Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam.
I am happy to speak about nothing, anything—about the budget, in fact. It seems to me, really, that it is nothing and anything. There is not much in this budget to help Canadians who need help, or to help businesses. As I speak, there are 300,000 more people unemployed than before the recession, and there is no significant investment to create high-quality jobs. That is a problem.
With regard to the Canada job grant, the Conservatives would probably talk about that, telling us that there is something, but there is not even an agreement with the provinces. The government wants to proceed unilaterally without consulting the provinces and without cooperating with them. In broad terms, they throw everything into the lap of the provinces and municipalities, and then they wonder why our infrastructure is falling apart, why there are people unemployed and why there is more and more poverty in Canada. This is not saying much.
Household debt is an important issue. Canadian families now owe an average of $1.60 for every dollar they earn. It is a real problem, because that figure is fairly significant. There is nothing in the Conservatives’ budget to help these people. There is nothing to regulate bank charges. The other day, we moved a motion on the subject. There is nothing to limit interest rates on credit cards, which would help the middle class and people who are in debt. There is nothing about gas prices.
Last week, I consulted community organizations in my riding about household debt and the problematic situation in our country. People are at their wits’ end, they have problems, they need a hand from the government, and they are not getting it.
This budget does contain a few minor measures that are somewhat positive, it has to be said. We do not always work in a negative way. The NDP motto, after all, is “Working together”. High-speed Internet access will be reaching our smaller centres; that is a good thing for my constituency. People will be happy, particularly in the Acton Vale area. There is also the elimination of the “pay to pay” fees. Receiving a bill in the mail and having to pay an additional two dollars is completely unacceptable. The government has promised to do something about this. Is it really going to? I cannot wait to see that. I should also note that the budget mentions an additional 200 inspectors for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. That is a very good measure. It has to be said that it is about time.
Something that affects my constituency a great deal is infrastructure. For example, money has been included for the Champlain Bridge. Kudos. It has been in ruins for a long time, and we have been waiting for years for the government to do something about the bridge. Perhaps it was waiting for a major problem to occur, and it was even talking about possibly closing the bridge. There would be utter chaos on the south shore and the Island of Montreal if the Champlain Bridge closed. This affects people in my riding, because it is not very far from Montreal and many people from our area work there. The Champlain Bridge raises another issue: tolls. People on low incomes use it daily. Is it really a solution to make people pay for using a bridge? I have my doubts.
The criteria for the building Canada fund have finally been revealed, but these outlays are completely inadequate to meet the current needs of our municipalities. They have been letting things go for years, and now it is time to act.
I could provide some other examples, but I would like to talk about employment insurance. By 2016, $6.4 billion will have accumulated, and again, the money is to be used as they see fit. However, the money belongs to the workers who have contributed to employment insurance, and they may not be entitled to it.
As far as the environment is concerned, the Canadian government’s budget does not address climate change at all. This is 2014. There is a problem. We have to ask ourselves serious questions about where we are headed, what we want to do as a society, and what we want for the future of our children.
I would now like to draw people’s attention to housing and homelessness, a cause I frequently take up. I also introduced a bill on the subject, which was debated about a year ago. With respect to housing, the budget contains no measures to address the expiration of the federal agreements. It means that people may find themselves out on the street, or unable to pay for their housing. This is completely unacceptable.
With respect to homelessness, money from the homelessness partnering strategy goes to fund the housing first program. In other words, we are robbing Peter to pay Paul. In plain language, that is what is going on. Yes, there is investment in a housing program for the chronically homeless, but there is no additional housing, so I do not know how that is going to work.
These are the problems I wanted to raise in relation to the budget. The problem is that the government’s budget in fact contains no meaningful measures to help middle-class Canadians get out from under their debts. It does nothing to offer adequate help to people grappling with housing issues, it does nothing for the environment—in short, it does nothing at all.
Last week, I held a public consultation on household indebtedness and the “affordability” of life in general. I will use this term because people will understand. Community agencies and organizations working on the problem of debt confirmed that middle-class Canadians and the disadvantaged are being crushed and have had enough. It appears that they need a break, but that is not what the government is now offering them.