House of Commons Hansard #2 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was jobs.

Topics

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

11:45 a.m.

Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, I welcome back my critic across the way.

It is no secret that our government has been focused on job creation. We have seen the history. We know that jobs are what matters to Canadians. We know that economic growth is what matters to Canadians. We understand that the economic growth is going to create jobs.

Unlike the New Democratic Party, our government is not planning just to increase the public sector and say we have now created jobs. We are building and creating. We are helping to foster an environment that is conducive to the private sector creating jobs. We realize that, if jobs are going to last, they are going to be created by small and medium-sized business. We understand that in small-town Saskatchewan, Alberta, Nova Scotia and all across the country, small and medium-sized businesses are the drivers of job creation. That is what we are continuing to work on.

Even though the global economy remains fragile, as the member mentioned, especially in the United States and Europe, our economic policies have helped protect Canada and helped with the more than one million new jobs that have been created. As I said In my speech, by far the majority of those jobs are full-time jobs in high-paying industries.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Scott Brison Liberal Kings—Hants, NS

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the minister on his new responsibilities.

Today there are 224,000 fewer jobs for young Canadians than before the economic downturn. This high unemployment threatens to rob a generation of Canadians of their potential to contribute and grow in the Canadian economy. Middle-class parents and grandparents are contributing financially to help subsidize this generation, which is why we see record high levels of personal debt. In fact, 43% of Canadian middle-class families have actually had their twenty-something youth living at home for extended periods of time and have been supporting them financially because they cannot support themselves.

Given the challenges faced by young Canadians and middle-class Canadians, why in the throne speech did the Conservatives promise to help Canadians find Franklin but not help young Canadians find jobs and opportunity?

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Crowfoot, AB

I also thank you for your congratulations and wishing me all the best luck in this position—

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

NDP

The Deputy Speaker NDP Joe Comartin

Order, please. I know we are back and just starting, but I remind hon. members to address all comments to the Chair and not to individual members of Parliament please.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, in response to the question that came from my colleague across the way, Canada is well positioned.

We talk about more job creation, and that is what we are focusing in on. We understand that if we are going to have jobs for our young Canadians there are a number of things that we need to do. First, we need to improve innovation. When we have innovation and when we have new jobs being created because of innovation, generally speaking it is the youth, the younger people, the educated, who those jobs will be available for. Innovation is going to be very key.

Canada is well positioned because, as members know, Canada has one of the best educated labour forces in the world. There are still too many people without jobs, but going forward, especially in a fragile global economy, those countries that have a highly skilled labour force are those countries that are going to succeed and prosper.

That is what the government is committed to. The government is committed to skills training. The government is committed to providing opportunities for young Canadians, men, women, aboriginals, all sectors, to get the proper education for those jobs, which are going to be available, tomorrow's jobs. We are well positioned. We continue to look to innovation and to education. We continue to look to reinvestment back into businesses, and to businesses' reinvestment back into their own businesses to help create those jobs.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC

Mr. Speaker, I will congratulate my friend on his posting and I will wish him luck, because he is going to need it as the backup to the Minister of Finance while Canadians are experiencing these incredibly difficult times with the highest personal household debt in Canadian history.

I counted because this was important. I noticed it was three and a half minutes before the first partisan attack in his speech started. It seems that if the government put as much energy into focusing on restoring Canada's strength, particularly in the manufacturing sector, and into helping young Canadians find the jobs that they need, as it does on attacking the opposition with made-up, make-believe ideas about what we propose and do not propose for the Canadian people, it might get somewhere.

There are 350,000 missing manufacturing jobs in Canada since before the recession. The government can put out all the numbers it wants, but that is the reality. Replacing those jobs with service industry jobs does not create the kind of wealth that Canadians are looking for.

There was $150 million-plus wasted in self-promotion advertising, interrupting hockey games and soap operas, which the government somehow thinks is good for the Canada economy. It thinks that spin is going to make a job become a reality and that partisan attacks are going to get to the solution. They are not. The member needs all the congratulations and help he can get, because the Conservative government has consistently shown a prejudice and a bias toward helping those who do not need the help, and a complete ignorance and an attitude of despair toward those Canadians who are struggling to just get by.

We know, because it is in the numbers that Stats Can reports every year, that the income gap is growing every year in Canada under the current government and the previous government. That is what has to change. Poverty affects all of us, each and every one of us. The government simply has no response, other than promising to buy jets that we do not need and that do not work, building jails rather than solving the problems of crime, and not dealing with the environment in a sustainable and prosperous way.

If the government would address some of those things and drop the partisan attacks, Canadians would be more encouraged and feeling more hopeful about the future.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, I would certainly apologize if the member feels that I made a partisan attack. The opposition stands and offers policy, and then six months later the same policy it offered becomes a partisan attack against them if we use their policy.

Thanks to Canada's economic action plan, Canada has enjoyed strong economic performance during both the recession and the recovery. Over a million new jobs were created. Let us think about it, nearly 90% are full-time jobs and over 80% of those full-time jobs are in the private sector, since July 2009. Everywhere we look, the IMF, the OECD, any international agency that looks to Canada looks with optimism. They say Canada is the place to be in the future. The only ones who have dismal, pessimistic views of Canada seem to be across the way. I am sorry to state the obvious. It is not a partisan attack.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

11:55 a.m.

Outremont Québec

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDPLeader of the Opposition

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by welcoming back all members of Parliament, except one.

I am glad to have this opportunity to talk about the Conservatives' dismal record on the economy. It has been over 120 days since the House last sat. It has been over 160 days since the Prime Minister showed up for work more than five times. We have some questions for that Prime Minister.

Here in Ottawa, we have a government on its way out that is shirking its responsibilities. Five weeks ago, the Prime Minister locked up Parliament yet again. Since 2006, the Prime Minister has prorogued Parliament for a total of 181 days, which is a record for a prime minister in this day and age. It is even worse than Jean Chrétien's record at the height of the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

This fall, the Conservatives have done nothing for Canadians, nothing to help the unemployed find full-time work, nothing to help families reduce their debt, nothing to reverse the worrying trend of climate change and nothing to improve railway safety.

We all know the reason that the Prime Minister has been avoiding questions. We all know why Parliament was prorogued. We all know why the return of the House was delayed for another five weeks. We all know why he got on Con Air and sneaked off to Brussels. In a word: corruption.

There are now eight senators facing allegations of wrongdoing and in one case already a conviction. Five of those senators are Conservatives and all five named by the current Prime Minister.

Senate corruption is not just a Conservative issue. It really is an issue that involves the two old parties: the Conservatives and the Liberals.

First, there are the Conservative senators: Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau. Then, there is Liberal senator Mac Harb. They are all being investigated by none other than the RCMP for illegal travel and housing claims.

Conservative senator Carolyn Stewart-Olsen and Liberal senator Rod Zimmer are being investigated by the Senate's board of internal economy. We cannot forget about Conservative senator Leo Housakos who was charged with violating the Canada Elections Act, or Liberal senator Raymond Lavigne who is still having his housing costs paid by Ottawa because he is sitting in jail in the nation's capital.

Canadians have every right to be angry, and not just because of prorogation. Over the past year, they have witnessed a sorry spectacle in which the Prime Minister's Office has tried pitifully and desperately to hide a senator's corruption. The Prime Minister continues to claim that nothing has changed. For once, he is right.

This lack of transparency and culture of entitlement is the Prime Minister's political modus operandi; yet, he promised to put an end to the Liberal way of doing things. Now, in fact, it is worse.

Canadians are sick and tired of corruption and scandal. They are sick and tired of the revolving red and blue doors of Liberal and Conservative entitlement and corruption. Canadians have had enough. The fact is that Ottawa is broken and the NDP is the only party that Canadians can trust to fix it.

Now of course Conservative corruption and scandal does not end with the Senate. The Prime Minister's parliamentary secretary has been formally charged for taking and for making illegal campaign contributions. The Prime Minister's chief of staff is under investigation for paying hush money to a sitting Conservative senator. Three other officials in the Prime Minister's office are refusing to answer questions about their own involvement in that very same payoff. Senator Irving Gerstein, the chief financial officer of the Conservative Party, is not only accused of knowing about that payoff but of approving it as well, at least until he found out just how much money it would take to buy the silence of Mike Duffy.

The list of Conservative scandal and corruption just does not end. In 2012, the Prime Minister's special adviser Bruce Carson was charged with influence peddling. In 2011, four top Conservative Party officials were charged in the in-and-out scandal. In 2006, the party president and the party's national director admitted to making a secret $50,000 payment to get rid of an inconvenient Conservative Party candidate. Finally, who could forget that in 2005, the Prime Minister's top strategist, Tom Flanagan, offered “financial considerations” to a sitting member of Parliament in exchange for his support in Parliament.

All in all, under the Prime Minister 17 senators and top party officials have been accused of ripping off taxpayers, breaking election laws or making secret backroom payoffs. They are not low-level staff or minor functionaries gone rogue. These are senators that the Prime Minister appointed himself. They are members of his chosen inner circle, 17 of them in all.

This all leads to two very simple questions. First, how did so many people so close to the Prime Minister all get the same impression that corrupt behaviour of this sort is acceptable to the Prime Minister? Second, when will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility for the climate of corruption he created?

And on the second day, he went to Brussels. He did not even make it to the seventh day.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister tried to change the channel on all of this. He asked Canadians to forget about the scandals and mismanagement that are plaguing his government. He tried to convince them that he has changed. However, watching the Prime Minister sitting there in the Senate yesterday, at the very scene of the crime, with the perps down the hall watching television, I can understand why he wants to change the channel.

I do not think that Canadians are going to forget that easily. In this case, the elephant is the room. If the Prime Minister wants to convince Canadians that he has changed course, if the Prime Minister wants to convince Canadians that he is ready to clean up Ottawa and clean up the corruption in his own caucus, in his own party and in his own office, it will take more than words. It is going to take action.

After each election, a new batch of MPs and staff from all parties arrive here in Ottawa. They all come with the best of intentions, with hope and optimism for the future. However, the old parties have lost something along the way, and things have changed. Their leaders have forgotten whom they came here to serve.

While the old parties fight to protect their well-connected friends, Canadian families are struggling more than ever to get by. From Kamloops to Cape Breton, from Churchill to Chicoutimi, income inequality has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. We are losing the balanced economy that we have built since the Second World War. Canadian household debt has reached record highs. As my hon. colleague just said, hundreds of thousands of well-paying manufacturing jobs are disappearing, and for the first time in Canadian history, middle-class wages are declining steadily. This is the first time that has ever happened.

Over the past 35 years, under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, incomes have increased for the top 20%, but have decreased for everyone else; 80% of Canadians have seen in a drop in their income. Our economy has grown by 147%, yet the real income of the average Canadian family has dropped by 7%.

The Liberals can always hope that Canadians will forget their poor record. They can always hope that time will erase those memories, but it will not be that easy. Listen to this, Mr. Speaker: over the same 35 years, 94% of the rise in income inequality in Canada, in our society, happened under Liberal governments. The House heard correctly: the Liberal Party of Canada is responsible for 94% of that growing gap. Because of Liberal neglect, an entire generation of middle-class families is on the verge of bankruptcy, crushed under the weight of their household debt.

At the end of last year, Canadians' household debt reached 166% of disposable income. It may be hard to believe, but this record high is all too real. Canada's total household debt is dangerously close to the peak levels prevailing in the United States just before the 2008 economic crisis. Indeed, the Bank of Canada is now referring to this debt as the “biggest domestic risk" to the Canadian economy.

This is more than a burden on Canadian families; it is a threat to our entire economy. However, all the Conservatives have to say to the millions of families struggling to make ends meet is that they have to make do with less—their children have to make do with less.

A tiny minority of Canadians are getting ahead while more and more people are falling behind. The cost of living keeps rising while good jobs continue to vanish.

Our party can do better, and we will do better, because Canadians deserve better.

What has the Conservative response been? Tinkering with a mortgage rule here and saying that they will adjust a lending practice there: too little, too late.

Conservatives have done nothing to rein in the high cost of living for families. They have done nothing to guarantee retirement security for our seniors. They have watched a generation of middle-class jobs disappear, but they have done nothing to create the next generation of middle-class jobs.

We can do better and we will do better because Canadians deserve better.

We are going to rise to meet this challenge. If we are going to start to close the growing gap created by successive Liberal and Conservative governments, we will have to address all sides of the ledger. That means making life more affordable for families. It means helping workers save and invest for their retirement. It means creating high-quality middle-class jobs.

Yesterday, in the throne speech, Conservatives pretended to adopt some parts of the NDP's consumer-first agenda. Unfortunately, we have heard these words before from Conservatives with nothing to show for it but more broken promises.

Were Conservatives putting the consumers first when they let credit card companies regulate themselves with a voluntary code of conduct? Or when they enacted a wireless code that did nothing to create new competition or lower cellphone rates?

Were Conservatives protecting airline passengers when they voted, twice, against the NDP's airline passenger bill of rights?

Were they protecting families when they let meat packing plants perform their own safety inspections? Or when they allowed one-person crews to operate freight trains carrying highly dangerous materials?

This selective enforcement of the law is not just applied in the private sector either. Conservatives have cut $250 million and 3,000 staff from the Canada Revenue Agency. They have eliminated the special team of tax auditors at the CRA who were responsible for investigating organized crime. Little wonder that they sent a $400,000 cheque to a mafia boss, while he was in prison, who owed $1.5 million. That is the Conservative record. Maybe it is because they are planning to make him a senator.

The Conservatives have actually opposed international efforts to crack down on tax havens at the G8. Not surprisingly, today, Canada is losing as much as $5 billion to $8 billion a year in government revenue to international tax havens alone.

The fact is whether it is food inspection and rail safety or consumer protection and cracking down on tax cheats, the leadership role that governments once took to protect public interests now takes a back seat to private interests.

The Conservatives, much like the Liberals before them, heeded the siren call of what is called deregulation.

They dismantled the measures in place to protect the public interest, relying instead on the industries to regulate themselves. They applied this approach across the board.

Budget cuts of $46 million to food security were followed by the largest recall of contaminated meat in Canada's history. In aviation safety, airline standards for the number of flight attendants required on board WestJet flights were lowered against the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, jeopardizing passenger safety.

I can mention another tragic event that could have been prevented. This summer, 47 people died after a train loaded with highly volatile shale oil derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic. Experts from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, the TSB, and Transport Canada are studying what part decades of deregulation might have played in this tragedy.

Where governments once took a leadership role in protecting the public interest, now they protect only private interests. In so doing, they have sacrificed our long-term prosperity for their own short-term political gain.

The New Democrats have laid out a clear plan to protect consumers and to make life more affordable for Canadian families. That means limiting ATM fees, cracking down on payday lenders and giving every Canadian access to at least one no-frills, low-rate credit card. It means protecting small businesses by creating clear rules that prevent credit card companies from using their monopoly power to hit retailers with exorbitant merchant fees. It means protecting drivers from price gouging at the gas pumps. And it means protecting the millions of travellers who are sick and tired of being stuck with the bill for delays and cancellations by passing a real airline passengers bill of rights. Unfortunately, despite their talk, Conservatives have voted against these measures every step of the way. That is their real track record.

Now the Prime Minister stands before Canadians, a man who has run out of ideas, maybe not today standing before Canadians but members understand the notion. He has been reduced to stealing our ideas, a practice he stole from the Liberals. Not only that, he has been reduced to stealing ideas that he has already voted against. Quite frankly, all this is a desperate last-ditch effort to regain the confidence of Canadians. However, it is just too little, it is just too late and it just will not work.

Just to remind our Conservative friends so they are not confused this time, if they want a bill to pass, they actually have to vote for it, not against it.

Just as families across Canada are facing a steep rise in the cost of living, too many are facing a financial cliff as they near retirement. As many as 5.8 million Canadians, nearly a third of our workforce, will see a sharp drop in their standard of living once they retire. For young Canadians, the situation is even more dramatic. By retirement, as many as 60% of young Canadians will face a drop of 20% or more in their quality of life. Without action now, Canada is facing a retirement security crisis. That is a social debt that we are leaving on the backs of future generations, in addition to the financial and ecological debt that the current government is already leaving them.

Yet, instead of action to strengthen pensions, Conservatives are planning to cut $11 billion out of old age security by increasing the retirement age to 67 from 65. I can guarantee that the NDP government in 2015 will put it back to 65.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer reported just two weeks ago that far from putting our financial house in order, the Conservative cuts to old age security had simply downloaded costs to provinces and individuals.

The Minister of Finance promised to meet with his provincial counterparts this summer in order to work on the plan to improve Canada's and Quebec's public pension plans. The Minister of Finance made a formal commitment on behalf of the Canadian government. He made a promise and gave his word. However, even though he had an extra month, the minister did not keep his word. He did not come up with a plan and he did not meet with anyone.

The provincial governments, unions and the largest seniors' organization in Canada all asked the government to move forward with improvements to public pension plans, but the government did nothing. Even the president and CEO of CIBC said that the government must do its part to find a solution to the retirement security crisis. Many people are convinced that the improvement of public pensions cannot be avoided. By dragging their feet, the Conservatives are creating uncertainty for businesses, governments and individuals.

For that reason, my colleagues from Parkdale—High Park and Victoria, our finance and pension critics, wrote to the Minister of Finance last month to ask him why he did not keep his word, why he did not hold this meeting and why he broke his promises to Canadian seniors. They asked him to hold a meeting and cover the shortfall created by years of Liberal and Conservative cuts so that Canadians can retire with dignity.

What was the Minister of Finance's response? Absolute silence, nothing. Canadians deserve better. Canadians deserve answers and here, in Parliament, the NDP will go after those answers.

Today, in 2013, there are still nearly 300,000 more Canadians unemployed than before the recession. Of the 280,000 jobs that young people lost during that recession, only 50,000 have been recovered. In Toronto alone this is an incredible statistic. In Toronto alone, a staggering 50% of workers cannot find a stable full-time job. Instead, they are forced to rely on part-time jobs, split shifts and precarious contract work. Parents are seeing less and less of each other and children and families are paying the price.

Conservatives have repeatedly missed their own targets for economic growth and on the heels of hitting a new record for household debt reported just last month, the International Monetary Fund has now just downgraded its projections for Canadian economic growth once again. The Conservative's solution to all this: spend $100 million of taxpayer money on economic action plan advertising. That is their solution. Canadians deserve better.

Canadians deserve a government with a plan to create jobs for our young people instead of one that accepts a youth unemployment rate that is double the national average.

Canadians deserve a government that understands the key role that cities play in economic growth and job creation instead of one that cuts $6 billion in local infrastructure funding, as Conservatives did in their last budget despite their promises to the contrary.

Canadians deserve a government that understands that the only way to increase wealth in a society is to increase knowledge instead of one that slashes tax credits for research and development, hampering innovation.

Canadians deserve a government that works together with the provinces to strengthen skills instead of one that tries to impose its will on the provinces from Ottawa.

They deserve a government that has a long-term vision for developing our natural resources instead of a government with a reckless rip and ship approach to resource development, an approach that does nothing to protect our own energy security or help create value-added jobs.

Canadians deserve a government that is focused on creating the next generation of middle-class jobs in every region, in every sector, a government that will create a fairer, greener, more prosperous Canada for all. An NDP government will do that in 2015.

However, clearly this is not a government focused on building a Canada that is more prosperous for everyone, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the government's approach to first nations, Inuit, and Metis people. It has been five years since the historic residential school apology on the floor of the House of Commons, five years since the Prime Minister promised to renew our nation-to-nation relationship with first nations, Inuit, and Metis people, but what we have seen since that day is, unfortunately, more of the same: more broken promises, more delays, more cheap talk.

For far too long Liberal and Conservative governments have failed indigenous peoples in Canada. There has been no partnership, no real consultation, no recognition, and no respect, even though our Constitution and international law require them. Instead, all we have seen from Liberal and Conservative governments to this day is the same old paternalistic father-knows-best approach.

This summer I visited with aboriginal leaders at the First Nations Summit in British Columbia. These are first nations leaders who have tried to take a constructive approach to treaty negotiations with this Conservative government, but who simply do not have a willing partner sitting at the table across from them.

They have seen government representatives sent to negotiate with a take-it-or-leave-it proposal rather than a real mandate for dialogue. They have seen the federal government threaten to simply walk away from the table if its demands are not met. They have seen demands to renounce and extinguish their inherent rights as the price of reaching a deal, a practice so egregious that it has been denounced by the United Nations itself. All of this has resulted in a treaty process that has become so slow that it sometimes seems as if it has ground to a halt.

As BC Treaty Commission chair Sophie Pierre has said, this failed approach has not only produced delays and distrust but has left a growing number of B.C. first nations drowning in debt. First nations are being asked to mortgage their children's future just to protect their children's inherent rights. This is not just wrong, it is shameful.

We are living in an era of innovation that is unlike anything we have seen in Canadian history. Human capacity is greater than ever and the potential to maximize that capacity is unprecedented. Our capacity and potential are not lacking. What is lacking is political will.

The NDP believes in a Canada where people who work hard and play by the rules will succeed. We believe in a government in Ottawa that puts the public interest ahead of its own interests.

I can guarantee that the only powerful interest any member of an NDP government will ever serve is that of the people.

We in the NDP believe that we must give Canadians the support they need and are entitled to receive not only to survive, but also to prosper in a 21st-century, knowledge-based economy.

What does that mean? It means targeted tax relief for companies that create jobs and train young workers, rather than across-the-board tax breaks for companies that are shipping our jobs overseas.

Throughout the summer, I met with young people who, instead of having found the type of full-time, stable employment that our generation had, are being forced to take low-paying jobs and precarious contract work. It is shameful.

Today's young people are better educated and more dynamic than ever, but can we honestly say that we are giving them the same opportunities our parents gave us? I doubt it.

As a generation of middle-class jobs disappeared, what did we do to create the next generation of middle-class jobs?

This fall, New Democrats will continue to focus on protecting Canadians from the unfair practices of credit card companies and payday lenders, as well as from excessive ATM fees.

New Democrats will keep fighting for a Canadian energy strategy that will create value-added jobs, contribute to our energy security and protect the environment.

Government after government, whether Liberal or Conservative, failed to take action on climate change. That is endangering not only our environment but also our entire economy. It is time to come up with a new plan, a new way of doing things, a new direction forward.

It is true that the challenges before us sometimes seem too great. To rise to these challenges, we need more than words, more than the Conservatives' constant cheap talk. New Democrats know that we are up to the task and that, unlike the old-guard parties, we will get it done.

I move, seconded by the member for Parkdale—High Park:

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after “job creation; and” and replacing them with the following:

(b) condemn the Conservatives' economic record, which has resulted in over 1.3 million unemployed Canadians, drastic cuts to employment insurance, growing inequality and the downloading of billions of dollars of costs to individuals and other levels of government; and

(c) call on the government to introduce a real plan to create high-quality jobs and combat stagnating wages, provide tax incentives targeted to hire young Canadians, improve retirement security through increased Canada pension plan/Quebec pension plan benefits, and reduce credit card fees charged to small businesses and Canadian families.

Together, we will get it done.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, following the speech by the leader of the official opposition, we do need to get a sense of a reality check. I find it somewhat interesting that he likes to tie the Conservatives and the Liberals together, which is why I say it is time for a reality check here.

The Leader of the Opposition made reference to aboriginals and stated that there was a failure from the past. He would be familiar with the Kelowna accord. It was a huge accomplishment that first nations, aboriginal peoples, and different levels of government came on side to support, but in fact the Conservatives and the NDP got together to defeat the Kelowna accord.

When we talk about Liberal Party history, let us refer to some of the positives. At times the leader can get somewhat angry if we refer too much to the positive measures that take place inside the House of Commons. However, let us look at the social programs, such as pension programs and health care programs; they are all wonderful programs that were brought in by the Liberal Party of Canada.

My question to the member is in relation to sales tax. He points to Manitoba and says that he wants to be like Manitoba because, after all, there is an NDP government in Manitoba. In Manitoba, Premier Greg Selinger stated in an election campaign that he would not increase the provincial sales tax; in the last provincial budget, the NDP increased the provincial sales tax. The hero of the leader of the New Democratic Party, Mr. Greg Selinger, whose government the NDP always points its finger to, has—

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

Order. Before I go to the leader of the official opposition, when he completed his speech, he moved an amendment. Unfortunately, the Chair was in a conversation with one of the clerks at that point. I am wondering if, in order to clarify, the hon. leader could read the amendment one more time. I apologize.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, the amendment states:

That the motion be amended by deleting all of the words after “job creation; and” and replacing them with the following:

(b) condemn the Conservatives' economic record, which has resulted in over 1.3 million unemployed Canadians, drastic cuts to Employment Insurance, growing inequality and the downloading of billions of dollars of costs to individuals and other levels of government; and

That will be part of our answer for our friend from Winnipeg, so that works out well.

The amendment continues:

(c) call on the government to introduce a real plan to create high-quality jobs and combat stagnating wages, provide tax incentives targeted to hire young Canadians, improve retirement security through increased Canada Pension Plan/Quebec Pension Plan benefits, and reduce credit card fees charged to small businesses and Canadian families.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin

The amendment is in order.

At this point, with my apologies for having made the mistake, the hon. Leader of the Opposition can respond to the question from the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, let me start by telling my hon. colleague that it was with a bit of surprise that we heard him use the term “the aboriginals” in referring to first nations, Inuit, and Metis Canadians.

Let us also deal with the substance of what appears to be his question. He takes umbrage with the fact that we say that the Liberals did nothing on first nations issues, but he has pointed to an accord that came in after 13 years of a majority government. I know a little about that accord, because I was sitting in Quebec City at the time and I knew exactly about it. It was a stunt before the election. There was no money associated with it, and it was never intended to do everything. After 13 years of doing nothing, it was a political stunt on the eve of an election.

After 13 years of majority rule, there was nothing on daycare. There were 13 years of majority rule. When the hon. member talks about tax increases, I am sure he is referring to Chairman Chrétien's little red book, in which he promised to get rid of the GST. We can ask Sheila Copps; she knows all about that. That is called a broken promise.

When they asked Chrétien how he could promise to get rid of the GST and then look Canadians in the eye, what did he say? “You must be kidding. I never intended to do that.”

The Liberals balanced the books by downloading billions in expenses in health care and education onto the provinces. That is the Liberal record. It is the same as the Conservative record. That is why we need an NDP government in Canada.

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the leader of the NDP for that rousing explanation to Canadians as to why they need to vote for the real choice, the NDP, in the next federal election.

I heard him quite eloquently say in his remarks that middle-class families are getting squeezed more and more by this government, as they were by previous Liberal governments, and that household debt has skyrocketed to near-record highs.

Shockingly, the government did not even mention household debt in its throne speech. In the past it has done some minor tinkering to reverse some very reckless changes that it made to mortgage rules in the country, but other than that it has done nothing to deal with household debt. It was not even mentioned in the throne speech.

Would the hon. leader of the NDP care to hazard a guess as to why that would be?

Canadian EconomyGovernment Orders

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, the reason, as far as we are concerned, is that the Conservatives simply do not understand the problem.

It is worth reminding Canadians that Canada is one of the countries that has seen the largest and sharpest increase in inequality. In other words, the richest have gotten far richer, and far faster, than in other countries, and everyone else is lagging behind.

It is also worth noting that if we go back over a 35-year period, 94% of that increase in inequality in Canada was during Liberal governments. The Liberals are actually worse than the Conservatives with regard to increases in inequality in our country. OECD statistics show that Canadian families support the largest household debt in the OECD; that is because of decades of incompetence and not taking care of Canadians by successive Conservative and Liberal governments. We will start changing that in 2015.

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12:35 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the official opposition seems to be stuck on the past. As Canadians are listening in and thinking about the future, they want to see a sense of hope that the country is moving in the right direction. They want to get a better sense that the politicians in the House of Commons are in fact reaching out and listening, engaging Canadians in a very real and tangible way, and coming up with ideas that are going to make a difference and provide that hope going into the future. That is something the Liberal Party is committed to doing.

My question to the leader of the official opposition is this: does he believe, as the Liberals believe, that it is time to start getting over the past, focus our attention on the future and bring forward ideas that will address issues such as our middle class?

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12:35 p.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, that speaks volumes about the Liberals' desire to forget about their track record, their broken promises, and their impressive ability to decode what Canadians want to hear, to tell them they are going to do that, and then to do the exact opposite once they are elected. We are not going to let Canadians forget the broken promises on everything from the GST to Kyoto.

It was not I who said that they signed Kyoto as a public relations stunt; Eddie Goldenberg admitted as much. That is why the Liberals went on to have one of the worst records in the world on greenhouse gas reduction. That is the tragic Liberal record: decoding what people want to hear on the environment, on daycare, on first nations issues, and on getting rid of the GST, and then once they are in power, they do whatever they want. When they have gotten what they wanted, which is power, they forget about Canadians.

The NDP will stay there, remain faithful to its promises, and take care of Canadians.

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12:35 p.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Mr. Speaker, there could not be a starker contrast between what the Minister of State for Finance laid out as the Conservative vision, specifically restraint and cuts to public services and social programs such as EI, and the vision of hope and optimism that the Leader of the Opposition shared with us.

I would like to go back to the issue of consumer protection. Yesterday we heard the Speech from the Throne, in which the Conservatives tried to portray themselves as consumer advocates. However, they poached several NDP ideas, such as eliminating some companies' fees for paper billing and the polluter-pays principle, which the Leader of the Opposition has championed since he was elected and became party leader.

I would therefore like to hear what the Leader of the Opposition has to say about the NDP's approach to consumer protection and how it compares to what the Conservative government has presented so far.

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12:35 p.m.

NDP

Thomas Mulcair NDP Outremont, QC

Mr. Speaker, we must remind Canadians that every time the Conservatives had the opportunity to do more than just talk about protecting the public by passing a bill, they voted against it. Not once but twice, we introduced a bill to protect air passengers and they voted against it. Over the weekend, they put the Minister of Industry on the air to say that this would be in the throne speech, yet there was not a word about it in the speech.

We made the same suggestion as the government with respect to the $2 charge to get a paper copy of a bill. My colleague from Sudbury shared that suggestion in writing with the Conservatives, who laughed in our faces. They made this suggestion in yesterday's speech, but it has no credibility.

In conclusion, my colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour introduced Bill C-540, an act to amend the Criminal Code respecting the non-consensual making or distributing of intimate images. This was in response to the Rehtaeh Parsons tragedy. If the Conservatives are honest and sincere, they will pass this bill—which is already drafted and ready to go—right away. We will see whether or not that happens. If not, we will know that everything else is nothing but a farce, a fantasy, an illusion, and it all means nothing. This will be even more proof that the Conservatives and the Liberals are no different: they make empty promises to get elected and then do nothing for the public.

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12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take part in this debate. Let me start by stating my disappointment that we are not actually debating the Speech from the Throne.

Instead, we are having a short debate on the self-congratulatory motion from the government. After eight years, we have grown used to that tone. More troubling, it is again limiting the opportunity for members of all parties to participate in a debate on the government's agenda.

One of the things I have seen across the country is disappointment that the government does not even respect its own members of Parliament. Canadians elected MPs to represent their voice in Ottawa. Instead, what they got is the Prime Minister's voice in their constituencies.

That the government is denying the traditional role for its own back bench to speak on the throne speech is only the latest example.

That is not what Canadians expect from MPs. Like many of my colleagues, I spent the summer meeting with Canadians. I spent time with my family at home in Montreal and with my constituents in Papineau. I visited over 60 major centres, cities and towns, where I spoke with teachers, truckers, farmers and small-business owners about their concerns.

It is wonderful to have the opportunity to meet with Canadians, speak with them, listen to them and learn more about the challenges they face. It is a privilege that we share here and I hope to be able to do them justice today.

A recurring theme of the hundreds of in-person discussions I had with people is that Canadians feel as though they have been abandoned by this government. Although it is great to get out there and hear honest feedback, that feedback is hard to hear for anyone who cares about public service.

The more I listened, the more it became obvious that it was not easy for Canadians to talk about either. There is cynicism now, but it is not what we Canadians like to feel. It is not who we are, when we are engaged and connected with people. These stirrings of mistrust and suspicion just do not sit well with Canadians. However, at the same time, I get it. It is hard not to feel disappointed in one's government when every day there is a new scandal, another lapse in judgment.

Canadians are being led by a government that says it is committed to accountability and transparency, but that same government has lost five caucus members to scandal. The Prime Minister's Office remains under RCMP criminal investigation for a $90,000 cheque written to a sitting legislator. The former chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee is charged with fraud, abuse of trust and money laundering. The member for Peterborough, until this past summer the Prime Minister's own parliamentary secretary, has been charged with four counts of breaking election laws. Those are just the ones we know about.

The individuals in question can resign from the Prime Minister's Office or be told to leave caucus; they can even flee extradition in Panama. However, the Prime Minister put them there. He gave them an opportunity to abuse the public trust. He thought they were worthy and, one by one, they are proving him wrong. What does that say about the Prime Minister's judgment?

I understand that Canadians are disappointed and that they feel abandoned. It is only natural when, day after day, people realize that their trust is being broken and that their hopes have been misplaced.

The Speech from the Throne that we heard yesterday was an opportunity for the government to get back on track and regain the confidence of Canadians. What the government told us yesterday can be grouped into two categories: hot air and background noise.

The priorities they identified are fine as far as they go, but they do not go very far. Canadians need more job opportunities, better job opportunities, not a jobs grant that has been rejected by all 10 provinces because it demands extra funding from stretched provincial budgets. Canadians need to feel that their priorities are the government's priorities, that their interests get more attention and air time than the government's desperate attempts at self-preservation. Where is the plan to attract investment to this country, to create good middle-class jobs? Instead, the government turns investment away with its Keystone Kops approach to policy.

Where is the plan for our youth when this so-called economic recovery is practically non-existent for them? Where is the plan for middle-class Canadians who are being crushed under a record level of debt, debt they acquired to keep this country afloat during the economic crisis? All they are seeing from this government is a crass attempt to take credit for their work, their entrepreneurial spirit, and their willingness to take risks.

These are difficult problems to solve. The government has grown so long in the tooth, so tired, that it seems it cannot even be bothered to try. Instead, we get policies focused on bringing the CRTC firmly into the 1990s. Instead of a forward-looking approach to data and telecom, we get a smattering of policies that the government itself rejected in the past. In a world of Apple TV, YouTube, Netflix and big data, the Conservative government is still looking under the couch for the remote control. No wonder it is having such trouble changing the channel.

To Canadians, I say there is much more to the government's agenda than what they heard yesterday afternoon. As Conservatives approach their party's Halloween convention in the great city of Calgary, they are once again putting on a costume, but really just revealing how out of touch they are with Canadians. Their environment minister doubts climate change, questioning evidence about melting summer sea ice in her own constituency.

Their development minister indicated that the government will not provide funding for any more projects to help war rape victims or young girls who are forced into marriage.

Their health minister is opposing the decisions of her own department's doctors and health care professionals.

Their anglophone ministers are criticizing the PQ government's plan to legislate minority rights, while the minister responsible for Quebec is saying that there is nothing that upsets him in that plan.

These are not rogue members of Parliament. These are cabinet ministers, the most senior elected officials, hand-picked by the Prime Minister. Their positions—climate change denial, a crackdown on reproductive rights, denying Canadians medical treatment, finding no fault with an attack on individual rights and freedoms—are an affront to Canadian values.

Canadians elected the government to represent their interests, but one thing has become perfectly clear: the Conservative government serves only its own interests. It has only one goal, and its goal is not to serve Canadians. The Conservative government is a political government staring down an unending series of political problems, and it is responding the only way it knows how, with political solutions, and none of it is helping our struggling middle class.

Our economy has more than doubled in size in the past 30 years. Who has benefited from that growth? Not the middle class. Despite all of our economic progress as a country, middle-class families have not had a real raise in decades.

As incomes have stagnated and costs of key items like post-secondary education and transportation have risen far faster than inflation, Canadian households have had to shoulder more and more debt. As a share of disposable income, our households are now more in debt than even those in the United States.

Members of the middle class are now worried—and rightly so—about the fact that no matter how hard they work, they will not be able to give their children the same opportunities their parents gave them.

Canadians struggling to get by on lower incomes are also worried about this. They are watching the dream of hard work being rewarded by upward mobility go up in smoke.

The success of the middle class is vital even to more fortunate Canadians. Until the government recognizes that a strong economy is one that provides the greatest number of quality jobs to the greatest number of Canadians, economic growth policies are likely to lose popular support.

Canadians were promised by those guys, above all else, leadership when it came to the economy. It is what many voted for, but what are the results?

First, growth has been particularly stagnant under the Conservative government. Now in his eighth year in office, the right hon. member for Calgary Southwest has the worst record on growth of any prime minister since R.B. Bennett in the depths of the Great Depression.

Under the Conservative government's self-proclaimed steady hand, we have seen ten consecutive federal budget surpluses turn into seven consecutive deficits.

The government has ballooned our national debt at an unprecedented rate. By the next election, it will have added more than $150 billion in just eight years, according to its own numbers.

The unemployment rate remains unwaveringly higher than it was before the recession hit five years ago, with the youth unemployment rate nearly twice the national average. Unfortunately, our unemployment rate seems to improve only when workers give up and leave the labour market.

We saw this in our own families and in the communities we live in and represent from coast to coast. Meanwhile, the government kept telling us not to worry, that the economy was its priority and that everything was fine.

I think we could handle the hypocrisy if it did not come packaged in a slick marketing campaign that we ourselves, as Canadians, paid for. Do members know what always drives home the government's economic record for me? It is that economic action plan logo. Every time I see it, with three arrows pointed heavenward, I think to myself, “Yup, that's exactly what the economic action plan has delivered: rising debt, rising unemployment, and rising disappointment for Canadians”. That is the economic legacy of the current government.

As I listened to the Speech from the Throne, one word came to mind. It is one I have used to describe the government before. Not surprisingly, it still fits today. That word is “unambitious”.

As I said back in April, this is a government whose primary economic message is, “Well, it could be worse. Be happy you don't live in Spain”.

That attitude is completely out of step with the values of Canadians. The Canadians I spent time with this summer are ambitious. They are not complacent. They are not willing to settle for good enough when they know that better is possible.

That is the profound difference between this government and the people it is supposed to serve. Session after session, this government does everything it can to convince itself that it is impossible to do any better and that expecting more from our leaders and ourselves is a waste of time—naive, even. That may be true of those who have been in power for too long and who are out of touch with reality. They might start to believe that making special, rigged appointments and secret agreements and denying the facts in no uncertain terms is the norm. If so, that kind of vision of the world might very well start making sense.

However, to tell Canadians that their political engagement is futile, that their occupy-activism is empty, that their 1,600-kilometre Idle No More walk, through a Canadian winter, makes no difference, well that kind of defeatism has no place in this House. It has no place in the Canada I know and serve. It has no place in this country whose future we determine together. Canadians expect more, and so they should. They have every right to.

We look forward to having even more conversations with Canadians, to doing our part to restore hope where it is fading. It is time—actually, it is well past time—to return to these great stone buildings the respect, the dignity, the public trust that they deserve.

On top of all that, it is good to be back here.

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12:55 p.m.

NDP

Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB

Mr. Speaker, I listened very closely to the Liberal leader's speech. I remember that in 1994 the Liberals made huge cuts to health care. In the 1980s, the federal government transferred 50% of health care costs to the provinces and, under the Liberals, that dropped to 17%. In 1994, the Liberals slashed money for our lone public radio station, the CBC, by $400 million.

In addition to all that, in 1996, the Liberals made cuts to employment insurance. The Liberal leader spoke about the suffering of middle-class families, but I remember that the Liberals made cuts of not just $57 million, but $57 billion that affected men and women who had lost their jobs.

I want to ask the Liberal leader why, in his speech, he did not talk about employment insurance and the cuts the Conservatives continued to make following the Liberals?

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12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Mr. Speaker, if my friend from Acadie—Bathurst wants to campaign against the 1990s Liberals during the 2015 campaign, I wish him the best of luck.

The Liberals of 2013 to 2015 are steadfastly focused on the future, on middle-class Canadians and the challenges they are facing. We will continue to work hand in hand with Canadians to build a more prosperous, open and secure future. We will not do it through negativity and attacks, but by building together, and I am looking forward to it.

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12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

Mr. Speaker, there were two parts of the hon. member's speech. The end of the speech was about trust and having Canadians trust what is going to be done for them, and as an opposition leader should do, the member criticized the government's plans. However, the only plan we have heard from the third party is that the member would legalize drugs.

Were there any economic plans he would like to share, and build trust with Canadians, that he has developed? Are we waiting? What are we waiting for, or do the Liberals just not have any?

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12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Justin Trudeau Liberal Papineau, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased that after a year and more of my emphasis on the struggles of the middle class in this country, the Conservatives have finally taken note that Canadians are hurting. The Conservatives are so incredibly out of touch, arrogant and disconnected that they think that throwing a few little baubles at Canadians to buy them off with their own money is going to be enough to respond to the very real anxieties Canadians feel about where we are going as a country.

What we did not hear yesterday was any sort of vision or plan for how the country is going to be built stronger and better. That is where my commitment to reaching a 70% attainment rate for post-secondary education and my commitment to open and transparent measures around trade and foreign investment, which the current government has bungled entirely over the past months, demonstrate that Canadians need to be served by a better government with truer priorities than the government is providing.

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1 p.m.

Liberal

Rodger Cuzner Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my leader on the job he has done, not only on his speech but certainly on connecting with and listening to Canadians over the last number of months, because obviously we saw none of that reflected in the Speech from the Throne.

My good friend from Acadie—Bathurst made a comment about cuts to employment insurance. One thing we did during that time was take down the unemployment rate. When the Liberals took over in 1993, the unemployment rate was at 12.5%. The inflation rate was in the double digits. Interest rates were in the double digits. It was a mess.

We see that the number of Canadians who are working for minimum wage has doubled under the tenure of the current Prime Minister, and we see that the Canada jobs grant is being laughed at by seven out of ten provinces. Did the leader think that at least there would be some kind of mention in the throne speech as to how the Conservatives could fix the mess they created with the Canada jobs grant?