Mr. Speaker, I am really delighted to rise in my place today to speak to the NDP motion.
On May 2 of last year, Canadian voters chose to elect a strong, stable, national Conservative majority government. It was a great day for Canada. That evening, on my election win, I was reminded of a movie that I saw, and some of us in the room will probably remember it, called The Candidate with Robert Redford. At the end of the movie, Redford, who was a democratic senatorial candidate who was not supposed to win the election, ended up winning. He looked across the room at his campaign consultant and he mouthed, “What do we do now?”
We on this side of the House knew exactly what to do. We had a plan called the economic action plan. The voters of Canada voted in favour of it and gave us a strong, stable, national majority government because we had a road map and we knew what we were doing. I know a lot of people on the other side were mouthing, “What do we do now?” and they still do not know what they are doing.
The NDP policies are rooted in failure. The NDP has a proven track record in Ontario. It and other provinces, and countries around the world, including Greece, are the jurisdictions the NDP is asking us to follow and take lessons from.
When my father came to this country in 1947 as the only survivor from his family, he came with three things. He came with a number on his arm, the shirt on his back, but most importantly, he came with hope in his heart. When I go to citizenship swearing in ceremonies, new immigrants to this country all come with hope in their hearts. They come with hope in their hearts because Canada is a land of opportunity where they can find a job. A job for new immigrants and for Canadians is not a disease. It is hope. It is hope because we have this great country called Canada and our government is on the right track.
The number one priority for Canadians and what really matters to them is the economy, job creation and long-term prosperity. At a time when the global economic recovery remains fragile, especially in the United States and Europe, our government is focused on creating jobs, economic growth and securing long-term prosperity for future generations of Canadians.
This is something our government has been focused on for some time. Faced with the deepest global economic recession since the 1930s, the government took the necessary action to protect the economy, Canadian jobs and Canadian families. It is because of the decisive action by this government that Canada finds itself in a position of relative strength among the industrialized world.
Contrary to what the NDP would have us believe with the non-stop bashing of our Canadian economy and our country, we are in a very envious position. Many of us will also remember the show, Dragnet. Sergeant Friday would say “Just the facts, ma'am”. Let us consider the facts. Since July 2009 nearly 770,000 net new jobs have been created, nearly 90% of them are full-time positions.
This is the strongest growth among G7 countries over the course of the recovery. In addition, both the IMF and OECD project Canada to be among the fastest growing G7 economies over the near term. The three credit-rating agencies, Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's, have all reaffirmed our triple-A credit rating. In fact, it was Fitch that recently praised Canada's economic and fiscal leadership by saying:
Years of fiscal responsibility and a strong institutional setting created the conditions for an effective fiscal policy response to the global financial crisis. An early commitment to balance the budget over the medium term placed Canada's fiscal credibility ahead of many peers.
Simply put, Canada's fiscal fundamentals are solid and sustainable, but solid government finances are meaningless words to the NDP and its failed 1970s socialist mindset of big government, big bureaucracies and big deficits.
Nevertheless, we are focused on protecting and growing Canada's economy and building on our relative advantage compared to our G7 partners. However, to truly understand the strength behind this performance, we have to consider the hard work that took place long before.
I am talking about the actions our government has been taking to pay down debt, lower taxes, reduce red tape, and promote free trade and innovation. To start, our government paid down significant amounts of debt when times were good, and kept our debt-to-GDP ratio well below that of our G7 counterparts. As a result, when the economic downturn hit Canada, we had the fiscal capacity necessary to respond and to hold onto our G7 leading record as other nations began to pile vast amounts of unaffordable new debt onto old.
The NDP leader clearly does not value the initiatives our government has taken to keep Canada's economic record strong. For evidence of this we need to look no further than the NDP voting record. When Canada was facing the worst of the global economic recession, the NDP responded by voting against Canada's economic action plan. The NDP voted against tax relief for families and businesses. The NDP voted against investments in infrastructure, R and D, and skills training. The NDP voted against support for manufacturers, forestry, the unemployed and more.
Unfortunately, rather than support initiatives that would help Canada's economy, the NDP would rather support initiatives that would harm Canada's economy. What harmful economic schemes are the NDP pushing? Our Conservative government is focused on what matters to Canadians, such as creating jobs, promoting economic growth and ensuring long-term prosperity, while the NDP wants to attack growing sectors of our economy and impose $10 billion in higher taxes on businesses. The NDP advocates that we close off Canada from the rest of the world and do not trade.
Canadian taxpayers should hold onto their wallets because, unfortunately, there is more. The NDP leader supports a job-killing carbon tax. This would increase the price of everything including purchases such as gas--