Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to debate Bill C-60, the budget implementation act. In answer to the previous question, the parliamentary secretary should know that the debt has increased. Again, we are seeing a further addition to that total debt through this budget.
It is interesting that when the Minister of Finance gave his budget speech, he committed to balancing the books by 2015. Well is that not wonderful? The only problem with what the minister said was he has never hit one single target he has ever set, when he was minister of finance with the province of Ontario or when he was Minister of Finance with the federal government.
In fact, the government came to power when there was an annual surplus. Conservatives squandered that away. Now, so the parliamentary secretary understand because he is part of the cabinet, we have a government that is the biggest spending government in Canadian history. It has cut more services and programs than any other government in Canadian history. It is still in deficit spending.
My colleague, the member for Kings—Hants, in his remarks pointed out that there were a number of areas in the bill that we could support, but there were a number of areas that we could not. I have said in this place before that one of the problems is that for some of those technical areas we cannot really get into a discussion and debate on because they are all tied up in the omnibus bill. This one is not as bad as previous ones in covering so many topics, but it still is bad and takes away the ability to really debate in-depth and hold proper hearings on specific sections that are affected by Bill C-60.
My colleague from Kings—Hants indicated that there were two key reasons that we would continue to oppose the bill. One is the legislation threatens the independence of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In the section in Bill C-60 that talks about crown corporations, Treasury Board collective bargaining, it would allow the cabinet to require that a crown corporation have its negotiating mandate approved by the Treasury Board before beginning negotiations.
It would also allow cabinet to require that a Treasury Board employee attend and act as an observer during that collective bargaining process. In other words, the real ability of a crown corporation to operate in its own right would be taken away by Treasury Board. That is just pure wrong.
We know the dislike that the Prime Minister, the cabinet and government has against the CBC. They are basically going to have the mandate to order the crown corporation, which is supposed to be independent of government, on how it should negotiate. This really undermines that independence in a very serious way.
The second area my colleague from Kings—Hants mentioned, which I agree with, and as our leader has said many times in this place, was the budget continued to raise taxes on middle-class Canadians to pay for the Conservatives' wasteful spending. That is so evident.
It is interesting that when the Minister of Finance got up and read his budget speech and talked a bit about the budget, he outlined the tax relief on hockey equipment, et cetera. What he failed to talk about were all the areas where there would be really, in effect, tax increases or cost recovery fee increases and other measures that would place a financial burden on middle-class Canadians. It is middle-class Canadians who make our country tick. What we see in the budget are a number of tax measures that are really making it much more difficult for Canadian middle-class families to make ends meet.
It is not just the tax measures. The government members get up and say that by our not wanting to increase the tariffs on China, we are putting a damper on creating jobs in Canada. That is not true at all. The fact of the matter is that none of the low-end bicycles are produced in Canada. The higher end, the $5,000 and $6,000 bicycles, are, in fact, produced here. It goes to show how narrow the focus of the government is. It tries to paint everything with the same brush. As a result, ordinary Canadians are facing increased costs and certainly a lot fewer services.
The budget also raises taxes on small business owners by some $2.3 billion over the next five years, directly hurting about three-quarters of a million Canadians and risking Canadian jobs. That is what the budget actually does. Employment insurance premiums will go up. There is a huge cost to Canadians.
In Bill C-60 there was an opportunity for the government to show some vision for the future. Where that vision really needs to be shown is in the whole area of youth employment. That is an absolute missing factor in this particular budget. Canada's labour market for young Canadians has yet to recover from the recession. Unemployment for young people is around 24%. Young people need the opportunity to have a job to help pay for their education but also to give them skills in the employment field and in the business market. Youth employment has been completely ignored by the government. It had an opportunity to do something about Canada's future, but it is failing dismally.
In fact, as has been said in the House a few times, there have been ads during the Stanley Cup playoffs hockey series about Canada's action plan. The government spends on Canada's action plan ads and talks about the student program, but there are a lot of disclaimers at the end of the commercial. It talks about it, but consultations with the provinces on that program have not even started. It is not up and running, and here is the government spending on ads, when the cost for one of those ads, under the current assistance for student work, is equivalent to 32 student summer jobs, in terms of the federal government share. Every time Canadians look at those ads, they must think that there is money that could have been spent more appropriately creating student summer jobs. That is what really needs to be done, and the government failed dismally in that area.
The government will talk about the incentive for greater charitable donations for young people. However, unless it is a family of wealth, and that is not the middle class, that is not going to make any difference either.
To close, this budget is terrible for Prince Edward Island. In my province, the cuts to the Canadian Tourism Commission mean stopping its advertising in the United States market. That means fewer tours coming to Prince Edward Island to help our economy.
There would be cuts to agriculture. That would hurt us in Prince Edward Island. There would be cuts to the fishery, which would hurt us as well.
This is a dismal budget, and the government should just admit it.