Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and participate in this debate. I thank my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona for being so kind as to share her time with me.
I proudly stand in support of the motion introduced by the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Outremont.
The motion is pretty straightforward. It acknowledges what I think we all recognize, which is that we are in turbulent economic times. We are being buffeted from forces, from economic waves from across the pond, from our neighbours to the south, which are having an impact on us and our economy is going through some stress and strain.
The predominance of the resources sector is having an impact on the value of our dollar, which is impacting manufacturing throughout the country and exporting.
The motion, in effect, states what we have been hearing in the House throughout the past 12 months, that the government and the opposition parties are recognizing that Canadians are facing significant challenges. Canadian provinces, municipalities, businesses and Canadians are facing significant stress and strain as a result of the times before us.
Because the government appears unable to find solutions to make any headway in terms of dealing with those issues and because we are a federation made up of 10 provinces and 3 territories, we are suggesting that we should sit down, as players within the system, and have a discussion about what the strategy should be in order to move us forward. I do not think that is unreasonable, and I commend our leader, the Leader of the Opposition, for having proposed it.
I want to spend a few minutes talking a bit about some of the challenges facing us and why we should be moving in a direction and why we should be sitting down with premiers of provinces like mine, the premier of Nova Scotia.
Let me talk for a second about what we are faced with at this time, due largely to the fact the Conservatives approach to economics has not been well-thought through and they have been mismanaging the Canadian economy.
Let me highlight a few points. Household debts are at record levels and the Conservatives have done very little to help. There are 1.4 million Canadians unemployed and the Conservatives have done little over this past year to help these Canadians find meaningful work, other than, frankly, to punish them, especially unemployed Canadians in my part of the country on the east coast, where there is a predominance of seasonal industries. People who find themselves unemployed are being punished as a result of changes made to the employment insurance plan.
Students are leaving post-secondary institutions with record debt levels and facing unemployment rates double that of the national level. Students, the best and the brightest, who are poised to take leadership roles throughout our economy, throughout our provinces, throughout our municipalities, throughout our country and internationally on behalf of the country and on behalf of Canadians are not getting the opportunities and are being burdened on unprecedented levels of debt as a result of the underfunding of post-secondary institutions.
There have been 326,000 manufacturing jobs lost under the Conservative government. Not just those jobs, but family supporting jobs and community supporting jobs have been lost and nary a word from the government about what it is going to do about it.
Conservatives continue to cut the corporate tax rate. As a result, there are hundreds of billions of dollars that are sitting idle in corporate bank accounts that are doing nothing but adding to the compensation of chief executive officers and senior executives in those corporations. They are doing nothing to create jobs, to invest in capital, to invest in equipment, to invest in communities, and that is the result of these unprecedented tax cuts the government has made.
We have gone from a $26 billion trade surplus to a $50 billion trade deficit and all the while the government prides and cheers itself when it talks about its trade agenda. We know the Conservatives have been engaged in the past few years in extensive trade negotiations with the European community. The government characterizes this as some of the most open and transparent in the history of our country, yet there is utter secrecy. Under the threat of seeing the cost of pharmaceuticals in the country increasing upwards of $2 billion in extra costs to Canadians, to seniors, to families, nary a word by the Minister of International Trade, or by the Prime Minister or by his colleagues about what is actually on the table. What actual commitment is the government going to make on our behalf?
That is not what I would consider open and transparent trade. I wonder in the final analysis how much benefit it will be to this country. As we have heard before, the government is engaging in trade negotiations without a solid industrial policy. Conservatives do not know what the clear strengths and weaknesses of the economy in the country are and what they will trade off to the Europeans. It causes me some considerable concern and I know my colleagues share that as well.
The government continues to turn its back on eastern Canada and our coastal communities. We have seen economic development agencies such as ACOA that has had its funding cut for programs that work with communities, programs that have been successful in working with communities at the grassroots to help build local economic development. The government has turned its back on eastern Canada in this respect.
I made reference earlier to employment insurance. In Atlantic Canada we have a preponderance of seasonal industries that the government does not seem to recognize. In the face of overwhelming concern by the premiers of the Atlantic provinces, the government has made unilateral changes to employment insurance that have been and are devastating. This week we have heard examples of how unemployed Canadians are having moneys clawed back. That is just an example.
Since 2009, the province of Nova Scotia, which has been represented by an NDP government, has made significant strides at tackling a very serious deficit problem. It worked with Nova Scotians and brought that province back to balance.
The Conservative government and the Prime Minister could learn a great deal from the premier of Nova Scotia. He and other premiers and territorial leaders could bring a great deal to the discussion about how we are going solve the economic challenges facing our country.
I urge all members to consider how serious and sound this motion is to bring the actors together to find solutions that will fix the problems facing Canada and troubling Canadians.