Debates of June 3rd, 2010

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do find it worrisome that a society where, according to survey after survey, the environment is one of the most important issues, perhaps the most important, is represented by people who have surrendered, bound hand and foot, to the big western oil companies without ever considering the adverse effects in this part of the country.

For example, coal-fired power stations are still operating in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. In Haute-Mauricie, there is such a high concentration of mercury in some lakes that pregnant women cannot eat the fish, even though we believe that we live in one of the most pristine regions. Quebec does absolutely not burn coal. Mercury comes from coal. Everything is interrelated today.

If people truly care about the environment, they should call the Conservative members that have managed to get elected in Quebec and tell them to stop because what they are doing makes no sense and they are being irresponsible.

In today's National Post, there is an excellent article by John Ivison in which he likens people who vote in that way to cyborgs—creatures that are half human, half robot. They do not even think anymore. Just like automatons, they do exactly what the Prime Minister's office tells them to do. I find that tragic because we are supposed to be here to use our experience and our expertise to take action that will protect the public.

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

Madam Speaker, the government clearly has a bad case of misplaced priorities. We are talking about banks that made $15 billion in profits during a recession in 2009. We had bank presidents earning $10.4 million during that same period. What does the government do? It simply takes the air traveller security tax and increases it by 50%, making it the highest tax in the world. It is $25 for a foreign flight in Canada and $5 to the United States.

The government is sending Canadian travellers to fly on American airlines. It is helping American airlines at the expense of Canadian airlines. It is forcing people to fly through American airports rather than flying Canadian airlines out of Montreal. Does the member think this is another case of misplaced priorities on the part of the government?

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague used exactly the right word. It is a question of priorities. He chooses his example well. Our banks have made $15 billion in profit since the beginning of the recession. Actually, it is $19 billion today. For the first six months of this year, the Canadian banks have set aside $5 billion for bonuses for their executives.

At the same time, the government is always snapping its suspenders on the world stage and saying how great our banks are. In fact, the only reason they are able to make that money is because they have received $1.3 billion in tax reductions. They are allowed to charge the largest differential that has ever existed between the basic rate and what they are charging on credit cards, on overdrafts, for loans, and especially for mortgages in this country. The spread has never been as great.

Nobody on the government side is reeling in our banks, so for the first six months of this year, the banks have put aside $5 billion for bonuses. Rather than travelling around the world and talking about what a bunch of geniuses they are, in fact, they are not financial geniuses. All they are doing is profiting from a monopoly situation that the Conservatives are giving to them. The Conservatives never reel them in on ATM fees or interest charges and the gouging that is going on. They allow them to pick people's pockets.

That will mean $10 billion for this year. For every man, woman and child with a bank account, that will mean about $1,000 per Canadian just for the bonuses for the bank executives.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I wish I could say that it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-9, the government's bloated budget implementation bill, but it is of great concern to me. We in the NDP are speaking out regarding Bill C-9. The Liberals are notable in their silence; they are missing in inaction.

This bill is the culmination of a really disturbing trend. It is a trend that previous Liberal governments started and the Conservative government is taking to dizzying new heights. All thoughtful Canadians and all thoughtful parliamentarians should be disturbed by Bill C-9 and the process that surrounds it.

That trend is to American-style junk legislation. Everything including the kitchen sink is stuffed into an omnibus budget bill and then it is rammed through without giving members a chance to deliberate and decide on crucial issues independently and without giving Canadians a chance to see what the government is doing.

There is an entire year's legislative agenda in one massive 902 page omnibus monster. Everything unrelated to the budget is in the bill. Let me go through a list of just a few.

For example, the government is granting itself new powers to gut environmental assessments. Let us be clear on what this is about. It is about granting the Minister of the Environment the unilateral authority to be the judge, jury and executioner of entire ecosystems, to tear down the checks built into our system and scrap assessments so it can steamroll ahead with unscrutinized controversial mines and tar sands expansion projects.

We know this is the plot the Conservatives have cooked up because, to quote from the March 14, 2009 issue of the Globe and Mail:

A leaked government document outlining the proposed changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act indicates [the] Environment Minister...has asked for a bill “overhauling” the legislation as soon as possible.

Under the new system, the government should “expect to capture perhaps 200-300 projects per year,” the document states. That would represent a more than 95 per cent drop from the roughly 6,000 federal environmental assessments that currently take place each year.

We have seen this before with the gutting of the Navigable Waters Protection Act last year in Bill C-10. Then the official opposition rolled over on changes that gave the transport minister unprecedented powers to define entire classes of development projects on heritage waterways so they no longer need environmental assessments. These powers are not balanced by any public consultation or by transparent disclosure or by parliamentary review.

We saw this in 2008, when regressive immigration reforms were hidden in the budget, and in the 2009 budget which included provisions that denied women in the public service the right to go to the Human Rights Commission to fight for the pay equity they deserve.

Here we are a year later with another bill that goes much, much further in this wrong-headed direction. This bill also introduces an air travel tax as I am sure the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona is aware. It is not surprising that the government would be hiding the security tax hike any way that it can, including inside this bloated bill. This tax is the highest in the world. It wants to be seen as the government that does not tax people. Is that ever a myth. The truth is it does.

Far beyond this tax on air travel, the government has introduced the hated sales tax this year. The finance minister signed the provinces up for it, buried the legislation for it in the budget, and rammed it through this House in an incredible 48 hours.

Earlier this week I was with first nations constituents in Red Rock, Ontario in my riding of Thunder Bay—Superior North. They are very angry about the HST and the violation of their treaty rights. They were not consulted before it was imposed on everybody, including them. We know that often our first nations communities are among the most disadvantaged in our society, and they are worried about the impact the HST is going to have on them.

I have heard no end about this hated sales tax from many of my constituents, many of whom have lost their jobs and are struggling with the cost of living as it is. Then Conservatives and Liberals team up to hit them with the HST, one of the largest sales tax hikes in Canadian history and debate is shut down in the House to get it through.

Let us not forget something else that is in Bill C-9, and that is a huge payroll tax increase. Starting at the end of this year, Conservatives are going to hit workers and employers alike with the maximum EI premium hike allowed under the law, and the maximum payroll tax hike the year after that, and again the year after that, and repeated every year for the foreseeable future.

This tax on work is ridiculous when we consider that there was lots of money in the employment insurance fund, over $57 billion in surplus, way more than enough. But the government raided that money, happily spent it on tax breaks for big oil and big banks and decided to raise payroll taxes to make up for the shortfall. This would cause quite an uproar on its own, but the government is trying to bury it deep inside this huge bill.

Today we are dealing with a motion that would rescind clauses in Bill C-9 dealing with the sale of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and the privatization of Canada Post mail delivery services. Neither of these things has much to do with actual budgetary measures or a budget. They can and must be debated and decisions made on their own merit.

However, the Prime Minister does not believe in debate. He does not believe in discussion. He does not believe in accountability and he does not seem to believe in democracy.

I would like to talk a bit about Canada Post and the provisions concealed in Bill C-9 that continue the deregulation of our national letter carrier. The government knows it would never be able to pass a bill in the House to do that, so it is taking bites out of Canada Post operations using budgetary bills instead.

What the provisions in Bill C-9 do is to remove the exclusive legal privilege of Canada Post to deliver international mail and to allow foreign national postal services and private companies to take over one of the few profitable revenue streams that Canada Post has, a stream on which the company depends to help offset the costs of our local and rural mail delivery.

Canada Post has been fighting this battle for the last 10 years or more. Several companies, many of which are surrogates of national post administrations, have been collecting letter mail in Canada and bringing it to their countries where it is processed and remailed abroad, creating jobs there and not here in Canada.

Canada Post has tried to resolve this issue diplomatically through the Universal Postal Union and by negotiating directly with the violating remailers. When they still would not respect the law, Canada Post took them to court and it won every time.

Our own member for Ottawa Centre, when he was critic for this file in 2006, wrote to the government expressing concern about changes to Canada Post's exclusive privilege without public consultation and asking for a full debate and a real vote in Parliament. Instead of giving us that debate, that discussion and the vote that New Democrats asked for, the government four years later is doing exactly the opposite.

Instead of backing up our national postal service and supporting it, the government has chosen to help foreign remail raiders poach Canadian letter mail instead. Bill C-9 would make that poaching legal forever.

This threatens the long-term viability of Canada Post itself as a universal service to Canadians. By crippling Canada Post's revenue, the government is attempting to achieve through the back door what it knows it cannot achieve through open and transparent debate on the issue.

What do we have here? We have a massive omnibus bill that needs to be split up so that we can have proper debates and allow democracy to function. As it is, parliamentarians are expected to carefully pore through 2,200 legal clauses and debate the ramifications at only seven debate sessions in the House and even fewer in committee. The House finance committee passed all 2,200 clauses without amendment in just one day. Maybe that is just the point: we are not supposed to carefully study Bill C-9's 23 sections and debate over 2,000 clauses.

If the mission of Parliament is to scrutinize the government, doing legislation this way is nothing but a way to avoid scrutiny. It is the so-called accountability government using yet another gimmick to once again avoid accountability.

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

Madam Speaker, one of our earlier speakers pointed out that we would not be in this situation right now if the Liberals would take a strong stand rather than being doormats for the government.

The member explained the situation regarding Canada Post quite well. We have a budgetary bill that is 880 pages long. Because of the weakness of the opposition, the government saw an opportunity to throw everything into this bill.

The Canada Post part of it is a good example of that. The government introduced Bill C-14 and Bill C-44 over the last couple of years. The government tried to get it through a minority Parliament and could not do it. This has absolutely nothing to do with budget implementation legislation, but the government has thrown it into this bill along with a dozen other things that do not belong and it has driven it to the Liberals who it knows are not going to be here in sufficient numbers to vote to defeat the government. In fact they are not even speaking to this bill. The government is de facto a majority government because of the irresponsible Liberal opposition.

Does the member have any comments on this point?

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, if we are going to move in the direction of U.S.-style omnibus budget bills, why can we not have bills that have some vision? Why can we not have bills that invest in Canada, that invest in infrastructure for municipalities, that invest in passenger rail, that invest in health care and home care, that invest in education, that invest in sustainable community-based forestry, that invest particularly in sustainable energy? Why can we not have bills like that instead of what the government is doing, which is reducing taxes to big oil and big banks to less than half of the United States' corporate tax rate? There is a 36% marginal tax rate for corporate income taxes for large corporations in the United States. It is 18% in this budget and it is moving toward 15% in the next couple of years.

This is a shame.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his interventions and congratulate him for making sure that his private member's bill on climate change and accountability was passed here in this House.

If I were not a suspicious person, it would seem as though because of what we did on this side in passing that bill when the government opposed it unanimously, it is taking other regulations that should be the responsibility of the Government of Canada, that should indeed belong to regulatory agencies, and sliding them off to those who are not accountable to government in a lot of ways and will no longer be responsible to us, allowing them to play fast and loose when it comes to environmental regulations.

But this House spoke. I congratulate the member for his leadership and for his bill and for ensuring that it is on its way to the other place where we hope to see it pass very quickly.

Indeed it seems as though there is a vindictive measure here, in the sense of sliding it back into an omnibus bill, after the House clearly spoke about what we need to do on the environment.

Would the hon. member like to comment on that?

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have a government here which either believes that climate change is not real, or if it is real, we did not do it with our large polluting and successful societies.

No matter which the Conservatives believe, individually or collectively what they clearly do not believe is that we should have open debate, open transparency and move forward across party lines on what clearly needs to be a non-partisan issue to invest in the kinds of changes which would not only help to save the world, but would move us toward green jobs, a green economy, a more sustainable economy and make our lives better, not worse.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, I look forward to this chance to speak to Bill C-9, although I must say quite candidly that I find the bill very troubling.

I am proud to speak today to the amendments to this bill brought forward by the member for Hamilton Mountain. It is very clear that this bill must be amended. It is unconscionable that the government would continue to include in its budget implementation bills the kinds of things that are objectionable not just to the members of this House, but to the people of Canada. I welcome the amendments, and I do hope that, despite their incredible silence, members of the opposition will support these amendments.

I want to start with an observation. The Conservative government claims to be the government of accountability, yet it has proven time and time again that it is anything but. Rather than putting forward individual bills dealing with many of the issues that face this country, the government instead elects to hide issues in its bills. We call these poison pills, and there are a number of poison pills in this budget implementation bill.

Before I speak about the poison pills in Bill C-9, I want to take a few minutes to review the poison pills of the past, because in budget after budget we have seen these poison pills.

The first one that I want to speak about is pay equity. The House will remember that the changes to pay equity were slipped into a budget implementation bill. The government, and the government before it, could have and should have used the 2004 pay equity commission report, an incredible and solid report, to create a pay equity bill that actually worked for the women of this country. Instead, the government chose to put in its place the excuse for pay equity that came forward in its budget implementation bill that stripped away the right of women to be considered as worthy of equal pay for work of equal value.

The government called it the equitable compensation bill or something like that, but the truth is that it was far from equitable. It basically told women that they would have to negotiate at the collective bargaining table whether they deserved equal pay for work of equal value. That is not acceptable.

Pay equity is a human right; it is not something that can be negotiated away. In these troubled times when negotiations are very difficult, it only stands to reason that if issues of women in the workforce are not regarded or taken as seriously as some other issues, such as dental benefits or long-term health benefits, that human right could be negotiated away.

The government is saying to women across this country that it is lovely that they make up 52% of the population and do contribute to the economy, but when it comes to equal pay for work of equal value, when it comes to their human rights, it is just not interested. The government perpetrated this sham on the women of Canada, and that is not the end of the things it has done to the women of Canada.

The Conservative government cancelled the court challenges program. It removed equality from the mandate of the status of women department. The Conservatives did put back the word, because there was a great outcry across the country, but they did not put back the spirit of equality, because they have continued with their draconian measures against women's groups across this country that advocate for women, that stand up for women in regard to the issues that they and their families face.

The Conservatives have also removed research from the mandate of the status of women department. That research was absolutely integral to providing the kind of intelligent policy that would guide us to real equality. Members may have noticed that I used the term “intelligent policy”. That is something that we do not have and are not likely going to see.

Even more to the point, the Conservatives underfunded or defunded groups that were the least bit critical. I am thinking of two: the National Association of Women and the Law and the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women. Why? Because those two groups had the audacity to hold the government and the previous government to account in regard to our CEDAW obligations.

Members will recall that in 1982 this country signed the covenant on the elimination of discrimination against women. This country signed it and this country pledged that it would do something positive for women. This country would make sure that aboriginal women were given opportunities in regard to education and housing and were protected from violence, and infact, that all Canadian women were protected from violence and that women had economic security and the opportunity in regard to pay equity, child care and housing.

All of these things are in CEDAW, and this country signed it in 1982. In the nearly 30 years since that agreement was signed, nothing has been done in terms of advancing women. We do not have a universal housing policy. In fact, we have 1.2 million Canadians who are under-housed, homeless or living in unsafe conditions, Canadians who are living in these unsafe and unacceptable conditions with their children.

We have no national child care program. Since 1984, this Parliament in its various incarnations, whether it was the Mulroney government, the Chrétien government or the Martin government, promised the women of this country that there would be a national child care program, but we do not have one. It is 2010 and there is nothing in sight in terms of how we are going to address the real needs of young families in this country, women being the primary caregivers.

These groups that advocated for women had to be shut down and silenced. The women in this country had to be put on the back burner, as it were, because the government had another agenda. I am saying now and I do believe these words will ring true, the women of Canada will not forget what the government has done to them, nor will they forget that the Liberals aided and abetted in this disgusting behaviour towards the women of Canada.

There were other poison pills, such as immigration changes in Bill C-50. Those immigration changes made it virtually impossible for family reunification. They chose very carefully. They gave the minister the ability to determine who could come into this country. Even if people had been approved, even if they were on a waiting list, if they came from Southeast Asia, if they came from the Middle East, if they came from certain African countries, they were removed from the list because the minister said they were not any longer acceptable. So people who were waiting, who had fulfilled all of their obligations, who would have made wonderful Canadian citizens were told, “Sorry, too bad, you cannot be reunited with your families, because the minister says so”.

Imagine that in a democracy. It is absolutely unthinkable. Of course, the list goes on and on, but I want to address some of the issues in Bill C-9 and the fact that it has a number of poison pills too.

First of all, we have the tax grab such as the airline security tax. That is something that is profoundly concerning. The government claims and claims it shrilly, and claims it at every question period and with all kinds of bravado, that they are the government of tax cuts. That is ludicrous. Conservatives are most certainly not the government of tax cuts. If we look at the HST and what is perpetrated against Canadians, they are the government of tax grabs.

Let us go down the list. In regard to the emptying of the employment insurance account, that $57 billion belongs to the people of this country, who put that money in so that families could be secure in the event of a downturn in the economy. Conservatives are waiving that money and taking it away.

They like to blame it on the Liberals and they are very good at blaming everything on the Liberals, but the truth is that they have done nothing in terms of making sure that Canadian families are safe and secure. They are taking that money away and it is supposed to be for Canadians.

I have much more to say, but I will wait for the questions.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, I really appreciated the overview of the poison pills that indeed have been before us in the House in previous bills and are indeed in Bill C-9. The member is absolutely correct to bring forward the whole sense that this is a deliberate attempt by the government to continually push legislation that it really does not want to have debated as individual bills, that it incorporates into large omnibus sections and then rams them through with, I must admit that my colleague is correct, the help and complicity of the Liberals who either refuse to come or straight out vote for and allow legislation to pass the House that they then complain about after they have let it go.

If we are going to debate legislation in an honest way for all Canadians, we have to have that legislation before us so we can scrutinize it, so we can help perhaps make it better; or perhaps we should defeat it, depending on what it happens to be.

At all turns, we should have that opportunity. Legislation that is critical to Canadians should not be lumped together.

I know my hon. colleague ran out of time. She is right that there is so much to do and say about the bill. It is almost 900 pages long and there are pieces in it that need to be debated. Obviously that is what we try to do with our amendments.

I know the member wanted to continue on about the $57 billion that was absconded with by both the previous Liberal government and the Conservative government and why she thinks it should be given back to workers.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I thank my hon. colleague for the question, because quite simply this is money that employers and employees put into a fund. It used to be called the “unemployment insurance fund”, and I think the key here is insurance. It used to be a way of making sure that families were protected when there was a downturn in the economy and breadwinners lost their jobs.

When I was a kid, which was quite a while ago and we will not go into that, every October or November my dad was laid off because that is the time of year that American corporations clawed back their profits. So every November he was out; he was gone.

Christmas was coming. In Canada, December, January and February are very cold months and there were a lot of times when he and my mum did not know how they were going to manage.

There was employment insurance, but it was very limited. However, it was the only thing we had. It was the only thing that got us through those cold months and through Christmas. I have to say, Christmas could be pretty lean.

Now even that is being eroded away by greedy governments who want to say, “Haven't we solved the deficit problem?” I remember back in 1997 the hon. prime minister of the day said that he had ended the deficit problem. He did it on the backs of workers, just like this one.

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

Madam Speaker, I think for days now I have been waiting to ask questions to the government representatives. A couple of weeks ago, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism actually stayed in the House and listened to the debate and asked the first question himself. We thought that was a very important and good change on the part of the government.

Now it is back to its old ways of not even putting forward speakers on a bill that is 880 pages in length. We deserve the right to listen to government members and question theMinister of Finance himself on the provisions of the bill.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, how on earth can the government possibly put forward members to speak on the bill, because this is indefensible.

If we look at the provisions in the bill, one of the things that the government wants to do is sell off the profitable part of the post office. The truth is that the post office in the last 11 years has been profitable.

In 2005 alone, it made $200 million. That is money that belongs to the Canadian public. It is not money that should be given away to the government's corporate friends. It absolutely astounds me that it has done these things to the people of Canada.

It is no wonder that it is not able to answer for it. Who on earth could stand here and show any kind of sense of shame and speak positively of the bill?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Madam Speaker, before I begin I would like to assure my two dynamic assistants, Jen and Gina, that I actually am smiling on camera and hopefully they will see that. The problem is that there is not much to smile about.

The whole principle of this bill, taking a number of different categories, lumping them into one and pushing them through with what I would call blackmail, is wrong for democracy. We have heard many of my colleagues over the last day or so mention a number of things in this bill that should be debated separately, such as Canada Post and the HST. We should be looking at these issues and having a good, democratic debate on both. Instead, we see them all lumped together and it is kind of a take it or leave it.

Today I will concentrate my remarks and my speech on Canada Post because this is an issue that has been very close to my heart over the last while, specifically because it does affect our rural communities.

We have seen, for example, in my community of Castlegar and the surrounding communities of Trail and Rossland, that Canada Post offices in Trail and Rossland have now been designated installations, which means that the mail now comes to my community of Castlegar for sorting before it goes back to those communities, which are approximately 30 or 40 kilometres away, for distribution. This has had the effect of cutting back on some hours and of shifting jobs. The ultimate result is that we will see more shutdowns of our rural post offices if we allow this to continue. The fact that they are a major economic driver is something we need to take into consideration.

We have recently had an absurd situation in my community, a situation that we will be seeing now in communities such as Cranbrook, Grand Forks, Nelson, Oliver, Osoyoos, Penticton, Prince George, Quesnel, Vernon and Williams Lake. As of September 1, if anybody mails a letter in Prince George to someone else in Prince George on Friday, that letter will travel all the way to Vancouver for sorting before it comes back to Prince George for distribution. In my community of Castlegar, that represents a move, for one letter, of roughly over 1,200 kilometres before that letter arrives on the doorstep in my community.

When questioned about this, the officials at Canada Post mentioned that it was in the name of efficiency. They said that they had these big machines in Vancouver that they wanted to use and that trucks were going down there anyway so they could do this. After the letters go to Vancouver, maybe we should send them to Toronto for sorting because the machine in Toronto is more efficient. It goes on and on.

The point is that when all of this is happening, there is an erosion of our rural way of life and an erosion of Canada Post's ability to provide good quality service with well-paid employees who are contributing to their communities. It is important for the government and Canada Post to understand that if a community of 5,000 people loses two or three positions, that represents fewer people in schools, maybe one less car that will be bought at the car lot and maybe fewer dinners purchased that evening by a family. This has a real effect on our communities.

A disturbing fact that I would like to share with this House is something that I found out in my meeting with Canada Post officials. Not only is Canada Post mandated to make a profit, but it must return a certain amount of that profit to general revenue. Here we have a crown corporation that is not only there to break even or make a profit, but part of that profit must come back to general revenue. No wonder Canada Post is under pressure to make various changes and cuts and is scrambling to be as efficient as possible.

I would like to ask the government to reconsider its whole philosophy. Canada Post is there to serve us and, if anything, we should be assisting it in our federal budget to ensure that we maintain good quality services in rural communities rather than cutting them back in the name of putting money into general revenue, which will be used to ensure that we can give more major corporate tax cuts that will be used to beef up the money that has been spent because of giving these tax cuts. I do not believe that is right and I do not think people in rural communities believe that is right.

I was very pleased to find out that Senator Bob Peterson has introduced legislation in the Senate that calls for a strengthening of Canada Post in rural communities. I will quote from his press release in which he states:

In their haste to cut spending and reduce the scope of the federal government, the Tories are leaving millions of rural Canadians in their wake. The government needs to understand that shutting down a post office means taking away a piece of the community. It goes beyond line items to the very core of rural life.

I applaud the senator for taking that stance. I look forward to meeting with him next week to see how I can support him in his position and how we can work together to ensure that our rural quality of life is maintained with a strong Canadian postal system.

According to members of the National Farmers Union, if this part of the bill passes, this will lead to partial deregulation of our post offices and begin a process that will erode both service and affordability, particularly for people living in rural and remote areas.

Allowing international mailers to handle international letters opens the door for further privatization and deregulation of our postal services. Passing part 15 of the bill is likely to accelerate Canada Post's loss of letter mail volumes and revenues to for-profit remailers. This is revenue that our post offices can ill afford to lose. And any further revenue loss will damage service for rural Canadians.

The point is that Canada Post is the backbone of all our rural communities. If we shut down or transfer these services to a large major community or urban community, it makes it difficult for these communities to survive. It is often hard enough for farmers to make a living, to make ends meet and to meet their costs of production. It is hard enough to keep communities going that have an erosion of health care and other services. To take a major economic driver such as Canada Post and depriving it of adequate revenue and consolidating services in major urban communities is simply wrong.

It is important for all of us from all parties who represent rural Canada to come together in a way that we can impress upon the government and Canada Post that we need to retain the services and jobs because this is part of rural life.

It is very important that we do not give up, that we continue to fight for our rural communities and that we continue to demand that this service remain in our communities, for my community and for all rural communities in Canada.

I would reiterate that the idea of putting what many have called poison pills or take-it-or-leave-it provisions in this bill is wrong. It is wrong for the principle of a democratic debate and it wrong for democracy. I only hope that members of other political parties will take a strong stance against this bill so we can show the governing party that what it is doing is contrary to what a good democratic institution should be all about and that what would happen to Canada Post in this bill is not right.

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

Madam Speaker, people watching this debate over the last several days want to know where the government and Liberal speakers are on this bill.

As a matter of fact, we have an 880-page grab bag, Bill C-9, an omnibus bill, and we do not have the appropriate minister listening to the debate so we can ask questions. The Minister of State for Democratic Reform was here for Bill C-10. The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism was here for his bill and, not only did he listen to the debate, but actually asked the first question, which was appreciated by the House.

We want to know where the finance minister is, why he is not listening to the debates and why he is not here to answer questions on this 880-page bill.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Madam Speaker, I wish I knew for sure why government members are not speaking out against this bill. Why is it that in British Columbia, the only party speaking out against the HST is our party when the majority of British Columbians are saying that they do not want the HST?

Why is nobody on that side speaking out to preserve rural Canadian postal service? Why is nobody talking about the airline tax or the changes to employment insurance and the fact that it will be a burden on the majority of Canadians?

That is a good question but I think we have to leave it to that side to answer that question.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the member from B.C. has been a strong advocate for maintaining rural postal services and the delivery of postal services in that part of the country, but he is also profoundly worried about the job losses that the proposed closure will mean for his communities.

I wonder if he may also be interested in commenting on the other part of the budget bill that speaks to the theft of $57 billion from the EI fund in Canada. The fund had a surplus of $57 billion but the government legally took the money and put it into the consolidated revenue fund.

This is not the government's money. This is money that was contributed by workers and employers and money that would have made a profoundly positive difference to those workers in communities, such as the one the member represents, where postal services are being shut out, people are losing their jobs and where they desperately need sustainable EI, to ensure those residents do not fall into poverty.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Madam Speaker, this is what we have come to in our country. We have workers who have paid into the employment insurance fund for years, to a total of $57 billion, and now, when they have lost their jobs, are not able to collect this money and have to go through loops and hoops to try to make ends meets.

People come to my office and say that they are ineligible for employment insurance and cannot get on welfare because their truck is worth over $5,000. It is an absurdity. All of us who have worked in the workforce over the years have paid into this fund, a fund that is there to help people in a time of crisis, and now they cannot access it.

This is a shame to our democratic way of life in Canada and on the way we conduct affairs in this country.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is hard to be brief when we are dealing with 880 pages because there is so much to choose from that has gone wrong. I thank my hon. colleague for his intervention and his quite eloquent speech about what is wrong in those 880 pages.

In the agriculture sector, for instance, we really needed folks to see something in the budget. Did we see anything that really went to help farmers in this country?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Madam Speaker, the bottom line is that we have farmers who are struggling and people who need help from this budget and they have not received it.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.