Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the hard work of my colleague opposite. I used to have her role as the official opposition finance critic and I know it is always challenging. She certainly gives great credit to her assignment.
I have three questions.
The member suggested that this is an austerity budget. That is a term in Europe that has become associated with governments that are significantly reducing their program spending, often by 10%, 20%, or 30%, to deal with massive fiscal calamity.
However, in this budget, program spending is actually relatively flat. There is actually no reduction, because transfers to persons and provinces continue to grow at a very significant pace.
Would she not agree that it is inaccurate to characterize that as extreme austerity when, in fact, we continue to see massive increases in transfers to province--an increase of $65 billion over the past seven years, for example?
Second, she suggested criticism of one of the most exciting elements of the budget, from my perspective, that being the new apprenticeship loan. This is a measure that apprentices, the polytechnics in Canada, the career colleges, the community colleges have long asked for. Because apprentice training periods are typically about eight weeks, they were excluded from access to the Canada student loan program. Why would she and the NDP be against giving apprentice students access to the same financing option, if they choose, that regular post-secondary students have? Why should they be treated as second-class students? Why does she disagree with all of the colleges and the apprentice organizations themselves, which called for precisely this measure?
Third, in question period the other day, one of her colleagues opposed our shutting down of the current investor immigrant program, which effectively gives away Canadian permanent residency to people who provide a five-year fully-guaranteed $400,000 loan that they get back after five years, which very typically results in no real investment in Canada.
To be clear, the average investor immigrant pays in federal taxes, over the course of 20 years, $200,000 less than the average immigrant who arrives as a federal skilled worker and $100,000 less in federal taxes than someone who arrives as a permanent resident through the live-in caregiver program.
Why would she support giving away Canadian social benefits to wealthy foreigners, many of whom continue to live in tax havens abroad while their dependants use Canadian social programs, and do not pay their fair share of taxes?
With respect, the NDP should have demanded years ago that we shut that down.