The government likes to say that Greece has done worse. Well, the government seems to be doing everything in its power to push the quality of life downward to those of other countries that we have heard about that have a worse quality of life.
This is what Manning Blair wrote to an NDP member:
You asked for our thoughts on the budget. I do not live in your riding; I am stuck with a Conservative member of Parliament and so I adopt other MPs randomly.
The first thing that strikes me is that as a 47-year-old blue-collar worker with arthritis, I have to work an extra two years. I'm really looking forward to that. I've already changed careers because driving truck is less physically demanding than construction work and I hope to hell I can keep passing the medical until I am 67 or I am really screwed.Of course, having come of age under the destruction of the Mulroney government and having had to suffer under Grant Devine in Saskatchewan and Gary Filmon in Manitoba, I kind of got off to an iffy financial start and have never really been able to save much. I have been downsized and right-sized. The OAS was about my only chance to retire at 65, thanks largely to the fiscal incompetence of Conservative federal and provincial governments. Still, I am in better shape than many. My house is paid for and I can always pick up some side work doing landscaping or landscape carpentry. That hurts like hell too when you have arthritis, which is why I quit doing it full time and started driving truck, but I can do it. Right now I am so upset that I can only do it when I get a chance. I was taught from a young age to work and make sure that I took care of myself, but this Conservative--
He does not use the word “government”. He uses a word that is unparliamentary, but we can understand his frustration.
--I am certainly not going to continue to pay for their grafts and kickbacks.
The second thing that strikes me about the budget is the continuing attack on science. I do not know exactly why the Conservatives hate science so much, but my suspicion is that it interferes both with their beliefs and their twisted instinct for short-term greed. Heck, it might just be that whatever gene makes you Conservative also--
I cannot complete the sentence, but the individual is saying that he thinks it makes one less intelligent. He went on to say:
If they fund science properly, maybe we could find out and discover a cure for Conservative--
Certainly, judging from the emails that we are getting, a lot of Canadians would like to see this. He said:
The Conservatives' hatred of science definitely shows up in this budget though. They cut funding for pure science, wanting it to be directed to feed corporate greed instead.
As he says, we need to make sure that we are investing in science. He went on to say:
Most concerning to me is global warming and the die-off that we are seeing in bees. There are other things, of course, but these are very important to me. There is nothing in this budget about dealing with the environment. The Prime Minister's continuing attack on the climate is pretty well documented and his cuts to science and reduced environmental regulation will make things even worse.
You asked for my thoughts and these are my thoughts. Keep fighting for us.
We certainly will. We will keep standing up for the Blairs of the country. There is no doubt about that.
I have another tweet hot off the press, “Many veterans of the Afghan campaign will not be eligible for OAS until 67, unlike veterans of past wars. They deserve fairness too.” We certainly support that.
All this feedback is flooding in from Canadians. I would like to read into the record emails from two residents of Victoria. I paid tribute to the member for Victoria earlier.
One individual from Victoria writes:
I am very upset about the Conservatives' 2012 budget. I feel particularly threatened by the so-called streamlining of legislative decision making around development projects and the cuts to the CBC, never mind everything that was not even touched in any significant way, education, housing, environment, transportation. I feel that the kinds of budget decisions the Conservatives are making are anti-democratic, limiting national public meetings, making decision making even further out of the reach of people, concealing the issues that would be addressed in the budget. They are selling this country out and eroding everything that Canadians that I know, we feel we stand for.
Mr. Swinden from Victoria writes:
What impacts me negatively is the fact that the government taxes OAS at 15%. What I object to as a recipient of GIS on a lower income scale is that I then have to pay the money back. This amount of money I should be able to use to afford basics like an eye care exam, a new mattress which will allow me to sleep better, and other basic essentials, not to mention dental and pharmaceutical expenses. What else I object to is that what we have is a government that is breaking its commitments. To help better balance income distribution, retirees on lower incomes should have their OAS increased, especially those living on GIS, in order to meet the rising costs of living so they could live decently and comfortably with reasonable material security.
That is another comment regarding OAS from a Canadian in Victoria, British Columbia. Moving right along, there are more comments coming in.
Ms. Hamilton from Scarborough, Ontario states:
The budget also ignored the needs of youth, especially for increased job and training opportunities and lower tuition fees, disregarded the environment by imposing time limits on environmental studies and new resource projects and providing zero leadership on environmental issues, dropping responsibility for providing leadership in health care, failing to address the fast growing gap between rich and poor, and cutting funding to the arts by strategically attacking groups that take a critical perspective on the status quo: the CBC, the National Film Board, Telefilm.
An individual from the Toronto region states that the federal budget does not address the issue of rising gas prices, particularly in Toronto. The individual also says that the government “thinks its infrastructure program is adequate. Both the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Urban Transit Association have called for a national strategy to invest in expanding public transit, involving the federal government, provinces and municipalities, with dedicated funding. This budget is deaf to this fact.”
My colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour is wonderful at managing the paperwork. He is doing a great job.
This is another one from the metro Toronto region with respect to the budget. Ms. Blais, a small business owner, writes:
I am not happy that once again corporations receive breaks and the most vulnerable of our society, elderly, children and those in the mid and low income brackets, are the hardest hit. Canada is in the unique position now of being a world leader in human development, understanding and building a better society, but not with this government, which seems fairly bent on being another version of the U.S. Republican Party.
We are burdened with this majority government. I do not believe there is much you can do to change their minds or the road map they are determined to make. I find it frightening at best. The government is setting this country on a path that will benefit big business, but build an increasing divide between classes, effectively wiping out the middle class, and will leave our seniors in some cases to starve, while our mental health patients are placed in increasing numbers in a prison system that will not rehabilitate them. Canada was once a better country than the U.S. It is sadly becoming a poor imitation of the same.
That is the voice of another Canadian.
Again, from Victoria, British Columbia, there are a number of comments that the budget decisions made by the Conservatives are anti-democratic. They are saying that the Conservatives are limiting the national public media and taking decision making even further out of the reach of people, concealing the issues that would be addressed in the budget. That is something that so many Canadians are raising as a concern.
From the St. John's area, there is a concern about the OETC. This individual indicates that the elimination of the OETC would cause the loss of current and future Canadian higher trained, skilled workers. Many will leave our great country. Without it, a lot of Canadian companies that work in other parts of the world and bring a lot of capital back to Canada would not be able to maintain the workforce they now have. It would make it impossible for them to continue to operate in third world countries, which would be a huge loss for both Canada and the other countries involved. It would also mean that Canadian crew members working on vessels would essentially be taxed twice. Because it would reduce the effect of any job creation plans, he says that we have to stand together to keep that program. He said that to his member of Parliament, the member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl. That is yet another point that has been raised.
An individual from Edmonton, Alberta has written in to say:
I note that in tabling his March 28, 2012 budget, the federal finance minister made no mention of closing the loopholes that enable ultra-rich Canadians to avoid paying their fair share of tax. Through the use of tax havens and ambiguous tax laws, these wealthy Canadians get away with staggering sums of money that could be used to help sustain social programs and fund infrastructure renewal.
Before I get into what happened this morning, which is a key announcement that we need to come back to, I am going to read a comment that comes from the riding of Honoré-Mercier.
Here is what this woman said:
“Having looked at this week's budget, I would like to draw the following points to your attention. First of all, without a doubt, the government has shown that it is incapable of meeting the millennium development goals and is therefore completely abandoning developing countries. Dedicating 0.7% of its GDP to development assistance is a concrete measure that would help underdeveloped countries to get ahead. It is unfortunate that Canada cannot lead by example in that regard.
“Second, the government is treating us like imbeciles, wanting us to believe that it can maintain the same level of service to the public while eliminating 20,000 government jobs.
“Third, this government does not have its priorities straight, considering its decision to purchase F-35 fighter jets.
“Who are we so afraid of that the government has to buy those planes, just when it is trying to eliminate the deficit? Personally, I am not afraid of getting attacked by another country, but rather by this government—an attack on my own country.”
I would like to thank this woman from Honoré-Mercier for her letter. Of course, when the government says it can eliminate 20,000 public service positions without reducing services, that is precisely what we are refuting. This poses a serious problem.
This has just been confirmed. Job losses in the public sector will reach the same level as jobs losses in the private sector.
A few hours ago, as you know, we received an analysis by the Canadian Association of Professional Employees. According to that analysis, the 19,700 positions being cut in the public service—to which Ms. Tremblay referred—will lead to the loss of more than 40,000 jobs in the private sector. We are talking about 60,000 jobs lost in all.
We have to understand what is happening. Last fall, jobs were lost everywhere. Factories and all sorts of companies closed. We lost Mabe, Electro-Motive, Aveos—even though those people are trying to keep working—and the Brunswick mine. We lost job after job in a wide range of Canadian companies.
With Electro-Motive we lost 465 jobs; with Aveos, 2,600 jobs; with Ocean Choice International in Newfoundland—my colleague from St. John's South—Mount Pearl knows all about it—we lost hundreds of jobs. With Maple Leaf Foods, in New Brunswick, Ontario and Coquitlam, we will lose 1,550 jobs by 2013. With AstraZeneca, we lost 132 jobs; with Bick's Pickles, 150 jobs; with XL Foods in Calgary, 500 jobs; with Sunoco, 102 jobs.