Debates of May 8th, 2012

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, it gives me no great pleasure today to talk about Bill C-38, given its content.

Over the past few days, many people have expressed outrage over this bill, which is not only the budget implementation bill, but also an omnibus bill that the papers have described as “mammoth”. This bill contains an assortment of poison pills. Yesterday I slipped up and used a mixed metaphor when I said, “poisoned snakes”. But actually, the government is trying to force a bunch of snakes down our throats. This bill is riddled with poison pills.

I understand the people who say that they are outraged by Bill C-38, and I sympathize with them. However, we cannot say that we are surprised by the way the Conservatives are acting because this is far from the first time that they have introduced a bill full of poison pills. What is more, they have pulled a stunt like this before with another budget implementation bill. You were a member of Parliament at that time, Madam Speaker, and you will surely remember how the government in power, a minority government, introduced a budget implementation bill that, for example, did away with public servants' right to strike, jeopardized pay equity and abolished public financing of political parties.

At that time, the government thought that none of the opposition parties would dare to force an election on the basis of such issues. Yes, the opposition parties took a stand. The Prime Minister at the time had no choice but to prorogue Parliament. Imagine. To avoid being defeated, he undemocratically prorogued Parliament and shut down the House. Once again, this was a major crisis triggered by this government. Thus, we cannot be surprised by the way this government is acting; however, that does not mean that we should not denounce this type of behaviour.

Yesterday, media representatives asked me what the point was, since the Conservatives have a majority and will do whatever they want. Personally, I think that, if the bill were split, as we and the official opposition have already requested, every committee affected by these measures could examine the bills individually. Thus, each committee would not be required to consider a huge bill that is over 400 pages long and affects approximately 70 existing laws, and to push it through as quickly as possible. If we took the time to examine each of the measures, we would have the opportunity to discuss them and to have people testify in committee, which would change things. Canadians and some activist groups can, from time to time, find a way to counter the government's regressive attitude.

As I was saying earlier, there are a number of measures in the implementation bill that have nothing to do with the budget. Some of these measures were a complete surprise, such as the increase in the retirement age from 65 to 67 and changes to the famous Bank Act, on page 340 of Bill C-38, a measure that once again is compelling Quebec to intervene.

Quebec's justice minister, Jean-Marc Fournier, wrote a letter on April 19 to Canada's Minister of Finance, stating that the minister was once again opening the door to a legal battle between Quebec and Ottawa. The budget implementation bill contains a section on banks, which would no longer be subject to Quebec's consumer protection law. Once again, Ottawa knows best, and Quebec's consumer protection law, which is tougher than the federal law, will no longer apply.

I would like to quote part of Minister Fournier's letter in order to show the extent to which the federal government is interfering in Quebec's jurisdictions. This is what Mr. Fournier wrote to the finance minister:

...we wish to inform you of our concerns with respect to your proposal. The federal Parliament cannot decide in a peremptory manner that provincial laws do not apply to a given sector.

That is clear, quite clear, thank you. It slipped under the radar. The Bloc Québécois rose in the House to ask this question when its members finished scouring through this thick bill. The Bloc got its hands on Minister Fournier's letter to the Minister of Finance. It is completely unacceptable that Quebec may be forced to go to court again, as it did recently on bills such as the Senate reform bill and the bill to end the long gun registry. It has come to this.

That is how relations between Ottawa and Quebec, and probably between Ottawa and other provinces, are run. The dispute with Aveos, for example, affects Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec and those provinces have decided to turn to the courts to make the federal government listen to reason. This is no way to manage things. I would like Quebec to become a country so that we can manage our affairs the way we see fit. We would not have this type of problem with this Canadian government that does not listen to reason and always wears blinkers when it comes to the rights and jurisdictions of the provinces, including those of Quebec.

If, like Minister Fournier, who is a federalist Liberal in Quebec City, we are saying that we do not see ourselves reflected in this Canada, then there is a problem. I think that the government has to realize that.

This bill amends the Bank Act. That should be a whole bill unto itself that we could discuss at length ahead of time. Instead this bill is getting lost among a hodgepodge of other measures that have nothing to do with the budget implementation bill.

We are also going to run into problems with regard to food inspection. I was privileged to be a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for a number of years, including during the crisis that was triggered by an incident at an Ontario company where the food inspection process had failed. Unfortunately, 22 people died of listeriosis. We all remember when that happened in 2008. It sent shock waves across Canada and even around the world, because Canada had always had an excellent reputation when it comes to food inspection. We were affected by this type of problem as well.

At the time, the government wanted the companies to handle food inspection themselves. It was not enough for this government to disregard the recommendations in Ms. Weatherill's report; now it has decided to use this budget implementation bill to reduce the number of inspectors. I think that public health is far more important than any savings that might result from cutting the number of inspectors.

To our great surprise, this has been included in a budget implementation bill. It should be up to the Standing Committee on Health and the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to examine these issues if the government wants to make any changes to food inspection. It has no business hiding them in Bill C-38.

The bill also includes ridiculous things concerning the Governor General, for instance. The Bloc Québécois strongly believes that the Governor General should pay income tax, just like everyone else in Canada. The government simply replied that, from now on, the Governor General would pay taxes. Then it doubled his salary. This has been included in Bill C-38. His salary is being increased from $137,500 tax free to $270,602 and, in the end, the Governor General is going to make more money than he did before. This behaviour is insulting.

This bill also talks about the oil sands. Furthermore, it officially buries the Kyoto protocol. Regarding the oil sands, the budget confirms—as though it needed to—the Conservatives' desire to accelerate the development of the oil sands. For instance, division 1 of part 3 enacts a whole new piece of legislation on environmental protection, whose purpose is to expedite the approval of large projects, particularly those involving oil sands exploitation. Why is this in a budget bill? One has to wonder. It is up to Environment Canada and the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development to examine these issues.

There are many other measures like that. It is clear that we formally and strongly oppose Bill C-38, as so many people do. This bill needs to be split so these issues can be examined separately.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member. I have a question regarding environmental assessment. The bill before us is completely and absolutely new.

We have the repeal of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. It was brought in in the early 1990s. It replaced a federal guidelines order that was brought in in 1984. It replaced the federal custom of doing environmental reviews where federal money was involved in a review. Therefore, going back to the 1970s, the federal government has always done an environmental assessment whenever federal money was involved.

As I read this new law, that provision is removed for good. Has my hon. colleague noted that as a deficiency in the so-called new environmental assessment law?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the leader of the Green Party, for her question.

Indeed, one of the most disgraceful parts of the budget implementation bill is the one that speeds up environmental assessments and allows the federal government to abdicate its responsibilities. This is not only a disgrace but a real scandal.

Every province pays taxes to ensure that the environmental assessment process for development projects is monitored. Now, all of a sudden, not only does the government want to speed up these projects by having less monitoring, but, from now on, it also wants to wash its hands of any responsibility for that monitoring. So the process will be faster and the government will not provide any oversight whatsoever.

This is one of the reasons why we are saying that these parts of the budget implementation bill must be removed and each one sent to the committees involved. The Standing Committee on Natural Resources and the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development in particular could examine the bills that pertain to the environment so that people can come and testify about the importance of environmental monitoring of development projects.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I know my colleague agrees with me that fair wages benefit the whole community and that no one gains or benefits when we drive down the wages of the middle class, so that they can no longer participate in the economy and purchase basic household items, et cetera.

What is my colleague's view with respect to the Conservatives eliminating, by virtue of Bill C-38, the Fair Wages and Hours of Work Act, which sets minimum standards for the construction industry right across the country? Now it would drive down wages because jobs can be offered at any wage at all. Some non-union contractors could advertise, “Wanted: Carpenters, $10 an hour”, and no one would apply. Then they would phone and get temporary foreign workers in at any price. This is opening the door to reducing the standard of wages and working conditions of all construction workers across the country by virtue of slipping this in without any announcement, any debate or any consultation whatsoever. It is driving down fair wages.

Does my colleague not agree that fair wages benefit the whole community and that undermining working people's wages benefits no one but the Conservatives' rich friends in the construction industry?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg Centre raised a good point. I would like to thank him for pointing that out to people because that is the major problem with this bill. It contains a whole bunch of measures that nobody will ever hear about. In fact, we never heard about them before the bill was introduced.

So many measures have been added to this bill—I call them poison pills—that we have to make sure people are aware of what is looming in front of them, as the member for Winnipeg Centre pointed out. This is a real sword of Damocles for many people.

However, what he just said comes as no surprise. This Conservative government has always had an ideological concept of the economy. It is all about cheap labour. Here is one example. The member for Beauce, who is now a minister, did nothing when a bicycle manufacturer in his own riding closed its doors. Those people, libertarians certainly, are guided by the philosophy that if one industry shuts down—even if that means 250 or 300 jobs lost—it is no big deal because another will take its place.

Obviously, that is not how we see things. We do not think that the government should jump in feet first whenever something goes wrong with the economy, but there are ways to intervene in order to save jobs.

Do we have to say that our bicycles will have to come from Taiwan or China? No, we can make bicycles here. We can put measures in place to save Canadian jobs and make sure they pay well.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here this morning to deliver remarks on Bill C-38.

First and foremost, before we go into the detail of the bill, I would like to point out a couple of things. I would like to give deserved credit to the Minister of Finance. He has delivered budget after budget and has really, in the early years of our government, reduced taxes to put more dollars in the back pockets of hard-working Canadians, over $3,000 more for the average family income. In addition, the tax freedom day comes more than 20 days earlier than it did in 2005.

Certainly, in the early years of the government, we have made several initiatives to reduce the tax burden placed on Canadians and, as well, on Canadian corporations to reduce their costs and reinvest those dollars in people, plants and equipment.

In 2008-09, when we were facing severe economic downturn, our Minister of Finance was there to provide stimulus to the Canadian economy to get us through a very difficult time. As we look at where we are today, both in our economy and with our country's finances, we see we are in excellent shape relative to other industrialized developed nations.

Credit should definitely go to the Minister of Finance for putting us in the place we are and also for looking forward, in the near term, to a near balanced budget in 2014-15.

That really lays the context for where we are today and where we will be with budget 2012-13 as it applies to hard-working Canadian families. This budget is a balanced budget in the fact that it remains committed to transfers to the provinces in the form of transfers for health, in addition to social programs. These programs are the fabric of what makes us Canadians and what makes us unique relative to the rest of the world.

In addition to that, we have also made some tough choices to reduce our long-term operating expenses, $5 billion-plus in long-term ongoing reductions in operating costs, which will really set our country on a foundation of success for many years to come.

As we look to Europe and other developed nations that are facing massive deficits, debts and the fear of reduced credit ratings, we see that Canada remains in the elite position of having the top credit rating, which sets our country up for success in the future.

In addition, we have also made strategic investments for the future in research and development, science and innovation that will continue to push forward and lead our country into the rest of the century.

Getting into Bill C-38, I will highlight a couple of points that I think are good changes, good adjustments. The first one is a change to the registered disability savings program. This was a program that was brought in in 2008. It was tremendously popular, with more than 55,000 new accounts being opened and having dollars invested. In addition to that, our government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of grants into the registered disability savings program.

I should just mention that every three years this program is due for renewal and review. In 2011 a review was done and a report was tabled. The changes will be implemented in time. One of the issues that arose with the program is the issue around the disabled person who is actually unable to enter into a contract or is challenged to be competent to enter into a legal contract. This presented an issue.

Many provinces, where the jurisdiction lies for presuming somebody to be competent or not to enter into a contract, brought it into question. Many families were actually having to go the legal route to have a loved one deemed incompetent, which can be expensive and also heart-wrenching for the families.

Some provinces have worked to streamline this process to appoint what they would consider a trusted person, whether it be a spouse, friend, relative, son or daughter. The provinces have taken this initiative to streamline the process for the betterment of the disabled people as well as their family and loved ones.

British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador have all taken this initiative. I think we should tip our cap to them for doing it. My home province of Ontario has not done it to date, and I would encourage the McGuinty government to work hard to get that done so we can speed up the process to get the money into the accounts of these disabled people and set a better course and path for their future.

Another topic I would like to talk about rings true in the riding I represent, Huron—Bruce, which is likely one of the most beautiful ridings in Canada. There is no doubt about that. It has beautiful agriculture, rolling landscapes and Lake Huron. It is two and a half hours from the north to the south of the riding. It is very beautiful. There are streams, rivers and creeks that we all appreciate and use to kayak, canoe, fish or whatever one likes to do. However, one issue that has continued to rear its head for farmers and farm communities is the issue around municipal drains: building, implementing and cleaning out municipal drains.

We can go back a few years and look at all the different groups that would be involved with either cleaning out a municipal drain or building one. Members will remember that we changed the Navigable Waters Protection Act so that Transport Canada would not be involved as it had been in the past. However, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans would be involved as well as conservation authorities, engineers, contractors, drainage inspectors, quite likely the municipal or country roads officials and on and on. Members can see the litany of people and entities that were involved in either building or cleaning out a drain.

A couple of years ago, our government made adjustments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act so that farmers were no longer required to make a case that their ditch was not a navigable water in which one could take a kayak. That was a positive change that helped farmers. Now it is time to change the Fisheries Act, so we can make adjustments for farmers who are putting in or cleaning out their municipal drains.

This is an important change because when farmers make an investment to buy a piece of land they need to get it drained, if it is not already drained, so they can get their crops in and get the highest possible return on their investment. It is very critical and very important.

Another key point we need to look at in the history of this issue is that about 11 years ago conservation authorities signed agreements with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to streamline this process. In my riding of Huron—Bruce, the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority and the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority signed such agreements. This has been refined and revised through the years to the point now where conservation authorities perform 96% of the functions. It only comes in at the very narrowest of areas that DFO is involved and its biologists are utilized. However, this 4% likely creates 99% of the delays and problems with putting a municipal drain in or even getting it cleaned out.

It should also be noted that in our area of Huron—Bruce, most municipal drains run dry around the end of May or the beginning of June. We do not see much water of any magnitude and certainly no aquatic life, no fish, at any point through this time.

This is a good change that is reducing red tape. I know that the farmers in our area are very happy about it, as well as the engineers. Conservation authorities are happy about it because it is taking out a layer that is very cumbersome to the process. I tip my cap to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans for making this change and providing support to our farming community.

One last change I would like to talk about has to do with CMHC and the steps we have taken with covered bonds to protect our government and the insurance we provide for people who buy homes and enter into CMHC financing. This change would enable attaching a bond to a security to prevent what we saw in the United States with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is certainly a timely and well-received change.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague has plowed deep down into Bill C-38 and realized the broad, sweeping implications that it has, implications that were never announced and about which there has been no consultation or even debate.

One that concerns me very much is the repeal of the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act for the construction industry. It used to be that this particular act maintained some level playing field between the unionized and the non-unionized sectors so that companies would win their jobs based on their merit, productivity, skill and competitiveness.

Now, with the elimination of—

[A hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, somebody seems to be yelling at me.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has the floor.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am just wondering who the member thinks would benefit from driving down construction industry wages, because now, without the protection of this legislation that has been in effect for 75 years, the non-union sector—the merit shop and the CLAC—can pay anybody anything, and a unionized contractor would never be able to win another contract because of the unfair advantage. Then, if nobody answers the call for $10-an-hour carpenters, they get temporary foreign workers. The government is driving down the middle class's ability to consume, and that is the biggest advantage to our economy. Whose benefit is that?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my opinion is that the member's form of logic is nonsense. In my riding of Huron—Bruce, Bruce Power has just completed one of the largest infrastructure programs with the refurbishment of two reactors. The member's comments are complete nonsense. The project needed thousands of skilled workers and well-paid workers.

If we go on the Internet today and look up all the companies in Alberta and Saskatchewan and northern British Columbia, we will find tens of thousands of open positions ready to be filled, so this whole idea that somehow there will be reduced wages does not hold any water. It does not make any sense and it is just another example of what we would be faced with if we ever had to have a New Democrat government in Canada. Then we should look out.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, something Canadians are just beginning to understand is that this budget implementation act goes far beyond anything that was in the budget announced by the Minister of Finance. One of the things that I find quite surprising for a government that has been struggling with its lack of transparency around the F-35 fiasco and missing, somehow, $10 billion in procurement costs is that in this bill, one of the single largest moves to restrict accountability is a broad reduction in the oversight powers of the Auditor General. This bill would eliminate mandatory Auditor General oversight of financial reporting in about a dozen agencies under the government.

I would like to ask the hon. member this: why would you want less transparency and less accountability, when in fact you used to campaign on just the opposite? What happened?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that this government is the most transparent government in the history of any government in this country. I will just use one example.

I am a member of the veterans affairs committee. It is this government that brought in the ombudsman for veterans affairs, so we do not need to take any lessons from the NDP on transparency. I would like to bring a point up to the member who just asked the question, because she used to be associated with the CAW. In my riding the CAW has built an industrial wind turbine in Port Elgin that strictly violates the current Green Energy Act.

I would ask the hon. member this: why do you not call up your boss and ask him to get on board and start protecting the people in the communities? There are over 200 homes in Port Elgin that are going to be directly impacted. They are clearly within the 550-metre setback of the Green Energy Act. Call your boss.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I will just remind hon. members to direct their questions and comments through the chair.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to express the anger and frustration that I and many people in Rivière-des-Mille-Îles feel with the tabling of this budget implementation bill.

Bill C-38, the bill to implement the budget, is a profoundly illegitimate bill. The Prime Minister promised to govern on behalf of all Canadians after the last election. In fact, however, with this budget, we see that the Prime Minister is governing for oil companies and mining companies, not for taxpayers. He is not governing for working people, for families, for seniors, for veterans, for people who are unemployed, for farmers or for people who work in manufacturing industries.

I have also met with Aveos workers in my riding who are worried, because they have been laid off and have no way of supporting their families. They are outraged at the Conservative government’s track record since the last election, which amounts to a lot of back-to-work legislation but no support for working people and their families.

When it comes to providing unreasonable subsidies for big business, the government shows no hesitation, but when Canadian workers lose well-paid jobs, there is total silence from this government. We saw the same thing in the case of the Electro-Motive Diesel employees in London, Ontario.

There are other reasons why this budget concerns me, however. It is obvious that the Prime Minister's agenda was not laid out for Canadians. In the last election, the Conservatives were very careful not to tell voters that they would be taking their axe to the Environmental Assessment Act, that they would be going back on Canadians’ word on the Kyoto protocol, that they would be cutting employment insurance benefits and services to veterans, and especially that they would be pushing Canadians’ retirement age back two years.

How can the government claim to have the consent of the public when it concealed such fundamental aspects of its political agenda from them?

This brings me to another point: the government is adding insult to injury by including a series of provisions in the budget implementation bill that have nothing to do with the budget—provisions relating to the Kyoto protocol, environmental assessment, food safety, the powers of the Auditor General, assisted reproduction, oversight of the intelligence service and protection of fish habitat, to name just a few.

This bill can be described as containing everything but the kitchen sink. It is wholly improper for the government to include these provisions in a catch-all bill in the hope that it can slip them past parliamentarians unnoticed. This approach prevents parliamentarians from exercising the oversight that it is their job to exercise.

A modicum of decency would require that we split the bill to allow the Standing Committee on Finance to study the budget measures and other committees to study the measures contained in Bill C-38. The government refused this reasonable suggestion made by the official opposition. What does it have to hide?

Finally, in addition to short-circuiting Parliament by introducing an omnibus budget bill, the Conservatives have decided to steamroll Bill C-38 through. The government has used its majority to limit debate in the House to seven days.

Imagine. Just seven days to study a 431-page bill with 750 clauses that amend 70 laws. That is unprecedented.

Journalist Manon Cornellier called bill C-38 a mammoth budget. I do not know if she was referring to the size of the bill or the prehistoric nature of the measures it contains, but she is concerned, and with good reason, about how it will affect our democracy. I would like to quote her:

At this rate...the Conservatives will succeed in transforming Parliament into a theatre for political posturing. It will be a shadow of the democratic institution it is meant to be, a place where elected members are supposed to be the voice of the people. What a sorry spectacle.

I commissioned a poll of 100,000 constituents in the riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles and I can tell you that the main elements of the Conservative budget do not pass muster.

Some 73% of the population of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles opposes raising the retirement age from 65 to 67, and 60% believes that the spike in the costs of the old age security system will be offset by increased government revenues.

The people of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles are not fools. Like the Parliamentary Budget Officer and many economists, they know that the public pension system is viable and capable of dealing with the retirement of all the baby boomers.

In contrast to the provisions of this budget, which will reduce the benefits of thousands of unemployed workers, 50% of the residents of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles are calling for improvements to the employment insurance system. Finally, 75% of the people of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles condemn the withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol, as the government is proposing in Bill C-38.

This all clearly demonstrates that this budget and the budget implementation bill are completely out of touch with the priorities of the people of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles and that the Prime Minister can in no way claim to be governing on behalf of the people of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.

What is most shocking about Bill C-38 is that this budget bill does not include any measures for job creation. Indeed, the only employment strategy included is the Conservatives' attempt to placate businesses by eliminating environmental protections. So what if we are jeopardizing our future by destroying the environment?

Bill C-38 is an unprecedented attack on the environment. It gets rid of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, an organization responsible for advising the government on sustainable development. It also repeals the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, which required the federal government to comply with international greenhouse gas reduction targets and to report its progress.

If Bill C-38 is passed, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act will be gutted. The public consultation process will be reduced to a rubber-stamping operation to satisfy gas, oil and mining companies. Cabinet will give itself the power to green-light projects even if the agency responsible for environmental assessment recommends that they not go ahead.

This bill gives the government the power to suppress charities, including environmental groups, that are too critical of the government. Bill C-38 is intended to silence the environmental movement.

On May 22, I was proud to be one of 400,000 Quebeckers who marched through the streets of Montreal to protest the backward environmental policies of this Prime Minister and his government. Clause 699, which repeals the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act with no reason or explanation, is buried on page 401 of the bill now before us. That is insulting.

I would also like to take a few minutes to talk about automatic registration for the guaranteed income supplement. We know that 135,000 Canadians and 45,000 Quebeckers are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement, but they do not receive it because the government is not doing everything it can to reach them.

To remedy this problem that has been going on for years, I introduced a bill on March 15 to force the government to contact those who are entitled to this supplement. During the budget speech, we learned that the government was considering implementing a proactive enrolment system for old age security benefits and the guaranteed income supplement.

Clause 454 of Bill C-38 states that, from now on:

(3.1) The Minister may, in respect of a person, waive the requirement...for an application for payment of a supplement...if...the Minister is satisfied, based on information available to him or her under this Act, that the person is qualified under this section for the payment of a supplement.

I must say that I am disappointed by the very restrictive wording used. At first glance, it seems very limiting since it implies that Service Canada has to have a file on the people who may be eligible. That does not solve the problem for people whom Service Canada is unaware of but who are known by other departments, such as Revenue Canada or Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

In my opinion, the government's measures do not solve the problem of red tape needlessly imposed on those entitled to benefits. It may mean, for example, that the government will continue to require proof of marital status, when Revenue Canada already has that information.

I would like to summarize my ideas. I believe that the government, out of respect for Canadians and democratic institutions, should at least submit Bill C-38 to public debate and let the opposition do its job.

Bill C-38must be split to allow the appropriate committees to study it. For this reason, and others mentioned in my speech, I strongly oppose Bill C-38.

[Bruce Hyer, Independent, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I know the hon. member has a huge interest and a lot of expertise in the environment, I will ask her a couple of questions.

The bill would change or repeal almost all of the federal environmental legislation to date. It is a massive deregulation. It would inadequately protect fish and wildlife habitat. It would mean less democracy for environmental decisions. There is hit back against non-profit organizations. It also would weaken the laws to keep Canadians and our communities, our land, air, water, ecosystems and species safe.

Is this the way we should be going in balancing economic and environmental priorities in Canada? What would she and the NDP do to greatly improve the bill and help with these serious concerns?

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I had the honour of serving with my colleague on the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, so I know he is also familiar with these issues.

When we look at Bill C-38, we know that it would have numerous negative consequences for our fisheries. It would change the rules around fish habitat protection and the deposit of deleterious substances in fish bearing waters.

Having served on the environment committee, it has become clear to me that the government does not have a clear understanding of how biodiversity works. It does not have a clear understanding of the fact that we need to protect species of fish that are not necessarily fish that are exploited by fisheries, because these fish belong to an ecosystem that is interdependent among species. We see that there is not a lot of expertise on the government side on this issue.

We take issue with the fact that the bill would increase ministerial discretion when it comes to our fisheries and would give sweeping powers to the minister to transfer authority to the provinces or other bodies to allow for fisheries management. This is something that is of great concern to my constituents and to Canadians.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent remarks and for her work in the House generally.

I would like to raise with her the issue, which I do not seem to be able to get an answer from the Conservatives on, of accountability. Many areas in the budget implementation bill have nothing to do with the budget. The environment, of course, is a key piece of that.

However, something that is really troubling Canadians is the changes that would reduce the transparency and accountability of the government, such as the elimination of Auditor General oversight from about a dozen agencies within the federal government. It seems to me that if we want to have clear accountability with an independent financial review, most Canadians look to the Auditor General.

Could the member help us understand why, in her opinion, the federal government is eliminating this clear accountability for Canadians by eliminating the Auditor General's oversight from so many government agencies?

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her comments and her question.

I would like to mention some of the organizations affected by these changes. The Auditor General will no longer examine the activities of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board, or the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. These are rather important organizations that look after Canadians' health, food and transportation.

We are very concerned that this government is attempting to undermine the transparency of Parliament. This also prevents us from doing our job, which is to provide oversight. The government is trying to destroy the tools we use to do that.

Bill C-38 disbands the Public Appointments Commission, which will significantly reduce the transparency of the public appointments process. This is very worrisome and is the reason why we will be voting against Bill C-38.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to address the House today. I will begin by asking members to imagine what we, as legislators, might do if we wanted to ruin the Canadian economy, if we wanted the men and women of this great nation to have less opportunity, not more, and if we wanted families and communities to lose hope in tomorrow.

Since governments derive their power to control from the power to tax, we would start here. To begin, a government out to wreck our economy would enact a carbon tax, thereby driving up the cost of all goods and services paid by consumers. At the same time, personal income taxes would rise, shrinking the take-home pay of Canadian workers, making it uneconomical to work for an extra $1 of income, say, by taking an overtime shift. Also, business tax rates would increase, boosting the cost of investment and making our nation less competitive next to our trading partners. If any citizen believed he or she should be able to keep more income from his or her hard work or risk-taking, the individual would be called greedy.

Next, that government would drive up the spending to levels beyond what taxpayers or even the economy could manage. It would table budget after budget that recorded nothing but red ink as far as the eye could see. It would issue billions of dollars of debt backed by paper IOUs. Those deficits would go up every year and we would be told that all that debt was a necessary investment and a small price to pay for nirvana. That t ruinous government would proclaim this was all being done for the greater good, in the name of fairness and building tomorrow's economy. Should taxpayers think this was the road to serfdom, they would be thought of as uncompassionate.

Lastly, regulations would be enacted to stop the development of our natural resources, even though this abundant gift of nature fuelled Canada's growth. Environmentalism would no longer be about conservation but anti-development and statism. These prophets of doom would urge costly government solutions to our problems. Instead of relying on free markets and the ingenuity of mankind, they would create phony markets that buy and sell carbon credits as part of a cap and trade scheme.

Other proposals to make Canada a poor nation would be a draconian reduction in our energy consumption by a third almost overnight, throwing thousands of people out of work to comply with an international agreement that does not require the world's biggest carbon producers to reduce their emissions. If Canada failed to hit its domestic targets, a government bent on hurting the Canadian worker would pay out billions and billions of tax dollars to nations exempt from making carbon reductions under the very same flawed Kyoto protocol. All this, Canadians would be told, would be done in the name of progress.

Political and environmental groups would receive funding and tax concessions paid by our tax dollars, tax dollars that ought to pay for social programs but do not. That ruinous government, along with environmentalists, would push to shut down producers of abundant cheap energy. Fear-mongering, one asks? Federal regulators were recently petitioned to shut Point Lepreau, which is the only nuclear plant in Atlantic Canada and a provider of affordable energy. The shale gas industry in my province is finding it nearly impossible to establish itself in the face of a reckless environmental campaign. All the while, the New Brunswick government collects tax dollar transfers that come from shale gas earnings in other provinces. Our young workers go west to work in the very same industries that cannot open at home and our communities are despondent that they are hollowing out and the schools emptying.

A government working to damage our economy would hand powers to unelected bureaucrats to control industrial output and enact rules that make it impossible to open new markets and start new businesses. It would make energy from windmills and solar panels appear economical by driving up the cost of power from oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear energy. It would work to de-legitimize the use of abundant natural resources at home and eventually ban the export of those resources to other consumers in other markets. We are already seeing evidence of this with the oil sands.

Finally, a government that wanted to hurt Canada and Canadians would attack the foundation of our economy, notwithstanding that where free markets have been adopted, the west, Japan, more recently eastern Europe, China and throughout Asia, millions have climbed out of poverty, which, it is so easy to forget, was the human condition for most of history. Where statism has triumphed, such as Greece, Spain, Cuba, parts of Africa, people suffer.

It really is not difficult to imagine these ruinous ideas becoming reality since they are, in one form or another, championed almost daily by the official opposition. Yet, we reject these policies. We understand that any government that is big enough to give us everything we need is also a government big enough to take away everything taxpayers have.

What our government is proposing in the 2012 budget is a low tax, low debt plan to keep Canadians working, to make Canada a place where businesses want to invest and to maintain our economic lead over other nations. It is a budget that puts us on track to eliminate the deficit. Voters sent us to Ottawa to manage the public finances the same way households and businesses administer their budgets; , prudently and with respect for the people paying the bills. This budget is a step toward a better government.

Total spending is not being cut this year. It will instead grow slightly by a modest 1.4%. If we listen to the opposition, its members are not proposing a serious alternative. In fact, they are proposing no alternative. We are seeking savings and efficiencies in a federal government that I believe is still too big and too bloated. They want an even bigger government and the inefficiencies and high taxes that come with it. Our focus is on delivering services and programs to Canadians with less bureaucracy. Their policy is more bureaucracy.

We should never apologize for streamlining government. Indeed, this is precisely why Canadian taxpayers sent us here. Of course, it would be easier to spend and spend more but to do so has a cost: higher taxes on ordinary families that make paying the household bills that much more difficult.

According to the Fraser Institute, a typical family makes $74,200 each year and already pays a whopping 41.5% of that, some $31,000, to one level of government or another. It is worth noting that Canadians pay more in tax than they do for shelter, food or transportation. That is why this side of the House believes taxes must be lowered. We recognize that government does not create wealth. It only consumes wealth others have created.

Instead of working to undermine Canadian workers, our plan will promote growth. It will remove burdensome regulation that hurt entrepreneurs and job creators. It will not raise taxes. It will finally wind down federal deficits. We owe it to Canadians to not let the reckless call for higher taxes and more spending coming from the opposition go unanswered or become a reality.

In fact, it is important that we stick to our pledge in the last election that we balance the budget by 2014, not 2015. We need to have a balanced budget so we can continue to bring in some much needed tax relief. Family income splitting is a promise we made to Canadians. We have an obligation to deliver on that promise.

Because of our many years as a minority government, we ended up having to campaign on the same promises two or even three times. Income splitting is a pro-family, pro-work promise I do not want to campaign on a second time.

Our Canada is one that is economically strong, creates opportunity and offers hard-working families a better tomorrow. We will continue to work for Canadians and remain focused on the economy.

Our economic action plan has Canada moving in the right direction. Next, we need to get our fiscal house in order and bring in some much needed tax relief to all Canadian families.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would challenge what the member opposite has said. I think all members in this House want to ensure that tax dollars are well spent and that our government is efficient and effective at delivering the programs and services that Canadians want and need.

However, this budget implementation act we are debating contains so much more than financial measures. I would like to ask the member why, in the name of efficiency or any other measure, would the government want to remove the oversight of the Auditor General from a dozen agencies and thereby reducing accountability and transparency. What does the government have against transparency being provided by the Auditor General? That is something the Conservatives used to campaign on but in office they are doing exactly the opposite.

Could the member explain that to us?

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am perhaps one of the biggest fans of the Auditor General of Canada. In the past, Sheila Fraser was a great champion for taxpayers and I have no doubt that the new Auditor General from my home province will do just as good a job.

Part of our challenge as a government is to deliver better results while watching how we spend money. There are changes that are being made that will result in dollars being spent differently but that does not mean taxpayers will receive less value or less oversight for that. We continue to have the oversight that we need from the Auditor General and I do not see that changing despite certain budget reductions that are in this document.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his republican-style speech. We just need to think back a few years ago to when the current Prime Minister stood in the House and said that a 30-page budget bill was disgraceful, that there was far too much in it. I am trying to understand how the Conservatives can now stand with a 400-page document full of all kinds of things, one of them being environmental changes to regulations that are clearly there to protect the interests of Canadians. The Conservatives are going to throw out all of those things in the name of expediting everything along the way.

The Conservatives will change OAS because they say that it is not sustainable, yet we know it is fully sustainable. This is just another choice that the government has made so it has less intrusion into the lives of people.

How can that member stand and say that his government is offering an alternative to Canadians, or protecting Canadians, when it is cutting out everything of value when it comes to protecting our country?

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I was an observer about 10 years ago when a Liberal prime minister told Canadians that if they did not like paying high taxes they could move elsewhere. That was the wrong thing to say to Canadians and it was certainly the wrong message to send to taxpayers at large. I also remember times in the past when the Liberals had not one budget but two in a single year.

We have come forward with a comprehensive budget that includes not only tax and spend measures, but also other economic measures that will keep this economy strong and keep people working.

I see nothing wrong with streamlining environmental review, working with the provinces in a collaborative manner, so we get the answers the first time and do not require multiple levels. I do not think the majority of taxpayers would see anything wrong as well.