Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak on this bill this afternoon. I have a number of thoughts that I would like to share with the House.
I will start by following some comments from the Conservative Chief Government Whip regarding the DNA data bank. It is tragic that well over 1,200 aboriginal women and girls have been murdered or have gone missing across Canada. There are stakeholders from virtually all regions and areas, including chiefs, municipalities, provincial premiers, and many other individuals.
Earlier today, the Assembly of First Nations met in Winnipeg. A brave young girl, Rinelle Harper, survived a horrific incident, and we give her full credit for having the courage and strength to survive what many would never have been able to. Left for dead after being sexually assaulted and beaten along the Assiniboine River, today she came out in a very bold way and asked for a national inquiry. The Prime Minister has been challenged on numerous occasions to call for that national inquiry. I am not aware of any stakeholder outside of the Prime Minister's Office who is against having a national inquiry. If we were to have a free vote on the issue of calling for a national inquiry, I suspect a number of Conservative members of Parliament would acknowledge the need for it.
The Chief Government Whip was correct at the beginning of his comments. I did not get it all written down, but he said in essence that it is heartbreaking when a child goes missing. What parent would ever want to hear those words from a police authority, or see day after day go by without not knowing where their child might be?
This is something that has happened far too often in our communities, particularly within the aboriginal community. There is a need for a public inquiry into the issue. It is more than just a crime. We have had two serious high-profile incidents in Manitoba, in Winnipeg. One was at the Red River, where a young girl was not as fortunate and was deceased when she was pulled out. Then we had Rinelle Harper.
I believe that the Prime Minister should be calling an inquiry, and there is no better time to do it than before the end of the year. I have heard appeals for an inquiry being initiated by individual provinces and two first nations, and I suspect that it even goes beyond that.
In my own riding of Winnipeg North, young girls and women have been murdered or have gone missing. By one count, I believe it was at 12 or 14 girls and women of all ages.
There is a need for us to have the inquiry. I appeal to the Prime Minister to recognize that need and to join with everyone else who seems to understand that it is more than just a crime that has taken place and that we need to get to the root of it. A public inquiry would go a long way in addressing a great number of the concerns that have been raised on this issue.
Today we are talking about a budget implementation bill that is very wide in its scope. I have listened to a lot of the speeches with respect to this particular piece of legislation. The speeches dealt with everything from tax credits to infrastructure to old age supplements. The discussion has been very wide and quite often very specific on certain aspects of the legislation. For example, an earlier speaker talked about the DNA data bank that would be created.
It is important that we recognize that this piece of legislation, like other budget implementation bills presented by the current majority Conservative government, goes far beyond a traditional budget implementation bill.
We have seen in the chamber that the attitude of the majority Conservative-Reform Party government towards governing has been very disrespectful to democracy. We have seen record numbers of time allocation. Is it any surprise that this bill is under time allocation? What do we mean by “time allocation”? It means that the government is invoking closure. Time allocation is a form of closure.
There is no doubt that in majority government situations, and even in minority situations, time allocation is sometimes necessary. However, never in the history of Canada have we witnessed a government incorporate time allocation as part of the normal process of passing legislation, nor have we witnessed a government that has used thousands of pages in a few budget implementation bills in order to pass entire legislative agendas.
The government, and the Prime Minister and his office, has been riding rough over individual members' abilities to have the dialogue and the debate that is important to take place inside this chamber.
In fairness to the government, I do recognize that the official opposition has also played fairly loose with respect to its positioning on the issue of time allocation. I was very disappointed by the New Democratic Party, as the official opposition, preventing standing committees from even meeting or being able to travel in situations when there was a need to travel. As an official opposition, the NDP has not recognized that.
In the comments that have been provided by members on both sides of the House, what are the big issues that continue to come up? I have had opportunity, through questions and answers, to talk about it. The issue of the middle class is something that the leader of the Liberal Party has raised consistently ever since he became leader.
If we attempt searches with respect to that issue of trying to raise the profile and the importance of the middle class, we would find that the member for Papineau has made it a core issue, not only as an issue for today but as an issue that we are going to fight for.
Then we have this recent budget, as my colleague from Montreal pointed out, with the income-splitting program. We had a Conservative member stand and say that this is Mr. Flaherty's last real contribution in a tangible way, in the form of a budget implementation bill that would put into place his budget.
What did Mr. Flaherty actually have to say about the income split? We know that he opposed it, and he opposed it for good reason. Like the Liberal caucus, he recognized that the middle class of Canada should not have to foot the $2 billion bill as a result of 15% or less of Canadians receiving the tax benefit.
That is why Mr. Flaherty opposed it. We in the Liberal Party agreed with him. We believe it is not an appropriate way to provide more than $2 billion in tax breaks, because there is a cost. Who is going to be paying that cost? It will be the middle-class taxpayer who will be footing the bill, and that is wrong.
I have heard numerous questions from the opposition to the government in regard to the EI program. The government talks a lot about the small business grant that it is issuing. It announced the tax break for small businesses back in September. What we have found out is that there was never any analysis done of it. We have no idea of the number of jobs it is going to create. In fact, in a very perverse way, some small businesses will be provided with an incentive to fire people, to reduce their payroll in order to be eligible for the grant.
It is not just Liberals who are saying that. Even editorial columnists and other stakeholders have said that. The Liberal Party responded to that.