Mr. Speaker, the hon. Minister of Finance promised to make Canada the G8 country with the lowest corporate tax rates. That was supposed to lead to incredible wealth and more jobs, and this wealth was to be enjoyed by everyone. I am sorry to challenge this claim, but the reality is totally the opposite.
On April 6, an article in the Globe and Mail, based on data from Statistics Canada, demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that companies have not used the tax cuts to create jobs or to improve conditions for workers. And they have not invested in better machinery to make their companies more competitive, either. No, they have not. In fact, for two decades, companies have continued to invest between 10% and 13% in machinery. Tax cuts have not improved our ability to compete.
The numbers tell us that the tax cuts were essentially spent on bonuses for the companies' top executives and used to inflate the available cash flow. For what? For hedge funds. These are the same hedge funds that caused the 2008 financial crisis. They are in the process of creating another crisis for us, another bubble that will burst in our faces. In reality, the money that has been handed over to the corporations in the form of tax cuts since 2005 has not been invested in our collective wealth. Yes, wealth has been created, but only for Canada's privileged few.
Meanwhile, public services are deteriorating. The government is telling us that it does not have the money to fund them better and that, on the contrary, it needs to make more cuts. The government is announcing $17 billion in cuts. Bravo. The Conservative government says that it is very proud of Canada's economic action plan. I am ashamed of it. It does not include anything for unemployed workers or homeless people and it does not contain any measures for social housing. Quebec alone has a shortage of 50,000 social housing units. I did not see any measures in the budget to address this issue.
People who are living in poverty desperately need this social housing. What are we going to do? The government is proposing to do nothing. Ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet and the government is proud of abandoning part of the population to its fate. I saw that the hon. Minister of Finance was proud of his budget and that he abandoned people to their fate. Bravo. However, ordinary people are having trouble making ends meet.
I would like to remind the House that in 2006 and 2008, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights admonished Canada twice for its lack of effort to combat persistent poverty, and I quote:
...the minimum wages in all Provinces and Territories of the State party are below the Low Income Cut Off and are insufficient to enable workers and their families to enjoy a decent standard of living.
There is nothing there.
We are wondering mainly about the persistent waiting lists for social housing, which are still very long, particularly in the Montreal area. The number of food banks in this area, as well as in my own riding, is increasing. In Canada, 2.3 million people are affected by food insecurity. They are hungry. What are we going to do for them? Nothing is planned. In Quebec alone, 300,000 people are going to food banks each month. What is planned to help them? Nothing. That is the reality in Canada. It is also the reality in Quebec and in the Rivière-du-Nord riding. It is the result of government policies, those of the Liberal and Conservative governments that have been in power over the past 15 years. This has not changed. Rather than supporting our people by improving social policies, the Conservative government is completely abandoning the notion of social justice.
When I return to my riding this week, how could I explain to my 81-year-old mother that I voted for a budget that gives her an extra $1.68 per day to pay her bills? I cannot vote for that because it is unbelievable. We are talking about $1.68 to pay for hydro, food, gas and medication. I would be ashamed to vote in favour of this budget. It is simply disgraceful and disrespectful of the reality facing my mother and other seniors across Canada.
For these reasons, I will not vote in favour of this deceitful budget. The hon. members of the government should redo their homework and make amends to the poor. They forgot the poor. They have forgotten them.
This budget was written behind the closed doors of the major banks. The Minister of Finance and the corporate bigwigs wrote a budget. Bravo. Next time, I encourage the Minister of Finance to take to the streets, to come to Café de Rue SOS—if we can manage to save it—to write the budget with the homeless, people without documentation, the injured and people who have problems. We will sit down together and come up with a social justice budget instead of a plan to make the rich richer.