Debates of Oct. 28th, 2013

Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2

[Françoise Boivin, NDP, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will try not to go over my speaking time.

I found the hon. member's speech very interesting. I am particularly interested in clauses 471 and 472 of Bill C-4, because they deal with the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court.

I would quickly like to correct a statement my colleague made. The proceedings of the committee, which includes members from all the recognized parties in the House, and the votes in this committee, are confidential. We had to sign confidentiality orders, so we cannot disclose how the vote was held and we certainly cannot assume that one or the other party voted in favour of the appointment of Mr. Nadon just because his name was selected.

Furthermore, there is an even more significant issue. How does my colleague explain that the government can, by means of Bill C-4, especially clauses 471 and 472, which are the subject of the second reference to the Supreme Court—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order. The hon. member for Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia has the floor.

[Jean-François Fortin, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we could easily avoid any ambiguity or problems, like the appointment of Justice Nadon, by simply referring to the Government of Quebec, which has its own list of eligible candidates.

In this way, I think we would avoid any imbroglio that would ensue from challenges on either side.

Unfortunately, I did not hear the second part of the hon. member's question because her microphone was off.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the question regarding the appointment process.

The other day I had the opportunity to ask a question related to what the minister responsible was saying in the province of Quebec. The question I posed to the Prime Minister was on the importance of being consistent with what we say. For example, if we are saying something to the francophone media, it should be consistent with what we would say in English to the anglophone media. There is a responsibility for the government to do just that.

I wonder if the member would like to provide some sort of comment on the consistency in what is being said in different regions of the country on important issues such as this.

[Jean-François Fortin, Bloc, Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. He put his finger right on the problem.

The Conservative government is visiting the regions of Canada and talking out of both sides of its mouth. In Quebec, it is trying to minimize the impact of Justice Nadon's appointment. The Government of Quebec, as well as all of the parties represented in the National Assembly, have made the point that the future justice will have a hard time complying with the law and making rulings with the necessary knowledge of Quebec civil law. Quebec has every right to expect this from a Supreme Court judge who will have to make important rulings.

One may wonder why there are three judges. Some cases may be made public and may involve Quebec. Take, for example, the firearms registry, which could eventually end up in this court.

The Conservatives are always saying one thing to Quebec and another to Canada, but we are not fooled. We can see this is going on. With Bill C-4, the Conservatives are trying to legitimize this appointment decision in a roundabout way. However, the fact remains that Justice Nadon is not qualified to sit in Quebec.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-4, the budget implementation act.

For the most hopeful among us, promise was in the air for a little while this past summer. There was talk of reset and of change. It seemed clear enough when this place shut down for the summer last June amid the Senate scandal that there was cause for the Conservative government members to pause and reflect on the way they conduct themselves as government.

I would, however, note that this speech and all speeches on the bill are delivered under time allocation. It is the 50th time the government has moved to limit debate in the House, so there has been no change.

A diagnosis of what is happening to Canadian politics under the current government would identify the same disease infecting all of what the Conservatives do. It is about a lack of transparency, a lack of accountability, and a lack of respect for the process of democratic politics.

Canadians elect us, all of us, to come here to give voice to their concerns and to pursue their wishes on their behalf. When the government will not allow those voices to be heard, what we have at the heart of all of this is a government that does not respect the people whose country this actually is.

Conservatives have become occupiers of the institutions and abusers of the practices that have been established for the collective benefit of all Canadians. We know that these institutions and practices are not perfect and never have been; I would point to the Senate down the hallway. From time to time we need to change so that our institutions and practices keep up with maturing notions of democracy and what best serves that collective benefit.

We would call it modernization, perhaps. Conservatives once called it reform, in a day when we all at least had in common, it seemed, a commitment to transparency and accountability in the institutions of government and the practices of politics.

However, reform has not come from the supposed reformers. Hope has been betrayed by the government again, and there has been more disappointment for any Canadians left whose disposition allows them to remain optimistic about the government.

For those who could not escape the suspicion that the government would not and could not change its ways—and I am among them, unfortunately—the bill we are debating today was so entirely predictable: omnibus in nature, amending 70 pieces of legislation, and burying deep in its 300-plus pages two completely new pieces of legislation. It is legislation, I might add, as with all new legislation, that is worthy in its own right of full debate in this place.

How predictable that one of these pieces of legislation has to do with a gas project. Extraction and the fire sale of Canada's natural resources is all the government knows and all it does in the form of an economic plan. How fitting, especially in light of the evidence emerging every day from the Conservative government with an obsessive-compulsive disorder to control and manipulate, that the Mackenzie gas project impacts fund act would seek to eliminate the independent arm's-length bodies charged with mitigating the socio-economic impacts of the Mackenzie gas project and bring these matters directly under the control of the minister and the government.

Of course, we would not recognize a Conservative budget bill or implementation act without an attack on working people. From the elimination of useful dispute resolution processes to the undermining of health and safety provisions, attacks on workers have become the hallmark of the Conservative budget process. It is attack but never help; destroy but never build.

However, what I want to talk about today is the need to build urban economies and the need to help people who work and look for work in our cities, something Bill C-4 fails to do. I would like to point to a number of recently released studies in the hope of bringing to the attention of the government and Canadians just how far off the mark Bill C-4 is.

One such study, entitled “It's More than Poverty” and carried out by McMaster University and the United Way of Toronto, was released in February of this year. Having found that precarious employment has increased by nearly 50% over the last 20 years, so that barely 50% of people in the study are in jobs that are both permanent and full-time, the authors of this study describe precarious work as “the new normal” for many in the urban workforce.

This new normal is not a good normal. People in precarious work earn 46% less and report household income that is 34% less than those in secure jobs.

Just this month, the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity and the Martin Prosperity Institute, both at the University of Toronto, released a study entitled, “Untapped potential—Creating a better future for service workers”. In this study, the institutes point to the increasing precarity of work in the Toronto labour market, particularly in what they call the routine service sector of the labour market, jobs that account for almost half of Toronto's workforce.

Defining precarious work as work that is temporary, part-time and paying below the low-income cut-off, the institutes note that the number of routine service jobs that have become precarious over the last decade has increased by one-third. The point that the institutes want to make with this study of precarity is not just about the implications of these changes for those working in this sector but as the study's title suggests, the untapped potential in this sector from which we can all benefit. The point is that unstable, low-wage and low-skill positions deflate disposable income and overall prosperity. The institutes urge policy-makers, and that is us, to assess what policy tools are needed to boost job security and wages within these occupations.

There has been no such assessment coming from the other side, and there are no such tools in Bill C-4. I am thankful that at least we on this side of the House are on the job. I would point to my colleague, the member for Davenport, and his recently tabled urban workers bill, which I proudly co-sponsor, as a response to the circumstances described in these studies. It is a bill of legislative relevance to Canadians, and particularly to urban Canadians.

Finally, I would like to point the government to a recent study done by the Wellesley Institute in Toronto, called “Shadow Economies: Economic Survival Strategies Of Toronto Immigrant Communities”, also released just this month, which focuses on the economic poverty of newcomers. This study finds that only one-third of households were able to fully cover their household expenses on income through formal employment, forcing people, as both workers and consumers, into the informal economy to make ends meet.

It is in this context that the government enters with an economic plan that according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer would be responsible for 67,000 less jobs by 2017, and a GDP reduction of 0.6%.

I do not know if it is possible for anybody to draft a stronger indictment of the government as economic manager than the one it has penned for itself with this very bill, Bill C-4. It is not just irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of Canadians, proving once again how remote the government is from the population and their cares and concerns, but it is actually harmful and hurtful to the people I came here to represent.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for a very thoughtful and measured speech. I would like to ask the member where he might see the country going in terms of innovation.

Several years ago, in a previous government led by then-minister Allan Rock, now the president of the University of Toronto, a very comprehensive Canadian strategy was put in place to pursue an innovation strategy for the country. Four or five round tables were struck, and at the time I had the privilege of chairing an environmental technologies round table, to take a closer look at where we were going. Back then, around the year 2000, in the national capital region, we were receiving 60% of all the venture capital monies in Canada. That has been cut now by over 80%. We have also lost half of our high-tech firms.

What is the member's view with respect to an innovation strategy for the country? How does he see that dovetail with manufacturing and with information technology?

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question. It is a very interesting one and very relevant to my portfolio as urban affairs critic and my comments about the urban workforce and urban economies. Innovation is a social process. It is a process of sharing knowledge. There is a spatial requirement, or in fact a geography, to the process of innovation. It is a distinctly urban process. What we have coming from the government is nothing that addresses the issue of urban economies. Eighty per cent, maybe 85%, of Canadians live in cities and depend on government to do something for them about urban economies, to make them strong economies and for innovation. The $350 million tax on the labour venture funds will do nothing to enhance innovation in this country.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification)]

Mr. Speaker, when we look at the innovation ecosystem across Canada from the start of product development and research, we have increased funding to the research councils for basic research and applied research. We have also had a series of measures, including tax measures, incentives in different fiscal policies to ensure that products can get to market. We also had the venture capital fund, which was announced in this particular budget. Also, through our regional development agencies, we have included targeted funds to see prototypes taken from the bench to market in repayable loans.

Which part of the innovation life cycle does he feel is not funded right now and why has he not voted for all of these measures? I am talking about a specific measure in the innovation life cycle, because all I hear is platitudes and generalities in his comments.

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I look to what is happening in our cities and what is actually happening to our economy and I find it so curious that the government keeps referring to its programs, its paperwork and its administration of these matters. I sat on the health committee when we did the study of innovation and health technologies in this country. Time and time again we had innovators coming to our health committee with grievances about the lack of venture capital in the country and the lack of support from the government for an innovation agenda. Those were the witnesses that the government brought to the committee to talk about these issues.

The Conservatives should think about what their programs are doing, stop wasting Canadian taxpayer money and do something about innovation and urban economies in this country.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if I understand correctly, there is a blatant lack of transparency in Bill C-4. This is yet another mammoth bill for which debate is being limited by a time allocation motion. It is not good for consumers, workers, veterans, the public service or the environment.

That being said, there is one issue that is particularly worrisome to me. I would like to ask my dear colleague, who so ardently defends his constituents, why the Conservative government would move forward with its harmful $350-million tax on labour-sponsored funds. What effect will this have on workers and the economy in general?

[Matthew Kellway, NDP, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I can only assume that the attack on the labour capital venture fund is because it is associated with labour. That is the only explanation.

The government claims to be a proponent of innovation and science in the country and yet it muzzles scientists. We had a member talking about sour grapes. There are protests on the streets of our country by scientists about being muzzled. We have scientists coming to our health committee talking about a lack of support and capital funding for innovation in our country. Whatever the government thinks it is doing on innovation in this country, it is failing.

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-4, the budget implementation act, which of course is part of economic action plan 2013, which is very appropriately entitled jobs, growth and long-term prosperity.

Before I get into the details of my comments and start expanding on where I want to go, I will take this opportunity to once again thank the people of Saint John for giving me the honour and the privilege of serving them in this great House.

The reason I bring up the riding of Saint John, which I am so pleased to represent, is that a lot of my comments tonight will be focused on Saint John, and all my comments will be focused on the region of southern New Brunswick and new Brunswick as a whole. As I speak to the budget implementation act and economic action plan 2013 tonight, I want to talk about some of the things that are on the horizon for Saint John because in Saint John we are really excited about some of the prospects that are out there for the future. A lot of those prospects are centred around resource development and the opportunities that exist for Saint John because of what we have to offer.

It is no accident that Saint John is very well positioned to take advantage of some of these opportunities, and more specifically, I speak tonight about the energy east pipeline project. We are excited about the prospects of the energy east pipeline. Why, members ask? Quite frankly, we are home to Canada's largest oil refinery.

The urban oil refinery is situated right within the heart of my riding. We are home to Irving Canaport, which is a deep water terminal for importing oil, and we will soon hopefully be exporting oil through that same terminal. We are home to Canaport LNG terminal, which is Canada's only liquefied natural gas terminal. That terminal is set up for imports, but at this point in time it is undergoing a review to seek permission to become an export terminal.

These are some of the opportunities we face in Saint John, and it is specifically because of our proximity to deep water, ice-free deep water. It has given us a huge advantage and a huge opportunity with what we are talking about in this country, which is responsible resource development.

We are talking about developing a pipeline from Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick. It will benefit the entire country. It will benefit Saint John greatly, and we want to be well positioned in Saint John to take advantage of those opportunities as they come. We know that with the potential of these developments, there will be great opportunities when it comes to employment, and there will be other benefits beyond the pipeline when that comes our way. We are holding our breath and hoping daily that it is getting closer.

There is a lot of optimism around that. The premier of the province of New Brunswick is very actively engaged. I was actively engaged. The mayor of the city of Saint John and the officials from the port of Saint John are actively engaged in trying to impress upon officials in TransCanada with respect to the business opportunity that was there for this pipeline to be developed through eastern Canada and to Saint John, New Brunswick.

That is a great opportunity that we see sitting out there. Members are probably wondering where I am going with this. I will get back to that point in a few minutes, because economic action plan 2013 directly speaks to what we are facing in Saint John. It gives us the tools to be equipped to handle some of those opportunities that are coming our way.

There is more than just the development of this pipeline. There is more than just the changes with Canaport LNG. There are shale gas opportunities in New Brunswick. The provincial government is working very hard to ensure that we are in a position to develop those resources. We are looking at the opportunities that are there and the provincial government is doing exploration work at this time to try to determine what sort of deposit lies there. That is another opportunity.

Potash is an opportunity that we have in New Brunswick, and we are home to PotashCorp's marine terminal. That terminal ships potash worldwide, and we have tremendous opportunities there. The company's people are looking at expansion of that marine terminal because of PotashCorp's mine in Sussex. It has put down a new shaft and is looking at taking advantage of the opportunities that are there.

All these opportunities that I talk about have led to discussions within St. John about how we would best become prepared to take advantage of these opportunities. Economic action plan 2013 includes that very specifically, and it lays out some very important things that we need to be prepared for. There are infrastructure investments in economic action plan 2013 that are so necessary when a community is trying to develop itself and trying to move forward. The city of St. John, the port of St. John and the province of New Brunswick all have to take advantage of some of these opportunities. Therefore, we will give them the tools and the opportunities to do so with this budget.

However, it is not only through community infrastructure, when we talk about infrastructure investments. There is equipment and our people for the opportunities that are there. We have the Canada jobs grant, which will certainly turn the page on how we train people in the country and it will give employers and the private sector a voice in determining where those investments should be made. This is so important. We talk about how we move forward. Do members not think it is important that we give the people who will make the investments, drive the economy and drive the prosperity in our country a voice and a chance to say where those investments should be made? They can tell us exactly where the opportunities will be and they can tell us if we need so many tradespeople or so many accountants. They can tell us exactly where we should be spending our job training dollars. This is so important. Not only would they get to give us advice on that, but they would also get to invest in an opportunity.

I had the pleasure of visiting one of the Irving mills in Saint John just recently with the Minister of Employment and Social Development. We have two Irving pulp and paper mills, so we visited Irving paper and we sat down and had a discussion with the officials from the human resources department about their needs. We talked about some of the things they were facing as they went forward and how they only hired people with at least two years of post-secondary education. That surprised me because we tend to look at some of the jobs in some of these organizations as not being highly skilled. These people are very highly skilled and they come in the door with a minimum of two years of post-secondary education and they are trained to do the jobs they need to do. The officials at the company are prepared to make the investment in these people and their futures.

It is so important that we are able to play a role and work with them, because it is more important that the business people who are actually hiring for these jobs, and not government bureaucrats, make the decisions on where these dollars go. Going forward, we should be giving business people a say in what they are doing.

However, we would also make huge investments when it comes to tax breaks. We are investing in the extension of the hiring tax credit and of the accumulating capital costs allowance for investments in new equipment and machinery. This will give the people who are in the business and industrial side of the equation the opportunity to invest dollars at home and to provide those highly-skilled jobs that we are talking about.

This budget, the economic action plan 2013, would give us the opportunity to be prepared for the future. There is a lot of opportunity on the horizon for the people of St. John and the province of New Brunswick and by taking advantage of this program and of what is in this budget, we would be very well equipped to go forward.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

His speech did not cover all aspects of Bill C-4, but that is quite understandable. How could one possibly talk about all of the items contained in a 300-page bill in just 10 minutes?

Today, I moved a motion and I requested the unanimous support of the House to remove sections 290 to 293 from Bill C-4 so that they can be examined by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, which in my opinion is the most appropriate place to examine that part of the bill.

Can my colleague tell us why these sections pertaining to the permanent residency system in Canada have to be included in a budget rather than be examined by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration?

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite correct. I did not cover all of the details in Bill C-4. As I said very clearly at the beginning, I was going to focus on some aspects that are very important to my region, to my riding, and I did that very specifically.

I talked about some of the opportunities that are out there. I talked about how important this budget is, what it would give us, how it would give us the tools to go forward, and how it would better prepare the people of Saint John and the people of southern New Brunswick for the opportunities that lie ahead. I am very excited about that. I look forward to the opportunity to engage people on that level and to talk more about it. These are exciting times in Saint John, New Brunswick, and we look forward to continuing to discuss these things.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the member is with respect to the advertising dollars that the government, over the years, has spent in promoting its so-called action plan, going into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

There is a sense of frustration when we look at the number of summer jobs that are needed for students. I recall seeing commercials last year during hockey tournaments. The equivalent amount of money spent on one 30-second commercial would have employed something like 25 youths in summer employment.

I wonder if the member believes that maybe the government might have gone too far in spending hundreds of millions of dollars just to self-promote its own budget.

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the hon. member's frustration. There is a lot of frustration over on the opposition benches.

However, to be quite frank, we are excited about the opportunities that we are putting forward. We are excited to tell Canadians about them, and Canadians are excited to hear about those opportunities. We make no apologies for communicating with our constituents. It is important they understand the work that their government is doing. We look forward to continuing to work with Canadians and to telling them about the great things this government is doing.

[Pierre Jacob, NDP, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to comment on the article by conservative National Post editorialist Andrew Coyne. I will summarize the article about omnibus bills, such as Bill C-4, in just a few words: the bill makes a mockery of the confidence convention and serves to shield bills that would otherwise be defeatable in the House. It is impossible to know how legislators intended to vote. There is no common thread that runs between these different items and no overarching principle that unites them. They represent a sort of compulsory buffet. There is something alarming about the government wanting to oblige Parliament to rubber-stamp its whole legislative agenda at one go.

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is unfortunate that my hon. colleague across the floor feels he has been forced to do something here in this House, because none of us are forced to do anything. I stand here tonight talking about economic action plan 2013 with great enthusiasm because I see the opportunities that are there for Saint John, and I will wholeheartedly embrace the opportunity to vote in support of it.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, listening to all of these exchanges and debates, we can see that, ultimately, Bill C-4 fails to respond in any way to Canadians' concerns.

Earlier, my colleague pointed out that job security and wage issues were not taken into account in this bill and that no progress has been made on those issues. Meanwhile, it is increasingly clear that families and income earners are becoming more vulnerable. What tangible measures is the government proposing to address those types of problems?

[Rodney Weston, Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Mr. Speaker, to the member's point exactly, that is what my comments were centred around: what the bill has it in that would benefit my region, my community, and my riding. I certainly look forward to embracing those opportunities, and I suggest that the hon. member might want to look at embracing them as well.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, it is interesting times. We understand and appreciate today, more so than the last number of days, why the Prime Minister was so scared for the House to resume.

Here we have the budget bill and one could easily spend a full 10 minutes just talking about some of the details in the 300 pages. The European Union trade deal was recently signed, another issue which, no doubt, would have generated a great deal of interest. We have what many are saying could be the beginning of the end of the Prime Minister taking place on the other side of this grand building, in the other house. In fact, I am getting a better appreciation for why he prorogued the session and why he felt it was necessary not to sit in September after hearing some of the presentations being made.

When a budget is presented and legislation is introduced, one thing that is really important for us to recognize is the integrity of the government. What is being questioned and called to task is the performance of the Prime Minister's Office. If we look at the whole Nigel Wright affair—

[Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Cambridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We are all here to debate this bill. Members had more opportunity than anyone in the House to complain and make points about a different subject. Will the member use his time to talk about this bill or not?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. minister of state for his intervention. Members may know that there is a responsibility to present their ideas that are relevant to the question before the House. Having said that, members have a great degree of liberty to present ideas and eventually bring them around to their relevance. Perhaps the hon. member for Winnipeg North is in the process of doing that. I am sure he will be bringing it back on the topic in short order.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate why some members of the government would be absolutely nervous about what is taking place today. In fact, it is critically important when we talk about a budget, and this is the budget implementation bill, that Canadians have confidence in the people presenting it. The people who are presenting this budget are the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister of the country.

Quite frankly, what we are witnessing is calling into question what is taking place in the Prime Minister's Office. It is casting doubt on whether we can believe the Prime Minister, whether it is this budget document or other affairs taking place inside the office. For example, one day he says that Nigel Wright resigned of his own free will. We then find out that he was released, or fired. One day it is one individual in the Prime Minister's Office who knew, and now it is a few or 13 or whatever it might be. Today we find out that it is more than just one cheque of $90,000.

It is an issue of integrity.

The people who present this budget, the Government of Canada, need to be more straightforward, honest, and truthful in what they are putting forward. In looking at this particular budget bill, we have to reflect on what is actually taking place today on Parliament Hill. A good number of Canadians are watching and are interested in finding out the truth on a wide variety of issues.

This particular budget bill is one of a number of budget bills the Minister of Finance has brought to the House. It is a bill that uses other pieces of legislation and attempts to pass them in one vote. In other words, other ministers approach the Minister of Finance saying that they have a bill and want to get it into his budget bill. The current Minister of Finance, more than any other in the history of our great nation, has used budget bills as a back door to pass government legislation that should have been introduced completely separately. He has set records. It is not something he should be proud of.

What we have witnessed is a style of government. It is a Reform Conservative-style majority government that believes it can just walk all over the House of Commons or try to intimidate the other side or the Senate. We are saying that Canadians are catching on to this behaviour. They deserve better. The Liberal Party is going to push the Government of Canada to start being more honest, with the full details, whether it is the Prime Minister's Office or the type of material being provided in the budget.

What Canadians want is to see a government that has a vision and provides hope. The Conservatives have failed to meet those basic standards.

One would think that if the government was going to prorogue the session and then introduce a throne speech, there would be something relatively visionary in it or something that would provide a bit of extra hope in some important policy areas. Why not include something nice about our first nations, the environment, or how the government is going to deal with poverty in Canada? What about talking about health care and what we are going do to ensure that health care will be there in the future? What about real, tangible job opportunities or programs that are going to make a difference? None of that was in the throne speech.

I believe that Canadians deserve better.

Ultimately, when I look at what the government has done over the past number of months, even though it spends billions and billions of dollars, it has failed to really deliver the goods to the average middle-class Canadian in any part of our country. The Conservatives need to start focusing not only on providing the full truth on a wide range of issues but on what is important to Canadians.

On a personal note, and I have raised this issue before and will continue to raise it, I believe health care is of critical importance to each and every Canadian. However, the Conservative government has totally ignored that file.

Paul Martin instituted the health care accord. It is that health care accord that has enabled the current government to crow as often as it does that they give more health care dollars than any other government. It is that health care accord that made it happen. It is Paul Martin who should be taking the credit for the amount of money we allocate to the provinces.

The Conservative government has not sat down with the provinces. It has not attempted to renegotiate a health care accord for the future. The single greatest expenditure a province has today out of general revenues is health care.

Every Canadian is concerned about the future of health care in Canada. They want to have that sense of pride in knowing that politicians truly care about health care delivery in our great nation. The government needs to do a whole lot more in providing that leadership, because there is a great void.

I have had the opportunity to talk about a housing strategy. Every region of our country needs more attention to housing. What about residential rehabilitation types of programs that could help with our older housing stock? What about enabling housing co-ops to get established? How many housing co-ops can the current government take credit for establishing since it has been in office? I can tell members that we could probably count that on one hand. I look forward to some members picking up on that point. Tell me what the government has done to improve the quality of housing stock and in enabling our middle class to become homeowners.

These are the types of issues Canadians are concerned about: jobs, the homes they live in, the poverty situation, how the government is trying to improve economic opportunity—