Debates of April 15th, 2010

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking about Bill C-9, which would implement various initiatives presented in the Conservative government's budget of March 4. Unfortunately, it is a budget that represents the government's own interests and the interests of its friends, the banks—which we have often discussed in the House—and, of course, the oil companies, all to the detriment of those who are often the poorest in our society. They have simply forgotten about supporting families and those who are so often in need after a period of recession and economic crisis such as the one we recently experienced.

This budget was very disappointing. Contrary to the Liberals, who also find this budget disappointing, the Bloc Québécois has stood up and voted against it because it goes against the needs of Quebeckers as well as Canadians with their numerous needs.

We will vote against this budget. The Conservative government continues to spare the rich, including the banks and major corporations. They want to make the middle class and working class pay off the operating deficit. They do not want to take profits from big banks or big oil. And then they justify it by saying that more jobs will be created for the unemployed if we give preferential treatment to the banks and big oil.

We have seen that the big banks do not necessarily create jobs. They move their capital to tax havens. We have seen it and we have the numbers to prove it. This budget does nothing about the problem of tax havens. It even allows some businesses that are not registered in Canada to avoid paying taxes in Canada when they do business. The government is protecting these people.

In term of tax loopholes, the government is still talking out of both sides of its mouth. On one hand, in its speeches and to the public, it is saying that it will target tax havens. On the other hand, it creates loopholes in the Income Tax Act allowing businesses not registered in Canada to avoid paying their fair share of taxes

This is doublespeak. There are two messages here. Rather than protecting the rich, the government should implement the measures proposed by the Bloc Québécois. In doing so, it would free up additional funds to deal effectively with deficits, while distributing wealth more equitably for all Quebeckers and Canadians.

Why not ask an extra 2% from those who earn over $150,000, and an extra 3% from those who earn more than $250,000? The Bloc Québécois proposes that the budget include a surtax in this regard. This would allow the federal treasury to collect $4.8 billion annually. That is a lot of money, and this measure would not affect the poor in our society. Those who earn $150,000 have the means to pay and to support those who make less. They can support the unemployed and low-income seniors by improving the guaranteed income supplement. This is money that could be used to support the manufacturing and forestry sectors. We could do a lot with $4.8 billion, but the government prefers not to do it.

The government refuses to pick on the rich, those who have high incomes, and it also refuses to pick on the banks' outrageous profits. Instead, it goes after the poor in our society. The government makes them pay more taxes, while protecting those who hold the economic levers, under the pretext that this will generate wealth and create jobs.

Of course, this is not an approach that the Bloc Québécois supports. The Conservative government prefers to give generous deductions to oil companies and banks, while neglecting to support those who are in need.

In fact, this government wilfully refused to improve the employment insurance program. Fifty per cent of those who lose their job do not qualify for EI benefits. This is shameful. We are talking about people who contribute to the program. We know how much profits large corporations and banks make. Employees and employers pay into the EI system, but the government has taken close to $60 billion of these funds, over the past 10 or 15 years. It has taken this money from those who lose their job, and it has reduced access to EI for people who are in need. The government has taken that money and used it for various expenditures. Surely, that money must have helped reduce taxes for banks and make oil companies a little richer, because this is what the Conservative government has been doing for the past few years.

The Bloc Québécois has made suggestions. Some of my Bloc colleagues have presented proposals to improve the EI program. We introduced three bills. The waiting period is an issue on which I have worked very hard in my riding. I tabled a petition in the House signed by over 4,000 citizens, demanding that this unfair measure be abolished.

Not only does the government refuse to improve the employment insurance system, but it will not hesitate to dip into the EI fund, just like the Liberals before them. The waiting period must be eliminated. When someone loses their job, why should they lose another two weeks of income? Not only did they lose their job and see their income drop, but they are also penalized for two weeks. Will their landlord give them two weeks of free rent because they lost their job? Do they stop feeding their kids for two weeks when they lose their job? No, they still have expenses. Despite the staggering surpluses misappropriated from the employment insurance fund, the government still deprives these workers of an income for two weeks. It is shameful.

The Bloc Québécois introduced another bill, proposing another initiative. In our respective ridings, people who have been ill, people who have cancer for instance, come to our offices. They are entitled to only 15 weeks of employment insurance when they have a serious illness.

Once again, the Conservatives decided to put the burden of the deficit on the middle class and refused to ask for more from those who have more.

I would like to talk about Bill C-44 from the previous session, which would have amended the Canada Post Corporation Act. As part of the budget implementation, the government wants to privatize international mail. Yet that is Canada Post's cash cow. If we cut Canada Post's revenues, the repercussions will be felt in rural communities.

The Conservative government wants to privatize international mail, but this will mean lower revenues and then it will certainly have a hard time making the Canada Post Corporation make ends meet. That is why rural services are being cut.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, I would like to compliment my colleague on the work that he has done on the EI file. He spoke earlier about the elimination of the waiting period and about reducing the amount of hours.

I wholeheartedly agree with one of the issues that he brought up and that is with respect to the 15 week benefit period for compassionate care and sick benefits. The government went ahead and extended the weeks of EI, but in this particular part of the EI fund people who desperately need compassionate care or sickness benefits cannot get any more than the 15 weeks, yet in some areas regular EI benefits go for much longer.

EI is also part of seasonal work in general, and I would like for the member to comment on how Bill C-9 lacks a vision or lacks any assessment of both the fishing and the forestry industry. I would like for him to comment specifically on what he would have liked to have seen in this budget for those two particular industries.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question. He talked about fishers in his area. I know that many people in his riding rely on fisheries. In my riding, we have large numbers of seasonal forestry workers and tourism workers. Often, these workers are not eligible to EI.

The employment insurance system needs to be improve, so that these workers can be eligible. For example, the minimum eligibility requirement should be set at 360 hours of work, and the rate of benefits should be raised to 60% of earnings. The waiting period should also be eliminated. This is the kind of measures that support workers.

For the past several years, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for an older workers assistance program. Regardless of who is in power, this House turned a deaf ear. These are measures to help our seasonal workers.

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments on the budget. The budget does not provide for extending the benefit period for the unemployed. What is more, there is no additional funding for creating jobs. Nor is there anything to make access to employment insurance easier for women.

I know that my colleague has worked hard on this file. I too have introduced a bill on employment insurance. I would like him to say a few words about the difficulties our voters face when it comes to getting employment insurance and on what we had hoped to see in the budget.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, my NDP colleague has raised an important issue. I remember that the issue of women was addressed here, in 2006, when the Conservatives came to power. They simply said that there was now equality between men and women. They therefore abolished Status of Women programs and a number of other programs to improve living conditions for women.

When there are cuts to employment insurance programs, they affect women in particular because men and women are still not equal socially and economically. In Quebec, there are a number of statistics to back this up. When there is nothing in a budget for social housing, that also affects women.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the budget. Part of that issue is about what it means when we talk about a Speech from the Throne. We talk about a budget and we talk about this whole sense of what it means to place action toward that. The budget is the piece of legislation that places action toward that.

What we have seen here, indeed, is a lack of that because it talks about jobs and prosperity, but what it does not do inside the budget is actually place action. It does not put the money into the programs that indeed we need across this country to ensure that we are actually going to see jobs and prosperity.

One of the things we have heard constantly from a great many of the economists who have talked about where this economy is going is about a jobless recovery. I know members opposite in the government will talk about increases in the GDP and all those lovely numbers that have constantly been set forth, but that does not translate into jobs for folks on main street.

What we are seeing across this land is stubbornly high unemployment. In fact, we are seeing people who are not covered by employment insurance anymore. As we saw in 2009, a great many people did not qualify for EI. What we now see is a whole group of people falling off EI, and we also see a huge number of people who are underemployed if not unemployed, but no longer registered because they no longer collect EI, so therefore they are not counted.

Indeed, with a national rate that might be 8%, when we add on those who are underemployed, who want to be employed full-time, when we look at folks who ultimately, at the end of the day, are not gainfully employed at this moment in time, who want to be but are not counted in the rate, that 8% might indeed be more like 12.6%, even closer to 13% or 14%.

When we talk about jobs and prosperity, especially for young people, what we see with the unemployment rate across this country for young people under the age of 25 is that it is exceeding 20%. This is not a transition of young people going from school to the work force. It is that young people just cannot find work.

In an area like mine, where we have the fourth oldest population base in this country, we see young people leaving because they do not find work in the communities that they want to stay in, where they have been raised by their families, where they have attachments to families, and where they actually want to stay and continue to grow that community.

We lose from both ends. We lose the young people. We lose those skills going forward to somewhere else, and then when they find out that it is not as good there either, quite often they find their way back, sometimes to mom and dad for that type of support because it is that bad.

I have heard colleagues talk in the House in the last couple of days about EI and what this budget does or does not do. My colleague from Acadie—Bathurst really set the tone today on the debate when it comes to EI and what happened. I know that fingers get pointed back and forth between the Conservatives and the Liberals about who spent the $57 billion. Let me not point the finger and just simply say it was spent. The issue now is that it needs to be put back. It is owed to those who contributed. It was a contribution from workers and their employers to cover workers in their greatest time of need, when they were unemployed. What needs to happen now is it should be re-established. The government owes that money and it should be put back. It was taken. It does not matter which stripe we want to suggest took it. It was taken and spent.

By the government's admission, the cupboards are bare. It is gone now. That is fine. That happens to all of us in family finances from time to time. The cupboard goes bare, but what we do is we work toward filling it again, and that is what the government should set as a course for itself.

The talk about why it disappeared is somewhere I do not necessarily want to go, but I want to talk about what could have been done if indeed it had not been spent willy-nilly. If it indeed had been spent in a constructive way, we would not need to see the number of private members' bills on EI reform that we have seen. I am not suggesting that they are not good private members' bills for reform. Indeed, they are.

The New Democrats, the Bloc and the Liberal Party have put forward a number of bills to enhance and change the system.

The problem is that this is a piecemeal fix. It is not a substitution for taking the overall plan and asking how we fix it. I heard my colleague from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor talking earlier about the EI piece when it comes to sickness benefits. If we had looked at the whole system, as a holistic approach, we could have fixed what is a reprehensible system where one is only allowed to be sick for 15 weeks. Tell that to the person who has contracted the illness. If people contract an illness that makes them sick for 30 weeks, they still only get paid for 15 weeks. Does that mean they are any less ill? Of course not. The system is skewed and needs to be fixed.

If either government had not spent the money, we could have fixed the system in its entirety, not one little bit at a time with a Band-aid here and a Band-aid there to try to stop the hemorrhaging.

I believe we have an opportunity with this budget to tell the government that the entire system needs to be fixed. The government has heard lots of good ideas. Time and time again I have seen the Prime Minister stand in his place and implore us on the other side of the aisle to give him our best ideas.

We have been giving him our best ideas, especially when it comes to EI reform. We have a myriad of private member's bills that talk about reforming the system and that, if taken in their totality, would fix the entire system, whether it be the sick benefits, the waiting time period, the hours or severance and vacation pay that were part of a bill I presented to this House but, unfortunately was defeated.

We could have fixed all of that system and had a system that works for Canadian workers in their greatest time of need, when they are unemployed. When they are unemployed they need the system to protect them, and that is why they paid for their insurance.

I will now move on to pensions. This budget gives us the opportunity to fix pensions, especially when it comes to CCAA. We can look at the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, which is a federal statute. I can give an example of what happened in my riding a number of years ago with workers at Atlas Steel in Welland. They received a registered letter at their home on a Friday evening telling them that Atlas Steel had gone into CCAA and that their pensions would be reduced by 50% as of Monday, not a year Monday but as of Monday, and that their benefits were expiring at midnight on Sunday. They had two days to get their house in order. They were losing their benefits and losing half of their pension. This was to a group of retired workers, not workers in the plant who knew they were going into bankruptcy and who were still working. This was to the workers who had been retired, many for a long time, who relied on that pension to survive. Their pensions disappeared.

What we need to do is protect pensions and this budget gives us that opportunity because there is some mention about what we do about unfunded liabilities and pensions, but it is not very clear. However, there are bills in this House that talk about how we should fix it. We can do that. The unfunded liabilities and pensions is a budget issue.

I have something to read to my colleagues, which I know my good friend from Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor will like to hear. This statute comes from the AbitibiBowater workers in my riding in Thorold. They have come together to talk about what has happened to them under CCAA and what is going to happen. They say, “Faced with the prospects of such a reduction in our monthly pensions, we formed an association in mid-2009 to protect contractual rights to full pensions, as AbitibiBowater was searching for ways and means to restructure its operations and finance it to get out of court protection”.

They have come together as a community group of retired persons. These are not workers and plant management. These are retired workers who are saying that if they lose their pensions because of the CCAA at AbitibiBowater in Thorold it will have a huge impact on their community.

I believe my colleague from Windsor had said that before. What will happen is that these folks who are left in the community will have less money in their pockets to stay in their homes, pay their property taxes and feed themselves.

We not only had an obligation, we had the ability to fix it but we simply blinked and let it go away. I think that is a great injustice, not only to the workers at AbitibiBowater and at Atlas Steel in Welland but across our broader land where people are looking to us. They are telling us that the EI is in crisis and that their pensions are in crisis. They want to know what we are doing to ensure that during their most vulnerable time they will be protected.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. He has pegged my riding quite well.

The AbitibiBowater situation was, for him, as it was for me, an incredible eye-opener. I hope this House realizes that for people in the United States right now, credit protection for them is more beneficial than what we have here.

The member made a valid point about communities. It was not just the AbitibiBowater workers who as of last year were losing out on the value of their pension, which was down by 30% because of the economic downturn, but in the absence of the mill that closed down in Grand Falls--Windsor, these high salary jobs were eliminated, which means the pensions received by the former workers now comprise a major economic driver in the Exploits Valley region.

We keep forgetting that a better way of receiving remuneration once we are retired, a better pension is also a vanguard to economic development for some of these smaller communities. I do not think I am far-fetched by saying this.

What are some of the measures he is proposing to help these people who are suffering from deficient or unfunded liabilities in their pensions?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. I think his riding and mine are somewhat mirror images of each other, even though my riding is on the lake and the Welland Canal. His riding is a beautiful place because I have been there on vacation. It is a wonderful riding and a wonderful place to be. However, he is right about the impacts we have seen on those workers in his riding, in my riding and in other ridings across this land.

We had an opportunity and still have an opportunity in this House with the bill from the member from Hamilton which deals with how to fix it.

We have unanimously said in this House that we need to fix the pension system when it comes to the creditors and whatnot but we are not doing that. The government does not implement what it says is a good idea. It is not implementing what needs to be done. This is about the most vulnerable at a stage in their life where they need to be protected. It should not need not be repeated but I guess I need to do that. These are the folks who built this place and this country for us and now we are saying, ”You know what? Thanks for that, but that's a memory. See you later. Get on with it. We'll put you in a long-term care institution and then we'll be done with you”.

That is not what it should be. We owe them respect and dignity later in their life. We have an obligation to them to fix the system that they helped create which was supposed to allow them to go into retirement and enjoy their retirement years with some sense of respect and dignity that would get them into their later life. This is not a right that they think they should have. It is an obligation we have to them. They are simply asking us to please fix it. We owe them that fix and I think we ought to be doing that, not today but yesterday.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to what my colleague was saying. I agree with most of his comments but I would like his thoughts on something else.

The government is trying to ram the partial deregulation of Canada Post down our throats through this mini omnibus budget. The fact that this measure is now included in this budget implementation bill illustrates the somewhat hypocritical and devious nature of this Conservative government and its desire to completely deregulate the crown corporation. The Conservative government is obviously trying to fool the public by slipping this deregulation plan in with everything else in this 800-page budget implementation bill. It is an indirect way of making cuts by using this bill on the heels of Bill C-44 that was introduced in the House.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about this because, as I have said so many times, cuts to Canada Post result in cuts to revenues and often the impact is felt in rural areas. Often there is reduced postal service for people living in rural areas. I would like to hear—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Welland has about 40 seconds to respond.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, a large component of my riding is rural and it relies on Canada Post.

The member is absolutely right. It is duplicitous in nature to put into the budget bill all of the additional pieces that we should be debating in the House. Whether we have decided to do or not do certain things when it comes to Canada Post and the other measures, this basically amounts to an omnibus bill, and, as my colleague who sits beside me said, of 880 pages. He is absolutely correct.

The House and Canadians deserve to have parliamentarians debate the issues of their needs across this land, not just the budget. The budget is what it is. We should debate it, move on and then we should be looking at all those aspects one at a time, bill by bill, ensuring we have the opportunity to debate it, make decisions about it and not have it all stuffed into one big book.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-9, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010. I brought in my own copy of Bill C-9. As you just heard, my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé, who is doing excellent work, spoke about Canada Post. I am the Bloc Québécois critic on Canada Post. One of the major challenges in the past two years has been the remailer issue. Two bills were introduced by the Conservatives on this issue. The elections in 2006 and 2008 ensured that these bills never passed. When Parliament was prorogued most recently, another bill introduced by the Conservatives died on the order paper. I want to show how sneaky the government can get with a bill. As we have already heard, this bill has 880 pages, and the section that applies to Canada Post is summarized in a quarter of a paragraph. It is in part 15, which takes up seven lines out of 880 pages. It states:

Section 15 of the Canada Post Corporation Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (2):

(3) The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

It is important to note how the Conservatives slipped this into the bill. The Bloc Québécois is opposed to the budget and will therefore oppose Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill. But we will be doubly opposed to this bill because the Conservatives, who campaigned on a platform of transparency, are using the tried and true tricks Conservatives and Liberals have used for 140 years in this country, and by that I mean burying major reforms in a bill. This represents a significant change to Canada Post.

Why did the government previously introduce two bills that went nowhere? Because putting an end to Canada Post's exclusive privilege gives rise to a great deal of debate. Canada Post is the only service the Government of Canada provides for the public. The Government of Canada does not look after health, education or transportation, even though it tries to tell us that it invests a lot of money in these areas. These services are delivered by the municipality or the province, at least in Quebec.

The only hospital that belongs to the Government of Canada is the veterans hospital in Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue. Yet the Government of Quebec will likely take over running that hospital in the near future under a memorandum of understanding. So mail delivery is the only real service the Government of Canada provides for people.

For purely partisan reasons and obviously under pressure from lobbyists, the government is siding with a whole industry that has sprung up alongside Canada Post: the remailing industry. I am talking about companies that serve large businesses by collecting mail going outside Canada, even though collecting letter mail is an exclusive privilege of Canada Post. Canada Post has tolerated this, because there are businesses that turn all their international mail over to private companies because postage rates differ from country to country. In my riding, there are aeronautics and aerospace firms that have clients all over the world.

The problem is that the companies that offered this service, which was tolerated by Canada Post, decided that, as long as they were collecting mail going abroad, they would collect all the mail, handle all the mail, offer services, do home delivery and everything.

On account of Canada Post’s exclusive privilege, the burden of proof was on the private companies offering this service. They lost in the courts, and Canada Post obtained an injunction to have certain operations of its competitors who had procured this service stopped, because Canada Post had the exclusive privilege to collect lettermail.

Obviously, the remailer lobbyists have succeeded in convincing the Conservatives—and I would even say certain Liberals—that the service they are offering has to be maintained, even if they collect some mail for inside Canada. The remailers will try to revise their methods and focus on mail collected for outside Canada. The snag is that, in amending the law, it will now be up to Canada Post to prove that these companies are in non-compliance. How will it be possible to prove that, when a private company decides to collect a business's mail, it is not at the same time collecting mail destined for inside Canada? So the burden of proof is being reversed, and Canada Post has tallied this at $80 million in lost revenue. The president of Canada Post, Ms. Moya Greene, told us that the corporation was going to lose $80 million because of this.

This week Canada Post sent me some of its executives, who explained that Canada Post will be experiencing some difficulties in the years ahead and will have to cut back its services, modernize its operations and try to recover what it can. Tens of thousands of jobs will be lost at Canada Post over the next five to eight years because the corporation will have to recover some money. But a portion of the money to be recovered will include the $80 million that Canada Post is going to lose because the government has just allowed private companies to have a share of this market.

The fact that jobs will have to be cut means that services will be lost. What poses a problem is service in the regions. Every citizen, every taxpayer, has the right to have their mail delivered. Whether they live in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix or Lac-aux-Sables, whatever the municipality, everyone has the right to have their mail delivered. The reality is that this is being worked on now.

Canada Post tried to argue that there were safety concerns, that they had to be careful and that routes were dangerous and should be cut. Members of the Bloc Québécois took up the fight and put an end to this idea. The routes were maintained. Some safety studies were done, but ultimately the president just wanted to reduce and eliminate rural mail delivery. That is what she wanted. She wanted to concentrate the mail in boxes very close to village post offices.

I was told today that safety had cost Canada Post more than expected. That is for sure because our members were vigilant and managed to let everyone know that Canada Post was trying not to have to deliver the mail any more. The government evidently issued directives to Canada Post indicating that it should maintain this service. If we look closely, though, at the delivery protocol drawn up by the minister responsible for Canada Post, a lot of escape hatches have been included: if a postal worker becomes sick and Canada Post cannot replace him, it can close his post office, or if the post office is located on the premises of a private company and the contract cannot be renewed, the post office can be transferred. The purpose is to succeed some day in centralizing postal services in major cities.

Once again, in a bill that is 880 pages long, we see them introducing a part 15, just seven lines in length, that puts an end to Canada Post’s exclusive privileges. The Conservative members do not even realize the harm they are going to do to mail delivery, but they are not Conservatives for nothing. It is hard to hold it against them. As soon as they get up in the morning, the boss issues the orders. They cannot think for themselves. In actual fact, the government is trying once again to avoid discussion in committee. It did not table a separate bill. As a result, there will not be any discussions in committee about Canada Post, and all the towns and the citizens of Quebec will suffer the consequences.

The Bloc Québécois will vote against this bill.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, I wish to commend my colleague on an excellent speech. It would appear that the democratic debates in this House on bills to privatize international mail have had the Conservatives grow impatient.

Now, they have put before us a big, 800-page budgetary document, which is a hypocritical way of cutting services at Canada Post. Of course, there will be cuts at Canada Post, and these will have an impact on rural areas, like when the decision was made to redistribute postal boxes.

Does this mean that the Conservatives do not like democratic debate in the House? They sneak through their legislative proposal, as they have done numerous times in the past. I would like to hear my colleague on that.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is right. This is an underhanded way of proceeding. What is worse, the Conservatives are taking advantage of the Liberals' weakness. They know that the Liberals will do everything they can to ensure that this bill is passed. The Liberal members will be hiding behind the doors. Some of them will be absent or say that they are sick, others will remain seated. As a result, mail delivery services will be cut.

The Conservatives have seen the Liberals' weakness. They knew full well that if they had introduced a separate bill in committee, the Bloc Québécois would have stood its ground and done everything it could to ensure that the bill did not pass. We have already managed to keep this bill from being passed.

They are taking advantage of the Liberals' weakness. I cannot wait to see what they will do. How are they going to justify cuts to postal services? Will they hide or stay seated? We will see what the Liberals end up doing, but they will be going against their constituents' interests if they choose either of these courses of action.

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

Madam Speaker, the member has analysed this quite well. However, we are missing another big element. Where are the Conservative speakers? We have debated this 880 page implementation bill for three days now. As the member said, there are issues in the bill all cobbled together, such as the post office remailer, which have nothing to do with the budget, and nobody shows up to speak for the government. Therefore, we have a debate going on among the opposition parties. It is all about that. We cannot ask the government any questions because there is nobody to ask any questions of.

Several Bloc members have talked about the issue of tax havens. The government is obviously siding with the banks. The banks are making $15 billion at a time of recession when 880,000 people are unemployed. Bank presidents are making $10 million a year. When it became apparent that people were using tax havens, the $3 billion that have been sitting in tax havens, the government's answer was to offer a tax amnesty. When the information became public, because a bank employee sold records to the German government a couple of years ago, Canadians were running into Revenue Canada offices to take advantage of the amnesty to pay the taxes.

In other words, the message of the government is to take advantage of tax havens and all people have to do is pay—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I must give the hon. member time to respond.

The hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is right about the Conservatives' reaction. When a government is sneaky enough to put an end to an exclusive privilege of Canada Post in an 880-page bill, it certainly does not want people to talk about it in committee, much less in the House of Commons.

The Conservatives will not want anyone to talk about this in the Standing Committee on Finance, which will be analyzing this budget. It will be interesting to watch what they do. This bill will mean less door-to-door mail delivery for people across Canada. The Conservatives certainly do not want us to talk about this in the House, and they do not want us to ask them any questions about it.

In Quebec, it is the people who will be penalized. In all the other provinces, once again, the people will be penalized by the federal government's budget measures. I am not even sure the Conservative members themselves read the bill.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise to speak to the budget. I will shorten my speech as I need to be at another location. However, I want to touch on a couple of important points that are critical for the economy, also for social policy to evolve and to tackle some of the challenges of today.

One interesting thing about the budget is the series of new taxes in it, yet the conservatives claim that they are not. There is also a whole series of new types of policies that will undermine the strength of our country.

It was mentioned earlier about the new taxes on security to the airline industry. It is important, especially coming from my area in Windsor. The proposed new type of screening facilities came about because of a situation that eventually ended in Detroit. Someone overseas boarded a plane, with a one-way ticket, in the middle of winter with no winter gear. He was not seen as a threat even though the government of the United States knew about it. The father of the person phoned the U.S. government and told it that his son was not feeling right or had a problem. Despite all that, he went through the system, came across Canada and tried a terrorist activity in Detroit, Michigan. Thank God nothing happened and the people there were able to fix the problem. However, the screening equipment ordered for Canadian airports would not even stop that type of situation from occurring. There is no connection to this new expense. There was no debate or discussion about it. Now this new tax is being thrust upon the industry at a time where it is struggling.

This is the type of behaviour we see from the government, “It's my way or the highway”. We have seen this behaviour with one of the most critical issues to take place in Ontario and British Columbia, and that is the implementation of the HST. It is a creature of the finance minister. He has been discussing this issue for many years. It has been suggested that this came from rogue Liberals in other provinces, although they have been accomplices to it. However, it does not have to take place because federal legislation is required. Interestingly enough a federal bribe is required in billions of dollars to those provinces.

In this whole equation, Canadians will be taxed more. This shifting of the tax arrangement will punish the middle-class quite significantly. On top of that, the Conservative Party is borrowing those billions of dollars from taxpayers who will have to pay interest on it over the next number of years. I had the parliamentary research do an analysis of the borrowing costs over 10 years and estimations of what the tradition has been in those 10 years of paying it back. Until we go back into a surplus, we will pay for this borrowed money with a new tax on people. It is absolute insanity. The estimated cost from the Library of Parliament, depending on the circumstances, is maybe $7 billion to $9 billion, depending upon whether is paid back over 10 years and we get back into a surplus. That is what the government is doing. It is borrowing money and paying a premium on it, so Canadians are going to be taxed further. It is absolute, utter nonsense.

The Conservatives rammed this through Parliament, with the help of the Liberals. They wanted to ensure their cousins in those provinces would be able to get this cash payout, especially because of the circumstance they were in as well as the ideologies meet up quite well. This was rammed through with very little debate, discussion and no study.

The industry committee was one of the few that had any type of involvement whatsoever with this issue on a parliamentary level because we needed to have the tourism sector come in. The government did not even study the impacts of the HST implementation. We have a major tax policy change, no study on it and there are no qualifications or reparations if there are problems.

We heard significant testimony from the tourism industry. American visitation is down. The Canadian dollar is up. Ever since 9/11 and the increased security, there has been less travel for some sectors of the tourism industry. It is concerned with this tax. Since there was no study on the effects of it, we have a whole slew of new costs that will go into the system.

As well, it came when the government in previous budgets got rid of very beneficial programs like getting the GST back after visiting Canada. One could actually claim to get it back. It was an attractive way to be able to promote Canada. The government got rid of that and it expanded it.

When we look at the budget and its priorities, we see that it redistributes the wealth again. I want to touch briefly on the corporate tax cut, which is really important. It is significant because we are also getting rid of the fiscal capacity of the country.

I had a study commissioned by the research division of Parliament to look at the cost of corporate tax cuts and what they have meant to this country. It studied it from 2000 to 2007, the first wave. What it cost the coffers of the country is approximately $86 billion.

To get to the actual next level of corporate tax cut, reductions to 15% over the next year, the research division estimated the total cost to Canadians is $171 billion.

What is important to talk about is that we are borrowing money to do this. We are borrowing money from Canadians to provide a corporate tax cut.

When we talk to business people about it, they understand this and they get that this is wrong. The oil and gas companies, the insurance companies and the banks, all those companies right now that are gouging Canadians in the extreme are going to get a benefit, and our coffers are bare.

I want to conclude by saying that it is important that Canadians are supported during this process. That is why we had an NDP amendment on pensions, employment insurance and a series of things to redirect the money and put it back in the pockets of people.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Madam Speaker, I share my hon. friend's concerns about airports and access to travel for businesses and travellers in parts of Canada that are, let us say, outside the major metropolitan areas. With all due deference, the member probably thinks very highly of Windsor, but it is not Toronto, and Moncton is not Montreal, and Kelowna and Abbotsford are not Vancouver.

Therefore the budget hurts those mid- to smaller-size airports.

I want him to elaborate. In addition to the user fee, essentially, that is being tacked on to each individual traveller, I would like the member to comment on the deleterious effect, from page 292 of the bill, with respect to the cuts to CATSA in general and also the Canada Border Services Agency for international airports that have to have personnel to accept passengers returning home to Canada from charter flights. Many small and medium-size airports, from Mont Tremblant to Abbotsford to Charlottetown to Windsor, rely on these flights.

Many of these airports rely on passenger travel for survival. The Greater Moncton International Airport has more than 500,000 passengers a year, and these measures will hurt that airport because perhaps there will be one scanner for 500 passengers a day in a 20-minute or half-hour period.

That is going to really deter people from using airports like Moncton and Windsor. Perhaps the member could comment on those cuts.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a problem and the cut is significant.

I was actually on my municipal council when it assumed the airport, when it was devolved down to the city of Windsor after the town of Tecumseh turned away from the project.

The federal government walked away from many of these small airports that are very important for the region, economically as well as socially.

One of the things it had to do was augment service through cargo and passenger flights, as noted by the member. One of the services was tourism. We have Sunwing, for example, which will go into these smaller markets and be able to offer direct-destination flights, which is important because it brings in revenue for the airport and it also creates jobs and is so often like running a small or medium-size airport. It is almost like a Frankenstein type of operation, because we need to add parts and elements to make sure it is going to be sustainable.

Therefore it is very important that these airports are profitable. The cuts are going to put on more of a burden. The costs of customs, officials and the support system that are necessary for people coming home from these international flights are now going to be increased and passed on to the passenger. It is going to be very difficult for some of these operations to stay in place.

If the operations do not stay in place, then these airports have lost a source of revenue that is critical in the overall footprint of their operations and for the country to be successful, because we just cannot survive with one or two big airports.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona. A very brief comment or question.

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

Madam Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the government is sending the wrong signals to the unemployed and the working people of this country when it takes a corporate tax rate and lowers it to 12%. When it has record bank profits of $15 billion and allows CEOs to make $10 million a year, that is not reality for average people.

An article in today's Globe and Mail talks about the Minister of Finance acting as an unpaid lobbyist for the banks. He is trying to get a good deal for the banks, negotiating with the G7 and the G20, who are trying to regulate the banks, bring in a new regulation scheme and put some restrictions on what these bank presidents can earn. Does the member agree with what the G7 and the G20 are trying to do?

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, this relationship is ironic. The member summed up the situation quite well. I will not expand on that, but I do want to note that I was here during the years when John Manley tried to open up the Bank Act. The argument was that we needed to Americanize our banks, that they were too small to survive and their operations were antiquated and that we should open up the Bank Act and make it look like the American one.

The Liberals at the time were looking at it and they had their pals in the Conservative and the Alliance who were basically pushing for this as well. I will give the Bloc Québécois credit. It was a small band of New Democrats that stopped that. Ironically, I had banking officials in my office. They came in to lobby one day and I reminded them of those days. Check Hansard and read the history. They are now talking about how good they are, but it was only because they were stopped from themselves.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Etobicoke North, Agriculture; the hon. member for Don Valley East, Government Spending; the hon. member for Labrador, Aboriginal Affairs.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-9, the budget implementation bill.

This budget was very disappointing. That is one of the main reasons all opposition parties will vote against it.

Unfortunately, as usual, the Liberals will manipulate the vote to ensure that the government does not fall and that an election is not called. The government will continue going from bad to worse, in light of everything going on right now. With their outdated thinking, the Conservatives will continue governing in their own special way.

I could talk about what the bill, over 800 pages long, does contain, but instead I will talk about what is missing. The budget does not contain compensation for Quebec for post-secondary education. In 1994 and 1995, the Liberal government, under the Right Hon. Jean Chrétien, cut post-secondary education transfers to balance the federal budget.

Once again, we saw the Liberal government's open-minded approach and the wonderful open federalism that all federalist parties have been practising in the House since the beginning of the Constitution. There is a serious lack of respect for provincial jurisdictions and the government refuses to give money back to the provinces so they can overcome the challenges they face. As a result, the provinces have been sinking deeper and deeper into debt for the past 20 years. All this so that the government can have it easy and enjoy surpluses and spend them on areas of provincial jurisdiction, particularly in Quebec. We have seen this on many issues, such as the sponsorship scandal, when we clearly saw the federal government manipulating things to promote and spout propaganda about its federalism.

Post-secondary education transfers were cut in 1994 and 1995, which created a fiscal imbalance of over $800 million for the Quebec nation. Because of that deficit, Quebec had to make some crucial, unpopular choices in order to be able to balance its education budget.

I find it extremely sad that the Conservative government has recognized the nation of Quebec, but has not allowed it to thrive. If you are going to recognize a nation you must give it the means to thrive mainly by promoting education and through massive investment. Young people need to be encouraged to get an education, do research and become better citizens in order for the nation to thrive. On one hand, the government recognizes the nation of Quebec, but on the other hand it is not giving that nation the means to thrive, educate itself and grow.

The government has created a deficit of more than $800 million since 1994-95. I find it extremely sad that the Conservative government has not tried to correct the problem that the Liberals created at the time. There is nothing in the budget to help the nation of Quebec in terms of education. There is nothing about giving us what we are owed. We did not steal that money. We gave it to the federal government in taxes.

What did the federal government do? It invested the money in areas under exclusive provincial jurisdiction and we were not given the right to opt out with full compensation. The federal government invests in areas of its own interest and not in areas that are viable for the nation of Quebec.

The nation of Quebec has therefore had to make extremely difficult choices in its education budget. Again, the problem has been offloaded to someone else. Again, the nation of Quebec ends up empty handed and having to resolve major problems. There is absolutely no help coming from the federal government.

That is one of the reasons my colleague from Hochelaga introduced a bill in the House to limit the federal government's power to spend in areas under exclusive provincial jurisdiction. When it comes time to vote, we will see where the Liberals and Conservatives stand.

How can the Conservative members from Quebec tell the people of Quebec that they practice an open federalism and recognize the Quebec nation, and that they are helping the Quebec government with its dreams and ambitions, when the government is taking away everything of interest to Quebec and cannot even give back what it owes to Quebec?

I find that very sad. Once again, it proves that federalism is not a viable option for the Quebec nation. This is compelling evidence that Quebec sovereignty is and will always be the best alternative to federalism. What is even more unfortunate is that the Liberals will probably do the same thing as our Conservative colleagues and vote against the bill on spending power in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction introduced by my colleague for Hochelaga.

The Liberals have shown on a number of occasions that they do not intend to stop federal spending. On the contrary, the government will put provinces into debt and cut transfer payments in order to present a positive balance sheet to the world. That is very unfortunate because our fellow citizens pay taxes and will be impoverished.

The Conservatives will probably vote against the bill by the member for Hochelaga even though it fulfils an election promise they made in 2006. Members will recall the campaign speech given by the Prime Minister when he came to Quebec to explain that not only would he recognize the Quebec nation, but that his open federalism was completely different than the dominating federalism of the Liberals.

That is more proof of the Conservative Party's deceit. It promises one thing and then, when the time comes to take action and to vote in the House, it does the exact opposite of what it promised.

I will be very interested in seeing how the Conservative members from Quebec can defend the Conservative Party and its open federalism when their Prime Minister, in this budget, has broken his own promises once again.