Debates of April 12th, 2010

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the Conservatives have undervalued cultural industries in Canada since they came to power. They have not appreciated them. We certainly saw that in the election campaign where the contribution of the arts and artists to the Canadian economy was incredibly undervalued, devalued and misunderstood by the government. There is no doubt that is the case.

In my riding, which is a centre of the film and TV production industry in Canada, we are very concerned about the future of that industry. In Burnaby, we have one of the most talented and creative workforces in the arts sector, in film and video. I think 60% of the Lower Mainland's film and TV production happens now in the city of Burnaby. It is a very important industry in our community.

We are very concerned, for instance, about the rise in the Canadian dollar. We know that has a direct impact, particularly on the number of American productions that are done in our city. We are very interested to see what the government will propose to ensure the viability of that industry. We have to remain competitive, and a higher dollar is one of those places where there is a very significant impact on our local film and TV industry.

It would be very nice if the government would pay close attention to the cultural industries in Canada.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain why as the member of Parliament for Yukon and critic for the Arctic I cannot support this budget.

During prorogation there were 32 expert panels held and one was on the Arctic. People came up with a number of themes as to things they were looking for to help improve their lives, such as land claim implementation, reducing the excessive poverty in the north, residential facilities for substance abuse, education, housing, and climate change adaptation. There are programs that are expiring and are not being replaced. In this budget, the throne speech and even the Prime Minister's trips to the north, these major issues have not been dealt with. The problems have not been solved. That alone is reason enough not to support the budget implementation bill, but there is more.

Scientists across the country were astounded when the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Services was closed by the government. Some have compared it and the selling off of AECL to the Conservatives' fiasco with the Avro Arrow. All sorts of world-renowned expert scientists may have to go to the United States or other places. It will also result in the closing of the PEARL Eureka site, which is one of our northernmost sites in helping northern sovereignty.

Northerners also point out that there is no assistance to repair the crumbling infrastructure, the roads, ports, et cetera. My riding is one of only 13 jurisdictions in Canada where tourism is the biggest employer as far as numbers of employees go. Therefore, the neglect of tourism hurts my riding more than anywhere else. When the Conservative government first came in, it cut the Canadian Tourism Commission which markets Canada. There are states in Australia and the United States that spend more on marketing than the entire Government of Canada spends on marketing. The government took back some funds it had available.

When Canadians from all over the country fly to Alaska, or go there on a cruise, if they rent a car and drive it to the Canadian border, the border officials will not let them cross the border with a rental car. The government has not solved that problem. All sorts of B.C. and Yukon businesses are losing tourism business. In the 2010 budget the government has again made cuts to the Canadian Tourism Commission, something like $5 million off marketing Canada in Japan, as if it is not important to continue a full-scale effort to get Japanese tourists to Canada.

A number of members have mentioned the pension crisis in Canada. Hundreds of thousands of people need more pension protection. There was another big press conference this morning and yet the government keeps announcing meetings and says that it is going to do more consultation. The Liberals put out three concrete proposals in December. Certainly, more needs to be done.

The co-operative movement in Canada is very successful. It has asked for a development fund and there was nothing in the budget for that.

One way to make people feel threatened is to go to the heart of the most basic commodity, which is food. The government said it was going to change the food mail program, but it will not tell people how. There were some recommendations in a report which were very worrying. If we told Canadian that we were not sure how they would access their food, they would be very worried. The government said it was going to have a new program of $45 million, bringing the total up to $60 million this coming year. It spent $66 million last year, so how is that an increase?

The volunteer firefighters association in my riding made a very poignant submission as to why an income tax break would be good for volunteer firefighters. Rural communities across Canada are having a difficult time with recruitment and retention of volunteer firefighters and yet there was nothing about this in the budget.

A northern health transfer agreement was asked for by the northern governments. I am sure that when the Minister of Health was a minister in the north, she wanted the reinstitution of this $150 million program. It was only extended for two years for $60 million instead of for five years.

There was nothing significant for climate change and renewable energies. My constituents and other northern constituents are constantly asking for this. In fact, some of the programs have now been cut back.

Another huge fiasco was the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. There has been a great outcry across the country in the last few weeks that the government cut 133 institutions or programs across the country, right after the residential schools apology. There is a big hue and cry that those are not going to be continued by the government and this debate is still going on.

When it comes to search and rescue, it is embarrassing because the government goes to international meetings and says it will help, or that there should be international help in search and rescue in the Arctic, and we cannot even take care of our own. There is not a single one of our fixed wing planes or search and rescue helicopters north of 60.

Even Conservatives are aghast at the budget. This is the biggest-spending government in history. Even before the recession, we had a $54 billion deficit with, in the time I am speaking, $35,000 in interest. They expected a government that would not be levying all these taxes.

There is a huge increase in EI taxes of $13 billion, which will mean over $900 per family of two. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business says that will cost 200,000 jobs in Canada. There is the income trusts situation and huge taxes on seniors. There are the extra taxes that we are paying today on airplane flights, none expected by Conservatives.

I asked some of my constituents what they felt. I am not going to have time to get through all of the comments, but some of their ideas are related to the budget.

Ian Robertson wrote that the Prime Minister said that the north is a priority and made various announcements to that effect, but that actions speak louder than words. Increased sovereignty patrols and summer military exercise each year for a photo op just do not cut it. The Arctic icebreaker renewal project seems to have disappeared and we still have not made a decision on search and rescue aircraft. Land claim implementation, a big issue, is not addressed.

Paul Flaherty is frustrated about the ability to not do taxes online, that people could buy some programs and there may be some free, but they are not sure how good they are. He asks why the government, if it wants Canadians to be part of the technological world, does not give out free software so people can do their taxes online. I have heard that complaint from other Canadians as well. He said that we could also do a visionary project to extend the Internet line from Haines Junction, Yukon into Tok, Alaska, have Canadians get all that business from Alaska and get the redundancy that both Alaska and northern Canada are looking for.

Joy Carp, a businesswoman in Whitehorse, suggested incentives for businesses to grow. There are incentives for new businesses but she wants incentives for existing businesses so that after being successful for a number of years, they could expand.

James Holt from Watson Lake says that in the past, there were very big infrastructure projects, such as the Dempster Highway and the Whitehorse Dam. He would like a continuing vision for the future when it comes to roads, port facilities, hydro and even rail.

We could look at joining the Alaska Railroad, one of the most successful railways in North America, to the railway in B.C. That would be a visionary project.

I will not even paraphrase what Dave Robertson from Fireweed RV Services wrote. I will read exactly what he wrote because it is very good:

There was nothing in the budget to support seasonal workers - or those businesses that need to lay off trained workers in the off season. It costs money to train someone and then have to lay them off each year. What we need is a system that will help employers keep workers on reduced hours with the EI system topping up salaries. This would allow a worker to remain classified as 'employed' when it comes to loan applications etc - keeps trained workers on hand and in place for the next season and provides some stability for both the employee and the employer.

The government said it was going to cut back CAP sites. KwaMolas Atje wrote:

You want better educated Canadians yet...you cut back the very backbone of education by cutting back on funding free Internet in the communities.

Most of us cannot afford Internet. That must make you feel so good to act like such a bully to regular Canadians whilst the business community gets everything handed to them on a silver platter nay a gold one. You are clearing your bills on the backs of the poor.

A Canadian Tire owner asks why we would have reduced the GST when we have this huge deficit, paying almost a quarter of a million dollars a day.

Efforts by the banks and credit card companies to increase rates during the recession have not been dealt with.

I have a whole list of other things that are both positive and missing in the budget, but I see my time is finished.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have been waiting very patiently all day for members from the government to actually speak to this bill. I do not know what is holding them back. There are 880 pages for them to draw some inspiration from.

In the 1880s Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had a vision for this country. He wanted to build a railway to unite the country from sea to sea. Today the current government does not have a lot of vision. The only member over there who shows any kind of vision is the minister for democratic reform, a fellow member from Winnipeg, and others who have had a dream to build an east-west power grid for a number of years now.

There are nine Conservative MPs in Manitoba, including the member for Brandon—Souris, and fourteen Conservative MPs in Saskatchewan all missing in action on this file over the last few years.

I want to know, when is the government going to commit to an east-west power grid so that electricity from Manitoba can flow both east and west rather than just flowing north and south?

Would the member like to comment on why the government members are hiding and why they are not speaking on their own 880-page budget implementation bill?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would also like to know why those members are hiding on the Aboriginal Healing Foundation that is affecting their constituents so dramatically.

One of my constituents asked that I talk about vision, so I will answer the member's question regarding vision.

The member mentioned the vision of the railway uniting Canada from sea to sea. To continue that vision, I talked about a railway that could go north to Alaska to join the successful Alaska Railway with the railway in B.C. Also, the backbone of a modern society is a high-speed broadband Internet across the country. That could be the vision of tomorrow. That was certainly not covered significantly. In fact cuts were suggested in that area. As the member said, the vision of connecting hydro and renewable energies is sorely lacking. These are visionary aspects of a modern society that could give Canadians back their leadership in this world. Finally, the dramatic cut in scientists certainly shows no vision at all in today's world.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Minister of State (Democratic Reform)]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the question asked by the member from the NDP. I would like to know from the member for Yukon why they do not support the ecotrust moneys that were put aside in the budget for something like the east-west power grid that the member was speaking of.

I also wonder if the member for Yukon supported the decision made by the member for Toronto Centre when he was the premier of Ontario to cancel the Conawapa power deal that would have linked Manitoba to Ontario via a transmission line. Does he support his colleague's decision made in 1990?

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the member is talking about from 1990, as I was not here and it was not affecting the Yukon.

However, with respect to environmental programs, the members opposite have been asked a lot of questions by our environment critics. I see a former environment minister from B.C. When the government is asked all sorts of questions on the environment, it throws out a couple of crumbs, things it may have initiated, but they pale in comparison to all the programs the Conservatives have cut, such as the renewable energy programs, the regulatory suggestions, the other things that were moving forward that would have cut greenhouse gases, that would have improved the environment, that would have made cleaner air. The things that were cut are monumental compared with what has been actually added by the government.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is very much opposed to Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill, for a number of reasons, which my colleagues have been outlining for several days.

To briefly summarize the Bloc's complaints, this is a big C Conservative budget. It does not reflect the progressive values of the Quebec nation whatsoever. The budget is all about sparing the rich, including the banks and big business, and making the middle class and workers pay.

The Bloc cannot support a budget like that. Every time someone on the other side of the House stands up and says that the Bloc Québécois voted against the budget, we will remember that it was a big C Conservative budget, against the middle class, against workers.

Here are some examples: the government is reducing the interest rate on corporate tax overpayments; it is creating a tax loophole for companies not registered in Canada; and it is pillaging the employment insurance fund. Pillaging is serious. It means that everyone who contributes to the fund is not paying insurance premiums, but a tax because they are working. That changes the whole meaning of the EI fund.

Here are some more examples: the government is going ahead with the privatization of Canada Post, which is questionable, to say the least; it is interfering in Quebec's jurisdictions and it is doing nothing to protect the environment and fight greenhouse gases.

As the Bloc Québécois heritage critic, one measure in the budget that concerns me in particular is the amendment of the Telecommunications Act, which is designed to enable foreign carriers that own or operate certain transmission facilities, such as satellites, to operate as telecommunications common carriers in Canada.

Members may say that cultural activities have nothing to do with satellites. But that is not true, and I will prove it.

Telecommunications and broadcasting are becoming more and more intertwined; they are almost the same thing. The fact that telecommunications and broadcasting are more and more intertwined is a threat to the cultural industry here and to all cultural activities. Let me explain.

The time when we could easily distinguish between telecommunications and broadcasting is over. Before, telecommunications referred to wireless devices and cellular phones, and broadcasting referred to radio, television, video and audiovisual. But that is no longer the case. Those were the good old days, when we dialed a number on the telephone and someone answered at the other end.

We now talk about smartphones. You can do all kinds of things, referred to as applications. You can easily find an advertisement for a telephone company in any newspaper. Bell, for example, offers 16 applications for free with the purchase of a wireless device. These applications clearly involve activities related to broadcasting. For example, you can listen to CBC Radio. I have an advertisement here in which Bell is introducing its 3G smartphone. It talks about CBC Radio, Air Canada, Facebook, CBC hockey, Maclean's magazine and Scotiabank. I found this advertisement in an English-language newspaper. It is targeted to Canadians.

If that same announcement were made in Quebec, it would obviously talk about Radio-Canada instead of CBC Radio. It would likely give applications for La Soirée du hockey, and would talk about caisses populaires Desjardins instead of Scotiabank, where we could get information.

This shows the difference in culture and shows that communications companies control access to content. The CRTC cannot say anything, because these are not broadcasting companies; they are telecommunications companies. And that is what needs to be fixed.

The worst thing the government could do would be to open telecommunications companies to foreign ownership. That would mean giving foreign owners control over our culture. Everyone knows that our culture is fragile in many ways and that we must protect it. In fact, Canada was the first country in the world to sign a treaty on cultural diversity specifically to protect culture. In other industries, there is a tendency to sign free trade agreements. This is an excellent example that shows that telecommunications and broadcasting are the same.

Let us now turn to satellites. Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill, mentions only satellites and is not clear on the subject of telecommunications companies even though the throne speech announced plans to open up all telecommunications companies to foreign ownership. Bill C-9 basically talks about satellites. Do satellites have a place in the cultural sector?

I have two examples, two quotations. Alain Pineau, the National Director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts, is concerned about the repercussions on the country's cultural sovereignty of opening satellites to foreign ownership. He said:

—opening up foreign ownership and control of our telecommunications can only lead to tremendous pressures to enable a similar model in cable and broadcasting.

To illustrate, he talked about film, which is not protected. Most distributors do not distinguish the distribution rights for the Canadian market from North American rights. As a consequence, American films occupy over 98% of screen time in English Canada.

Things are not quite as bad in Quebec. Our nation's culture is strong and vibrant, and Quebeckers tend to prefer Quebec films. All the same, we are forced to fight a constant and difficult battle against American movies on Quebec screens. That is what happens when there is no regulation.

Solange Drouin, director of the Association québécoise de l'industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la vidéo (ADISQ), offered another example of the repercussions of foreign satellite ownership. She appeared before the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on April 1, where she said:

In 2005, XM Radio and Sirius Radio applied to the CRTC for a pay audio programming undertaking licence. Those two companies proposed to use a foreign satellite to broadcast their products in Canada. As that was not permitted, the CRTC had to assess the possibility of using a foreign satellite to provide a programming service. The government deviated from its principle regarding the use of Canadian satellites for the purpose of that service. What happened? XM Radio and Sirius Radio unfortunately convinced the CRTC that, in view of the lack of capacity of the foreign satellite broadcasting their products in the United States, the CRTC could not set requirements on the French-language and Canadian content levels it would have wished to have. Consequently, in its decision, it granted ridiculous French-language content percentages.

A little later she says:

The ownership principle, which was frequently criticized in that decision and for which we were not heard, tells us that you really have to control the entire chain of distribution channels in order to really achieve our ends—

I quickly want to talk about the Bloc Québécois' prebudget consultations and our many expectations of this budget. None of our expectations were met. First, we asked that the $26 million cut from artists in August 2008 be given back to them. The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages told me here in the House that he had given that money to the Olympic torch relay. Now that the relay is over, let him give that $26 million to the artists.

We also asked for $300 million this year: an additional $150 million to the Canada Council for the Arts for a total of $310 million; $60 million for the Canada Feature Film Fund, including $10 million for the documentary feature film fund; $50 million for income averaging over five years for artists; $40 million for the creation of a fund for the transition to digital; $240 million so that Radio-Canada/CBC can go from $32 to $40 a person.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Madam Speaker, I truly appreciate my colleague's comments.

She spoke about employment insurance and the money taken from the employment insurance fund. We cannot blame only the Conservatives. We really must blame the Liberals; we cannot forget that they were the ones who diverted this money from the employment insurance fund.

I would like to ask the member a question about the budget implementation bill, which is almost 800 pages long. Once again we see that the government has tried to include all kinds of small things, thinking that people would not notice them.

I would like to talk a little bit about environmental assessments and the fact that the government seems to want to exclude certain infrastructure projects, financed by the federal government, from environmental assessments. This goes far beyond efforts by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment to simplify the environmental assessment process.

We saw this issue of environmental assessments in the last budget and it is receiving even more attention in this one.

Does the member have any comments on this subject?

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciate all of my NDP colleague's questions regarding employment insurance.

She is quite right. This did not begin with the Conservative Party. I think the Liberal Party is the one that paved the way when it was in power.

Over $50 billion has now been diverted from the employment insurance fund, by both the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Conservatives have just dealt another major blow to employment insurance by helping themselves to the $50 billion surplus and by making it legal to steal from the EI fund.

It is also true, as the member said, that there are all kinds of pesky little things—I cannot think of a better expression—throughout this implementation bill, like last year. As members will recall, they gave extraordinary powers to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism in last year's budget implementation bill. This seems to be part of the culture of the Conservative government, the same government that boasts about passing Bill C-2 on accountability. We have never seen a less transparent government—they are so much worse than the Liberals—as suggested by one of my colleagues, and a Liberal at that.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, we have the current situation of the changing nature of work, with 1.5 million people unemployed. Many people have been re-employed in part-time jobs and therefore have lost their benefits.

Does my colleague think the government should work with the provinces to ensure that the changing nature of work is dealt with so people who now working in part-time jobs or who are self-employed will be able to access pension and other benefits they will need for their future?

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, clearly, this government cannot be trusted to take care of workers on its own. What they are doing with the EI fund is truly appalling.

It is also true that employment is a provincial jurisdiction and the Government of Quebec takes its responsibilities in that regard very seriously.

It is also true that the Bloc Québécois wants the Government of Quebec to be given increased powers in all areas of activity, beginning with culture. This is what Quebeckers want. The Government of Quebec is asking Ottawa to transfer all powers and responsibilities regarding culture and communications, with the corresponding budgets, of course.

For the Bloc Québécois, this is merely a temporary position, since our ultimate goal is Quebec sovereignty.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are few bills that are more important to Canadians than the budget bill. The government has the responsibility to put forth a budget bill that meets the needs of our country for today and the future.

Unfortunately, the budget bill the government put forward was one that simply ebbs and flows with the political change of tides that takes place in our country. Rather than trying to think of the needs of our citizens and the future of our country, the government has merely put forth a bill that shoots very low in an effort to try to curry 42% of the voters it needs to secure a majority. This, in my view, is a highly irresponsible act on the part of the government and violates one of its most fundamental duties to our nation.

Throughout history, we have seen that in good times the government actually spent right down to the cusp of what the budget allowed. In fact, it burned through the cushion that was put forth by former Prime Minister Paul Martin and in doing so, put our country on the cusp of a deficit situation. We all knew we were going into hard economic times and we warned the Prime Minister not to do this, but, of course, he demonstrated once again his tin ear and did not listen.

As a result of the situation, today we have a $56 billion deficit. It is true this is not all on the shoulders of the government, but certainly that deficit would be much less if the government had acted responsibly in good times. In fact, it did not and in this we all lose.

Compounding the situation with the recession was the fact that we have lost over 500,000 full-time jobs. Today there are 1.5 million Canadians unemployed. As I said earlier, the nature of work has changed so that many people are being re-employed into the workforce but in part-time jobs or as self-employed workers, which means they have lost much of the security they had before and, indeed, many of the benefits. In fact, over 1.5 million more Canadians do not share the benefits that other Canadians have now or had in the past.

On top of this, there are a couple of factors. One is that we have a strong dollar, which is a good thing for those who shop in the United States but in other ways it is going to hurt exports.

The other thing is that we have an aging population. An aging population and the increasing costs of our medical system is the gorilla at the dinner table. We simply will not be able to prepare for our future in an adequate way, to have the economy we need or have the social programs we desire unless we get our health care costs under control, costs that will be incurred as our population ages.

Today there are four workers for every retiree. In a short 15 years that is going to change and there will be 2.5 workers for every retired person. That is a staggering change that our country has never seen before and will not see again. The fact that the government is not debating or discussing this in any sensible fashion means that it is going to cause incredible pain and hardship.

There is an increased demand for moneys to pay for social programs. That gap will simply widen and widen so that those who are least privileged in our society are the ones who will be hurt the most. This will be a direct failure on the part of the government because it knows full well that this is on the horizon. It is entirely on its shoulders to act in a leadership role, to work with the rest of us and the provinces to ensure this is dealt with. It is those who are least privileged and most vulnerable who are going to be hurt in our society. Ignoring this is absolutely criminal. Health care costs, as I said before, are extraordinary.

What did the government do in the budget? It touted its deficit reduction platform. What was that? In effect, it was $17 billion in cuts over five years, along with a fantasy growth rate of about 6%. The government says we are going to grow out of this. The fact of the matter is that we are not.

Once again, the government is actually blowing smoke in the eyes of the Canadian public, giving them a line that is simply not credible at all.

The other thing it did was make cuts. What kind of cuts? It eliminated 245 positions. What it is not telling the Canadian public is that most of those positions have not been filled, were not filled, and are not going to be filled. Again, these are mystery cuts that are taking place.

The government, in other words, does not have a credible plan to get the books balanced once again. It should take a leaf out of what happened in the mid-90s, when then-Prime Minister Chrétien and his finance minister, Paul Martin, did get our country's books back in order. I think the Prime Minister and his finance minister should take a leaf out of that book and get our financial house back in order.

I could point to a couple of things that we absolutely must do. The government must work on health care. It must bring costs under control. In order to do that, it should take a leaf out of what is being done in the province of Quebec and indeed will be done in Ontario, and probably in British Columbia, our province. The government must allow the provinces to modernize.

Seventeen of the top 20 health care systems in the world are in Europe. They pay less and get better health outcomes. We should be asking why that is so. We should be adopting those best practices here in Canada. The feds control the overarching guidelines in terms of allowing or disallowing the provinces to modernize. The federal government must sit down with the ministers. It must use its convening power to sit down with the provincial ministers of health and say, “Look, this is our problem, this is a problem of our nation. We simply cannot allow our health care system, the difference between the demand for our health care and the supply of resources to continue to widen”.

It is already widening and it continues to worsen every single year. The government must sit down with the provincial health ministers to allow the provinces to modernize and to implement solutions, including IT solutions that are necessary to streamline our system.

The other thing that we need to do is on the productivity side. Although constitutionally education falls into the realm of the provinces, there is nothing that prevents the government from convening the provincial ministers of education to work on national standards, national outcomes, so that students, regardless of where they are, will be able to receive the quality education that they deserve.

This is crucially important because other countries are doing this as well, even ones with a similar political structure, like Australia. Without our students being trained in the economic needs of the future, we will have people without jobs and jobs without people. That is what is going to happen. The only way to fix that is if the feds work with the provinces to meet the needs of our economy with the training capabilities of our provinces.

Also, it is crucially important that we are able to project in the future to know what those niches are that we can capitalize on. One we could do is shipbuilding because there is a very interesting opportunity in our province of British Columbia to develop an integrated shipbuilding strategy that would enable us to capitalize on high-paying, high-tech jobs in the future.

The feds also need to work with the coalition of the willing in terms of the provinces. Just because one or a couple of provinces may not be willing to choose to work together, it does not mean that the feds cannot work with those who are willing to actually sit down at a table and implement the solutions we need, including the elimination of interprovincial trade barriers and the labour mobility issues, which restrict our economy. Without this, we will simply be falling further and further behind with respect to other economies.

One of the banks, and I think it was the TD Bank, did a very interesting study. It looked at 20 years from now and where would Canada's economy be in the world. Right now we have the ninth largest economy. Twenty years from now we will be back around 26th in the world. We do not need to accept that. We do not need to have that. That is not, by any stretch, a fait accompli.

In closing there are a couple of other things. On the pension issue, we will have fewer and fewer people who will be working, as I said, compared to the retired folk. We can be intelligent about incentivizing people to continue to work after the age of 65, perhaps by giving them a percentage of their CPP tax free. It is important that people who choose to work can work, and we should not put barriers in their way.

There are many things we could talk about here. There are many opportunities the government can actually embrace for our economy, social programs, and for the future of our nation. We want to work with the government. We compel the government and we plead with it to take this very seriously, and not to come up with budgetary measures such as this which do not serve the public well at all.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is unfortunate that the member will not be supporting the budget implementation bill, although the Liberal Party conveniently leaves enough of its members away to ensure that it actually passes in the House. The member referred to the issue of health care and made the statement that we need to get health care costs under control. He alleged that our government was doing nothing along those lines. I would suggest to him that it does not matter what our government does on health care, the Liberals are only intent on politicizing the issue and playing partisan politics with it.

The member is a fairly knowledgeable individual who has raised the issue and suggested that health care costs must be brought under control. Specifically, how does he propose to do that? He has referred to models overseas that might apply. Many of those models may be out of sync with our Canada Health Act. How does he plan to get those costs under control and what kinds of models does he see fitting into our Canadian system?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, we are asking the government, but if members would like to trade places with us we would be more than happy to take their place any day and do a better job.

On the health care side there are a couple of easy things the government could do. First, set up a centre for best practices. Second, where are those models? Let us look at Germany, France, Sweden or Norway. All four of those, and there are 17 in total, have better outcomes at a lower price. All of them have mixed systems. All of them use IT tools in a way that we do not even imagine here.

Rather than the federal government sticking its head in the sand and hiding behind the fact that constitutionally the management of health care falls under the realm of the provinces, why do the Conservatives not act like leaders, convene the provincial health ministers, work as partners, and come up with a working group on health care with senior ADMs and deputy ministers to actually roll up their sleeves and meet on an ongoing basis to implement the solutions that the provinces need?

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, earlier one of the Bloc members referred to the issue of tax havens. I know the member has travelled far and wide around the world and has opinions about a wide range of subjects. The fact of the matter is, whether the Liberals are in power or the Conservatives are in power, the governments have really been unable to do much in the way of fighting the issue of tax havens. The member probably knows that some of the best progress that has been made in recent years was the case of an employee from one of the Swiss banks who took back-up computer tapes and tax records, and sold them to the German government which then chased down the people who were hiding their money and not paying taxes.

Canada's answer has been simply to allow an amnesty, so people who think they might be caught can now just volunteer and pay their taxes. It is basically a risk-free situation. If people invest in tax havens and do not get caught, it is okay. If they do get caught, all they have to do--

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order. I will have to interrupt the hon. member to give the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca the opportunity to respond. He has one minute to respond.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am not an expert on tax havens. I would personally advocate for the government to simplify our tax system. We desperately need that.

Briefly, on the environmental side, the public ought to know that in the budget the federal government has given powers to the environment minister to basically circumvent the type of environmental assessments that we need on large energy projects. Environmental assessments that were needed before do not have to happen and the assessments of these energy projects have been taken away from the environmental assessment board. It is absolutely extraordinary that this has happened. It has led to a lot of uncertainty and concern that projects do not have to go through the proper environmental assessments, and that change was made directly by the government in the budget.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the budget implementation bill this year and to talk about a number of issues within it that I think are of some interest to all parliamentarians.

Our party is not supporting the bill. We have come to the conclusion that the Conservative agenda, as outlined, is not sufficient for the country, is not taking the country in the right direction, and as such, we have made our decision not to support the budget implementation bill.

There are many things within the bill that have come out to show how, once again, the Conservative government's agenda goes beyond simply budget and into a whole number of areas where we have concerns, where we do not see that it is making progress and in fact it is taking steps that we consider to be inappropriate in this day and age.

I would like to start off by talking about an area that I am familiar with in terms of the transport committee. As transport critic for the NDP, I have been raising the issue of aviation security. During the prorogation break, we had the opportunity to conduct a forum on aviation security. We brought in many different experts, joined together with the transport critic in the Liberal Party. It was a very successful effort in understanding the nature of aviation security in Canada.

What we have seen over the last number of months from the government is a rather knee-jerk reaction to aviation security. Over Christmas, because of an incident in the United States, the minister decided in a late night session to purchase the new full body scanners, technology that was tested out briefly in an airport in Kelowna this year, with mixed results. When we talk to the experts, this type of equipment seems to be rather inappropriate and seems to take the security system in a direction which will not really result in more security, but just more cost. We see this playing out with the air travellers' security charge. We will see an increase in the cost of delivery of every flight in Canada, for the travellers' security charge of between $3 and $9 per flight, per passenger.

Canada already spends per capita more than most developed countries on aviation security. It is $1.5 billion over five years to provide those services, plus the additional costs that we pass on to the consumer. As well, the government has decided to cut out the professional police force that is put in place in most major airports. It has passed that cost on to the airlines as well, which will eventually be passed on to the consumer.

We see additional costs in aviation security which are not borne out by the experts in terms of the threat assessments and the actual results that come from our system. The aviation security system at most of our airports is like the Maginot Line. It looks very impressive, but it is very easy to go around it and very easy to circumnavigate the types of security that are in place. They are mechanical, very much simply to assure the travelling public that we do a good job. We need to move to a different system. We need to reassess aviation security to understand what the threat is and what the appropriate response is to this type of activity, and not simply add a cost on to the consumer.

This is something we will be moving ahead with on the transport committee if we can. We will be looking at these things. It is something I hope to work with the government on to change its direction. I do not see it as being something on which we have to act in a partisan fashion. Aviation security affects every one of us in this building, all our families and all our friends. We need to ensure that we are doing the right thing. Rather than simply add costs to the system, we need to ensure that what we do is adequate to cover the needs of aviation security.

Another item that has caused a lot of trouble in my riding is attached to the end of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. This program, successfully evaluated by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, should have gone ahead. We should have continued that program. Instead, funds were turned over to Health Canada. The ability of aboriginal people to guide their own healing following the residential school traumas and abuse was taken away.

This flies in the face of the apology that we all shared in the House of Commons, that wonderful moment when we stood together as MPs and said that we were sorry, that we wanted to do it better in the future, that we wanted to fix the problem, that we wanted to work with them to fix their problems and that we wanted them to fix their problems. That is not the direction we are taking here and that is a sad fact.

This is something the government has failed at in this budget. We should go back and reassess what is being done and really understand that the programs aboriginal people use to heal themselves and the directions they take are the most important. They are the ones we want to support.

The other item I want to touch on is the changes the government is proposing to regulatory systems of environmental assessment. In the North, they take two forms. One of them was something that was inserted into this bill. It involves changes to the federal environmental assessment, taking away certain triggers that would start a federal environmental assessment and changing the law so the minister could set the scope of federal environmental assessment.

These are really large issues for people in the North. So much of our land and resources are shared with the federal government. We are also the receiver of so many of the impacts of resource development in provinces. The impacts of interprovincial transfers of water and air on our systems are great. We cannot afford to see federal government renege on its responsibility to create environmental assessments that speak to all Canadians.

We cannot turn environmental assessment into a regional issue when it is a national issue and expect that we will get the results we want for the country in the future. We may get more convenience for provincial governments. We may get more convenience for large corporations that want to play provincial governments off each other in the development of resources.

All of those things may occur with a decline in federal environmental assessment, but it does not solve the problems of the environment. We as legislators, members of Parliament and Canadians are here to protect the environment, not allow it to be degraded. What is happening with the federal environmental assessment in this budget implementation bill is wrong.

When it comes to territorial environmental assessment, when we talk about the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, the government has put $11 million in there to change the act, and act that has never been fully implemented. Everyone from the McCrank report through all the boards to the people there have said that the act must be finished off. They want the land use plans in place for the people of the North. Before we judge how an act works, we must finish it and make it whole.

What we have now is a situation that is not whole. We have to move that forward, not find ways that we can circumvent the legislation, that we can streamline it so it does not work. We need something that is going to work for northerners.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments with regard to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the environment. In the Arctic climate change is not only an environmental issue, but also a social justice issue. Those who are most heavily impacted have had the least responsibility for it.

Climate change is real. It is happening now and the Arctic is the canary in the coal mine.

Could the hon. member discuss the climate impacts in the Arctic today and what action the government should take?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, climate change is affecting the north in a wide variety of ways.

One of the ways that stands out today is the decline of the caribou herds, one of the major points of sustenance and cultural importance. These herds are in decline because climate change has altered the ability of breeding and has changed the landscape for vegetation. Those impacts are very difficult to deal with, but the federal government in the last six months has said that it is not concerned about that. It will leave that in the hands of northerners even though the legislation clearly puts it as the government's responsibility.

The federal government is not paying attention to an issue that it should be paying attention to under the law. If it continues to do that, perhaps the only solution is to turn it over to the people of the north so they can take care of the animals in a correct fashion.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague. I was very struck by his line that we are all called here because we have an obligation to protect the environment.

I think of the situation that is happening on the James Bay coast now, all across the Nishnawbe Aski territory with the ice roads melting. We have never seen ice go out this quickly. It has had a devastating effect.

The most impoverished communities in Canada, the northern aboriginal communities, are facing serious shortfalls. They are living with the consequences of climate change now.

Therefore, I go back to the member's comment that we are all here to protect the environment. I would like to suggest for the member that many of us are here to protect the environment, but a certain party in the House is here to protect the interests of the Alberta oil and gas sector.

The Prime Minister himself said that his job and his party was to build a firewall to defend the tar sands.

When we look at Bill C-9,, we see nothing for the environment, nothing for protecting communities that are already living with the impacts of climate change. What we see is a bill tailor made to allow the pillaging of the tar sands to continue and allowing the people who are making the most money from destroying the environment to continue making that kind of money while our poor communities in the north are suffering and paying the prices of the government's inaction.

Does the member not think it would have been fairer that we actually look at dealing with the tar sands so our poor communities on James Bay and elsewhere could at least have some protection because climate change is hitting them now?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Madam Speaker, the tar sands are an enormous environmental problem for Canada, but they also, in putting the tar sands together in a fashion that works, are a great opportunity as well for economic development.

What has happened with the tar sands is they started off as very mediocre oil development in this world and have escalated to a point where, with the price of oil, they are very profitable and everyone wants in on it. The developers have been given free licence to deal with the environment.

We need to change that now and put proper guidelines, procedures and laws in place that will protect the environment and will ensure that these tar sands, which are an enormous resource for Canada, are handled correctly. Instead the government is playing this game with our environment rather than dealing with it. That is the problem.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, today I am pleased to speak to Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill. The Bloc Québécois took the preparations for this budget very seriously. We toured all over Quebec. We met with hundreds of economic players. We were very disappointed, after making suggestions to the government, that the Conservatives stuck with their habit of acting as though Quebec does not exist.

Once again, the Conservatives want to help their rich friends at the expense of the less fortunate and the workers. This bill shows the government's desire to spare the rich, including the banks and major corporations, at all costs and make the middle class and working class pay off the deficit.

The measures contained in this budget attest to this desire because corporations are not asked to contribute to raising government revenues, except for the lower interest rate to be paid by the Minister of National Revenue on tax overpayments by corporations.

The bill attests to the Conservative government's inertia with respect to the environment and the fight against greenhouse gases. Rather than attacking the sources of the problem, the government is ignoring the national and international pressure for a radical reduction in energy waste and implementation of tangible policies to promote the production of clean and renewable energy.

In addition, as a woman, I am personally outraged by the measures, particularly the lack of measures, for women in this bill. In fact, the Conservatives are denying the existence of more than half the population and the challenges they face. There is nothing for women in this bill. It is an unacceptable step backwards. And we know that women are often the poorest in our society and often head up single-parent households, which compounds their problems.

I would now like to speak about Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and isotopes. As the natural resources critic, I have serious concerns about Bill C-9, specifically part 18.

Conservatives, like the Liberals, have dragged their feet on medical isotope production. These isotopes are crucial to detecting and treating a number of serious diseases. Because the core of nuclear reactors is exposed to extremely high temperatures and radiation, NRU reactors must be rebuilt every 25 or 30 years; otherwise, they become too unstable and dangerous. Consequently, the Conservatives' failure to act forced the “temporary” closure of the Chalk River reactor in May 2009, leaving Quebec health care institutions and hospitals to their own devices and creating an unprecedented medical isotope crisis.

Quebec has been paying for the government's negligence and incompetence on this issue for nearly a year now. It will soon be a year since hospitals have had a guaranteed supply of medical isotopes. We have yet to see any money to cover the cost of what the Quebec government has had to pay to manage the crisis. Waiting lists are growing longer and doctors are becoming impatient. Quebeckers want a long-term solution so that we do not put any more lives in danger unnecessarily and so that patients can get the tests and treatments they need.

There have been many calls for help from doctors. What will it take to get the government to act? The Conservatives made a commitment to have the reactor up and running by August 2009. We have seen delay after delay, and now they are saying it will be up and running at the end of July 2010, a full year after it was shut down. It remains to be seen whether there will be more delays. Forgive me if I have doubt the Conservatives' word on this.

Jean-Luc Urbain, president of the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine, predicted that patients would experience dark days waiting to receive diagnoses and treatment.

It is important to remember that it is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited that owns and operates the Chalk River reactor. AECL is therefore responsible not only for producing isotopes for Canada, but for producing half the supply of medical isotopes in North America. It accounts for more than 30% of international production.

AECL manages the supply of isotopes, and it is no secret that the government is thinking of privatizing this crown corporation.

What is more, the government commissioned a study in February 2008 to set the corporation's long-term strategic direction. Part 18 of the budget implementation bill gives the federal government carte blanche to determine the corporation's future. We have absolutely no assurance that the federal government will keep on doing its duty and providing Quebeckers and Canadians with a supply of medical isotopes.

In addition, the process is blatantly non-transparent. The government is giving itself the right to notify the House of its decision on AECL only within 15 days after it takes effect. As a result, we run the very real risk of being faced with a fait accompli.

Another thing that troubles me is that the budget provides $300 million in 2010-11 to cover anticipated commercial losses and to support the activities of AECL, such as pursuing the development work on the advanced CANDU reactor, safely supplying medical isotopes and maintaining reliable and safe activity at the Chalk River laboratories.

It is curious. I wonder whether this $300 million of taxpayers' money is literally a gift for potential buyers. I was unable to get any answers about this.

In addition to the supply of isotopes, a number of other issues remain unresolved and are cause for concern.

How much is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited worth? We have invested more than $8 billion in it over the years. Can Quebeckers and Canadians expect a return on their investment with the sale of AECL? What sort of future can workers at the Chalk River laboratories and the Montreal offices expect? What will become of the intellectual property pertaining to the CANDU reactors if the company passes into foreign hands?

These are worrisome questions that still do not have answers.

I would now like to talk about the forestry industry. Quebeckers are worried. This industry is going through an unprecedented crisis in Quebec, and the bill contains no real measures to reassure Quebeckers.

Even though the forestry industry is the lifeblood of the Quebec economy, the latest budget completely ignores the demands of the Bloc Québécois. It is unacceptable that the Conservative government is putting 57 times as much money into Ontario's automotive sector, when the forestry industry has to make do with scraps.

The elimination of tariffs for the machinery and goods needed to modernize and improve productivity is nothing but smoke and mirrors. The industry does not have access to loans or loan guarantees to buy the machinery. Even if tariffs are eliminated, the issue will not be resolved.

The $25 million per year over the next four years is not nearly enough for all of the lumber and pulp and paper mills to modernize. They still need to borrow money to purchase the necessary equipment.

This budget blatantly ignores the demands of the industry. For five years, forestry companies have been calling for loans and loan guarantees, but they have not seen anything.

In conclusion, the government is following the path it set out in its 2006 economic statement, with policies geared towards Ontario and Alberta to the detriment of the pressing needs of Quebec.

We do not see any measures that meet the needs of the Quebec economy. This budget should take Quebec's interests and values into account.

For these reasons, I will certainly vote against this bill.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Madam Speaker, I have two quick questions, one relating to something the member said.

How confident is the member that the government did a gender-based analysis on the budget, on the budget implementation act, on the throne speech and on all the bills it brought forward, including all the crime bills that it cancelled for prorogation?

My second question is that first-line responders in Canada, ambulance, fire and police, are asking for a public safety interoperability centre in Canada so they can save lives and connect their communications. This is an omission in the budget but I assume the member would support my lobbying for that.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, this budget ignores the specific needs of the people and of workers. I agree with my colleague that by favouring the oil companies in the west and ignoring all environmental concerns, the government is ignoring the needs of the people. A more thorough study of what is needed in the criminal sector, which unfortunately I know little about, would certainly be in order.