Madam Speaker, let me begin by commending the appointment of the hon. member for Mississauga—Erindale as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. His constituents already know he is an exceptional member of Parliament. It is a well deserved step up for him and I commend him on it.
Members are debating Canada's economic action plan, part two. Before I get to that, to provide context, one should talk about what the government has achieved with respect to Canada's economic action plan, part one.
As a bit of background, the Windsor-Essex region has an economy that is primarily dependent on the automotive industry, and within that the economy is largely dependent on the traditional Detroit three manufacturers. The parts sector and machine tool, die and mould sector have created a cluster of manufacturing around those businesses.
The region has struggled with high unemployment even before the downturn. It was higher than provincial and Canadian averages, in large measure because of the restructuring that was beginning during the earlier part of the decade. Sadly, during the recession, of course, the region reached the highest unemployment in urban centres in all of Canada, which was about 3.5 percentage points higher than the next highest unemployment rate for an urban centre. During the great recession the region was an area of great historic need.
What was the government's reaction to that? It was historic investment. The government was able to stabilize the base of the economy for the region, and beyond that for southern Ontario, by participating in a significant restructuring of Chrysler Canada and General Motors Canada. It allowed the government, of course after stabilizing the base of the economy, to do a few things beyond that.
The government was able to support working families by extending employment insurance benefits, investing literally billions of dollars back into the employment insurance system, and supporting workers while they were looking for alternative employment. The government also provided billions of dollars in retraining for those families that wanted to pursue different careers and move into different sectors.
The government invested heavily in the work share program, which I can say saved literally thousands of jobs in the Windsor-Essex region. It was a very significant program that is still supporting some of those jobs as I speak. The government has made some enhancements in the economic action plan, part two, to ensure that it continues to be a good program.
The government was also able to stimulate the economy beyond the auto industry. It was the highest per capita infrastructure stimulus funding in all of Canada. There were significant investments through the government's knowledge infrastructure program, which included funding of $40 million toward a new Centre for Engineering Innovation at the University of Windsor, and $16 million toward a Centre for Applied Health Sciences at St. Clair College. There were significant strategic investments for the medium-term to long-term economy in the region, which included training for health care professionals and engineers for the knowledge jobs of the future.
The government invested millions to improve the region's airport and to build a retention treatment basin to capture combination sewer overflows into the Detroit River. That was a very significant step forward in terms of addressing the Detroit River area and the environment, which are of concern.
The government was also able to focus on how to diversify the economy. People in our region have talked about it for a long time, but now the government is actually doing it under the economic action plan through a new economic development agency for southern Ontario, FedDev Ontario, and companion programs like the community adjustment fund to help single industry communities make that transition. The southern Ontario development program is helping small-sized and medium-sized enterprises along with the Community Futures Development Corporation for rural economic development in the region.
Those are some tools that are helping the government retool the machine tool, die and mould sector in the region, and to do things beyond just production for the automotive industry, like aerospace, nuclear and the green energy revolution that is coming to the province. The region is preparing for green energy manufacturing and is moving to have a maintenance and repair operations centre for the aerospace industry.
With improvements to the airport the region is seeing regional tourism strategies come together, which are linking the finest aspects of the region's cultural assets like its Underground Railroad heritage, its environmental assets, and the budding Lake Erie-North Shore wine region with the cosmopolitan flair of a newly emerging city of Windsor for a very strong tourism approach.
Those are all significant investments coming under part one of Canada's economic action plan that are building a sense of hope and optimism in our region for the first time. We feel like we have turned the corner. Unemployment is coming down. There are approaches to the future. Our economy looks a lot better. We can honestly tell the people that in a time of historic need for this region, our government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, has made historic investments.
It was not that long ago when we had three Liberal cabinet ministers in three ridings who did not deliver a fraction of that kind of investment to the region. They used to say that Canada and Ontario stopped at London. That is no longer the case because of the attention of this federal government, the Prime Minister and this cabinet.
What have the two Windsor NDP MPs been doing during this entire time? They have spent their time voting against every single dollar of investment, voting against the restructuring of the auto industry and voting against stimulating and diversifying our economy.
What can we expect as we approach part two of Canada's economic action plan? I do not know but I suspect more of the same over there. What are we doing with part two of the economic action plan? Obviously we are ensuring that our economic recovery takes hold by providing further public stimulus until such time as private stimulus leads the way in our economy.
We have developed a credible plan for tackling the temporary deficits. We have established the foundation of strong pro-growth economic policies including, among many things, one that is very significant and literally makes Canada a tariff-free zone when it comes to manufacturing inputs. That is critical as we reach a point where we have a dollar that is at par with the United States which gives us tremendous purchasing power. We also need to solve the productivity gap and make our businesses more competitive so those investments in technology and equipment will be made tariff-free now. That is a significant step forward.
Increasing investment in research and development, particularly closing the loop in our R and D web at $10 billion science and technology strategy, but the area where we need to make the last bit of progress is in the commercialization of research and development. We do a lot of great research in this country and now we need to commercialize it, which would also solve part of the job creation. Spawning new industries can come from that. Therefore, our colleges and universities are getting an additional leg up and our granting councils are getting additional investment.
What is being said about our budget? We have many endorsements from national agencies but locally who is supporting this budget? The mayor of Windsor is saying very positive things about our budget. Our regional chamber of commerce has come out strongly endorsing this budget as being good for our region. I was just speaking with the University of Windsor president, Dr. Alan Wildeman, last night who said that they were very much in favour of this, particularly in a budget where we are seeing the need to generate multi-billion dollars worth of savings over time, that they get a boost in funding. So there is lots of good news there.
The other major winner in this budget are Canadian seniors who collect a U.S. social security benefit. A horrible tax fight was foisted on them by a previous Liberal government after they retired, eating into their retirement savings and throwing many of them out of their home. Our Prime Minister committed to it in the last election as a government initiative and, before that, it was my personal crusade to right that wrong, and now it is in the budget. Those folks who retired prior to January 1, 1996 are now grandfathered the way they should have been in the first step. I challenge the Liberal members across the way to stand and vote for them and correct the mistake that was made if they have the decency to do it. I call on the two NDP members for Windsor who said that they were in on this issue, to stand up for those same seniors today and vote for the budget later on. I will be watching them and I know seniors will be.