Mr. Speaker, I will begin by underscoring that we are supportive of this motion. I have worked very closely for some time with the member for Edmonton—Leduc and I am pleased he is bringing it forward.
It bears mentioning, so that folks can recall what is in the motion, that this is Motion No. 269 and it reads:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should help improve financial literacy in Canada by: (a) working to implement the recommendations of the Task Force on Financial Literacy; (b) creating, promoting, and continuously upgrade a single source website for financial literacy to increase public awareness and ease access to information for Canadians; (c) requiring federally regulated financial institutions to publicly disclose their contributions to financial literacy initiatives; (d) ensuring the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada works with willing provinces and territories to promote financial literacy to youth through the educational system; and (e) designating November as “Financial Literacy Month”.
When we look at the recommendations of the task force on financial literacy, there is no doubt that they are helpful recommendations. We are talking about recommendations to enhance and spread financial literacy through a wide variety of communities in Canada.
There is no doubt, particularly at this time, given the record debt loads under which Canadian families are suffering, that having this sort of widespread work to ensure that Canadian families are acutely aware of their financial alternatives is something all members of the House would share.
I would like to disagree with the government, not the member, on one point and then I would like to test the government itself on the issue of financial literacy, given the criteria that were put forward by the task force on financial literacy.
First, the government seemed to indicate in the House in the past that somehow Canadians were to blame for record levels of financial indebtedness. In fact, as I know hon. members are aware, Canadian families have never lived under the degree of debt that they are suffering under today. However, surely this cannot be blamed on hard-working Canadian families. Canadian families are working harder and harder with fewer and fewer means. It has been said a number of times in the House, and it is a truism, that, under a Conservative government, most Canadian families are poor.
In the last year, the real income of most middle class and poor Canadian families actually went down by 2%. Therefore, it is not surprising, when we look at the overall poor quality of jobs being created, most of them being part-time or temporary in nature, and the kinds of jobs that this economy and the government has lost over the last six years, that 400,000 high end manufacturing jobs that have been lost over the past few years Any jobs that have come into the job market pay about $10,000 a year less than the jobs that have been lost.
When we look at all of that key criteria, the fact that the jobs the government has created are precarious jobs, part-time and temporary overwhelmingly, that they pay $10,000 a year less than the family sustaining jobs, the full-time jobs, the manufacturing jobs, the value added jobs that existed in the economy before, we cannot blame Canadian families for coping as best they can with what has been a series of government policies that have made Canadian families poor. That is a simple reality.
On this side of the House, we do not share the notion that somehow Canadian families are to blame for record levels of debt, when it has been government policies, a deliberate pushing down of salaries and a variety of means that have replaced good jobs with poorer quality jobs. Those are the factors we need to look at when we look at the overall crushing level of debt that Canadians are experiencing, and this is historic. We have never in our history experienced the level of debt that Canadian families are bearing now, the yoke that Canadian families from coast to coast to coast are bearing.
I will come back to the task force on financial literacy, as well as the overall strategy on financial literacy, and measure the government against the criteria and priorities that were set out in the proposed national strategy on financial literacy.
The first priorities are shared responsibility, leadership and collaboration. In September, we saw a federal government that was not being collaborative or sharing responsibility with the provinces in terms of funding health care. The government threw a bomb on the table in a meeting with the financial ministers in Victoria in December when it unilaterally imposed what will be less funding for the Canadian health care system, which will impose a greater burden on all the provinces.
When we talk about these priorities, the shared national strategies, responsibility, leadership and collaboration, we need to know how the government is faring in its collaborative approaches with the municipalities. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has indicated a crushing infrastructure deficit that the municipalities are bearing with a $120 billion shortfall. This means that the municipalities are struggling more and more to put into place programs with 8¢ of the overall tax dollar to repair the infrastructure, the roads and bridges which, in many parts of the country, are crumbling. Therefore, on shared responsibility, leadership and collaboration, I think we need to give the current government an F in all cases.
I will now move on to the third priority, which is lifelong learning.
Since the Conservative government has come to power, it is interesting that each year budgetary projections have been more and more out of whack with what the actual fiscal returns have been at the end of the year. We are seeing a government, far from using its lifelong learning to have more accurate forecasting and provisions around financial accountability, it is seemingly getting less and less accurate. So much for lifelong learning, the third priority of the proposed national strategy. Very clearly, there as well we are seeing a failing grade.
We then have delivery and promotion. We have seen in this House the cost of the F-35s, a contract that was untendered. They were supposed to cost $9 billion, which escalated to $20 billion and is now over $30 billion. Nobody on the Conservative side of the House actually knows what the total cost of the F-35 program is. Hopefully, we will get some answers soon. However, when we talk about the delivery of financial literacy, ensuring that we have accurate predictions around financial expenditures that the government is undertaking, we have a case example of the government doing very poorly.
We have the prison program, at a time when the crime rate is falling, and the government has no idea what the overall costs will be. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has put some figures forward that clearly contradict the rudimentary number crunching of the Conservative government. As well, some very credible organizations have estimated the entire cost at over $19 billion. Very clearly, on delivery, it is a failing grade again.
Finally, I will talk about accountability. We learned a few weeks ago that the President of the Treasury Board was looking to hide the cuts that may take place in the budget being delivered on March 29. We have a Treasury Board and a government that is attempting to hide what should be the facts of the extent of the cuts and what the impacts would be on service delivery for hard-working Canadian families who depend on those services. We are seeing here again that the government is saying that it will not disclose that information, that it will cover it up.
The irony is that, while we talk about the private member's motion, which we support, and we look at the task force on financial literacy, on the priorities of the national strategy, we see that the government has failed on every count. When we are talking about financial literacy, who could learn most from the perspectives that were brought forward by the task force on financial literacy?
My colleagues on this side of the House would all agree that the government would profit most by putting in place those key principles around financial literacy, putting in place the priorities around the strategy for financial literacy, and ensuring that the practices it does now, which contradict financial literacy, are thrown out and it brings in new practices that would lead to financial literacy and financial accountability in our government and in our country.