Debates of May 7th, 2013

Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague, who knows this file on the temporary foreign workers so well.

We have this myth with the Conservatives about the market: we will just let the market decide; it is basic economics, the law of supply and demand. That is until it does not quite work for their friends in the big industry. For example, if there is a labour shortage, wages rise and there is competition.

However, what we have seen with the temporary foreign worker program is that the Conservatives have allowed 500,000 temporary foreign workers to be brought in to actually drive down wages and make it more difficult to have a competitive labour market.

It is clearly unfair to Canadians, but it is also clearly unfair to the people who are being brought over and treated as disposable labour. They come over here, they are supposed to do the work and then they are shipped back. Canada is left in a deficit position both in terms of local people who are not being employed and in terms of immigrant families who could actually become part of Canada and buy houses and participate; they are being left out.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why she thinks it is that the government has allowed this program to actually undermine social development in our country.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind everyone in the House, especially my colleagues across the way, that Canada has a very proud history of having immigration policies that are all about nation building. This particular program, the temporary foreign worker program, actually undermines our position in the world and makes Canadians very uncomfortable, because of the way it is being administered and because of the abuses that are being allowed.

If we have a legitimate need for ongoing workers, whether it is in Tim Hortons, in the meat-cutting plant in Alberta or on the east coast in the fisheries area, it is not temporary work. It is ongoing work, and if there are no Canadians available, that is where the immigration system needs to kick in.

However, the government has made a boondoggle out of this program. It is being used and abused to favour its corporate friends to increase their profits.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up on the temporary foreign worker program. It is a program that, in the past, has served our country exceptionally well. There are industries that have survived only because of having access to foreign workers.

It is important for us to recognize that, over the last couple of decades, we have seen great benefits to our nation as a direct result of the temporary foreign worker program.

Having said that, we do recognize that in the last couple of years, the government has really turned a blind eye to it. It has allowed the temporary foreign worker program to now exceed 330,000 foreign workers coming to Canada. Even during Canada's economic peak, we had roughly 160,000 foreign workers. There is an obvious imbalance.

My question to the member is what she, or the New Democratic Party, believes is the optimum number of temporary foreign workers that Canada should be looking at. That is if she can put it down in terms of numbers.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is not about a number. This is about a time when no Canadians are available for work, whether they are Canadian citizens or whether they have just arrived in Canada as permanent residents.

With all due respect, I would like to mention that it was under the Liberal government that the numbers started to increase in the temporary foreign worker program. Some of these lax grantings of LMOs started during that period and that has now accelerated.

I think that to ask for an arbitrary number is not to understand the fundamental reason why the program is in place and why it needs to exist. It only exists when we have genuine labour shortages, where Canadians are not available to do the work.

There is no number; it should just be in response to those vacancies.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be participating in the debate today on the budget implementation bill.

The success of a nation is due to the manner in which society values its workers, its innovators and the way it allows everyone the opportunity to succeed and improve their lives through hard work and ingenuity. This is supported in a recent book, Why Nations Fail, by Daron Acemoglu from MIT and James Robinson of Harvard University.

Why Nations Fail provides a historical study of civilizations that have succeeded and failed and determines that civilizations have fallen or thrived based on, above all else, their political institutions. Governments thrived when they provided the rule of law, secure property rights and a strong independent judiciary. Good government prevents any elite from extracting the wealth out of a country for themselves and spreads opportunity around.

Geography, culture and resources, all gifts that Canada has in abundance, take a back seat to good government that is responsive and accountable to its citizens in this manner. When money can travel over wireless networks in a split second and investors from anywhere in the world can invest anywhere else in the world within a matter of minutes, people will invest in a nation that will secure their investments and grow them with minimal risk. The people of those nations benefit with jobs and opportunities, as Canadians do.

Canada's economic action plan for 2013 is part of an economic process. It is in its seventh year. It began in 2006, from our Minister of Finance and Prime Minister. It prioritizes stability, prudent fiscal management and careful stewardship of our economy, something that most of Europe and the U.S. are struggling toward.

How is Canada doing? Most Canadians know these facts. Canada has had the most stable and sound financial system in the world for five years straight. Canada is the number one place in the world to do business. Canada has the highest possible credit rating from the three major rating agencies. We are in the best fiscal position of any of the G7 countries. We have the lowest government net debt to GDP ratio in the G7. During the recent recession Canada did not have to bail out a single bank. By 2015 we will have a balanced budget without putting our hands in the pockets of taxpayers and business owners for new taxes.

However, what some members of the House do not understand is that none of this happened by accident. This was achieved by good management and tough decisions. Let me give a few examples.

Back in 2006, when the U.S. government allowed risky mortgages that covered the entire value of the house, plus in some cases even the furniture, our government tightened up the mortgage rules, asking for higher credit ratings and stopping the 40-year terms the banks were pitching. This helped save Canada from a U.S.-style housing crisis. Despite our deficit, created to fight the 2008 recession, and the difficult task of limiting spending now to balance our national budget, just last year the NDP and Liberals wanted to send billions of our tax dollars to Europe to bail out governments that have not made the tough decisions we are making. We said, “No way”.

We would never consider the NDP plan to grab $60 billion out of the pockets of business owners, shareholders and workers, although personal debt is at an all-time high. Given the chance, that plan would include a death tax on the wealthy, promoted by the NDP academic branch at the Broadbent Institute. Of course, the definition of wealthy would be anyone who had perhaps $50,000 a year after they die, which is about the cost of a parking space at a condo in downtown Toronto.

Democracy is sharing power. Sound economics and strong institutions support that sharing and ensure the security of all Canadians, not just the wealthy. That is why those who are not wealthy are often the first to support Conservative budgets. In bad times the wealthy do all right, but those who are not wealthy are at the risk of losing everything. They have the most to lose when governments overspend for decades and go bankrupt. They are the ones who line up at the EI office. A good budget must balance the interests of all citizens, while not confiscating the earnings of entrepreneurs.

Where democracies get into financial trouble is when the public sector grows out of control and confiscates more than the private sector can afford to pay. Bill C-60 would implement a budget process that would reduce the size and cost of government, to be affordable. The budget would reduce full-time equivalents by attrition and eliminating positions and would reduce spending by another $600 million a year. The budget would be balanced by 2015.

On the other side of the floor, there are a lot of members who believe in their heart of hearts that governments exist to decide who gets what. They want to be the ones who write the rules for everyone else to divvy up the pie. They actually think that governing is like contract bargaining. What they do not understand is where wealth comes from. That is our focus. We cut it down, dig it up, manufacture it, reap it from the soil, add value through trade, and we must do it all better through innovation. The budget would help entrepreneurs and businesses that take risks and innovate to create wealth and new jobs for others.

There is something else they do not get. This is a free country, and when taxes get too high people and businesses leave.

I have seen this happen when the NDP, under the leadership of the then member for Toronto Centre—Rosedale, was in power as the NDP premier. The taxes in Ontario became the highest in North America: businesses left in droves; unemployment skyrocketed; government revenues crashed; and government debt more than doubled, from $38 billion to almost $100 billion. Ontario was essentially bankrupt.

As Dr. Phil says: “How's that working for them in Europe today?” Well, how about Greece with 27% unemployment, or Cyprus where bank deposits are being confiscated, or Portugal where the unemployment rate has reached 17%? It is no surprise that these countries are not prospering.

In Canada, we offer a vast land of opportunity which supports and rewards hard work while protecting people's human and property rights. This government values that above all else.

Budgets must be realistic and express tough decisions made for the long-term success of our country. This budget is building a foundation and structure for a secure future for our children and grandchildren. It closes tax loopholes for tax fairness and improves the integrity of the tax system. It supports innovation and research, and it is a commitment to Canadians that their economy is on the right track. Its success is founded on two major platforms: the first is paying down the debt on time and without excuses; and the second is strategic investment in growth and innovation.

The year 2013 began with a welcome announcement in my riding of Oakville when our Prime Minister visited Canada's largest Ford plant, the Oakville assembly plant, on January 6. The Prime Minister was there to announce an investment of $250 million in the automotive innovation fund to 1,000 CAW folks who build these high-quality low-emission cars. The fund is for auto industry firms undertaking large-scale research and development projects that are focused on innovative, greener and more fuel efficient vehicles. The fund is working.

The money invested in Ford's Windsor engine plant originally created 450 full-time jobs, but since then it has grown to 600 full-time jobs. What is more impressive is that there are 3,000 people working at the Oakville assembly plant who now work full-time as a result of investments made by this government in 2006.

Other projects supported by the AIF include Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada's project green light, which includes the production of the RAV4 electric vehicle at Toyota's plant in Woodstock; Magna International's development of clean vehicle technologies, including energy-efficient components and innovative powertrain parts for next-generation vehicles; and construction of a new Toyota blended assembly line that will permit the simultaneous production of both the current Lexus model and the hybrid model.

Perhaps our single biggest problem at this point in our history is addressed in this budget. With hundreds of thousands of Canadians hitting retirement age in the next few years and the emergence of the knowledge economy, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce says that without action we could have over 500,000 unskilled workers who will not be able to find work by 2016. Without action in this budget, there could be over one million skilled job vacancies by 2016. The former president of Seneca College, Rick Miner, summarizes the problem in the title of his report, “People without Jobs, Jobs without People”.

The most significant contribution of this budget is perhaps the creation of the Canada job grant, which could provide $15,000 or more per person, with matching funds to match people with jobs. This fund will help up to 130,000 Canadians with access to training for the jobs that are available. This will be at community colleges, career colleges and trade union training centres.

This budget and our previous budget have demonstrated that Prime Minister Harper and our Minister of Finance are building our nation to heights we have never seen before—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

I will remind the member not to refer to any members of the chamber, including the Prime Minister, by their given name.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

This budget and our previous budget have demonstrated that the Prime Minister and our Minister of Finance are building our nation to heights we have never seen before. Canada is a place where immigrants and investors want to be. We have every reason to be optimistic about our future. I will gladly support this budget and the great economic stewardship of our government.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Oakville for his speech. However, the thing that is missing in this budget is real job creation. When the Conservatives took over in 2006, there were one-quarter million fewer unemployed individuals in Canada than there are today, which speaks to the Conservatives' record. There are one-quarter million people who are now unemployed who were not unemployed in 2006. At the same time, we have one-quarter million more temporary foreign workers.

Members can do the math, and it is very simple. The temporary foreign worker program has been increased by the government over the course of its being, which has had a direct impact on the number of people who are unemployed in this country. However, the Conservative government has done nothing about it.

I would like the member to comment on what it is that the government is going to do to correct those numbers and bring more people to more jobs in Canada in a way that is actually going to work. We have heard it all before, and it is not working now.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the member opposite has been for the last few months, but since the end of the recession this government is responsible for the creation of 950,000 net new jobs, most of which are full time.

In addition, it seems the member has totally missed what happened in 2008. I do not know where he was in 2008, but we were here dealing with the most serious recession since the 1930s. This government got this country through that recession. We purposely created a deficit through Canada's economic action plan, and now that the recession is over we are balancing the books.

With specific regard to the member's question on this budget on job creation, in talking about the future and the need for infrastructure in our communities, the roads, bridges and transitways that our children and grandchildren will need, in budget 2013 we have pledged over $53 billion over 10 years for a new building Canada plan. It is long-term predictable funding that represents the largest and longest federal infrastructure investment in Canadian history.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I give the member credit for sticking to the PMO notes. To what degree the member might even believe some of what he is saying is truly amazing.

When the Conservatives took over the government reigns, the reality was that they had a huge budget surplus. Even prior to the recession taking place, they turned that surplus into a deficit. They had to be brought kicking and screaming by the Liberal Party, who was the official opposition at the time, to provide an economic action plan to keep people employed in this country.

Now when the government members talk about having a balanced budget, members will notice they refer to 2015-16, which is post the next federal election. The Conservative government has never had a balanced budget in the last 100 years. The member should know that.

My question to the member is this. Can he clearly and definitely tell this House when the last time was that the Conservatives, the Progressive Conservatives or the Reform Party in Ottawa have presented a balanced budget to this House.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question, but I am not so grateful for his fictitious preamble.

I believe the last time this government balanced the budget was in 2007. However, prior to the recession, which the member might remember started in 2008, this government had a surplus which it reinvested by paying down debt. That is what we promised to do. That is why the voters made us the government. We paid down over $30 billion of debt, which is what we are supposed to do.

When there is a recession, government money is invested to help people stay working. However, when there is a surplus, the government is supposed to pay down debt. That is acceptable fundamental economics. That is exactly what we did. We will not apologize for lowering taxes on Canadian families and putting more money into their pockets once the budget was balanced.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am almost sad to get up. I was enjoying the Conservatives and the Liberals going at it on the issue of economics when they should be embracing each other because they both practice the same austerity economics.

Before I start on the issue of Bill C-60, I do want to wish Marg Reilly a very happy birthday. Marg is a constituent of mine. It is a milestone birthday for her, and she is a person worthy of great celebration. Happy Birthday, Marg.

Today we are talking about Bill C-60, the budget implementation act. It is the final of five days of debate on the matter, owing to another Conservative time allocation motion, which is a new record for such motions. I dare suggest that there will be more such motions. There seems to be some kind of narcotic effect to these time allocation motions for those guys. It also, perhaps, is just the arrogance of power.

In his defence of the Conservative time allocation motion, the Minister of State for Finance described this legislation as “the blueprint of our government's mandate moving forward”. He “felt” that five days was more than enough time to debate the bill. As it turns out, what we have before us is another omnibus bill. It is certainly shorter than its predecessor, but still it involves amendments to nearly 50 pieces of legislation, and even introduces new legislation. That means that on average we have less than one hour of debate for each legislative change or legislative invention included under the bill.

Who would have imagined that those so-called champions of transparency and accountability, these parliamentary reformers who sit on the government side, would have ever stood in this place to justify such a limited level of scrutiny—on budget implementation, no less—for parliamentarians, much less to justify it on the basis of what they felt was appropriate, that those reformers would privilege their feelings over the traditions, institutions and processes of governing and government in Canada? It is most certainly a form of tyranny.

This is not simply an issue of process or principle, as those members like to portray it. This is about a government that is failing to do its best for this country and its citizens, a government that has deliberately set a target below the potential of Canada and its citizens. Never mind excellence, never mind maximization, never mind over-achieving, the Conservative government aspires to under-achievement, to less than what is possible, to less than our potential.

This is the recurring narrative in the April 29 economic and fiscal outlook produced by the Parliamentary Budget Office. I want to quote a bit at length here:

PBO projects real GDP growth in Canada to slow to 1.5 per cent in 2013 and remain below its potential growth rate until 2015. Combined with the sluggish recovery in the global economy, government spending restraint will act as an additional drag on growth and job creation. The projected weakness in growth keeps the economy well below its potential GDP through 2015 and as a result the unemployment rate remains relatively stable, averaging 7.3 per cent over 2013 to 2015.

It goes on to talk about employment in Canada being below its potential. That is on page 10, if anybody wants to reference that. It say that employment and “average weekly hours” for Canadian workers are below potential. That is on page 11. “Labour productivity” is below, which is, again, on page 11. Gross domestic product is “below potential”, on page 11 again.

How is all of this happening? Quite curiously, it is happening by design. As the economic and fiscal outlook says, “Over the period 2013 to 2017, PBO estimates that the net impact of [economic action plan] 2013 measures and revisions to spending levels on real GDP and employment is contractionary”. It is 67,000 jobs worth of contractionary, according to the report, which is a .57% reduction in GDP.

The PBO explains that does not mean that employment levels will be 67,000 jobs shy of where we are today. That is fair enough. The report explains it in these terms:

Rather, it means that, in the absence of these measures and revisions to spending levels, projected employment would be higher by 67,000 jobs, all else being equal.

The action in the government's economic action plan is:

...pushing the economy further away from its potential GDP and delaying the economic recovery.

This is worthy of the House's time for extensive debate. I want to know, and Canadians will want to know, why the deliberate path of action chosen by of the current government is to push the economy further away from its potential.

What is particularly perplexing is that the budget comes in the context of a Canada that is already so far shy of its potential.

The government has presided over a $67 billion trade deficit that is expected to worsen in the year ahead. That is thousands of jobs and billions of dollars leaving this country and going overseas to enrich others.

There are still almost 1.4 million Canadians out of work. There are 240,000 more young people unemployed today than before the recession.

Closer to my home, in Toronto, in my riding of Beaches—East York, I would note a recent report by the United Way and McMaster University showing that nearly 50% of jobs in southwestern Ontario are precarious jobs. A recent report by the Metcalf Foundation shows that the number of working poor is growing in the greater Toronto area. Reports by the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto show the continuing income polarization in our cities, particularly in Toronto, and extrapolate current trends to show a city with a completely hollowed-out middle class.

To be fair, this trend has carried through successive Liberal and Conservative governments, so we cannot blame it all on the guys on the other side.

The only employment numbers growing by a significant measure are for temporary foreign workers, spurred on by the government's inducement of paying significantly lower wages than for Canadian workers.

It is in this context that the government sees it wise to hit the brakes on the economy to constrain economic growth.

This is a set of circumstances that calls for a different kind of action, action that would put Canadians and Canadian cities, which are after all the engines of economic growth in a modern economy, to work—to begin at long last to undo the constraints on our economy, to realize the potential of our country and to make a more equally shared prosperity a goal for this country.

Let us look for a moment at the issue of infrastructure. Here is an economic opportunity that the government has failed to grasp.

By many accounts, the infrastructure deficit in this country is well north of $150 billion, and it continues to grow. We need to see this problem addressed, and soon. “A penny now or a dollar later”, as the 2012 Canadian Infrastructure Report Card puts it, meaning the cost of delaying needed repairs could cost us vastly larger sums down the road, yet over the next four years, federal infrastructure funding will be $4.7 billion lower than it was last year, despite some creative advertising by the Conservative government.

This so-called new infrastructure funding announced in budget 2013 includes funding from older, delayed projects. There is $6 billion worth announced in this new economic action plan that is masquerading as new money when it is actually existing funds that had been committed back in 2007.

This is a budget that would provide no relief for urban congestion in Canadian cities. Owing to successive uninterested Liberal and Conservative governments, the public transit system in Toronto has not grown in any meaningful way since 1980.

In conclusion, what the government needs to explain to Canadians is how it dares to occupy those benches over there when it puts forward a plan that would shrink this country rather than grow it, when it puts forward a plan that would take jobs from Canadians rather than create jobs for them, when it aspires to less than what we are capable of as a country.

How does the government explain that to the youth of this country who have their futures in front of them? How does it explain it to the seniors of this country, who left what they had built up in our hands not so that we could take it down, but so that we could continue to build upon it?

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting but somewhat troubling to hear members of the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party stand up, speaker after speaker, with an incredibly negative attitude. They can find nothing right with our budget and nothing right with our budget implementation bill. That is very disturbing, because they are totally out of touch with Canadians. In fact, our budget was extremely well received by Canadians, and our economic action plan has allowed business across this country to create 950,000 new jobs since the recession ended. That is an incredible record, yet opposition members are nothing but negative.

I ask the member if he could maybe find one thing from our budget, one thing covered in the budget implement bill, that he thinks is right with this budget? If he cannot, could he explain why he is so out of touch with how Canadians feel about this budget and this budget implementation bill?

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

Mr. Speaker, if the government did its budgeting right, then we could find something right with the budget. However, as it is, what I would suggest to the member, as we have suggested to the government side, is to divide the bill up and stop playing this game of putting everything into an omnibus bill—50 pieces of legislation, new legislation, amendments to legislation—and standing up day after day saying we disagree with it all. It is because it is all piled into one toxic budget bill.

Let us divide it up and then let us be truthful about the facts. Conservatives talk about 950,000 net new jobs; since 2008, immigration in this country has accounted for at least one million new Canadians, so how does the government talk about net new jobs that cannot even keep up with the immigration rate since the recession?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Beaches—East York for a really quite eloquent speech in assessing this budget. I think he would probably agree with me that there are many things in the budget that are actually good, including first-time incentives for charitable giving and a small but certainly welcome amount of funding to CNIB. Overall, however, I think his analysis is exactly correct.

I want to ask the member if he finds it surprising that the government would boast about programs that it has cancelled. The environment section of the budget talks about the very successful home energy retrofit program, which no longer exists. I wonder if the member would agree with me that the budget would be much improved if that program were resurrected.

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

Mr. Speaker, certainly the budget would be improved and our environment would be much improved if that program still existed.

One of the curious things about that program is that when the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources justified ending that program, they did so by trumpeting its great success and the many jobs it created, so there is no rationale for cancelling that job program.

In fact, it becomes an extremely important program for a city like Toronto. One of the curious things about the city that I live in, because of its particular built form, is that over 60% of our greenhouse gas emissions come from heating and cooling the built environment, so a program like the eco-energy program became a critical part of dealing with climate change and with greenhouse gas emissions in a city like Toronto.

I know my constituents very much regret the decision of the government to cancel that program, not only because of the improvements it brought to their own properties and because of their concern about the environment but also because of the great job potential that the program had.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand and speak to our budget implementation bill today.

I want to express from the start how disappointed I am that the opposition, for some reason, cannot find something good about our budget and our budget implementation bill when Canadians have really supported our budget with open arms and very positive endorsements from third parties of all types, including business and union leaders and so on.

However, the opposition members just cannot find it in themselves to say that there is a lot about this budget and this budget implementation bill that is good. That is very disappointing.

They also complain about any program that has been ended by the government since we came to office. The reality is that many of these programs were put in place by previous governments to help meet a policy objective of that previous government. In many cases, that policy objective no longer exists, so why should the program continue indefinitely?

One of those programs the opposition is complaining about was actually put in place 100 years ago. To me, the policy objective made a lot of sense 100 years ago.

The program was the shelterbelt program. That was in the last budget, just as an example. That program was put in place almost 100 years ago to help protect our prairie soil from wind and water erosion, and it was a good program at the time.

However, I suppose many members do not recognize that in the 1980s farmers started direct seeding crops, so this erosion that the shelterbelt program was put in place to protect against simply no longer exists because the soil is not tilled as it used to be and we do not have summer fallow as we used to have. The problem that the program was put in place to solve simply does not exist now, yet the opposition members complain about our government ending even this 100-year-old program that no longer meets a policy objective.

I am going to guess what they would do, and that would be to just have these programs built one on top of another until we would be so far in debt that we simply could not balance the budget in this country and we ended up in the same kind of mess that our neighbours to the south are in.

To me, that is not an acceptable route to take. Our government has committed to balancing the budget by 2015. That is an objective I want to support, even if they do not, and it is an objective that is certainly supported by my constituents.

The opposition cannot find a thing right about the policies being implemented in this budget implementation bill. I want to run some examples by the House. It will be kind of a disjointed presentation here dealing with different issues.

The first issue is the adoption expense tax credit. This was put in place to better recognize that adoptive parents incur costs prior to being matched with a child. A lot of expense goes into that process.

I know that some of my colleagues have adopted children, and they understand this issue very well. There are probably some members on the other side who have adopted children, and they know the costs that go into the process even before the adoptive parents are actually matched with a child.

My niece and her husband tried to adopt children for 10 years, and they just could not do it. They tried a lot of things to make this happen. They have incurred a lot of expenses. What they wanted was a child; they desperately wanted a child. They commented to me on several occasions that the costs are really incredible and that they would appreciate anything that could be done to help them deal with that a little.

They have been blessed. Just a couple of years ago they completed the adoption of their little girl, and currently they have a little boy and are hoping to be able to keep the little boy and adopt him. To them this is important, yet the New Democratic MPs cannot find it in their hearts to say that it is good thing. With the Liberals, it is the same.

What has the leader of the Liberal Party said on this? He has not made a comment on it at all, either on that or on any other policy issue. The leader of the Liberal Party is not in the picture at all.

What else do we have in this budget that would be implemented in this act? There is the mineral exploration tax credit for flow-through shares. NDP members in particular receive a lot of funding from unions, and that is not voluntary. Union members are given no choice. They are forced to pay memberships, and the unions decide whether that money goes to a particular political party. I know that the Conservative members get a lot of support from union members, but it does not come through unions.

NDP members always claim that they are standing up for union members, yet they have not said a good thing at all about this mineral exploration tax credit that would encourage exploration and the development of new mines and that type of thing. That means jobs, and a lot of new union jobs, but can they find it in their hearts to speak on behalf of their union members and say that it makes sense because it would mean a lot of new jobs for union members? No, they cannot.

What has the leader of the Liberal Party said about that? Actually, he has said nothing about that or about any other policy issue I have heard about. He is too busy raising money for the Liberal Party, instead of being here in the House of Commons doing his job. He had one of the worst records in the House of Commons—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. The hon. member for Malpeque is rising on a point of order.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, members are not supposed to suggest whether people are here or not here in this place. That member is insinuating that the leader of the Liberal Party is not here. He is doing good work meeting Canadians across the country, which that Prime Minister—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. The member for Malpeque is correct that members ought not to reference who is or is not in the chamber.

The hon. member for Vegreville—Wainwright.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that very well. I was not commenting on whether he was here now. I was just saying that in the past, he has been gone an awful lot.

Another thing this budget implementation bill would deal with is the accelerated capital cost allowance for manufacturing processing machinery and equipment. Again, the opposition parties always claim that they are standing up for union members and unions. Yet they cannot find it in their hearts to say that they support that accelerated capital cost allowance, which would encourage manufacturers to expand, build new plants and create new jobs here in Canada. They just cannot find it in their hearts to say that what the government is doing makes a lot of sense, that it is good for their union members and that they are going to support it. They will not do it. They just cannot be anything but negative. That is what I have heard from the NDP: negative, negative, negative. I get tired of it day after day. It is the same with the Liberals, those of them who are, in fact, here in the House.

Another issue is the additional deduction for credit unions. I have heard one particular member in the Liberal Party, who is a big supporter of co-ops. Lots of members in our caucus are big supporters of co-ops. Probably even some New Democrats are big supporters of co-ops. We hear our members talking about the positive aspects of the additional deduction for credit unions in this budget implementation act. Credit unions, of course, already qualify for the Canadian preferential income tax rate on the first $500,000 per year of qualifying business income. This would go beyond that, for credit unions in particular. The members claim to be big supporters of co-ops, but what do we hear from them on that issue here in the House of Commons? They are nothing but negative. They cannot find it in their hearts to say that carrying on that credit union special tax exemption is something they can support, because it is good for co-ops, good for their union members and good for the country. They just will not do that.

I just got started. There is a long list of items we would implement in this budget implementation bill that I know their constituents support. Their constituents support it, yet the opposition members cannot find it in their hearts to support their constituents. If they cannot support government or the good things we are doing, at least they should support their constituents. They are not doing that. They are failing them, and they should be ashamed. I encourage them to change their direction and start supporting the good things the government is doing.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to what the member opposite was saying. I must say that I am upset by this government's approach to things.

We know that this bill is not unlike last year's omnibus bills, C-38 and C-45. We know that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance tabled a notice of motion at the Standing Committee on Finance in order to give committee members just five meetings to complete consideration of Bill C-60 and to ensure that clause-by-clause review of the bill is completed by May 27, which is just eight sitting days after the time allocation motion forces passage of the bill at second reading.

Does the hon. member think that five committee meetings will allow enough time to study this bill properly?

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the member knows that there are going to be different committees, which is my understanding, looking at different parts of this implementation bill. Certainly every member of Parliament has had the chance to read it, study it and be ready for the committee meetings. If they do that, they have ample time. I have not heard them propose better options for any of the things in this budget implementation bill.

She complains that it is an omnibus bill. Budget bills are always omnibus bills. They deal with a lot of different issues. The last budget dealt with hundreds of different issues. Are we supposed to divide them and deal with each one separately at committee? No. Budget implementation bills are omnibus bills. They implement a budget, which is an omnibus bill. I do not think there is any other way of doing it realistically. We would be trying to implement last year's budget for the next 10 years, quite frankly, if we did it that way.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Vegreville—Wainwright was a little off base when he said that the leader of the Liberal Party has not said anything about this budget. Maybe the member for Vegreville—Wainwright has not been listening. I do not know.

Every day that the leader of the Liberal Party has asked questions in the House, he has talked about the middle class. He has talked about the damage the Conservative Party is doing, through this budget and other measures, to the middle class in this country. He has said things such as that $550 million annually is coming out of the small business sector, which supports the middle class and is, indeed, the middle class. There is a $600-million payroll tax hike in this budget, which is hurting the middle class. The member may have slapped aside the leader of the Liberal Party, but he is absolutely wrong. The leader of the Liberal Party is standing up for the middle class.

The member said quite often that we should find it in our hearts. Once when I was in London, England, I came out of a facility and a guy asked if I could find it in my heart to lend him a copper. Could the member find it in his heart to support the middle class?

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Malpeque is defending the leader of his party. There is a lot to defend, and I commend him for that. That is his job, quite frankly.

I was talking about the particular issues, which make up almost all of the budget, that his leader, quite frankly, has not commented on at all. He probably will not. As I say, he is too busy raising money to try to replenish the Liberal coffers. That is part of his job too, but he should be here in the House of Commons at least a good part of the time the House is sitting. He is simply not. I do not think the member will defend his leader for that.