Debates of Oct. 30th, 2012

Jobs and Growth Act, 2012

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for outlining much of the good work that our finance chair does at the committee level. It is incredible.

The member also mentioned, a number of times, the issues of job creation. I cannot say how many times I have heard in my riding over the last number of months how job creators, business people are appreciating our low-tax environment, which allows them to invest in job creation in Canada.

Near the end of his speech, my colleague commented just briefly on the Ed Broadbent Institute. Could he further elaborate? I have just come across something from the institute that is headed by former NDP leader, Ed Broadbent. I want to read a very short section of it. It says:

Taxes are the hinge that links citizens to one another and to the common good....We should also consider eliminating...the ‘boutique’ tax credits of recent budgets...consider implementing taxes on very large inheritances of wealth which pass morally-unjustifiable class privilege...Significant revenues could be raised by the introduction of a financial transactions tax...Green taxes—such as a carbon tax and higher taxes on natural resources—need to be considered as a means of financing...

Could my colleague comment on whether he agrees with that?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, all around the world governments are leaving socialist ideas and programs because they realize they just simply are not working. I have listened to the NDP propaganda and Mr. Broadbent. They have said that we do not pay enough taxes in our country, period. The NDP's agenda is to have a higher tax and have government become almost like a god, so we will go to government and it will give us all everything we need.

We want to put $3,100 back into the pockets of Canadians. We do not want a big $21 billion carbon tax that will kill the economy. This is a good budget implementation act and we need to support it.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I, along with my NDP colleagues, oppose this monster budget bill. I oppose it on both content and process. First I will talk about the process.

The Conservatives talk about the unprecedented level of debate and hours of debate on this bill and the previous budget bill. Even the member for Crowfoot, who spoke before me, talked about unprecedented debate in the House. Let us review that to see if they are right.

Bill C-20, which was what the budget bill was called in 1991, was six pages long and between first and third reading in the House of Commons, there were 192 days of debate. In 1995, it was Bill C-76 and it was 48 pages long. There were 78 days of debate in the chamber. Bill C-32 in 2000 was 29 pages long, it went down a bit in size, and there were 60 days of debate. Bill C-33 in 2004 was 76 pages long and it received 79 days of debate in this chamber.

What happened this year? This spring the omnibus budget bill touched or outright repealed over 70 laws. A third of that budget bill was about gutting environmental legislation. Most pieces of the budget had not been debated in the House before and most of those pieces were not campaigned on.

I do not remember the Conservatives campaigning in the 2011 election saying that they were going to increase OAS eligibility from the age of 65 to 67. I do not remember them campaigning on the fact that they were going to diminish health care transfers. In fact, during that election, I was the health critic for the NDP and I remember the opposite. The Conservatives campaigned on maintaining and increasing health care transfers.

We also cannot find any of these pieces in Conservative Party policy. If we turn to its policy, we will not find the Conservatives saying that they believe they should raise the age that people can collect their OAS.

The member for Crowfoot said that we had this budget. that this stuff had existed for so long and we should have read it. I would love for any member on that side of the House to tell me anything, even one word, about what the changes were to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act in the last omnibus budget bill, never mind what that had to do with the budget. I think most Conservatives would be hard pressed to even repeat the phrase “assisted human reproduction”.

We had Bill C-38 in the spring that was 425 pages long and there were 54 days of debate. Here we are again this fall with the second omnibus budget, the son of omnibus. I do not know how long this debate will go, but the government has already moved time allocation. I cannot imagine it will be very long. I cannot imagine it will be the heady days of 1991 when there were 192 days of debate, I highly doubt that, and we have a bill that is over 440 pages long.

The length of debate is important. Maybe the Conservatives do not think it is important because they do not like to listen when the NDP brings forward reasonable ideas. They just want to sit with their eyes closed and their hands over their ears. However, the length of debate is important for democracy because it allows entry points for civil society to engage with the legislative process. Think about it. How does civil society actually engage with this process? People cannot come here to vote or give speeches in the House, but there are entry points for them. They write letters to their MPs. They write letters to the editor. They testify at committee. They come up with good ideas and send them to us via social media. They phone us and have meetings with us in our communities. They have brown bag luncheon seminars in their workplaces to talk about how this will impact them. Sometimes they even take to the streets. The length of debate allows that process, that moment for civil society to engage with the legislative process.

The NDP brought forward amendments to the bill at committee based on what the community and civil society had told us. The opposition brought forward over 800 amendments in the House based on what civil society said, but we had 54 days of debate where that entry point for civil society was eliminated because not one amendment was made. What is the result because the government did not listen? In this omnibus monster budget, there are amendments to amendments that were made in the last budget bill.

Can members imagine amendments to amendments in the same year, as if we needed more evidence that the Conservatives are bad managers?

The process is undemocratic. Bill C-45 is a massive omnibus budget bill that makes amendments to a wide range of acts. Once again, the Conservatives are trying to ram the legislation through Parliament without allowing Canadians and their MPs to thoroughly examine it. They need to remember that we are their members of Parliament. It is our job to look at the bill properly, make amendments and suggest ideas. New Democrats are proud to stand in the House and actually do their job.

I fear that I am quickly running out of time, and I wanted to share some words from Canadians. I know the Conservatives will not listen to the NDP, because they do not like reasonable, good, sound ideas, but maybe they will listen to Canadians.

I have some letters I received from constituents.

The first is from Rebekah Hutten, who wrote:

My name is Rebekah Hutten, and I am a university student deeply concerned about [the budget].

I am writing to let you know how disturbed I am by this furtive endeavour to use an omnibus budget bill to completely wipe out years of progress Canada has made on environmental protection.... For the sake of the environment, I implore you to demand the non-budget matters—all environmental changes—be removed from C-38 [the last budget bill] and put forward as stand-alone legislation.

We took that advice and tried to do that, but the Conservatives refused to listen. We are trying to do that with this budget bill as well. We will see if they come around to their senses.

I received another letter from Bill Davidson, who wrote:

I am one of your constituents in Halifax, and I wanted to write to you to express my displeasure, or rather horror, about bill C-38, the conservatives' omnibus “budget” bill. This is not a budget, it is one of the most anti-democratic pieces of legislation ever tabled in a Canadian parliament, complete with wholesale destruction of anything resembling environmental policy. It is anti-environment, anti-science, anti-common sense, and insulting to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.... Please [member of Parliament for Halifax], don't let these guys get away with this without putting up a fight.

Leagh and Diane Colins wrote:

Our fathers and grandfathers fought for Democracy—many giving the ultimate sacrifice of their lives against tyranny and government control. Censorship against free speech and the right to protest against that which we deem to be detrimental to our society is what they fought against. This current government disrespects their memory.

Our children and grandchildren will not have much of a world to grow up in when we allow the short-sighted goals of profit to overwhelm Canada's proud legacy of its environment and wildlife.

We most emphatically urge you to speak out against this bill and these measures to still the voice of opposition to environmental destruction.

In closing, I would like to seek unanimous consent to move the following motion: That notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, clauses 316 to 350 and Schedule 2 related to changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, and clauses 425 to 432 related to the changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 be removed from Bill C-45, a second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures and do compose Bill C-47; that Bill C-47 be entitled “an act to amend the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012”; that Bill C-47 be deemed read a first time and be printed; that the order for second reading of the said bill provide for referral to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development; that Bill C-45 retain the status on the order paper it had prior to the adoption of this order; that Bill C-45 be reprinted as amended; and that the law clerk and parliamentary counsel be authorized to make any technical changes or corrections as may be necessary to give effect to this motion.

We are proposing this motion to ensure that the bill is split for proper study at the correct committee, and specifically to ensure that the Navigable Waters Protection Act is reviewed at the environment committee, where it belongs, and which government websites would have supported until about seven days ago.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Does the hon. member for Halifax have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns of the Liberal Party, virtually since the Prime Minister went overseas and made the announcement that he was looking at making changes to OAS, our old age supplement, and to our pension program was the fact that these are a foundation or cornerstone of social programing, and we have to be there in a very real and tangible way for our seniors.

We have heard very clearly from independent officers that there is no crisis. I know that the Liberals and the New Democrats have recognized that we need to see that commitment to allow individuals to continue to retire at age 65 reinstated. This is something the Liberal Party has been clear about. I believe that the New Democrats have also taken that position.

I wonder if the member might want to provide comment on the whole issue of the old age supplement.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the OAS.

I will share a story. I was in my riding, waiting at a bus stop, and I was chatting with a constituent who was confused about the OAS and whether it would impact him. He told me what his birthdate was. Coincidentally, it was the same year as the Prime Minister's, so the changes will not affect him. He was relieved to hear that, because he needs that money. He paused and then said that it is not fair to the next generation. He wanted to know how he could help fight for the next generation. He gets it. He gets that this is about making sure that seniors can make ends meet.

My colleague is right to say that we have so many independent verifiers who say that we do not actually have a crisis when it comes to ensuring that seniors can get their OAS, GIS and CPP. We do not have a crisis right now. I absolutely agree with the member.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for being an excellent advocate for her constituents from Halifax by actually reading into the record what they have been writing.

I read the budget that was tabled in March. Recently I did an online search of the budget for the word “navigable”. It resulted in zero results, because the word “navigable” does not exist in the budget. However, we are being told by members of the government over and over again that in this budget implementation act, the word “navigable” apparently exists. Maybe they have put a different version of the budget on the Internet for the public to see. I am not sure, but I searched online and could not find it.

Conservatives seem to be changing a lot in the Navigable Waters Protection Act. If my intelligent colleague can help me understand, I would very much appreciate that.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Scarborough—Rouge River for really doing her homework and for doing good research on this piece. That part about navigable waters had escaped me, so I am glad she did that.

This is exactly what the Conservatives are doing. They claim that all of these changes are in their budget, but then they present bills that are completely different.

I am the environment critic for the NDP. I meet with environmentalists, but I meet with industry too. Industry officials were pleased as punch with the changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in the last budget bill. I disagree with them, but they were pretty happy. Some of them were pleased with the changes to the Fisheries Act. Again, I disagree with them, but they were pretty happy.

I talked to officials about the navigable waters act, and they said, “Whoa, we didn't ask for this”. The government seems to think that it is appeasing industry, but industry never asked for this. The Conservatives are just imagining what could be another possible win for industry, and they are making stuff up. If they actually consulted with industry, they would realize that changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act was not one of their asks. Conservatives should really start doing their homework.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to stand in the House today to speak to Bill C-45, the second implementation bill relating to the jobs and growth act 2012.

I would like to first preface my remarks by reminding my colleagues on the opposition benches that Bill C-45 provides the mechanisms to implement the provisions outlined in budget 2012. That legislation was tabled a full seven months ago, on March 29, 2012.

Budget 2012 has received more debate than any other budget bill in this House. I also remind my colleagues that Bill C-45 will be sent to 45 different standing committees for further scrutiny and debate, so I think there are adequate opportunities for discussion and debate.

I would like to comment on a few of the enabling legislative items in Bill C-45 that are especially appreciated by the residents in my riding of Newmarket—Aurora.

Both Newmarket and Aurora are situated at the top of the GTA, in York region. It is one of the fastest growing areas in Ontario, and residents there have clearly articulated to me that they want their government to remain focused on jobs and economic growth.

That is why, for example, they are very pleased with the implementation measures in Bill C-45 that enable pooled registered pension plans to become a reality.

Bill C-45 amends the Income Tax Act to accommodate pooled registered pension plans, or PRPPs. It sets out the tax treatment for contributions to and distributions from PRPPs. It also deals with a number of related issues, such as the registration of pooled pension plans and transfers on the death of a PRPP member.

I cannot say enough about how important PRPPs are to entrepreneurs and working Canadians in my riding of Newmarket—Aurora.

In York region, home to over one million people, 83% of all businesses have fewer than 20 employees. This will be a very valuable tool for employers. It will help them, first, to retain good staff, and second, to provide pension options to those who currently may not--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

Order, please. The hon. member for Newton—North Delta.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am fairly new to this House. I have been here just over a year. I was taken aback when my colleague mentioned 45 standing committees here in the House of Commons. As far as I know, there are only about 25 or 26.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

It is a matter of debate on factual matters.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I said 11 standing committees, not 45. I referenced Bill C-45.

Let me repeat. Eighty-three per cent of all businesses in York Region, home to over one million people, have less than 20 employees. PRPPs will be a very valuable tool for employers to help them, first of all, to retain good staff and, second, to provide pension options to those who currently may not participate in a pension plan. Third, it will allow many entrepreneurs to better save for their retirements, such as those who operate a family business and who regularly put in 70-plus hours or more a week to support their families and to provide opportunities for others to do the same.

It simply is not fair that entrepreneurs, those who take on the risk, many by mortgaging their own assets and taking out personal loans to create jobs and opportunity across our country, do not have access to a company pension plan nor have the ability to offer one to their employees. Bill C-45 would correct this inequity.

I am also pleased about the lower corporate tax rate. We know that lowering corporate tax rates creates jobs. How do we know this? The proof is in the pudding. Let us just look for a moment at Canada's economic record.

Since 2006 our corporate tax rate has been steadily declining from 22% to 15%. As everyone is no doubt well aware, in 2008-09 Canada and the world were faced with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. That being said, unlike other countries Canada has emerged from that downturn in a relative position of strength. For example, nearly 820,000 new jobs have been created since July 2009, the strongest job creation record in the G7. Forbes magazine ranks Canada as the best place for businesses to grow and create jobs, and all the major credit rating agencies, Moody's, Fitch and Standard & Poor's, have affirmed Canada's AAA credit rating. Canada's debt to GDP ratio is by far the best in all the G7.

These results did not happen by chance. They are the result of a government focused on jobs and economic growth, one that does not get sidetracked and that clearly articulates its goals and sets out a methodical plan to achieve them.

I remind Canadians that in 2006 when this government came to office, it set out a long-range plan to foster strong and sustainable economic growth. It set out to show the world that we were a modern, dynamic and tolerant country. There were five goals: first, to establish the lowest tax rate on new business investment in the G7; second, to chart a course to eliminate Canada's debt; third, to reduce unnecessary regulation and red tape in Canada's marketplace; fourth, to create the best educated, most skilled and most flexible workforce in the world; and fifth, to build the modern infrastructure we need. That was six years ago and today we remain focused on achieving these goals.

We are keeping Canada's corporate tax rates low, lowering taxes on families, supporting a market economy with a non-interventionist government, and implementing a pro-trade agenda. These policies are contributing to Canada's relative economic success.

The opposite side of the House, however, advocates for higher taxes, such as the NDP's $21 billion carbon tax proposal. In this high-tax scenario I argue that today's global economy businesses would simply choose other places to invest. Corporations would have a thinner bottom line and would not be able to hire or keep as many employees. This would lead to increased unemployment and lower government revenues. Government would have to take on more debt to finance its activities. What happens when a government has to pay more to service its debt? Investor confidence fails and with it, business investment and economic growth. Thankfully this is not the case and I want to assure residents in my riding of Newmarket—Aurora that this government will never subscribe to high-tax schemes.

I would like to highlight another implementation measure in Bill C-45 that is important to Newmarket—Aurora. The amendments to part IV of the Employment Insurance Act allow the extension of the hiring credit for small business to 2012.

Small businesses are the engine of job creation in Canada, as they are in Newmarket—Aurora. In recognition of the challenges faced by small businesses across the country, budget 2011 announced a temporary hiring credit for small business of up to $1,000 per employer. This credit provided needed relief to small businesses by helping defray the costs of hiring new workers and allowing them to take advantage of emerging economic opportunities. Extending the temporary hiring credit for small business for one year would result in a credit of up to $1,000 against an employers' increase in 2012 EI premiums, over those paid in 2011. This temporary credit would be available to approximately 53,000 employers whose total EI premiums were at or below $10,000 in 2011, reducing small business 2012 payroll costs.

In conclusion, I believe Canadians expect their government to work in their best interests. They want their government to stay focused on jobs and the economy. The best way to do this is to move forward with the legislation so we can ensure that the many important measures it contains, essential to ensuring the continuation of our recovery, are done. That is what Canadians want and that is what this government intends to do.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask more or less the same question I asked the member earlier. Either she did not understand the question, or she did not want to answer. It was about navigable waters.

In her speech, the member said that today's bill was exactly what the government tabled seven months ago: the 2012 budget, a book that several members have shown us. That was the first thing she said. However, changes to navigable waters in Bill C-45 were not mentioned in the March 2012 budget.

Can she explain why Bill C-45 includes references to the Navigable Waters Protection Act even though the March 2012 budget did not mention it? Can she explain why references to the environment were removed from the Government of Canada's website after we pointed out that the Navigable Waters Protection Act is in fact an environmental law?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me preface everything I say by saying that this government is focused on jobs and growth. We do not want any impediments in place that would hamper jobs and growth in our country. We know the issues in the budget are available to all our provincial and municipal partners to make decisions on what would be best in their own areas to create jobs. In Newmarket—Aurora, we have people who are unemployed who are looking for opportunities and we know this budget would do that for them.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question about pensions for the parliamentary secretary.

She waxed lyrical on how marvellous these pooled pensions, which the government introduced in its budget, were. I will acknowledge that we Liberals supported that measure but only because it is better than nothing. I submit that a supplementary Canada pension plan, which we proposed, would have been far superior. This is largely because the government's proposal is private sector and Canada has one of the highest management fees in the world, whereas the supplementary CPP would be much lower cost and would have provided competition for this private sector. As well, a difference of only one percentage point in the management fee can have a huge negative effect on a person's pension because of the power of compound interest.

While PRPPs are better than nothing, would the member not agree that, for the reasons I have just given, it would have been much better to have a supplementary Canada pension plan?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me remind the hon. member that he had 13 long years in the House to do something about pension plans and did not approach them at all, ever. We are putting in place the opportunity for employers to have a pooled pension plan for their employees.

I come from small business. I have run a small business for a long time and I know many of my compatriots who are members of the Aurora and Newmarket chambers of commerce have had no access in the past to any sort of pension plan. We know this would offer them the opportunity to put a pension plan in place to offer more security for their employees. We know that any change to CPP requires agreement from all the provinces. We know that may be very difficult to get, so putting in place a pooled pension plan would give more options for more people to have security for the future.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the speech from my colleague from Newmarket—Aurora. I did speak a little about the pooled pension for individuals and organizations in my riding. I got very positive comments.

However, the member for Newmarket—Aurora also talked about small business. We celebrated Small Business Week just recently. I would like to know what her thoughts are in terms of the additional $1,000 in EI benefits that would be available to small businesses? Would that help small businesses and encourage future growth and job opportunities?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it would absolutely help. It would allow those businesses that are on the verge of perhaps one more hire, because they need one more person, to make the positive decision to create that new job. That amount of payroll tax could have thrown them over the edge to not hiring that person.

This is a credit that would allow businesses to create more jobs. That is good for everyone in Canada.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege today to rise and speak to Bill C-45, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 29, 2012 and other measures. I want to start by talking about process, roles and responsibilities.

When I was elected as a member of Parliament to represent my constituents in these hallowed halls of our parliamentary democracy, I came here with the understanding that I had a key role to play in budgetary oversight, holding the government accountable for the decisions it makes in spending the hard-earned money of Canadians, and paying a great deal of attention and due diligence when it comes to fiduciary matters. However, last spring, I was prevented from doing that by the Trojan horse omnibus bill, a bill so thick and dense it is bigger than many telephone directories across this beautiful country.

During this process, the feedback from Canadians was that this was not parliamentary democracy and not acceptable. I heard from hundreds of my constituents and other Canadians who were a little shocked by a government burying so much and making such drastic changes in an omnibus bill, though when it was a government in waiting, it was always talking about transparency and accountability.

One would have thought that after having buried the deletion of immigration files, the gutting of environmental protections and many other areas that were in the previous bill, including changing the age for old age security, the Conservatives would have learned a lesson and decided to do things differently. However, it was a case of oh, no, when we came back this fall to face Bill C-45, the second budget implementation act, still the size of a phone book.

Once again, as an elected parliamentarian representing the beautiful riding of Newton—North Delta, a riding that is struggling with many issues that need to be addressed right now, I am faced with a piece of legislation that purports to be a budget implementation bill, but actually includes many new items.

I was in the House when the Minister of Finance told my colleagues to go and do their homework, that we had the budget and there was nothing new in it. However, it only took until the next morning for the media to pick up on all the new stuff that was in the budget. What became evident was that the minister himself had not done his homework and was not aware of what was in his own budget or was trying to fool Canadians by burying things in the budget and pretending they were not there.

One of those is the changes to our environmental protections such as the Navigable Waters Protection Act. People keep saying that it is not about water. However, as I keep asking: What do boats and ships travel on if not water? What are we thinking about navigating? It is not roads but waterways. Therefore, I do not see why there is that separation. Once again, here we are as parliamentarians being denied the right to exercise our fundamental responsibility and scrutinize and debate a budget.

I have heard colleague after colleague stand in the House to urge the government and the members across the aisle to just give us unanimous consent so that we can take portions of this budget to the appropriate committees—and there are not 45 of them—where these can be given due diligence and we can examine and amend these portions of the bill and engage Canadians in some of the discussions.

Once again, unanimous consent has not been given. My colleague from Halifax tried again today, and I was quite moved by her plea for the other side to be reasonable. However, the Conservatives were not reasonable.

One of the key points I keep hearing of this budget is that it is about job creation. However, the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer says that this budget implementation bill would actually cost over 43,000 Canadian jobs. Here we have an independent Parliamentary Budget Officer saying that, yet I hear colleague after colleague across the aisle keep talking about how this is going to be such a great boon to job growth. We know that is not so.

I am getting a little tired of all the breaks in this budget for small businesses. In my own background my family has been engaged in running small businesses and in my community the engine of our economy is our small family-owned businesses.

What great measure do we have built into this budget? What I am saying is that it does not go far enough. We need to support our small- and medium-size businesses by giving them the breaks, not the wealthy corporations that take the jobs and money out of the country. However, once again the government fails small- and medium-size businesses in this budget. All it has done in this budget is to provide them with a maximum of $1,000 in credits on new EI employer payments. That is it. To add insult to injury, that is only available to employers in the 2012 tax year.

By the time Bill C-45 passes through all stages, this tax credit will actually have expired. I say this even though the government has moved a time allocation motion so that the bill will pass through all of the stages at lightning speed, because the government has majority that it is determined to abuse.

The small- and medium-size businesses I talk to my riding need a lot more attention than this. They are very worried about where the government is taking us.

I am not going to spend too much time talking about environmental issues, because my colleague does such an excellent job on that at committee. She has raised those concerns ad nauseam.

Like other MPs, I get amazing emails from my riding. My colleague from Halifax read some of those into the record today. This morning I was responding to emails from my riding opposing the Enbridge pipeline and the gutting of environmental protections, and also about the lack of support for our young people to go out and get jobs.

I am getting so frustrated and tired of the constantly put idea that we are growing jobs, when I know it is the temporary foreign worker category that has increased by 200%. I want to see a real job-growth strategy by the government, instead of words, words and more useless words.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in last summer's omnibus bill the government actually deleted the applications of workers who had been waiting in a backlog for many years. In this particular bill, there is another change with respect to immigration, wherein people wanting to visit Canada will have to go through a different process. It is an attempt to establish some source of revenue or something of that nature within this particular bill.

I wonder if the member might comment on these two issues in the two separate budget bills that should ultimately have been brought forward in another form to enable us to deal with them in the immigration committee and possibly here on the floor of the House, as opposed to their being bundled and pushed through in a budget bill. I say this because these are fact very important issues in their own right and should have extra consideration.

Does she not agree?

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of serving with my colleague from Winnipeg North on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, where we have shared our frustrations.

The member may not know this, but yesterday I sought the unanimous consent of the House to take the portion of this budget dealing with immigration and send it to the committee, where we could give it proper oversight and ensure that we not make our immigration policy on the back of a napkin.

It seems to me that we are sending the following message to people around the world that when one plays by the rules and is waiting in line to get into our country, we can arbitrarily pick a date and delete all of the applicants' files. That is not a message that I and the many Canadians I talk to want to send.

I am also saying that we have to look at the huge increase in temporary foreign workers and ensure that we do not go down the same path that led to the mistakes we made in the past. Let us hope that this does not lead to other apologies that we may have to make in the future.

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

Mr. Speaker, my question for my colleague is along the same lines as what was said earlier.

Several elements of this bill have nothing to do with the budget, nor are they necessarily connected in any way. I will go back to what one of my colleagues said. The chair of the Standing Committee on Finance asked a Liberal member if he agreed with a specific measure. Since we agree with some parts and disagree with others, should the bill not be split? We should have an opportunity to vote on specific elements of the bill instead of voting on a huge bill that lumps together many different parts. Omnibus bills prevent MPs from doing their job.