Madam Speaker, to begin with, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska.
It is with great disappointment for Quebec that I address this House today. After the reading of the Speech from the Throne and the budget, I am not surprised to see that this government has, once again, abandoned the Quebec nation. Once again, we must face the facts: federalism does not benefit Quebec.
The Reform Conservatives do not even bother anymore to try to meet Quebec's demands. Quebeckers are, once again, well aware of the fact that freedom and independence are the only solutions and that Quebec does not belong in a federation that does just ignores it.
Ten minutes is a very short time to list all the measures that cannot be found in the budget. There is nothing for the most vulnerable classes of society. There is nothing for the transfer of amounts to which Quebec is fully entitled. There is nothing either for the environment, women, culture, nor for the forestry and aerospace industries in Quebec.
The main characteristics of this budget are the gifts, the nice surprises and the goodies for western oil companies and Ontario's automobile industry. In other words, we are trying to rob Quebec to pay Ontario and western Canada. It is as though the federal government had organized a big party only for Ontario and a few western provinces. Quebec, in particular, is simply tossed aside.
As you know, British Columbia has received 1.6 billion dollars to harmonize its sales tax with the GST. As for Ontario, it has received 4.3 billion dollars, almost three times as much.
At the other end, neither the Speech from the Throne nor the budget mention any compensation for harmonizing Quebec's sales tax with the GST and this has been the case since 1997. Along with the Government of Quebec, the Bloc Québécois has been demanding for a while that the federal government give Quebec the 2.2 billion dollars that are rightfully his. In fact, 2.2 billion dollars is slightly above the amount offered to British Columbia, but half as high as that offered to Ontario. Another gift for Ontario and western Canada; and nothing at all for Quebec.
A few weeks before the recession, the Minister of Finance et the Prime Minister were highly optimistic when they said that Canada would not experience an economic crisis. However, reality has quickly caught up with them and they were forced to face the facts.
The forestry sector in Quebec has been particularly affected by this crisis. In my constituency of Compton—Stanstead alone, a number of sawmills have gone out of business. Among other mills, I might mention Labranche and Paul Vallée. These two major employers in St-Isidore-de-Clifton have had to close their doors. The economy of that small town has been significantly affected.
For several years, the Bloc Québécois has constantly proposed appropriate and specific measures to assist the forestry industry. In May 2009, for example, we were proud to put forward a series of concrete proposals that the federal government could easily have embraced. I could specifically mention the creation of a credit facility for the forest industry, a one-stop shop that would have provided loans and loan guarantees to companies in the sector. I could also mention the bill granting tax credits to young graduates settling in a resource region. But naturally, these measures were dismissed out of hand by these Conservative Reformers who prefer to put industries in a pecking order where only those who can offer them the most political capital are treated with generosity.
I would remind the House, for instance, that the Ontario automotive industry received $9.7 billion during the economic crisis. The oil industry in Alberta was granted major tax cuts with no conditions whatsoever. By comparison, the Quebec forestry industry received peanuts, only $170 million. That is about 60 times less than Ontario received for its automobile companies. Sixty times less, it is absurd. It means 11,329 people laid off in Quebec. Is this what open federalism is all about?
As deputy critic, I feel compelled to point out the budget's shortcomings in agriculture and agri-food.
In 2007, that industry generated $18.9 billion in added value for Quebec, a total of 6% of Quebec's GDP. That same year, almost 175,000 jobs were created as the result of agricultural production and the processing of agricultural products.
In the regions of Quebec, agriculture is a vital part of the economy. Abandoning it would be a disaster for our rural areas. For the umpteenth time, the government is showing that it does not care.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture declared that it was “disappointed at the lack of new money and initiatives announced for the agri-food sector in the federal budget“. According to the Union des producteurs agricoles, the real needs of producers across Canada are in the order of $1 billion annually, yet a mere $500 million over five years are allocated to the sector. That boils down to $100 million instead of $1 billion a year. With the exception of this timid, miserly initiative and a sprinkling of photo-ops here and there, agriculture once again is the victim of the Conservatives' draconian measures. But, of course, the Ontario automotive industry and big oil, they do just fine.
The list is impressive and I could keep going for hours. We need only think of the billions of dollars associated with the changes to the equalization formula and the transfer payments that were unilaterally cut in the past. We can also think about the more than $400 million that has still not been refunded to Hydro-Québec by the federal government after the ice storm disaster in 1998.
And I am not talking about the needs of seniors, who are once again completely shut out by the Reform Conservatives. In addition to announcing a review of the pension system in the spring, they are simply ignoring the need to improve employment insurance and the guaranteed income supplement, in spite of the fact that there has been a unanimous motion of the National Assembly calling for this. Once again, these fine Reform Conservatives are turning a blind eye to a measure on which there is consensus in Quebec. This government obviously prefers to preserve the banks and tax havens rather than respond to the crying needs of seniors. The same is true for the homeless and social housing. The Prime Minister prefers to act as if those problems did not exist; his conscience is clearer that way.
The Conservative government is still refusing to pay Quebeckers the money that is owing to them. There is nothing in the Speech from the Throne or the budget that persuades us otherwise.
The evidence is unequivocal. In a recent survey, a large majority of Quebeckers said they were dissatisfied with the last federal budget. This is hardly surprising. In fact, there is only one thing in the budget for Quebec: business as usual.
In the same survey, two thirds of Quebeckers said that prorogation was unjustified. Imagine, to bring forth this budget, the economic bright lights in the government had to close down Parliament for two months, two months during which the Conservative reformers promised anyone who would listen that they would be coming back with new ideas, with a plan, with concrete actions to benefit the people of Quebec. The people who are still hoping for something from this government were disappointed to learn that there was nothing.
To conclude, I cannot help but think about victims of crime and their families. These Conservative reformers keep hammering at the message that they care about victims. In fact, they are too busy trying to fill our prisons with underage children to think about supporting the families of victims.
All the Conservatives have for victims is $6.6 million over two years. That is $3.3 million that Quebeckers and the residents of the provinces of Canada will have to fight over every year.
The government also says that it wants to facilitate access to special benefits for workers who have lost a family member. They are already entitled to those benefits. So again, there is nothing new, and nothing concrete. There are only false promises and old stuff.
The budget and the throne speech very definitely confirm that the Quebec nation will always be the loser as long as it is part of the Canadian federation. Only sovereignty for Quebec can get us out of this stagnation. I therefore invite everyone in this House to vote for the Bloc Québécois motion.