Debates of Oct. 30th, 2012

Jobs and Growth Act, 2012

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question.

Of course, that is what I just said in my speech. When the Conservative government was elected in 2006, it promised Canadians transparency and accountability. Unfortunately, considering these major omnibus reforms, Canadians can never know what this government will try to bury in its bills. That is why the opposition has asked several times for the government to be transparent and to split the bill up, and this is obviously in order to highlight this government's poor practices.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate my hon. colleague on her speech. I would also like to ask her if she has heard many comments—and I suspect she has—from her constituents regarding the current government's tendency to keep people in the dark.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher for his question. Of course my constituents are very concerned. They are always asking me what an omnibus bill is. Ordinary Canadians do not always understand our parliamentary jargon. They are very worried about the government's cuts to employment insurance, health care and several other crucial sectors, such as housing, when those are some of the basic things needed to ensure the well-being of ordinary Canadians. My constituents are very worried about the situation and are saying that they cannot wait for 2015.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I was listening to my hon. colleague's speech, I was looking across the way and realizing that the Conservative government is presiding over the largest deficit in Canadian history. The Conservatives are very poor fiscal managers, and then they present a document here that is actually going to decrease employment. We already have youth unemployment at officially 15%, and the member across the way is laughing. I would like to see him laugh at the young people in his riding who cannot find a job.

Is my hon. colleague hearing the same stories in her riding about young people? Why is it that the Conservatives laugh at young people who are looking for a job?

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. Young people are worried about the fact that this government is going to leave them with a huge deficit. In addition to the fiscal deficit, the environment will also be threatened, which is unfortunate for young people. We will all suffer from the cuts and from this government's policies regarding young people, women and seniors.

I would like to assure my colleague that young people today are more aware of government policies than they were in the past. They are the next generation and history will prove them right.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I take great pleasure in speaking in favour of the speedy passage of Bill C-45, jobs and growth act, 2012.

I am also pleased to congratulate the Minister of Finance for the outstanding job he is doing on behalf of all Canadians.

Canada is recognized internationally for the sound economic and fiscal policies of our Conservative government. Leadership on the economy is something that average Canadians who work hard, obey the law and pay their taxes understand.

While there are many benefits to passing Bill C-45 for the people of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, in the short time I have, I intend to focus on those aspects of this second budget implementation bill that are of interest to my constituents.

I intend to focus my comments on the Navigable Waters Protection Act. I've listened to a number of comments, starting with those of the Leader of the Opposition, which are ill-informed at best and misleading at worst, about this part of the budget bill and I believe it is important to set the record straight. Historically, the impetus behind the Navigable Waters Protection Act of 1882 was the result of representations made by Ottawa Valley lumbermen looking to protect the principal means they had at the time to bring their product to market.

In the 19th century, when the Navigable Waters Protection Act was legislated, rivers played an important role in the commerce of our great nation. The lumber trade of the upper Ottawa Valley relied upon rivers to bring the logs to market. Twelve years before the Navigable Waters Protection Act became law and three years after Confederation, Parliament passed An Act Respecting Certain Works on the Ottawa River. This act gave the federal government exclusive legislative authority in the construction of any works to ensure the Ottawa River is navigable. This was done to protect commerce and done years before the Navigable Waters Protection Act. That legislation is still on the books today.

What Canadians find misleading is when opposition members read things into the legislation that do not exist. Environmental protection for such things as pollution and fish habitat is covered by other legislation, not the Navigable Waters Protection Act. It was never intended for that purpose when it was written 140 years ago. The opposition may wish to stay trapped in the past, but our government believes it is time to leave the 19th century for the 21st century.

The public right of navigation is a common-law principle that dates back to Roman times. To my paddling friends, nothing in Bill C-45 detracts from the right to navigation in Canada. We respect the navigable qualities of any body of water that is indeed navigable, recognizing that any contemplated works need not compromise or undermine the recreational status of any body of water that is now or was previously the domain of paddlers.

This brings us to the Petawawa River. The decision by the federal government to include the Ottawa and Petawawa rivers in the list of 62 rivers retaining navigable waters constitutional jurisdiction protection was based in part on the real concern, on my part as well as that of my constituents, that the provincial environmental assessment process is being manipulated by the Ontario government to match a hidden agenda called the Green Energy Act. We needed to take an extra step to protect the Petawawa River.

In the province of Ontario the so-called Green Energy Act has been used to stifle democratic debate at the local level, running roughshod over the objections of local residents who are now being forced, through their power bills, to pay for unwanted and unnecessary power projects. Projects are being promoted under the guise of so-called green energy, when in fact the only green is in the pockets of the Liberal Party insiders who lobbied for 20 years to have industrial wind turbine contracts at outrageous financial subsidies. The collapse of the Liberal Party of Ontario and the resignation in disgrace of its leader led to the migration of these same individuals to Ottawa into positions of influence with their federal cousins.

The town of Petawawa unanimously passed the following motion at its September 4, 2012 council meeting:

That the Town of Petawawa advises the Premier of the Province of Ontario and his Ministers of Energy and Infrastructure, the Environment and Natural Resources that it does not and will not give any support or sanction to any project that is seeking or will be seeking ministry approval under the 2009 Green Energy act and in particular its “feed-in-tariff” provision.

To quote councillor Treena Lemay, who moved that motion: “The act promoted 'fast tracking' of environmental approvals for all electricity infrastructure projects, removed the long-established local planning process and left rural residents without effective noise complaint protocols and municipalities with no voice in their own community development”.

I thank councillor Treena Lemay for her leadership on this issue at municipal council.

In the case of the Petawawa River, plans to construct dam-like structures would destroy the fish habitat as well as recreational activities, including whitewater kayaking that now takes place on the river. I support the residents of Petawawa and their town council in objecting to the damming of the Petawawa River and will continue to object at the federal level until this proposal is withdrawn.

I share the concerns expressed by the Ontario Rivers Alliance about the fate of our other Ontario rivers, like the Vermilion. To quote the alliance:

We all want Green Energy, but let’s ensure it is truly Green, and not the “Green-washed” version that is being proposed for many of our Ontario rivers.

While I appreciate the concerns of Ontario residents and groups like the Ontario Rivers Alliance about the need for a federal presence in certain instances to provide a system of checks and balances to ill-conceived legislation like the Ontario Green Energy Act, these checks and balances remain in place with the passage of Bill C-45.

When the Navigable Waters Protection Act came before Parliament previously in 2009, I was honoured to welcome Jack MacLaren, a seventh generation Renfrew County orchard farmer, to appear before the Standing Committee on Finance. Mr. MacLaren contacted me after he ran into trouble with the Navigable Waters Protection Act. In his case what should have been a simple matter became a complicated issue because of a piece of legislation dating back to the 1980s.

I had also been contacted by municipalities that complained to me about the time and expense to clean out a municipal drainage ditch because of the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

In short, it is clear that changes are absolutely necessary to this act.

The other issue I intend to respond to is the criticism by the opposition that Bill C-45 is too detailed and complicated for them to understand. The opposition call Bill C-45 omnibus legislation, hoping that Canadians will buy into its delay tactics because it would rather complain than do its job.

Bill C-45 is the second budget bill. Here, I draw members' attention to a debate in the House that took place on June 13 of this year on the first budget bill between the opposition member for Markham—Unionville and the hard-working Conservative member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore. In that exchange the opposition member complained about a program he claimed was cancelled by our budget. Our government member responded with shock at what he had heard. He proceeded to set the record straight, reading directly from the budget that the program in question, the Canadian innovation and commercialization program, had not only been funded for another three years but had also been built up and made permanent. This led the member for Etobicoke--Lakeshore to ask the opposition member if he had even read the budget. The opposition member obviously had not read the budget, which brings me to my last point.

The opposition has had a copy of our budget for months, with plenty of time to analyze the budget document. If they were doing their job, they would be ready to debate and scrutinize all aspects of the budget now. Opposition for the sake of opposition is not acceptable to Canadians. The Library of Parliament can help out with a legislative guide for all things not understood, like the history of the Navigable Waters Protection Act. This is why it is so important at this time to modernize a 140-year-old piece of legislation and proceed with the passage of Bill C-45.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to hear Conservative members try to defend two budget bills that are in excess of a thousand pages, amending in excess of a hundred pieces of legislation, and try to say this is the norm. The member then picked up on the navigable waters section of the bill and asked why we should not make the proposed changes. She highlighted an issue, that there are many different parts of this particular bill and the bill that preceded it in the summertime.

These bills should have been separated. There should have been dozens of other pieces of legislation that would have allowed all members of the House to engage on the wide variety of issues at stake.

Why did the member's government not support allowing a legitimate process of debate inside this chamber on the huge number of bills the Conservatives are trying to sneak through in this budget debate?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the member opposite does not have a question on the substance of the bill.

Sky-high electricity rates have led to plant closures in Ontario, for example. This means that people are on employment insurance, a federal responsibility. This is the jobs and growth act, 2012, so it is directly related to electricity, which in turn is related to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. The reckless spending by the province also brings into focus the aspect of the equalization payments that we will be forced to administer over time.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to hear the member tell us to read the budget, when we have read it from cover to cover. What she mentioned about navigable waters protection was not even in the March 2012 budget. So it is a bit surprising that she is talking about a subject that was not even in the budget but that appears in this 450-page bill.

How can she explain that a subject that was not in the March budget and that had never been mentioned is now in this omnibus bill?

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Navigable Waters Protection Act is being amended to allow for jobs and growth. This budget is specifically about ensuring that jobs increase and that those people who have jobs can sustain them.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to question the colleague of mine, who is from the same class of 2000. I have had the pleasure of serving with her and know that she is a very strong fiscal Conservative. I know that she cares so much about her constituents, as I always see her working hard and sending notes and getting ready for events.

One of the strongest recommendations made by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business year after year is that our government move back toward balanced budgets and reduce the deficit. I am wondering if my colleague would speak about the importance of the economic action plan to move toward balanced budgets and decrease and get rid of the deficit.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, our goal is balanced budgets. It is something that we promised in the last election. Unfortunately, during the global economic downturn that began in 2008, we were required by the begging and bewildering calls of the opposition to increase spending to keep the economy afloat. As a consequence, the deficit was a little higher for that year and we are working diligently by controlling spending to get the budget balanced.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the House to speak to Bill C-45.

As a number of members who spoke before me have mentioned, it is absolutely ridiculous for the government to include all kinds of measures that have nothing to do with the budget. There are all kinds of clauses in the bill that have nothing to do with the budget. Content aside, anyone can see that the Conservatives are going about things the wrong way and that they do not take this seriously.

It is unrealistic for a single committee to study a bill in so little time, and this shows the Conservatives' bad faith. The government itself is unable to assess the true impact of its budget on job losses or even job creation, or the effects it will have on Canadians. Yet the Conservatives did nothing to allow the Standing Committee on Finance to properly study the bill.

The Standing Committee on Finance is working on other matters, such as pre-budget consultations. It has been allocated little time to study this more than 400-page bill, which contains measures that have nothing to do with finance or the budget.

Canadians are not fools and know that the government has tried on several occasions to quietly pass measures that will be disastrous for Canada. I do not have much time, but I will attempt nevertheless to highlight some of the main elements of this budget.

In my opinion, one of the few positive measures in the budget is the elimination of the penny. That is good news for Canada. As a result of inflation, today this coin has practically no value and costs more to make than what it is worth. The Government of Canada will save $11 million a year with this measure, and businesses and consumers will save a lot of time when making cash transactions. This measure is not in the bill, but I wanted to mention it because I had not had the opportunity to do so previously.

Returning to a balanced budget is also a good point and necessary for Canada's economic well-being. There again, it all depends on what you cut and how you do it. Although I agree with the government that we should cut the fat, we must make a distinction between what is and what is not useful.

The government constantly tells us that services will not be affected, but no one has provided any studies or reports confirming that items cut are actually optional. The government has decided to cut 10% from one service and 5% from another without having any idea of the impact.

The Liberal Party wants facts, expert reports and studies. However, as we have seen for a number of years now, the majority Conservative government is improvising and still refusing to accept reality, preferring to blindly trust its ideology. The Prime Minister himself recently confirmed that any organization that is in conflict with the Conservative ideology will no longer receive public funding.

Bill C-45 continues the reckless Conservative abuse of power. The omnibus budget bill is another example of the Conservatives steamrolling of democracy, as we have said again and again, forcing unpopular, non-budgetary measures through Parliament and trying to do it with as much speed and little debate and scrutiny as possible.

Bill C-45 is a 414 page document with 516 clauses, amending over 60 different pieces of legislation. The measures that do not belong in this finance bill, as my other colleagues have spoken about, include the rewriting of laws protecting Canada's waterways, the redefinition of aboriginal fisheries without consulting first nations and the elimination of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.

By rushing these massive omnibus bills through Parliament, the Conservatives deny Parliament and Canadians the opportunity to carefully consider the proposed laws to identify flaws and propose solutions.

Bill C-45 actually includes a number of measures to fix mistakes in the last bill, Bill C-38, its predecessor, including omissions in the amended Fisheries Act regarding the passage of fish, and the poor drafting of transitional provisions in the new environmental assessment law.

There is ambiguity around the ministerial approval process for certain investments by public investment pools as well.

Today, a majority of Canadians are worried about growing income inequality, between both individuals and regions. The Liberal Party has put forward motions and discussed it in Parliament. Again, we do not see anything in the budget that addresses this income inequality that Canadians are worried about.

An area where the budget bill could actually create jobs, and in turn does not, is an area where it actually slashes investment tax credits that encourage economic growth and job creation, like the scientific research and experimental development tax credit, the Atlantic investment tax credit and the corporate mineral exploration and development tax credit.

The Conservatives are using Bill C-45 to avoid lawsuits, like exempting the Detroit-Windsor bridge from environmental laws and regulations such as the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012. If the Conservatives want to avoid lawsuits, they should just follow the laws that are in place instead of weakening the ones that are meant to protect our environment.

One example I would like to cite where there has been a little back and forth is on the cuts to research and development. The Liberals oppose the government's plan to cut the SR&ED program. The SR&ED program is a federal tax incentive program that encourages Canadian businesses of all sizes and in all sectors to conduct research and development in Canada. It is the largest single source of federal government support for industrial R and D. The R and D program gives claimants tax credits for their expenditures on eligible R and D work done in Canada. The government has opted to decrease these credits, promising to reinvest the savings into direct grants. The grants mean that the government would pick which companies would benefit from government support, rather than providing an across the board tax credit available to any business undertaking R and D. A company may not know anyone in the government and have a great idea.

Instead of making the R and D program much better, the government decided to make four changes: reducing the general SR&ED tax credit from 20% to 15%; reducing the prescribed proxy amount, which taxpayers use to claim the R and D amount from overhead expenditures, from 65% to 55% of salaries and wages of employees who are engaged in R and D activities; removing the profit element from arm's length third-party contracts for the purpose of the calculation of R and D credits, by allowing only 80% of the value to be counted toward eligible expenditures; and removing capital from the base of eligible expenditures for the purpose of the calculation of R and D.

I could go on. I have about three pages of notes on this subject.

My point on R and D is that, as a former member of the finance committee—I chaired it and I was vice-chair—I heard numerous groups, whether accounting groups, business groups or tax groups. They all said to make the program easier. The government has done what it has done for other programs, slightly tweaked it, made it more complicated, reduced percentages and increased certain percentages. It decided to just cut things and has taken a whole lot of money out of there, and politicized it by saying it would now give out grants.

I understand my time is coming to an end. I will be taking questions. I will not be supporting the bill in the form it is in.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the New Democrats have consistently been against omnibus budget bills, dating back to the 90s when the then Liberal finance minister, Paul Martin, routinely introduced these measures. It is interesting to see the Liberal Party now coming around toward being against the very beast it created in the first place.

Leaving that aside for a minute, the Conservatives have posted the largest deficit in Canadian history, but they have their paws all over workers' and employers' moneys through the EI fund. This, as well, is a practice started by the Liberals when they were in government.

I wonder if my hon. colleague would agree that, if the Conservatives had not followed the Liberal practice of taking the money out of the EI fund to help pay for its corporate tax cut schemes, we might not be in this kind of situation. Would you agree with that?

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I would remind members to address their comments to the Chair and not to individual members of Parliament.

The hon. member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to see that the NDP is trying to read budgets today, as opposed to the year 2000 when it just voted against them. However, in talking about omnibus bills, I will try to address some of the questions the member had.

The omnibus bills we used to table were not even 100 pages long. They addressed issues that were in the budget. However, in this case, in my speech I gave at least four or five examples of items that are in the omnibus bill but not in the budget. Therefore, I do not see how the situations are comparable.

In terms of unemployment, I do not see why we are faulted. We had great economic growth and made great decisions in terms of moving the economy ahead. The unemployment insurance premiums were being held in a separate fund but they were used for the debt. It is not as if the money was spent on items for political purposes, as the Conservative Party does.

The money was still there and still accounted for. We just did a good job with the economy and did not have to pay out a lot of the EI premiums that were collected, because people were actually working instead of being on unemployment insurance. I do not see what the problem is.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech and I certainly enjoyed serving on the finance committee with him in the past.

I would like to ask the member if he supports the part of the bill that deals with changes to the Indian Act in part 4, division 8.

He and I were both in Kamloops, where we heard from Manny Jules on changes to the Indian Act with respect to ownership by first nation people on reserves and private property. I think he supported the concept of the idea at the time. I wonder if he is supportive of the changes in this specific piece of legislation dealing with this issue.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question from the member opposite, even though he is a Conservative. We have actually worked quite well together.

I was very favourable to the ideas of Manny Jules in Kamloops. We saw the place and thought it was a great initiative. We are still debating it within our party, which is something the Liberal Party does: we debate issues, and that is what we are asking for on the omnibus bill.

Certain measures in the omnibus bill need to be debated separately by people who have the expertise. We need to have witnesses come before the proper committee, and not just for five minutes, to look at the pro and cons. What might be of benefit to one community or stakeholder may not be of benefit to another.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, back in 1994, the Prime Minister addressed the Liberal omnibus bill, which was a 21-page document, and I want to quote what he said back then when he was in the opposition:

We can agree with some of the measures but oppose others. How do we express our views and the views of our constituents when matters are so diverse? Dividing the bill into several components would allow members to represent the views of their constituents on each of the different components in the bill.

He asked the government members particularly to worry about the implications of the omnibus bill for “democracy and functionality of Parliament”.

Would the member not agree that the Prime Minister's words back then echo those of today, loud and clear?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, of course, what was said by the Prime Minister then applies today. It is complete hypocrisy. We had a motion on this and the Prime Minister actually voted against his own words.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a real pleasure to be able to stand in the House today and to speak on behalf of my constituents in support of this budget bill. We are debating the implementation phase of our budget, our jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act. The good news is that this government is steadfast in our commitment to help create jobs for Canadians.

The other good news is that our plan is working. The plan is showing a great deal of success. September, last month, again showed strong job growth. We have heard it in the House before, that more than 820,000 new jobs have been created. Out of those 820,000 new jobs, 90% are full-time. All the time, we hear from the opposition that they are part-time jobs, but 90% of these jobs are full-time. Eighty per cent of the jobs are within the private sector. This is not a government that is saying we are going to create jobs by hiring more people for the public service, hiring more people so they can work for the government. This is the private sector people saying they believe that, as bad as this global downturn is, they have confidence that they can create jobs and build an economy here in Canada.

Jobs are what Canadians want. Canadians elected our government with a strong mandate to do what we can to help families grow and prosper. Canadian families know that when Mom or Dad or even some of the young people in that family have a job, everything is better at home.

Canadians also know that this global economy remains fragile. Especially when we look at the news and see what is going on in Europe with just one country after another in turmoil and also in our closest trading partner, the United States, Canadians realize that this is a global economy that is very fragile. We know our largest trading partners are having a difficult time, so that means Canada is not immune to the challenges coming from outside our borders.

That is why Canadians elected the Conservative Party of Canada and not the New Democratic Party or the Liberal Party. They know we had a plan that would work.

Our Conservative government is working hard to support local economies with positive pro-growth measures in this economic action plan 2012. It is not just talk. On this side of the House, we are offering the job-creating hiring credit for small businesses, among other measures. In my riding of Crowfoot, there are many small communities that are taking advantage of this, small communities where there are small and medium-sized businesses that can take a look at our plan. Even when I put out my householder with the tax guide for 2011, we talked about the job-hiring credit. Many people in my riding are picking up on this, and people are taking advantage of it in rural Canada as well.

Budget 2012 is full of measures not just for the big corporations and big business. It is full of measures for families and for small and medium-sized business. Our government is committed to increasing Canada's exports to the Asia Pacific. It is not all about only finding tax measures and hiring credits and measures for here at home; we are also recognizing that we need to look abroad. This is critical to industries in Canada to help create jobs and to level the playing field to allow Canadian companies to be competitive.

Canadians can clearly see that our government is promoting trade. However, every time we come forward with a new trade agreement or negotiations toward a new trade agreement, we know even before we table the thing that it will always be opposed by the official opposition. The New Democrats vote against it. That is another reason why Canadians gave this government a strong majority here in the House of Commons; they realize we have a proactive agenda for building trade and building our economy around the world.

In my riding, we need a government to help us export our products around the world. Our Minister of International Trade, our Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and our Prime Minister have done a remarkable job in this area. They are garnering markets for our products all around the world, not only agricultural products, not only in places like Jordan and others that are taking our pulse crops or Colombia and other places. Around the world, for many different sectors in our economy, our government is getting the job done.

Some 60% of the people in Canada's workforce do not have a pension. We have spoken of this before in the House of Commons. In my constituency, small businesses are having a hard time attracting people to work because some of the benefits of being able to buy into a pension plan are not available. Therefore, when our government comes with a pension plan, a smaller pension plan, small business appreciates it. It is very simple. When people go from one job to another, they can take their pension with them. It is a positive that a lot of people are looking forward to and are using.

We are doing other things. Pooled registered pension plans are working. There are a lot of other things in this budget that are good.

The House has been debating this bill for close to three months. We have talked about this budget for over three months. The finance committee created a special subcommittee, as per the request of the opposition. Together, these committees have held over 70 hours of meetings and have heard from over 100 witnesses who came in front of the committee to testify.

I really believe the finance committee chair is probably one of the hardest-working people in the House. That committee has had over 70 hours of meetings. I know our public safety committee is on its 55th meeting and we are busy. The finance committee has had 82 meetings. The finance chair is up and working before Uncle Charlie in Wainright is milking the cows, so the committee is getting the job done.

Bill C-38 has had more debate in the House than any other legislation over the last 20 years. The opposition tries to delay. It tries to implement and deny hard-working Canadians and taxpayers the benefits of the budget, which this implementation act would help implement. The opposition has always done that.

There is a lot more I could speak about in the implementation bill. I want to quickly move to some examples of things that are very positive in the bill.

The first is streamlining the process for the approval of energy projects. This is one of the things, over a period of time, to which our government has committed to ensure that our economy can grow, to ensure that if there is one project there is one review and to ensure that there will not be an endless degree of delay. All those things hinder our economy. We want to, in many different ways, move the economy forward. We want to, as I have already said, help Canadians find jobs. We want to remove redundant and extra layers of bureaucracy.

A press release was issued a number of months ago. In one case, the bureaucracy was diminished by the CFIA having a building and Agriculture Canada having a building a block away. In the CFIA building there was a whole section of IT, mail systems and computer systems and, again, a duplication of those services in the building just a block away.

We are able to combine streamline some of these things to reduce the number of bureaucrats and the levels of bureaucracy in Ottawa and around Canada, for example, taking the Department of Fisheries and Oceans out of the creeks and watersheds of the Prairies and focusing its work on fish habitats on our coastlines.

It is important to ensure that the fish stocks grow, but they will not grow in east central Alberta because there is a lack of lakes. However, we still have a lot of people who come and give their opinion on some of those issues of growth.

This summer I received an email from my daughter. After some time in education she received her nursing degree and was able to get a job. This is the email she sent me after receiving her first paycheque, “Okay, Dad, something needs to change. I made $4,158 this month and only take home $2,842. Do something, this is so stupid”.

I told her the opposition, according to the Broadbent Institution, believed that she was not spending enough on her taxes, that it wanted to see higher taxes. We are committed to seeing this economy grow and we are committed to lowering taxes.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my friend's comments very closely. I would like to go back to the very beginning of his speech when he talked about jobs. I know the member to be very clever. I know him to be hard working. I know he is not fooled easily, but I wonder if he has been tricked by his own talking points.

It is my understanding that fully one-third of the full-time jobs he has talked about are temporary foreign worker jobs. Would the member have the exact number of temporary foreign worker jobs that are part of those figures about which he has talked?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, no, I do not.

What I do have are groups and businesses from across Alberta and Canada coming to my office as well as the offices of members of Parliament from Alberta. The number one issue is labour and being able to secure good, skilled labour to work, whether it is in the oil patch, small business, agriculture or wherever it may be.

We will slow down as an economy if we do not have the people who can be put into those positions and jobs. In order for the economy to grow, we will take every opportunity to hire local, skilled, trained Canadians for the job. If those are not there, especially in Alberta where there is such growth, then we need to secure labour.

Many of the jobs are foreign labour, but I am talking about Canadian jobs. We are talking about Canadians who are looking for jobs and who are willing to work. We want to ensure that the economy avails them the opportunity to find that job.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was going to get up on a point of order on this, but the member was in his own little fantasy world and I did not want to interrupt him.

I have a bill called Bill C-45. The first reading was October 18. The member across said that we had been discussing it for three months. Then he went on to say that the bill has been around for 20 years.

Is this his fantasy world? Are we talking about the same calendar year and the same bill?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being able to set the record straight and inform the member that, yes, he is correct, the budget implementation bill was just announced.

However, the budget came down in March. This is the implementation bill. Let me just explain for the member that this implementation bill is the technicalities of how the bill is implemented. For example, the other day the member spoke day about the Judges Act and judges' payment. Four or five pages in the budget implementation bill lay out the pay for our judges. It is a very technical implementation bill.

The budget is there. It has been discussed for three months. This bill is to help us implement it.