Mr. Speaker, the Speech from the Throne was full of spin and very light on substance. When the Prime Minister called on the Governor General to prorogue Parliament and give himself three months off, he claimed he needed time to recalibrate. Yet when we came back and heard Her Excellency deliver the speech, it was really full of rehashed ideas.
The speech lacked vision. Something that really stuck out in my mind was the lack of investment in the middle class and the fact there was really no plan for job creation. In fact, the government subsequently imposed a $13 billion job-killing payroll tax in the budget, which will have a devastating impact on all Canadians, particularly in my riding of Mississauga—Brampton South.
In its reply to the Speech from the Throne, the Liberal Party has proposed an amendment to reflect our wish that Her Excellency not be burdened with future excessive requests for prorogation. I hope the government takes that into consideration.
I would like to give some context of how we got here. How did we arrive at a point where we have had four speeches from the throne in four years? While the government and Prime Minister wanted three months off to recalibrate, all we received when we returned was a potential change to O Canada and, fundamentally, the status quo.
Back in December 2009, the government was being rocked by the Afghan detainee controversy. It was really desperate to avoid accountability. When confronted with the serious allegations on the issue, the Prime Minister decided to do what he does best: He shut down Parliament. Again, in a crisis, he realized that he was in trouble, so he asked the Governor General to prorogue the House of Commons.
This was further validated by a remark made by his former chief of staff Tom Flanagan:
I think his problem is that the government's talking points really don't have much credibility. Everybody knows that Parliament was prorogued in order to shut down the Afghan inquiry, and the trouble is that the government doesn't want to explain why that was necessary.
There were rallies across the country against prorogation. Canadians, including angry constituents of mine and across the country, were coming out regardless of their political affiliation and signing petitions and engaging on the issue, trying to demonstrate clearly to the government that this was completely unacceptable.
I realized just a few days ago that the Prime Minister has a love for social media. He was on YouTube. I hope he also had an opportunity to visit a Facebook website that has over 220,000 individuals against prorogation and read the comments and thoughts on his actions when it comes to prorogation.
On January 25, when we were supposed to be in the House of Commons, my colleagues and I and the Leader of the Opposition were here in Ottawa. We were doing what we should have been doing, that is, working on behalf of our constituents and Canadians. We organized well over 30 round tables, featuring a whole range of discussions on issues that matter to Canadians. This was done before and after the Olympics. We put forward concrete proposals and solutions before the Speech from the Throne and the budget to demonstrate that we were working and, more importantly, that we had concrete ideas to help advance the agenda for Canadians.
We recognize that we sit in a House of Commons with a minority government. In that situation, we would have thought the government would take upon itself the ideas we had presented and incorporate them into the budget and the Speech from the Throne. Unfortunately, it did not respect the will of the House, whose majority is comprised of opposition parties.
As I said before, we have had four speeches from the throne in four years. In my opinion, the root cause of this particular pattern is the fact the government really lacks accountability. It is running and hiding whenever it can. Sadly, it is an example of a pattern that Canadians are all too well aware of. I am going to cite some examples that will illustrate this point when it comes to accountability.
The government fired the nuclear whistleblower, Linda Keen, for her warnings about the Chalk River reactor. As president of a quasi-judicial organization who was doing her job to look out for the best interests of Canadians and to promote safety, she was fired for being critical and honest and upfront with the government.
The government also refused to renew the contract of the RCMP Public Complaints Commissioner, Paul Kennedy, after he was critical of it. That is another example of another individual being refused or ultimately pushed aside. It also shut down the Military Police Complaints Commission before Richard Colvin was set to appear, and failed to renew the contract of the commissioner, Peter Tinsley.
Unfortunately, I also saw first hand that the government had a book, a dirty tricks manual, to grind parliamentary committee business to a halt. I saw this firsthand in my committee, when the government would play games to avoid accountability.
The government also withheld information from the elections commissioner, which necessitated a police raid on the Conservative Party headquarters.
It also refused to provide adequate funding for the independence of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The Parliamentary Budget Officer is very clearly doing his job and, of course, time and time again his numbers have consistently refuted the government's numbers, and the budget officer has questioned the credibility of the government's numbers in accounting and forecasting. Again, the government has marginalized him and his office.
The government also attacked the public servant Richard Colvin for doing his public duty to truthfully respond to questions from Parliament.
I digress a bit, but another broken promise was clearly with respect to the upper House, the Senate. The government promised only to appoint elected senators, but we have seen in the past few weeks that recalibration was really about appointing a whole new set of senators.
The government promised never to raise taxes. On that I give the example of the EI payroll tax increase, which is a job killer. Furthermore, the government broke its promise on income trusts, and raised personal income taxes when it came to power.
Thus there is this consistent pattern of lack of accountability when it comes to the government. This is really the root cause of why we had the Speech from the Throne. As I said, it is the fourth one in four years.
I could go on with many other examples, but the government has a pathological aversion to accountability. It holds our institutions in contempt and tries systematically to undermine public authority, while increasing the power and control over an already over-centralized PMO. It is no wonder that it produced a Speech from the Throne that offers nothing for the middle class or on creating jobs.
What is missing from the Speech from the Throne? What elements are fundamentally missing that should have been included? Despite its extraordinary length, the speech contained no specific measures to create jobs or to help the middle class, as I said before. It had no specific investments for research and development and had nothing new on clean energy.
Of course, the government is going to continue to invest in clean energy, but it has cancelled our eco-energy program and has ensured that we are well behind other countries in terms of investments in this particular sector. In fact, China has invested far more in green technology and in creating green jobs than Canada.
There was nothing on pensions. Even though this is supposed to be a priority, the government said it wanted to consult Canadians. Again, it is punting the issue and dragging its feet.
However, we have put forward concrete proposals when it comes to pensions. We were very clear about our proposals in the letter we sent in advance of the budget and the Speech from the Throne. This is an issue that is a cause of concern to many Canadians. It comes up time and time again and it was missing from the Speech from the Throne.
There was nothing on culture. Can one imagine a Speech from the Throne with nothing in it on culture, and nothing on dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans?
The key issue for me is the fact the government should be dealing with the number one issue, the economy. Its $13 billion payroll tax is in sharp contrast to creating jobs. In fact, numerous independent sources, like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, have indicated that this particular measure will kill over 200,000 jobs.
I want to quote the National Post, which I think fundamentally summarizes my position on the Speech from the Throne. It stated that:
the [Prime Minister's] government used just 740 words last year to set the stage for its $56-billion deficit. Yesterday it needed more than 6,000 words to prepare us for the next stage. Yet we still have only the vaguest notion of what specific actions will be taken to get Canada's economy back in balance.
The Speech from the Throne is all about rhetoric, spin and gimmicks. The government is not accountable. I have listed a whole range of examples on that. Unfortunately, the government has done very little to help my constituents, the middle class and to create jobs.