meeting is an urgent and important meeting. Our Prime Minister has been a world leader on the international stage in addressing the financial crisis facing the world, not just in Canada. He will continue to do that at the G20.

We will continue to have the debate in this chamber, which the country needs, despite the negativity of the NDP.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take part in this debate on the motion introduced by the Liberals on this last supply day of the session.

I am happy to speak because I truly feel as though I am doing the job Quebeckers have asked us to do by sending a majority of Bloc Québécois members to this house since 1993. This work involves defending the interests of Quebeckers and of workers.

In the spirit of defending the interests of the workers of Quebec, the Bloc Québécois is opposed to the motion introduced by the Liberal-Conservative coalition. Let us not kid ourselves; the motion before us is the result of the deals that took place over the past few days and weeks between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister. They simply want to ensure that the Conservative government's so-called economic action plan moves forward, and all the Liberals and the Leader of the Opposition got in return was a vague promise of EI reform and the creation of a working group, which we think is a sham. I will come back to this.

Voting in favour of this motion would mean voting in favour of this new Liberal-Conservative coalition, and would mean voting in favour of the budget that the Bloc Québécois has already voted against because it did not address the current needs of workers and the unemployed, the needs of the sectors that are currently struggling—like the forestry and manufacturing sectors—or the needs of Quebec.

Since we voted against the budget because it was not friendly to workers, Quebeckers or the unemployed, we will certainly not vote in favour of the motion being discussed today. We will not endorse the partisan manoeuvring that has been taking place over the past few hours and days. Therefore, the Bloc Québécois will vote against this motion.

If the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister had been responsible and had chosen to assist the people and to immediately respond to the needs of the unemployed, instead of trying to buy more time, we could have justified supporting this motion. However, this is absolutely not the case.

Not only did we yet again denounce the Conservative so-called economic action plan because it does not meet the needs of the people and the sectors that are suffering because of the financial crisis and the economic crisis, but we have also proposed comprehensive plans twice in the past few months, plans that included a series of proposals to meet the current needs of the economy and the population. Each time, the government and the Prime Minister dismissed our proposals out of hand without even finding out what they were.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that the Bloc Québécois always makes up its mind to vote against everything without even reading it. That is not at all true. I think it is important to note that, since the Bloc Québécois first arrived here in 1993, every time any bill or motion whatsoever was introduced, we considered whether it would be good for Quebec, good for people, good for workers and good for the unemployed. We did not hesitate to vote for any bill or motion that we found to be good, regardless of whether it came from the government or another opposition party.

I would note that yesterday, the Prime Minister misled the House about that. For example, we voted in favour of the Conservative government's first two budgets because we felt that they included enough transfers to Quebec to justify them even though they did not resolve the fiscal imbalance. I want to make that very clear.

What the Prime Minister said yesterday is not at all what the Bloc Québécois has done over the years. The Prime Minister, however, has shown no interest in any suggestions from the Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party, or the other half of the Liberal-Conservative coalition. His refusal to consider anyone else's ideas is revealing.

When just a few weeks ago the Leader of the Opposition said that an eligibility threshold of 360 hours was imperative and absolutely necessary, and that they were prepared to go into an election before the end of June if the government did not compromise on this, he was right.

So how is it that the Prime Minister announced this week that that was out of the question and that he would not change his mind in the least, that a 360-hour threshold was out of the question?

The Leader of the Opposition, however, instead of standing up for his principles, preferred to put the interests of his political party and his own interests ahead of those of the public and unemployed workers. That is completely unacceptable.

Getting back to what we proposed, I would remind the House that the proposals we have brought forward are supported by a broad consensus in Quebec. Consider the motion passed by the Quebec National Assembly on January 15, 2009, setting out the demands of the Quebec National Assembly in five points. The four parties of the National Assembly, namely, the Quebec Liberal Party, the Parti Québécois, the Action démocratique du Québec and Québec solidaire, unanimously demanded several things from the federal government.

First, they called on the government to provide assistance to workers, communities and businesses affected by the economic slowdown.

Second, they called on the government to provide financial support to sectors experiencing problems, particularly the manufacturing and forest sectors. The motion pointed out that the government was applying a double standard: very generous assistance, which we agree with, to the auto sector, located mainly in Ontario, and nothing—just crumbs and peanuts—for the forestry sector, which is very present in Quebec.

The third thing the Quebec National Assembly was asking for was improvements to the employment insurance program. And again, we have seen absolutely nothing. We have a working group, but we know that it will produce precious little.

The fourth demand of the National Assembly was that the federal government maintain the equalization program. As we know, in the most recent budget, the Minister of Finance unilaterally changed the equalization formula, which will deprive Quebec of $1 billion. The Conservatives wanted us to vote for that, even though the Quebec National Assembly was asking for something else altogether. Had we voted for it, the Bloc Québécois would have truly been flouting the mandate we have been given, and that is out of the question.

The last thing was to say no to a Canada-wide securities commission. Here, I must mention the vote again, because it is a vote by the Liberal Party. The Conservatives, as we know, are obsessed with this issue, because the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance are nothing less than the puppets of Bay Street.

The Liberals, thinking they were being clever, remained seated. They did not vote. But by abstaining in that case, they voted with the Conservatives. No one is fooled by their strategy. We are also well aware that the Liberals, who are centralists—and the history of the Liberal Party proves it—also want to create this sort of commission, which would concentrate the financial sector in Toronto at Montreal's expense. No one in Quebec is fooled. By remaining seated and abstaining, the Liberals voted with the Conservatives as part of this new Liberal-Conservative coalition and against the interests of Quebec, and we will not forget to point that out.

I would also remind this House that on the issue of language of work, French, which is the common language in Quebec and the official language of the Quebec nation, the Liberal Party and the Conservatives voted against the bill I had introduced to require that federally regulated companies operating in Quebec be subject to the Charter of the French Language, Bill 101. Once again, the Liberals and the Conservatives voted against this bill.

The motion that is before us seals the pact between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, a coalition that has two main objectives. It takes aim against the interests of Quebec, against the interests of workers and against the interests of the unemployed, by depriving them of assistance.

I will conclude by saying that the best illustration this week of the hypocrisy of some members of this House was the statement made during question period by the member for Bourassa, the Liberals' political lieutenant in Quebec. He got all dramatic and said that amendments absolutely had to be made before the summer, or else the unemployed would starve. Now, the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister and the member for Bourassa have chosen to let workers and the unemployed starve. We will not be a party to this scandal.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the speech by the member from the Bloc. He talked about having one regulator. He talked about so many other things. He failed to talk about the issues in today's motion.

He described the panel on EI as bogus and phony, which is sad, because EI is an issue we have to address. It is an issue that cannot be solved overnight. It has to be looked into. Proposals have to be put forth, et cetera.

Members of his party show concern for the unemployed. Why has the hon. member prejudged it already? He said it will not work. Why does he call it bogus and phony? I do not think my colleagues are bogus or phony. They are tangible. We can touch them. Why has he done so? Why has he put such a negative spin on it right away?

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, why are we saying that the bogus working group committee on employment insurance will do nothing? First, because the Prime Minister has already rejected the solution proposed by the opposition parties, the 360-hour threshold that was again brought forward by the Leader of the Opposition. He said that it was out of the question. That is the only tangible proposal made by the Liberals with regard to employment insurance.

The only tangible proposal from the Prime Minister and the Conservative Party during the election campaign was providing access to parental leave to independent workers—the self-employed. That benefit already exists in Quebec. It is of absolutely no use to Quebec or to Quebec workers. Right from the beginning, we know that the only two tangible proposals on the table give nothing to Quebec.

Beyond that, how can we have confidence in a working group with Liberals on it when they are at the root of the problem? I remind the House that the reform that made deep cuts to employment insurance—ransacked it, in fact—was carried out by Mr. Axworthy, a Liberal minister at the time. How can we trust them? As for the Conservatives, they have appointed a board whose only aim is to reduce premiums and ensure that the employment insurance system will never, ever be overhauled. If we put two arsonists together, there is bound to be a fire.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to participate in the debate on this last supply day. I can imagine viewers at home asking themselves, “What the heck is a supply day and what does it have to do with me?”. So I thought I would begin by trying to take a stab at answering both questions.

Tradition holds that Parliament does not grant supply, or the government's spending authority, until the opposition has had an opportunity to demonstrate why it should be refused. As a result, some days of debate are allocated to each opposition party and these are what we call supply days.

In this session of Parliament, the NDP had three such days and it is worth remembering that they are assigned to demonstrate why supply should be refused, not why it should be granted. Our supply days did precisely that. In drafting each of the three motions that were debated on our allotted days, we were governed by whether the government's economic action plan adequately addressed the needs of hard-working families and seniors.

In my riding of Hamilton Mountain and indeed in constituencies right across this country, Canadians are profoundly worried about their jobs, their pensions and their ability to pay their bills. They were counting on the federal government to take bold and strategic steps. They were looking to their members of Parliament to have courage in the face of adversity and so our motions addressed those very fundamental concerns.

I had the privilege of tabling a motion on comprehensive EI reform on behalf of our caucus. The second motion addressed credit card gouging and protecting Canadians from the abusive practices of credit card companies. The third motion dealt with pension reform, so that the very people who built our country can retire with the dignity and respect they deserve.

I am proud to say that all three NDP motions were passed by a majority vote in the House of Commons. In that way, we used our supply days as they were intended. We made strong cases on three of the shortcomings in the government's own economic action plan and we took our opposition role in the House of Commons seriously. Yes, it is our job to oppose, but we also believe that we can only be an effective opposition if we also propose better alternatives.

Fast forward to today. We are debating a Liberal supply day motion that does nothing but demonstrate why the government's spending authority should be granted. In fact, it might as well have been written by the government itself, oh wait, it partially was. It was the Conservative Party that first asked that the House not sit during the week of September 21 to accommodate meetings of the G20, yet here it is at the very heart of the Liberal supply day motion.

To add insult to injury for Canadians, the entire motion deals with amendments to the Standing Orders. I would bet the vast majority of Canadians do not even know what Standing Orders are. They are simply the codified rules of procedure that govern the House. Debating these rules is the ultimate expression of insider baseball. Canadians do not care about amendments to the Standing Orders. That is not what they mean when they ask us to please make Parliament work. They want us to make Parliament work for them, not for us. It is about their jobs, not ours. It is about having their concerns addressed. That is why they sent us here.

However, in their desperation to avoid a summer election, the Liberals put their needs ahead of the needs of working families. It is an absolute disgrace. Thankfully, the media are not letting them get away with it. David Akin wrote in his Hill Times blog that “NDP got billions, Libs got a working group”, cleverly reminding Canadians that when the NDP negotiated with the then minority government of Paul Martin in 2005, it turned $4.6 billion of corporate tax cuts into $1.6 billion for affordable housing, $1.5 billion for post-secondary education, $900 million for transit, $500 million for foreign aid, and $100 million for pension protection.

In 2009 the Liberal leader from Etobicoke—Lakeshore received a working group and an opposition day for supporting the minority government of the Prime Minister. After long hours at the negotiating table, the Liberal leader walked away with nothing of substance in exchange for his continued support of the Conservative government and its failed policies.

Aside from changes to the Standing Orders, all he could manage was a “blue ribbon panel” on employment insurance with limited scope that will not report back until September. That panel is cold comfort to the 1.5 million unemployed Canadians dealing with a deeply flawed EI system. As for the panel being a blue ribbon group, Canadians will be shocked to learn that it is made up solely of politicians and political staff.

However, politicians just passed an NDP motion on comprehensive EI reform in this very session of Parliament. It was endorsed by city councils and labour groups right across this country. We do not need more study. We need to start implementation and unemployed Canadians need that action now, not in September.

Instead, we get a panel that is half made up of Liberals, whose party in the mid-1990s was responsible for gutting EI in the first place, and who stole the $57 billion EI surplus from workers and used it to pay down the debt and deficit. The Conservative half of the panel includes the very cabinet minister who is on record stating that she is worried about EI becoming too lucrative.

The creation of this panel has nothing to do with protecting workers during this economic downturn and has everything to do with protecting the political aspirations of the Liberal and Conservative parties. Canadians need and deserve so much better. It is not as though there are not plenty of issues to choose from. I have already mentioned pensions, immediate EI reform and an end to credit card gouging. However, what about health care, the issue that is consistently top of mind for all Canadians?

There are three heart-wrenching words that no one ever wants to hear: “You have cancer”. However, for nearly 500 Canadians every single day, this diagnosis becomes a new fact of life. Historically, Canada has been a leader in easing that pain by producing medical isotopes used in the diagnosis and treatment of both cancer and heart disease. Now, that production is in peril. Thanks to government mismanagement and neglect, the reactor that produces these isotopes has shut down.

Cancer tests across the country are being cancelled, leaving desperate Canadians in a state of limbo during the most difficult period of their lives. Yet, the Conservative government, like the Liberal one before it, continues to drop the ball. It is too busy vying for political gain and calling cancer “sexy”, even in the face of this life-threatening national health care crisis.

Where was this issue in the so-called negotiations between the Liberal leader and the Prime Minister? Despite initial bluster, the rhetoric dissolved without any demand for real action. Where was the demand for expedited job creation? Unemployment numbers have now reached 400,000 just since the last election.

Despite a deficit that is now spiralling upward of $50 billion, money has still not reached local communities so that they can take advantage of this summer's construction season. The government says that 80% of the infrastructure money has been committed, but one cannot pave roads with press releases. The money needs to flow. Summer is here, but the living is still tough in far too many cities in Canada.

I am having a bit of déjà vu here. Members will recall that the first time I spoke in the House at the beginning of the current Parliament, I pointed out that it was the economic crisis and the government's cavalier response to the fears of Canadians in its fiscal update last fall that precipitated the political crisis of confidence and ultimately the constitutional crisis that shut down this place for two months.

Just when Canadians needed their government the most, the Prime Minister shut the doors on Parliament and effectively said that his need to protect his job was more important than the need to protect the jobs, pensions and savings of hard-working Canadians. Now, a mere six months later, it is happening again.

This time, the chief protagonist is the leader of the Liberal Party. He desperately wants to be prime minister, but he knows that he is not ready. He is having difficulty attracting credible candidates, his party's finances are not competitive, and he has still not been able to articulate what he stands for. Therefore, he has not differentiated himself from the Prime Minister we already have.

Certainly, this week's events will have even more Canadians saying to each other that they cannot see the difference and asking each other if they can. He was desperate to avoid an election at any cost, but his obligation is not to himself. In fact, I would remind all members in the House that it is not all about us. On the contrary, it is not about us at all, or at least it should not be.

We have the privileged opportunity to come to this chamber, not to fight for ourselves but to fight for our constituents. In these uncertain economic times, that means acting decisively to protect the vulnerable, safeguard today's jobs and create the jobs of tomorrow. The Liberals did not just lose the fight; they failed to even show up for it.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, when we arrived here on Monday as MPs, we knew that on Friday we were either going to go home to our constituents for the summer or else we were going to go to an election. I have spoken to a number of her colleagues in the last few days who have told us that they wanted a deal made and that they did not want to go to an election. It is not just because they were not doing so well in the polls right now. It is because they knew that Canadians did not want to have an election.

The bluster and hype that goes on here is a little hard to deal with on occasion. I understand that it is politics and in politics that is how things are, but she talks about the deal that we made so that we could do some work over the summer and perhaps come back with some EI proposals. She talked about some of the good ideas that the NDP brought forward. The Liberals supported a number of those in the House. As she said, they passed with a majority of the votes.

However, what have they done for Canadians? They have added nothing. There is nothing for Canadians as a result of that. It has not left the House. How can she say that it does not make sense to do a little bit of work over the summer and see if we can come up with some proposals when all the hype and bluster here has done absolutely nothing? The government members have not listened. Should they have? Yes, but they have not.

What have they added to the debate? We can pass things in Parliament. We can come to this place in Parliament, but we have to make a difference. In this Parliament, one can make a point or make a difference. I think that, in this case, we are going to make a difference. I ask her, what does she think about what they have done in this Parliament?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's question, particularly his profound concern about how the NDP are doing in the polls, especially since he comes from Nova Scotia. Does he remember who was just elected as premier in Nova Scotia? I could have sworn it was a majority NDP government. His concern about our polling number is a bit misplaced.

With respect to EI, the member supported the motion that the NDP put forward. The motion on EI called for four specific things: get rid of the two-week waiting period; 360 hours to qualify for EI with no regional diversion in terms of eligibility and access to employment insurance; better benefits; and access to employment insurance by the self-employed. We do not need more study. He voted for that EI motion and we need it to be implemented.

It is not negotiation when people walk away with absolutely nothing. Not a single step brings one EI recipient closer to improved benefits or one unemployed Canadian closer to having access to EI. That is what the negotiations should have produced, not more study when the solution is before the House.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the NDP member's speech and there are so many inconsistencies that I do not have time to dwell on all of them. However, I have to point out the hypocrisy of her statements about the actions of the Prime Minister and the government during the grand coalition effort in the last year. The Prime Minister was trying to protect the Canadian people from a coalition, the likes of which could only be conceived in the pits of Hades.

She talks about wanting to keep jobs. The leader of the NDP saw his one chance to become somebody in the House. The leader of the Bloc was smiling in the middle like a cat who just swallowed a canary because he would have some power to control Canada. The Liberal leader at the time had not quite clued into the fact that he had been sorely taken advantage of by the NDP leader, who was bouncing around like a jumping jack, and the Bloc leader, who saw his big chance to control the country.

The Conservative Prime Minister was trying to protect Canadians from this. He effectively did that and Canadians are far better off for it.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure what the question was. I suppose the member was saying that how dare we propose a coalition but that they have the right to have a coalition, a Conservative and Liberal coalition. That one apparently is okay, but when other members of Parliament try to work in the best interests of Canadians, that is not the case.

I am not really sure I understand the question, but if he would like to tell me what it was really all about, other than an opportunity to try to perhaps bring some hyperbole into the debate, I would be happy to try to answer it again.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the motion, which calls for a number of things. It allows us to hold the government to account, adjust the House calendar in the fall and a number of other issues, as well. It also allows us, as members of Parliament, to arrive home tonight or tomorrow and see our families, which will welcome us.

Our constituents may not be as welcoming and they certainly would not have been delighted to see us knocking on their doors. I think people would have felt downright anger if we had been unable to do something productive so we could avoid an election in Canada. I know people never really want an election. They have more important things to do with their lives. We need to have them on occasion, but I think Canadians were right in this case. This was not the time to have an election.

My colleagues and I arrived here on Monday and nobody knew exactly what would happen. We knew Canadians were watching. I think this week Parliament rose to the level of the people we represent. There are differences among all parties, and those continue. The government is not completely satisfied and the opposition is not completely satisfied, and I say that about all opposition parties. However, I believe significant concessions have been made in the national interest.

I want to talk about employment insurance. EI is an issue that I have been involved with for some time now, ever since my appointment as critic for human resources two and a half years ago. To be frank, it was not an issue about which I had a lot of knowledge. I come from an area in Atlantic Canada. People often say that I am from Atlantic Canada, so EI is a big issue. In fact, in the riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, people need the maximum number of hours to qualify for EI, which is 700 hours. Many other parts of Atlantic Canada have seasonal issues of unemployment and areas of high unemployment and the hours to qualify are different.

In my view this is not a regional issue. It is a national issue. It may have regional implications, but this is a national issue of employment insurance. On taking my job, it became clear to me, from listening to stakeholder groups that represented workers and other social justice and business groups, that it was time for changes to EI.

My colleague from Wascana has correctly outlined the differences between the mid-1990s and today. There are very significant differences in the economy. EI has to adjust to the economic circumstances. We are in a crisis. EI, as a major part of our social infrastructure, has to play an important role as we recover from this crisis.

Over the last little while, particularly since the last election, EI has become a very significant issue to Canadians. There was nothing about employment insurance in the very partisan economic update. In fact, the Conservatives first denied there was a problem. This led to a showdown in the fall and toward Christmas. Then the Prime Minister shut down Parliament.

The Liberals first raised the alarm bell. With increased unemployment, people were experiencing, for example, delays in obtaining their benefits, sometimes up to 40-plus days. My colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche raised this issue in the House back in November. I think people in his constituency were waiting 55 to 60 days.

On November 27, 2008, I asked a question of the Minister of Human Resources about delays. She denied there was a problem. On December 19, I sent a letter to her, indicating we needed some action. Again, we did not get any indication that the government saw this as an issue.

Three months went by with no response until she sent me a letter in which she apologized for the delay in responding to my letter. However, she still did not address the issue about wait times for EI. Eventually we saw $60 million that appeared to have been dedicated toward easing the backlog of EI applications.

The other issue with respect to EI is this. Tens of thousands of Canadians have paid into EI but do not qualify. They paid into the plan and when they needed the help, it was not there. The Conservative government again failed to act for months, and as a result caused families to suffer.

On each issue, the Liberals fought day in and day out during this session of Parliament, calling upon the government to take real action on employment insurance, but it did not. We nearly ended up with an election, but this week we were able to avert that. From our point of view, the good thing from that is the Prime Minister has acknowledged it does not make sense to have 58 EI rates.

If we look at the chart of employment insurance, it is incredibly complicated. People need a degree in mathematics just to figure out whether they qualify, based on the hours they have, the employment rate in their region, et cetera. It does not make any sense that people who live in Ottawa do not qualify for EI, but if they work in the same place but live in Gatineau, they do. It is the same thing in Moncton and Dieppe. People could working in the same plant and one person would qualify, the other would not. In my own riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, one does not have to drive very far to see a very significant differentiation in terms of who qualifies for EI and who does not.

How do we fix it? We have seen private members' bills, studies and advocacy from a lot of people. The New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois have raised this in private members' bill for years, and I have supported them. I do not question their motivation on this, but I do question what has actually come out of it.

The member for Hamilton Mountain correctly talked about an opposition day motion she brought forward. The member for Welland has brought forward a bill. My colleague from the Bloc, who works with me on the human resources committee, has brought forward bills. The Bloc member for Brome—Missisquoi has a bill that passed the House and has to go to committee. We have supported these important bills. However, the problem is they have not helped one worker in the country. They have added up to nothing. It is inside baseball or inside Ottawa, so to speak.

The fact is when we come to this place, we can either make a point or we can make a difference. Let us try to make a difference. My colleague from Kings—Hants often speaks about this.

We will all go home tonight or tomorrow and we will have the chance to do our work. We all know it is not a summer vacation. MPs work very hard in their ridings. When we have come through a hard session, as we have recently, we have a lot to make up in our constituencies. We take our work very seriously. Nobody gets everything they want, but Canadians do get a couple of things. They get a summer without an election and they also have an opportunity to make significant improvement in employment insurance.

As a result of the discussions between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, I now have a summer job that I did not apply for, but which I am happy to accept. I am happy to work with my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine. I will work with the Minister of Finance, with the officials and with whomever I have to, because this is important work.

I will not stand here today and tell members that we will come to an agreement in September. It may well be that we cannot because we have certain principles. We have talked about 360 hours, and that has been maligned. I do not think it has even been a misunderstanding. There have been absolute deliberate mistruths spread about that 360-hour standard.

Right now people can get EI in many parts of the country for 420 hours. That is not a whole lot different from 360 hours. In fact, people cannot collect EI for a year anywhere in the country. The maximum was 45 weeks. With the extension of five weeks, it is now 50 weeks. Our proposal for the duration of the crisis, which I think makes a lot of sense, is people would be able to qualify for EI after 360 hours. They would still have a variable length of time in which they could collect it, starting at 19 weeks and going up to 50 weeks. A structural change to EI has to come.

The self-employed have talked for years about the need to be involved. It is not a simple issue. How do we determine who actually is eligible as a self-employed person? Should it be voluntary or should it be mandatory? There are those who would say both.

If we asked all Canadians who pay EI, “Would you like to pay EI?”, what we would have? Most people who think they might need it would pay for it. Those who did not think they would need it might not pay for it. That would be a normal thing. With the self-employed, it is a complicated issue, but it is time we tackled this. I think as a result of the restructuring, as an outcome of the crisis in economy, we will have more self-employed people. That is important.

However, regional fairness is important. Any one of us, the 308 members of Parliament in the House, would have a hard time going to our constituents and saying to them, in a time of economic crisis, that they need 700 hours to qualify but somebody else needs 420. The regional rates have made sense in economies in the past, but right now Canadians are hurting. It is about fairness. It is about a national standard. It is about doing what is right for Canadians when they need help.

Employment insurance is a very important piece of our social infrastructure. It is time to make it better. I certainly look forward to, and accept humbly, the opportunity to be a part of the task force. I hope we can make a difference for Canadians.

[Gérard Asselin, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec's motto is Je me souviens, “I remember”. I remember when Jean Chrétien took power in 1993, he decided to get rid of the Conservatives' $54 billion deficit at the expense of the provinces and the unemployed by downloading responsibilities onto the provinces and slashing employment insurance. That was the Liberal style of government with Jean Chrétien as Prime Minister and Paul Martin as Minister of Finance. When they got together in 1993 and decided to eliminate the deficit, they asked the minister at the time, Doug Young, to squeeze employment insurance by increasing premiums and cutting benefits. It was a tough job that Doug Young started and Liberal minister Axworthy finished.

This week, we witnessed the creation of a Liberal-Conservative coalition. Because of the difficult economic situation, we are calling on the government to eliminate the two week waiting period and reduce the eligibility threshold to 360 hours. While in opposition, the Liberals called for the same thing as the NDP and the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc Québécois is not here just to defend Quebec's rights, but to defend the rights of all workers and the unemployed. While the Liberals were in power, they governed like Conservatives. Now we have a panel made up of Liberals and Conservatives.

Today I am asking the member who will be on the panel if he is ready to commit right now to working very hard to achieve two goals: eliminating the two week waiting period and introducing a single 360-hour eligibility criteria for benefits. If he cannot do that, he should just take a vacation because he will be wasting his time on the panel.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we have gone through this in the House a number of times. The economic circumstances in 1990 were dire, but back then we were coming out of a $40 billion plus annual deficit. There were changes that had to be made.

There were changes to EI, but as the economy improved, not everyone benefited. We had pilot projects, including in many ridings that are held by the Bloc Québécois. We brought in maternity benefits for Canadians and extended that to a year. There were changes made.

The fact is that we are now in an economic crisis the likes of which we have not seen in generations. Now is the time to invest in the social infrastructure of Canada. Now is the time to be fair to Canadian workers from coast to coast to coast and provide regional fairness for employment insurance.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, we have stood in the House and defended the rights of employees and employers in this country against the 360 hour standard, because we do not think the 45 day work year is in Canada's interests.

One of the things that we have been very clear on is that we have stood behind EI. We have put more money into it. We are putting in an extra $5.5 billion. We are running a $5.5 billion deficit in EI. We are processing claims in less than two weeks. The public service has gotten behind this government's initiative. Those public servants have done a heck of a job getting money out to Canadians.

What is important is we have held the payroll taxes, taxes on small business, taxes on business in general, taxes that everyday Canadians who go to work have to pay.

I would like to know, will the member keep in mind the weight on small business, on employers and on everyday Canadians who pay these deductions? Will he keep that in mind when he is moving forward, or is he going to look at the NDP and Bloc plan that would substantially increase payroll taxes in this country? I can tell the member that the people in my riding do not want to pay it.