Debates of Sept. 20th, 2012

Opposition Motion—The Canadian Economy

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly encourage companies that do work in different countries. We want to ensure that workers can move back and forth as long as they meet the proper criteria, as long as the labour market opinions are appropriate and work out and allow workers from companies to come to Canada to work, and vice versa for Canadians to work in other countries.

With respect to specific consular services locations, what we have done is to make the system more efficient. The fact is that we often do not need as many physical buildings. We live in an electronic world and many of these applications are processed electronically or remotely. One could virtually be anywhere and still get these documents processed through online services.

We are providing value for taxpayers in Canada. We are ensuring that we continue to have our services abroad in countries around the world that both Canadians and Canadian businesses and others can get access to. We are moving in a responsible, reasonable manner forward.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, it is my pleasure to rise and speak to the motion tabled by my leader.

I will focus my particular remarks on the leader's call for the federal government to show leadership in bringing all of the governments of this country together at one table to reach consensus on the future of our country. I will also speak to his call for a shift toward a more balanced 21st century economy.

Yes, as I would say to all of my constituents when I go door to door, Canadians do want a strong, stable, sustainable economy, but an economy for whom? That was usually a wake-up call for them. They had a dilemma during the election: “Oh, who do we vote for? Who would have thought? New Democrats or Conservatives?” They were concerned about the economy. However, when I would simply ask them who that economy is for, they would say, “Well, you're right. We're not convinced that the direction that this government is going is actually considering our interests. They're considering some people's interests, but not necessarily ours.”

As many in the House have said, we now have the highest household debt in history and a 15% rate of unemployment for youth. In my riding, there are three universities. That is a lot of youth struggling to find summer jobs so that they can pay their university fees. There has been a net loss of more than 300,000 jobs over the last few years.

Mr. Speaker, I apologize; at the outset, I should have said that I will be sharing my time, and I am pleased that I will be sharing it with the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

As I mentioned, it is an economy for whom? We still have far too many first nation communities in our country struggling just to have the basic amenities that other Canadians take for granted, and worst of all, a mounting environmental debt. That is a growing legacy. It is an economic cost that the government has chosen to download onto future generations.

Why would we call on the federal government to show leadership? This country is a federation, and the Constitution clearly sets forth mandates for the federal, provincial and territorial governments. It clearly sets out shared powers for economic development, for environmental protection and for our social system. Therefore, it is critical that the federal government show leadership in convening all of those orders of government. Frankly, that should also include our municipalities and our first nations, something that the government is completely remiss in reaching out to.

Over my career, I have had the privilege to sit at many consensus-building tables where the federal and provincial governments, industry, farmers, first nations and the public have sat and discussed major critical issues, including standards for our energy industry, and reached consensus together, all hearing and receiving the same information and hearing the voices together. It was not divide and conquer; that is what is divisive: meeting one by one behind closed doors.

Not only should the Prime Minister accept the invitation of the premiers to join their economic summit; he should instruct his ministers to start showing leadership for national action in job creation, particularly for our youth and our aboriginal communities. He should encourage the ministers to show leadership in innovations in strengthening public health care.

That is what Canadians are concerned about. We can just look at the polls. I welcome members to come to Alberta and see the number one concern: it is the continuation of public health care. Albertans are asking what the federal government is doing to protect our public health care.

Where is the leadership on a clean energy future? While this government claims to have shown leadership, it has marred the country's reputation by not only downgrading environmental laws, contrary to international commitments, but it has also backtracked on international laws and agreements.

As I mentioned earlier in a question to one of the Conservative members, I had the privilege of working with the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation. That is the entity under the side agreement to NAFTA. Canada signed on and committed that it would balance economic development and environmental protection. There are a myriad of provisions in there that the government is not obeying as it downgrades and shreds our environmental laws and our environmental review processes.

Whatever happened to the U.S.-Canada clean energy dialogue?

I remember a former minister of the environment in the government who was very proud of that agreement and regularly stood in the House to talk about the discussions that he had with his counterparts in the United States. When my colleagues tried to go to the United States to continue that dialogue on clean energy, they were castigated. They were called “un-Canadian”.

This is what trading partners normally do. They get together and they discuss issues in common, and that includes, hopefully, the move by this country toward a cleaner energy future. I commend my colleagues for pursuing that dialogue.

Whatever happened to our commitments under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation? As I mentioned, under that agreement and under the U.S.-Canada clean energy dialogue, there was a commitment by the current Conservative government to work with the United States to invest in a clean, smart energy grid. Where is it?

It is possible, and I say this as a proud Albertan and a proud Canadian—I am a third-generation Albertan—to exploit our natural resources and protect the environment at the same time. It is pretty simple, yet the government just does not seem to get it. It thinks that only one is possible. It thinks it is fine to downgrade our environmental laws, it is fine to shred laws worked on over the last four decades, it is fine to deny first nations and local communities the right to be heard at the tables where we are discussing these major projects.

Yet that is a complete violation of the commitments under the North American agreement and again a violation of its commitment never to downgrade its environmental standards for an economic advantage. If we look at trade agreement after trade agreement that has come forward from the current government, it has seriously downgraded the environmental provisions that were in NAFTA.

I am encouraged that the Premier of Alberta, to her credit, has joined the call for a Canadian energy strategy. I am hopeful that she will soon expand what she is proposing in an energy strategy to include a dialogue with all Canadians so that we will bring first nation governments to the table, we will bring local communities to the table, we will bring the provinces and the territories to the table We will all be at one table to move forward to develop a clean energy future for the country.

Regrettably, under the current government's leadership, the dialogue has been very narrowly focused and behind closed doors. I need only mention the scandal around Bruce Carson. We do not know what has happened since then—what has happened to the investment of those millions of dollars, supposedly, toward a clean energy strategy for Canadians. We are still waiting.

Therefore, I call on the government today to follow and take heed of the call of my leader. Let us start that dialogue with Canadians on a clean energy future for Canadians.

To their credit, the CEOs of most of Canada's energy corporations have taken leadership. They have called for a price on carbon for their own industries. That would put us in that direction and force the investment into cleaner energy production.

Why does the government not get it?

To my dismay, a few days ago in this House, one of the Conservative members actually castigated the CEO of Shell for daring to call for a price on carbon that would ensure that we develop the resources in Canada in a cleaner way. I thought they were the friends of the oil and gas sector.

To ensure genuine competitiveness, we have to put environment into our economic policy. Our trading partners are waiting for us to do that, and many of our trading partners are well ahead of us. Germany, for example, has made a major transformation from a major polluting nation to one of the cleanest nations in Europe and a major exporter of clean energy, as have many of the Scandinavian countries, and as much as the government likes to say it wants a trade deal with China, it castigates China for emitting carbon when China is investing billions in cleaner technology.

I therefore encourage the government and all parties in this House to support a move toward a cleaner energy strategy. Albertans are behind this. They support the idea of a dialogue. They want to be at the table.

I encourage the government to stop the divisiveness, bring everybody to the table, and let us move forward toward the 21st century.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona for, as always, putting forward such a clear, reasonable presentation, from an Alberta perspective, about why we need action on climate.

Earlier today I was unable to finish a question, so I would like to finish it by asking it of her. I was cut off at the point where I mentioned there had been a Liberal climate plan. I was going to go on to say it was introduced quite late. There had not been action for a long time when there should have been.

However, given that the plan was cancelled by Mr. Harper and that we have seen no workable plan since, what does the member for Edmonton—Strathcona think would be in the best interests of Albertans and Canadians in getting a climate plan under way while we still have some time to act?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Excuse me. Before I go to the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, I will remind all hon. members not to use the given names of others in the chamber.

The hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question is very well intentioned and I understand the direction she is going, but I would differ in this regard.

In this country, we are long past plans to address climate change. We are long past plans to create a greener economy. What we need is clear legislation, clear fiscal incentives and clear measures to trigger the investment in moving in that direction. I clearly am a strong proponent of law and order for the environment and I believe measures can be taken by the federal government to move us in that direction.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the importance of the first ministers meetings. Today we are talking about the economy, and justifiably so, as jobs are on the minds of many Canadians.

I want to go back to the first ministers conference at which they were able to resolve another issue, which ultimately led to the health care accord that we now have. There is a great deal of concern in regard to that accord. It is going to expire in 2014, and again there is going to be a need for the first ministers to come together. Canadians as a whole, from coast to coast, want to see stronger leadership coming from the Government of Canada, a government that is prepared to say it is committed to ensuring that the funds are going to be in place and that there are going to be national health care standards. The way it best does that is through first ministers meetings. Much as was the case with achieving the health care accord a few years back, these first ministers meetings play a critical role in the best interests of Canadians.

Would the member agree that not only is it important for the Prime Minister to get together this fall but also to look at having regular, ongoing first ministers meetings with our premiers so that we can deal with the social agenda of Canadians, which should be first and foremost in importance in all of our minds?

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for supporting our call, which was made some time ago, for the federal government to take leadership and bring together the provinces, the territories and the first nations governments to discuss the next accord.

However, there is a second reason that we need the Prime Minister to call this meeting and participate. The federal government has a huge responsibility in delivery of health services. It has the power to invest in a major way and transfer dollars to the provinces, territories and first nations and it also has direct responsibility for the health of first nations communities.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

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.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I heard something in the speech by my hon. friend today that I found quite troubling, but perhaps insightful. The member talked about businesses in our country sitting on money and that there was something wrong with that.

Is the member suggesting that he and the NDP have a better idea, a better way to tell business how to spend its money? Is it their plan to take the money from businesses and choose how to spend it their way or is this a prelude to a carbon tax and saying, “Watch out business, here we come and the carbon tax is going to take your money away?” What is their plan with respect to that? What are they going to do to our businesses?

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, we have seen unprecedented cuts to corporate income tax for banks and profitable corporations with the intent, decided by the government, that the money would then be invested in jobs, capital purchases and investment in communities.

What have we seen? We have seen bank accounts on behalf of corporations continue to grow. We have seen compensation for senior executives in some of the wealthiest corporations in our country grow beyond all proportion. It has done nothing for the benefit of Canadians, and it is their money. It is foregone tax revenue that corporations are not putting to use.

It is time we started to ask corporations for something for the money taxpayers are giving them.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to focus on the need to have first ministerial meetings.

If we take a look at the crisis that is there today, one can make reference to the economics in which the vast majority of Canadians have a sense of insecurity. They are not sure of the direction the economy is going when they tune into the news, and there is a lot of negative news out there. That causes a great deal of concern. I believe they are looking for a sense of hope and they expect to see their governments working together to address the needs of our economy in order to get that growing trade deficit to disappear and regain the trade surplus we used to have during the Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin eras, and possibly even before that.

There are other issues that Canadians want to see this legislature deal with, but they also want their Prime Minister to sit down with the premiers and work together to try to deal with the issues of our economy and social programs such as the health accord, which is something I made reference to earlier. There are many serious issues related to our aboriginal people throughout Canada that need to be dealt with as well.

Could the member highlight the importance and critical role that these first minister meetings have played in the past and need to continue to function for the future?

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the member makes an important point.

Those of us who have spent any time in this business recognize what Canadians say repeatedly. They do not want to hear that this is a federal responsibility, or that this is a provincial responsibility or that this is a municipal responsibility. They say that there is one taxpayer and they want all politicians and governments at all levels to work together to help come up with solutions to the problems that are facing them. Working together is what Canadians, Nova Scotians and people in my riding expect to solve the problems.

What do they see instead? They see the Conservative government working unilaterally and making decisions on justice, EI, OAS and the fisheries. However, the download cost is to the provinces, their communities and ultimately to them.

Canadians expect better from us. They expect us to work together, premiers with the Prime Minister and with municipal leaders. They expect us all to sit down to find solutions to the grave problems that face them.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, Employment Insurance; the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Foreign Affairs; the hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Fisheries and Oceans.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver Centre.

I am delighted to have the chance to discuss this motion, which at its core is about the need for all levels of government to work together to build a balanced 21st century economy. That certainly is something the Liberal Party supports.

First, I have to say it is sad to have to beg a Canadian prime minister to participate in an economic summit with the premiers of the Council of the Federation. It is untenable in a federation to have a prime minister who refuses to attend important meetings with the premiers of the provinces and the territorial leaders. Instead, the Prime Minister prefers to act unilaterally, dictating a new health accord and ramming through costly and harmful crime bills without consulting the provinces and territories, the very entities that will be bearing huge financial costs for these decisions. This is not the way to build a united country or balanced economy. In fact, it is a betrayal of our federation's democratic principles.

Second, I cannot help but find this motion which urges politicians to work together across various regions to be a little hypocritical coming from the leader of a party whose signature economic policy at the outset of his leadership was to pit one region of the country against another. In fact, just a few months ago when the western premiers voiced their concerns about the NDP leader's divisive approach to the Canadian economy, the leader called them the Prime Minister's “messengers” and said, “I'm not responding to any of them”. How can the NDP expect a positive response from the Prime Minister to meet with those very same premiers when its own leader says they are not worth talking to?

If we are going to talk seriously about building a 21st century economy, then Canada needs a responsible government that truly stands for fiscal responsibility, equality of opportunity, and a sustainable environment. Canada needs a party that can establish a track record of sound fiscal management. On that count the current government is failing miserably.

In fact, when the Liberal Party came to office in 1993, a previous Conservative government handed us the largest deficit in Canadian history. Members will remember papers like The Wall Street Journal openly wondering if Canada was becoming a third world banana republic. Economists were writing that Canada was going bankrupt.

The Liberal Party went to work on behalf of Canadians and succeeded. It turned that deficit into a surplus. It grew the economy. It created good jobs across the country. During difficult economic times, the Liberal Party balanced the federal budget, reduced federal debt every year, and produced surplus after surplus after surplus. It reduced the size of government without stifling creativity of the nation or demonizing our civil service. The Liberal Party turned Canada into a globally envied model of fiscal discipline. It did all this while investing in a sustainable future for Canadians and their environment. I am proud to say that I was part of a B.C. Liberal government that succeeded in a very parallel turnaround in British Columbia a decade ago.

However, since 2006, what have the Conservatives done? They turned a $14 billion Liberal surplus into the largest deficit in Canadian history. They took a trade surplus of $26 billion and turned it into a trade deficit of $50 billion. This string of deficits started before the global economic crunch, and let no one claim otherwise. The government spent Canada into a deficit before the recession. To say the Prime Minister's economic record is shoddy is an understatement. He continues to disappoint. Gas prices are rising. Groceries bills are rising. Household bills are going up. Family incomes are not keeping pace. The divide between the haves and the have nots is growing larger and larger. In my city of Vancouver and across the country, more and more Canadians are falling behind.

Young people are struggling to find jobs. As an example of that, this summer I hosted a meeting about prospective youth entrepreneurs. A flood of people came out on a sunny summer evening. They were desperate to get some ideas and encouragement to start their own businesses because they were having trouble finding jobs. These are university graduates, intelligent young people who cannot find work because of the economy which is languishing under this government.

In British Columbia, we have a gorgeous natural heritage and tourism is very important. There are thousands of tourism jobs, especially on our coast and throughout British Columbia. The country's top tourism resort is located on the north Pacific coast actually, near Hartley Bay.

The Liberals have committed for 40 years to protect the waters around Haida Gwaii from risks of a massive job-killing oil spill, but the Conservative government has demonized the very people who are concerned about this risk. Citizens, environmental groups, and first nations who wanted to express concern were demonized. When that did not work, the government, in Bill C-38 , took pen in hand, and I believe on the back of an envelope wiped out the very heart of our environmental assessment legislation to remove the requirement to assess the risk to salmon streams of pipelines going across the heart of British Columbia's wilderness. That is not acceptable. Tourism is incredibly important to our economy and to job creation. The Conservative government is failing the tourism industry.

Last year, the Canadian tourism sector generated $78 billion worth of economic activity and its share of the country's GDP was larger than that of agriculture, forestry and fishing combined. Tourism is responsible for the creation of 600,000 direct jobs and 1.6 million indirect jobs across Canada. That is close to 10% of all jobs in Canada. What is more, tourism's slice of the pie is getting bigger every year.

Despite all that, Canada's share of the global tourism market is shrinking. From 2002 to 2011, most countries welcomed higher numbers of tourists. Not Canada. Over the past decade, Canada fell from seventh to eighteenth on the list of top tourist destinations. The government is entirely responsible for this decline.

Other countries invest heavily in tourism promotion. For example, the United States recently allocated an additional $200 million to fund new tourism promotion initiatives. Not Canada. Canada has cut funding for tourism promotion dramatically.

Given our rich natural and cultural heritage and the unique experiences that tourists can have here, the government should take tourism seriously.

What the government has done instead is it has wiped out enough of the budget of the national parks system so that not only are scientists being laid off, but parks are closing for parts of the season when normally they would be open. What that does is it hurts small businesses, stores, restaurants and tourist services that depend on those national parks. Small businesses are incredibly important to our economy and to job creation.

The Conservative government is failing our small businesses. It failed small businesses when it cut funding from the regional programs that support them. It failed them when it increased EI payroll taxes for businesses. It failed them because it has not changed the small business tax rate even though it has slashed the large corporate tax rate from 22% to 15% since coming into office.

I guess we can see why the Prime Minister has been avoiding the premiers.

With the right leadership, the right choices, and the right ambition, Canada's economy can thrive in the future. We must do better for our remote and northern areas, for our first nations people, for all Canadians. We need to transition to a truly sustainable 21st century economy in all aspects of that word: the people, the businesses, the environment, the economic opportunities. We can do that.

I hope that in November the Prime Minister will hop on a plane to Halifax and sit down with Canada's premiers and start working together. We have all waited long enough.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Vancouver for her intervention in the debate around the NDP's motion which is audaciously calling upon the Prime Minister of Canada to sit down and discuss the economy with the premiers of Canada. That is what this motion is explicitly saying, because the economic fragility that we still face is something that requires leadership. Leadership often requires a conversation, particularly with the other leaders of this great nation.

Often politics, particularly from the Conservative government, is a form of revisionist history. The Prime Minister claims that the budget his government introduced when the recession was full blown and upon us in Canada, the one that inserted some money and some action into the economy, was one that the government had been planning for all along. However, we know the government ignored the very idea that a recession was upon us. It introduced a budget that it was forced to revoke, a budget which had no stimulus spending in it whatsoever.

As this fragile economy continues, my concern and fear is that we have a government playing the same role again, saying that there is nothing wrong and everything is shiny and bright, when serious and significant statistics show that there is a problem within our economy.

I am wondering if we are going to go through the same show again from the Conservative government as we saw the last time.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, a hallmark of the Prime Minister and the Conservative government is to say one thing and do another.

People in Vancouver and across the country are concerned about where the economy is going. Small business confidence is down. The housing market is stumbling. An important part of our small business ecosystem is the construction contractors and people who supply the housing market. Even though that market is starting to come back in the United States, it is falling in Canada because of that lack of confidence.

People cannot have confidence in a government that really does not have an overall strategy for the economy, that does not have a strategy for the 21st century economy, and certainly does not know how to work with other partners in this Confederation.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to review the record of the Liberal Party when it was in government. It withdrew $30 billion from the provinces. It downloaded the problems to the provinces. In Ontario we were closing hospitals and schools because the Liberals refused to transfer the money they were supposed to to the provinces. The interim Liberal Party leader, when he was the premier of Ontario, finished the job and practically bankrupted Ontario.

By contrast, I would like to look at what is being said about Canada by the OECD and the IMF. They both project Canada to have among the strongest growth in the G7. For the fifth straight year, the World Economic Forum rated our banking system the world's best. Forbes magazine rates Canada as the best place for businesses to grow and create jobs. All the major credit rating agencies, Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's have affirmed Canada's AAA credit rating.

How can the member stand in the House and contradict this kind of international praise that Canada is getting for the leadership we have shown in our economy?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am always surprised when I hear members across the aisle criticize the Liberal Party's cuts to bring fiscal health back to Canada at a time when their own party was saying to do more, cut more, reduce those social programs, reduce those environmental programs and cut more from the provinces. It is an amazing turnaround.

In terms of the credit rating that the member is talking about, that is the very credit rating that was restored by the Liberal government in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is the same credit rating that is at risk of being squandered by the current Prime Minister with his failure on the economic front and to provide results for our people and jobs, including in my province of British Columbia.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion because it is inherently a good one.

I must confess it is kind of rich that the motion is coming from the NDP, which is now calling on the Prime Minister to meet with the premiers, when the NDP leader's first job and first public speech when he became a new leader was to split the country into east and west.

Secondly, this is a party that ridiculed the national energy strategy, saying it was a ridiculous, and now we have the premier of the oil-producing province of Alberta saying she is looking at a national energy strategy. The NDP has never supported trade agreements, and this country depends on trade for 45% of its gross domestic product.

Having said that, I think it is kind of rich that the NDP brought the motion forward when its members have never practised what they are now asking for. That is kind of interesting.

However, let us focus on how we got to where we are today. We are in a huge deficit. Our employment rates are going up, and many people are only employed part time. We have one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the OECD. What we have discovered, as the OECD tells us, is that we have a number of young people between the ages of 15 and 32 who are neither employed nor are they in training or education. These are called NEETs by the OECD. We have a large percentage of NEETs, as large as the United States and as large as many of the failing European countries at the moment.

Let us talk about how we got to this place. When the Liberal Party was in government, we left a 6% unemployment rate and had started programs for young people who were coming out of university so that they could bridge that time to work.

When the current government came in, it had a $13 billion surplus, had nine years of balanced budgets by a Liberal government, had a $3 billion contingency jam jar for any kind of emergency that occurred, as a contingency or prudence fund, but it squandered it within two years. One does not have to be an economist to know that if the government has $13 billion in surplus and cuts the GST by 2%, which equals $13 billion, $13 billion from $13 billion equals zero.

Long before we even had a recession, that money was gone. The government stood in the House many times and boasted that it was the highest-spending government in the last 30 years in this country. It squandered what it had left of the $13 billion, blew the $3 billion contingency fund almost immediately and then refused to believe that the world was going into a recession and it had no backup.

I think it is really rich that the government talks about how it did so well during the recession, that other countries were doing badly and Canada had its head proudly above water. I want to remind the government that it, in opposition, voted against the opposition to bank mergers and the regulation of banks that was brought forward by the Liberal government and Paul Martin. The Conservatives voted against it.

Now the government is taking credit for it. Between the NDP and the government, I do not know who is more bold-faced in being hypocritical. It is very interesting that the government is taking credit for something it did not do.

However, what is sad is that we are in a position today where we see major issues. People love to talk about the Liberal government downloading to the provinces, blah, blah, blah. When the Liberal government ended in 2005, Canada was the number one performer in the world. By Canada we meant the country, the nation, including the provinces. That was because we, as a federal government, understood that our role as a federal government was to hold the federation together, to face the world as one nation, not to balkanize us into little provincial nation states with some provinces sinking and some swimming.

The Prime Minister has not met, once, with the premiers on issues such as health care, productivity or economic development since he came into government. Now he boasts that he does not need to meet with the premiers. In fact he meets with them individually, which is nice.

If he meets with them individually, how does he sustain a federation with everybody rowing in the same direction with the same objectives? What he does when he meets them individually is pit one province against another and try to find ways to divide everyone so we are all scattering in the wrong direction. That is the first major philosophical mistake that the government made, splitting up this country, balkanizing it, turning provinces against each other and letting those who are able to survive, survive, and those who are not able to, sink.

Health care is the biggest example of this. This summer, the Canadian Medical Association talked about the fact that the federal government has failed abysmally. It gave it an F in terms of medicare and looking after the future of health care in this country and balkanizing the country.

In terms of trade, we know the NDP does not agree with trade agreements but the government says it is going out there finding trade missions, building trade with other nations. However, to have a successful trade policy, we have to have productivity and our productivity is lagging, the OECD tells us, lagging very badly, not only for labour reasons but for spending on research and development as well. We are at the lowest in spending on research and development among the major OECD countries. We are with Greece. We are in company with Poland in terms of spending on R and D.

Under the Liberal government, this country was known to be number one in research and development, in public government spending on research and development. We had communications technology that was number one in the world. We had biomedical technology that made us number one in the world. We were number one in the world in environmental technologies. We no longer are. We are sitting with Poland and Greece in terms of our spending on R and D. We cannot be competitive and build a good trade strategy if we do not have productivity.

One element is R and D and the other one is the labour force. We find that our labour force has dropped dramatically in its productivity, by 4%. That is a huge drop for a small country like ours and the reason is that most people in the labour force are working part time. I know the government likes to stand up here and boast about its flex-time and how everyone is working, albeit part time, and they are sharing jobs. We cannot share jobs and still be productive. Unemployment is high in terms of full-time jobs in this country. We need full-time workers, pulling their weight, moving forward.

We also find that men with post-secondary education in this country are more likely to be hired than women with an equivalent education. That is because women cannot enter the workforce unless they have childcare and early childhood education help so they can go into the workforce. The government thinks all of that is a waste of time, so the government is not investing in its people and in its productivity. If we are not productive, we cannot be competitive.

We are dropping in terms of competitiveness, as I said before. In R and D we have dropped badly while India and China, with whom we are looking to trade, have increased their R and D budgets by 7%. They are moving forward to build a skilled workforce. We find that money spent on training in this country is down since the Liberal government left. We have dropped. Everyone is coasting on the Liberal policy of regulating the banks and this is not good enough. There is no vision or movement forward.

Creating a country that is productive and competitive, that has a strong economic base and is moving forward means that we have to invest in people. As a small nation, even though we do have some natural resources, that is finite. We need to invest in infinity, which is our people. It means creating opportunity. It means educating them. It means keeping them healthy. It means training them. None of that is happening. It means being competitive. The Prime Minister has said “no” to any aerospace development. We used to be a big player in aerospace, so we find that nothing is happening with the government.

Before I finish, I want to move the following amendment, seconded by the member for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville. I move that all the words after Prime Minister in this motion be deleted and be replaced by the following: Immediately call a federal–provincial meeting on the economy.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

In order to move an amendment to an opposition day motion, one needs the agreement of the mover or, in their absence, the House leader or Whip. Does the NDP House leader agree to the amendment?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It would be awfully nice, in a motion that is dealing with consultation with other parties, if the Liberal Party had chosen to actually consult with us before introducing its motion. There is no agreement.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

There is no agreement for the amendment.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a specific question for my friend from Vancouver Centre.

We are talking about the economy and the role the federal government can play in such a question. There has been some confusion as to the federal Liberal Party's stand on the northern gateway pipeline project as it is proposed.

The Conservative government has already decided that the pipeline should go, regardless of the environmental considerations of the first nation opposition. The Liberal Party initially took a strong stand in this regard, but has since had its interim leader out in our province saying that perhaps there is a more nuanced position.

I am wondering if she can offer us any enlightenment as we seek to have a balance between an effective economy and one that respects our environmental considerations and our obligations to the first nations people of Canada.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question but I think it was the Liberal Party when we were in government that moved forward to create the Kyoto and Rio agreements and all of those international agreements we had on the environment. We were spearheading that.

Indeed, our position on the gateway has not changed. We are saying that unlike the NDP—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.