House of Commons Hansard #100 of the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was benefit.
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the member. He has gone on at great length about all the things that he thinks his government has done so well. At the end of all of that, he said he would not support the motion. Could he tell us if he supports income splitting, yes or no?
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Mr. Speaker, of course I support tax fairness for families across Canada. My background is as a teacher. Two teachers who are married and making $50,000 per year each face a much lower tax burden than a welder who makes $100,000 a year and whose spouse stays at home with the children. There are two families, each making the same total income, but one family has to pay significantly less tax than the other family. That is inherent unfairness.
I know the NDP does not like to hear about any tax cuts or any tax reductions for Canadians, but we believe tax policies should treat all Canadians and Canadian families with children fairly.
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Mr. Speaker, my colleague did a wonderful job outlining the measures that this government has taken, and I commend him for that. I also commend him for the great work he does in the House to further the work of the government.
One of the things I would like him talk a little more about is the fact that Canada is universally known for creating competitiveness to encourage both foreign and domestic investment. Could the member tell me what a few examples are of the measurements that our government has implemented since we took office in 2006 and how our taxes stack up against other G7 nations?
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Mr. Speaker, if we look at the tax reductions that this government has made, we reduced taxes over 160 times since taking office in 2006. We have lowered taxes on Canadian families. As I mentioned in my speech, today the average of four can expect to pay up to $3,400 less tax than it did before we took office.
We have lowered taxes across the board. Small and larger businesses pay lower taxes and they are the economic drivers of our society. Today, we have a low corporate tax system that encourages foreign and domestic investment and that invites companies to come here, stay here and employ Canadians. It invites small and medium-sized businesses to expand and grow. Therefore, low taxes is one of the best ways to try to ignite our economy and continue to respond to what was the largest recession since the Great Depression.
We are on the right track, we are moving forward and our low-tax plan is bearing fruit. I want to thank my hon. colleague for supporting those initiatives that will create a robust industry in Canada.
Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC
Mr. Speaker, it is the same old story, day after day. Our colleagues across the way have no comprehension of the immense gap between the rich and the poor. Every week, approximately one million Canadians use food banks to feed single-parent families or families with two or three children. This is happening right across Canada, in every region, in both rural and urban communities, even here in downtown Ottawa.
I wonder why the Conservatives deny the importance of a social fabric here in Canada. What will be achieved by consistently giving more to the rich and less to the poor? It will lead to still more poverty and a high crime rate. The food banks are practically empty because people are donating less and because more and more Canadians are using them.
The members opposite continue to bury their heads in the sand. Could it be that they no longer even walk down the street in downtown Ottawa and see the endless lines at soup kitchens and food banks?
Why is this government ignoring reality?
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Mr. Speaker, I do not know who is ignoring reality. All we have to do is to read the analysis from The New York Times study, which suggests that Canada's middle class has leapfrogged middle-income earners to the south of us. We have the richest middle-level earnings cohort in the world here in Canada. That is a fact. That was released in international studies.
Median income in Canada has climbed by 19.7%, since 2000. This matches the pace in Britain. We are ahead of Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Germany, and far ahead of the meagre 0.3% in the United States under the Obama administration.
I do not know who is ignoring reality, but I can tell members that the facts support that Canada's changes in tax policy and its investment in jobs and economic growth are showing great fruit. We hope that the opposition will get on board and support this.
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
Mr. Speaker, talking about reality, here are some figures. Food bank usage has increased. More and more Canadians are working at minimum wage. Many of them are working part-time jobs just to make ends meet. The number of seniors living in poverty is on the rise.
We have a government that is so far out of touch with what is happening on the ground that it is willing to spend $65 billion to benefit less than 14% of the population. Can the member justify this kind of expenditure when 86% of the population would not benefit from it?
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Mr. Speaker, if the member remembers my speech, I talked about all of the different initiatives that our government has taken to support all facets of society, including tax reductions. I know that the NDP never supports them because it believes that governments should have all of the money and fund all kind of social programs. It does not trust Canadians who have the dollars in their pockets to make their own decisions on spending. That is the basis of the NDP.
The member talked about seniors. I know that she has a lot of seniors in her riding in British Columbia. When she protests against income splitting for families with children, taking money away from children across the country, would she also support the elimination of income splitting for seniors, which has benefited seniors from one end of the country to the other? Would she stand up and say that she is going to vote to take away income splitting for seniors?
Marie-Claude Morin NDP Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC
Mr. Speaker, it is quite simple, and it all adds up: a society where the social fabric is strong, where people have an opportunity to rise out of poverty and do not have to resort to food banks or second-hand clothing stores to buy clothes is a society where people will consume more, drive more and feel better, whether we like it or not. Everybody will do better, even the wealthiest among us.
My question is simple. I would like to know why the government is investing billions of dollars—not millions of dollars, billions of dollars—in initiatives that will benefit just 15% of Canadians, Canadians who do not even need the help? Instead, we should be investing in social programs, for example, in homelessness initiatives or programs to assist seniors living in poverty or single-parent families, who will not benefit from this initiative, either.
I would like to know why the government does not put its money elsewhere.
Scott Armstrong Conservative Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS
Mr. Speaker, the truth is, we are supporting these groups that she talks about. For youth, we have the youth employment strategy, with over $300 million in investment to support youth. We have strategic initiatives for older workers, trying to train them so they can get back into the workforce if they choose to keep working. We have lowered the tax burden over 160 times. The average family of four pays $3,400 less a year in tax.
All of the international data, studies and reports, show that the Canadian middle class is doing far better than their counterparts in other countries. We have initiated strong tax relief across the board for Canadians. We have specific programs so that we have under-represented groups getting training for the jobs that exist today and jobs that will exist tomorrow. Also, we are supporting employers getting skin in the game so they can help to train people for the jobs they will have.
We are taking these strong steps, and I do not understand why, with every one of these initiatives we put forward, the NDP constantly votes against them.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this motion. I think it is one that clarifies the differences here in this House.
We have had the Liberal Leader saying that he thinks it is a decent idea. We have the Green Party, which has it in its party platform, and we have the Conservatives going on about everything else except the topic of this motion today.
I think there is a reason for that. If someone in this House said they had a great proposal, to write an average cheque of $7,128 to 147,000 of the richest families in the country, we would all think they were crazy. An average benefit of $7,000 to 147,000 of the richest; that is what this policy would do. That is why, on this side of the House, we are fundamentally against it.
When we look at the total expenditure of $5 billion, which is $3 billion federal and $1.9 billion provincial, we think about how we could spend $5 billion. How about a universal child care program that would actually help families who cannot find a place to put their kid in quality care? How about a national pharmacare program that would help seniors living in poverty and struggling with choices between keeping a roof over their heads or buying pharmaceutical drugs. There are lots of things we could do with $5 billion.
Instead, the Conservatives are saying let us write a cheque for $7,128 to 147,000 of the richest families. It is beyond belief that they would say that this is a policy about fairness and tax relief for families. This is about aiding their richest friends.
I am amazed that some of the Liberals have gone against what the federal Liberal leader said at the beginning. We do not often see that in the Liberal Party. However, I would like to hear from the federal Liberal leader about whether he still thinks it is a decent idea. It seems like an indecent proposal to me.
I will be sharing my time with the member for York South—Weston, though I do have a lot to say on this.
Who actually benefits from this? We talk about the 14% of families who will benefit. For people in my riding making under $44,000 a year, there is no benefit. For a couple who make above $44,000 a year but are both in the same tax bracket, there is no benefit. For single parents, there is no benefit. For couples with no kids, there is no benefit. For couples with kids who have grown up, there is no benefit. For parents who are divorced, my favourite in terms of irony, there is no benefit.
In my riding, we have a pretty high percentage. I think 86% might actually underestimate the people who would be excluded. When we go through that list, it is just about everybody who I talk to on a daily basis who would get nothing out of this federal income splitting program.
What we have seen is growing income inequality, and this measure would simply fuel that inequality. The incomes of the top 1% or 5% have been skyrocketing, while the average family struggles to make ends meet at the end of the month. The gap between the ultra-rich and the rest of us in Canada continues to grow. Liberal and Conservative governments have done nothing to attack this problem.
I would rather that we were discussing a proposal like a living wage. When I was on city council in Esquimalt, before I came here, we had a long debate about the failure of the minimum wage to provide an income that people could actually live on, that could support a family in dignity. Instead of talking about income splitting that benefits the rich, I wish the Conservatives were proposing to talk about a living wage.
It was the Liberals who eliminated the separate federal minimum wage, in 1996. Now we have a situation where minimum wages continue to erode. In real dollars, we are probably still somewhere below where we were in 1976 when it comes to the minimum wage.
Who earns that minimum wage? The people who would not be benefiting from income splitting for sure, 41% of whom are women and young people. In British Columbia, 32% of minimum wage earners are between the ages of 25 and 54, and 9% of them are aged 55 and over. We are not just talking about teenagers going to school and living in their parents' basement. We are talking about people trying to build a family for themselves, support themselves in dignity, and even support themselves when their retirement income fails. Remember, almost 10% of those aged 55 and over are still working at a minimum wage, and most of them are women.
What would a living wage do? A living wage is the idea that we would pay an amount that two parents, both working full time, with two children, could provide the basic necessities. It does not include paying back debt, savings, trips to Hawaii, which is what I suspect many of the people who would benefit from this income splitting would use this extra income for. Instead, let us pay them a wage that allows them to live in dignity.
In April 2014 in greater Victoria, which I represent, that required a wage of $18.93 an hour. The minimum wage is $10.25, so people who are on the minimum wage are living well below what it takes to live a life of dignity.
Whenever we talk about raising the minimum wage, there are those on the other side who talk about it as a job-killing proposal. If there is any job-killing proposal, it is the income-splitting proposal. That is because it would take money out of the economy in Canada and give it to people who will spend it abroad, either investing or travelling, whereas if we put money toward raising the minimum wage up to a living wage level, those people just might have enough to buy a pizza for their kids at the end of the month. They just might have enough money to make repairs on their house. They just might have enough money to do things that stimulate the local economy.
When we are talking about income splitting, I cannot for the life of me see how any of that is going to put money back into job creation and small business in my riding. It is actually going to take money out of circulation, most probably money that will end up being invested abroad or spent abroad on things like travel, or else money that will be spent on luxuries. Most of those luxuries are not produced in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.
There was a statement in 2006 that I found very interesting. It was cited by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. This statement was signed by 650 economists, including five Nobel laureates. Let me quote a sentence from it:
...a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics have claimed.
It would not have adverse effects, so if we are talking about spending $5 billion of tax money, let us put it into something that alleviates poverty rather than something that aids those who are already doing well in our society. Let us put it toward incentives to create jobs at the entry or basic level. Let us put it toward training programs. Let us put it toward child care, and then let us put our efforts in the House toward making sure that people actually get paid a living wage in this country.
Earlier one of the Liberal members talked about making this a non-partisan issue. I guess what he means is that the Greens, Liberals, and Conservatives agreeing would somehow make it a non-partisan issue.
At the fundamental nature of politics is what kind of Canada we believe in. I find this proposal for income splitting not the kind of Canada that I believe in, not the kind of Canada I want to live in.
Some of the residents of my riding might benefit from such a proposal, but when they actually see its huge cost and the vast majority of its benefit going only to the wealthiest and most successful, even those people who might benefit in my riding would have cause to think about it again.
Why am I so sure of that? Because even the former federal minister of finance, Jim Flaherty, said he had serious concerns about this proposal. If the Conservatives were not prepared to listen to Jim Flaherty at that time, I am not sure who they will listen to, but hopefully they will get a chance to listen to Canadians. When it comes time for the next election, I hope they put forward policies like this one, policies that clearly state their agenda, which is a devotion to trickle-down economics. Their idea is that if we give money to those who are doing the best, somehow they will invest it or spend it in such a way that the other 86% of Canadians can eventually benefit from it. We all know that this kind of economics simply does not work.
It is interesting to look at the people who have talked about income splitting and expressed their doubts. They range from the C.D. Howe Institute on the right to the Broadbent Institute on the left. Both found that the proposal would, as we have argued on this side, cost the federal treasury $3 billion. Both found it would cost the provinces, yet the provinces have nothing to say about it, because Conservatives never talk to the provinces. It would cost them $1.9 billion out of their tax revenues. Where are they supposed to find that?
Very interestingly, in terms of the percentage of people who would not benefit from this measure, both the C.D. Howe Institute and the Broadbent Institute found that between 86%, in the case of the C.D. Howe Institute, and 90%, in the case of the Broadbent Institute, of the population would not benefit from this income-splitting proposal.
I wish we were talking about a living wage for Canadians who go to work every day, work hard to put a roof over their heads and support their families, and maybe put a little away for their kids' education or for their retirement. This policy of income splitting does nothing to favour those people. It benefits only the 147,000 richest Canadian families, and it would give them, as I said, a cheque for an average of $7,128. I do not think anyone would really want to go back and talk to their constituents about what a great idea that is.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and neighbour from Vancouver Island, from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, for giving me a chance to clarify the Green Party platform, which he referred to as the 2011 platform.
We do not mind the concept of income splitting if there are adequate resources to make it possible without shrinking the services that we need in the Canadian government. However, I do not want it going on the record that we currently support income splitting. I want to give members some indication as to why it is unlikely to show up in our 2015 platform.
Members of the party at the convention changed from supporting a carbon tax that could be used to offset income splitting to moving to a carbon fee and dividend whereby every Canadian would receive the benefit of essentially translating pollution into support for lower incomes and all levels of income. That provision means that income splitting is no longer possible under our budget, because it is about a $5 billion cost. If we do not have something to offset that $5 billion cost, then it is simply not possible to do it. Therefore, we would be distributing the carbon fee and dividend throughout the economy, and we no longer support the income-splitting provision to which my hon. friend referred this afternoon.
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands for that explanation, even if I cannot understand it. What she seems to be saying is that she supports income splitting, and the only problem is where we would find the money to do it.
I am saying that the concept is fundamentally wrong because it benefits those who are at the top of the income scale. It does not make any difference at all where we find the money to offset it. The member has talked about a carbon tax or carbon fees or other ways to offset it; that does not make any difference to me. It still takes $5 billion away from the public treasury and gives it to those who need it the least in our society.
Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank and congratulate my colleague for a wonderful enumeration of what income splitting will do to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
These are measures that do not help the Canadians who truly need them. It would be better to propose a measure such as a guaranteed minimum income that would help all families and all Canadians, nationwide. Such a measure would cost from $50 million to $100 million a year and would stimulate the economy.
What we want—and what the government wants—is for the economy to prosper. However, constantly giving to the wealthiest Canadians is not the way to make the economy thrive. The people who need the money are the ones who frequent food banks and thrift stores. They the ones who need this money. They will immediately reinvest the money in the economy, especially the local economy.
Not so long ago, our party proposed a guaranteed minimum income. What impact would a guaranteed minimum income potentially have on the middle class?
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Compton—Stanstead. I would answer him in French, but my grammar and accent are not up to the task.
Therefore, I will unfortunately have to respond in English.
I do agree with the member. The question here is how to make the economy grow. Do we make it grow by helping the people who have already succeeded, the people at the top? Do we make it grow by redistributing some of this money that the Conservatives obviously regard as excess, this $5 billion they want to give back to the richest families, or do we spend it at the other end on a national child care program, a national pharmacare program, job training programs and apprenticeships, things that would help the people who work hard every day? These are the people who go to work every day and are still not earning enough to support their families in dignity.
As the member for Compton—Stanstead said, I support putting our efforts at the other end, toward those hard-working families that could use a little support.
Mike Sullivan NDP York South—Weston, ON
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this topic, as it is a very crucial topic for a lot of people in my riding. I say “crucial” not because they are looking forward to income splitting, but because most of them, if not all of them, would not gain a single cent out of this income-splitting proposal that the Conservatives are suggesting is a great thing for the average Canadian.
The average family income in my riding is $30,000 less per year than the average for the rest of the country. Almost all of the people in my riding have incomes under the cut-off point at which income splitting would provide a benefit to them. We would have a situation in which those most in need, and I include my riding in that category, would have significantly fewer government services, because the Conservative government has been cutting back on services. They would have no additional income as they watch the cost of living and the cost of everyday items continuing to rise.
For those individuals in my riding, those rising costs mean that they will continue to fall further and further behind. Some will fall into poverty. Some are already in poverty. They will certainly fall further and further behind, while some in the rest of the country, a very small portion, will actually do much better.
We now have a situation in Canada in which the rich are getting richer fast. The various governments of the past 25 years have managed to create systems that are unfriendly to organized labour. Organized labour is one of the ways people improve their standard of living, but if the bosses who are making most of the money have governments that are unfriendly to organized labour, they do better, and the bosses are doing much, much better.
The top 1% of earners of this country paid a proportion of our taxes, and that proportion is shrinking. Since the Conservatives took over in 2006, the proportion of net taxes paid by Canadians to the federal government by the top 1% has shrunk relative to the rest. That means everybody else is paying more than the top 1%.
This proposal by the government will make that situation worse, because those at the very top stand to gain by this income-splitting proposal, while those in the middle and at the bottom would gain little, if anything. As a result, the division between the rich and the poor in this country would get worse.
In the city of Toronto, where I reside and where my riding is, a series of studies have been done by Professor Hulchanski on the city of Toronto. This professor has discovered that there has been a hollowing out of large sections of Toronto as a result of the abandonment of the manufacturing industry, something about which the current government has done little, if anything.
With the abandoning of the manufacturing industry and the replacement of those jobs by retail and other service sector industries, the average income for the middle class in Toronto has shrunk dramatically, while the income of those who are doing well has grown. We have a hollowing out in the inner suburbs of the city of Toronto. About 30 or 35 years ago, these people were considered comfortable middle class. Now those people are on the edge of poverty, on the edge of homelessness, on the edge of not doing well at all.
The proposal by the Conservative government does nothing to change this situation. It does nothing to affect the thousands upon thousands of Canadians who are near the bottom of the food chain or the thousands upon thousands of people in my riding who are recent immigrants to this country.
One of the reasons there are a lot of recent immigrants in my riding is that the housing is relatively cheap compared to the rest of Toronto. My riding ends up populated with individuals who are barely scraping by. As a result of this proposal by the Conservative government, those individuals will gain absolutely nothing. Anybody making less than $44,000 a year will see no benefit, and the large majority of people in my riding make less than $44,000 a year.
The average income in my riding for families, which is the net income of everybody in the household, is something approaching $77,000. That includes those who are doing well, and there are some in the riding. For those who are doing poorly the average is $77,000. The average in Canada is a little over $100,000. We can see that we are already only at two-thirds of the income of the rest of Canada. To suggest a largesse of the current government to redistribute wealth by creating a system of income splitting would simply make the problem worse. It would simply create an untenable situation in which the wealthy in this country would get wealthier.
Perhaps it is a vote-getter for the base of the members opposite. Perhaps that is what is going on here. It is certainly not good policy, but if they believe that the rich should get richer and the poor should get poorer, and if that is who they are catering to when they are trying to get re-elected, unfortunately there are not enough of those people remaining in the city of Toronto to get them re-elected. I do not think the Conservatives are going to do very well in the next election. The people of Toronto understand full well that this proposal does not do anything for 86% of Canadian families. As for the 94%, the increase in income inequality, that is what the theory behind income splitting is. It is to redistribute wealth and maybe make income inequality less of a problem, but the effect of this is to continue the income inequality because those at the bottom will continue to be at the bottom. There is no benefit.
We would take $3 billion out of the federal treasury and $1.9 billion out of provincial treasuries and give that money to those people who are already well off. Maybe that would get them a few votes, and maybe that is the key demographic they are looking for, but it would not get the votes of the majority of the people in the city of Toronto, the majority of the people in my riding, and the majority of the people in Canada, 86% of whom will see little or no benefit to this very strange proposal.
Maybe there is an anti-feminist side to what is being proposed here because there are some members in the Conservative Party who believe that women should not be working, who believe that income splitting is the way to ensure that women do not enter the workforce. Already women only make 70% of what men make and as a result of income splitting, their incomes would be the drag on the family so it would be more likely that they would not enter the workforce. Those women, who tend to be the second earners in many families in Canada, would see that their contribution would be less, as a result of income splitting.
We have situations where the government's proposal to income split would disadvantage the poorest, advantage the richest, and disadvantage the women in this country. Those are three philosophies that this party does not accept. We believe that if we are going to redistribute the wealth in this country, we should look after the poorest in this country first. We should look after seniors. We should look after women who make less than men. We should look after the middle-class people who have seen their earnings go off to the bosses and to the 1% of this country. We should look after the people who really need it first in this country.
The notion that we can take almost $5 billion in wealth and give it to the rich in this country is something that we are so opposed to. We are theoretically and philosophically opposed to taking money from everybody, because that is who pays taxes in this country, and giving the lion's share of it to those who make the most. It does not make sense. It is not something we should do. We will be opposed to that policy should it ever come forward.
The Acting Speaker Conservative Barry Devolin
The time for government orders has expired. Consequently, the five minutes for questions and comments for the hon. member for York South—Weston will take place when this matter returns before the House following question period today.
The hon. member for Don Valley West.
John Carmichael Conservative Don Valley West, ON
Mr. Speaker, on June 6, I had the honour of visiting a photo display at Sunnybrook Veterans Centre in my riding of Don Valley West to commemorate D-Day. There, I met with three of the many veterans residing at Sunnybrook. Bernard Julotte, now 98 years old, landed at Normandy on D-Day. It was truly moving to hear his first-hand account of the landing and his vivid memories.
There was a photo love story on display as well, captured by Brigadier-General Harry Brodie, that told the story of how he met his wife during the war. Jack Ford, now 92 years old, had on display a number of photos he took while a member of RCAF Squadron 414's photo unit. While organizing his photos for this year's commemorations, he came upon a stack of negatives. These photos, taken in the days after the invasion when supplies were being brought in, were on full display for residents, family members, and visitors to enjoy.
These are three of the many World War II stories at Sunnybrook Veterans Centre. Lest we forget.
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government's lack of leadership when it comes to heritage protection is jeopardizing a number of historic sites in my magnificent region.
For example, the subsidies granted to the Plaisance Heritage Centre under the Young Canada Works program have suddenly been reduced without any explanation or transparency. Now, the centre's season is in jeopardy.
What is more, the Church of the Annunciation in Oka, an extremely precious heritage building, is looking for support because a rosette recently crashed down from the ceiling and landed on the organ, destroying it completely. Even the Grenville Canal, a wonderful canal built just after the War of 1812, is crumbling.
The NDP wants to ensure that there is long-term, predictable funding for history, heritage and culture. Unlike the Conservatives, the NDP will protect our heritage.
Wladyslaw Lizon Conservative Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to a special event, the third Ratanak 5 km walkathon that took place in Mississauga this past weekend. Ratanak International's focus is to provide support and safety to benefit Cambodian children rescued from the sex trade and to help put their lives back together after facing horrible experiences. Ratanak has helped provide medicine and medical services, rescued and rehabilitated victims of sex slavery and has funded a variety of agricultural programs to help Cambodians rebuild their country.
I would like to congratulate and thank my constituent, Larry Dearlove and his organizing team, volunteers, and over 300 participants, who have raised over $35,000 for this important cause. What a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning with uplifting people who were there to raise much needed funds, but also to raise the spirits of children so far away. It is a true privilege to support organizations like Ratanak whose work changes people's lives.
Ted Hsu Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON
Today is Portugal Day, when Portuguese communities around the world commemorate the death of Luis de Camões, the author of Os Lusíadas, Portugal's national poem celebrating Portuguese history and achievements. Camões captured the sentiment of the age of discovery, when Portuguese explorers led the world in mapping the coasts of Africa, Asia, and Brazil.
In Toronto, over 200,000 Portuguese Canadians celebrate Portugal Day with a week-long festival in Little Portugal. Portuguese immigrants have helped to build strong communities and successful businesses throughout Canada. The highest per capita Portuguese immigrant population is in my riding of Kingston and the Islands. Centred around Nossa Senhora de Fátima and the Portuguese Cultural Centre, the Portuguese immigrant story is an important part of Kingston's history.
In 2010, the Portuguese Cultural Centre hosted World Cup games, drawing soccer fans from all over. I look forward to World Cup excitement and Portugal's first game next Monday.
Boa sorte e feliz dia de Portugal!
Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the women and men across our country who put their lives on the line to keep us safe. Whether they put on a military, police, firefighter, or corrections uniform, they put themselves in harm's way so that the rest of us can rest easy.
Today in Chilliwack, the flag at City Hall will be flown at half-mast, and a book of condolences will be available for those wishing to express their sympathies and share words of comfort to the friends, families, and colleagues of the three RCMP officers who were killed in the line of duty in Moncton last week.
Similar gestures of solidarity and support are taking place across the country today.
As Canadians pause to remember three RCMP officers who made the ultimate sacrifice, let us also resolve to give thanks to, and say a prayer for, all of those Canadians who run toward danger, rather than run away from it. May God bless them all.
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Mr. Speaker, today, as Portugal honours its greatest poet, Luís de Camões, it is a privilege for me to honour the Luso Canadian community as we celebrate Portugal Day.
Canada provided a home for many early immigrants from Portugal who left behind decades of fascist rule. They came with next to nothing, but their pockets were full with the desire to contribute and to succeed, not just for their own families and for their own community, but for Canada as a whole. Because of their experience, they wanted to help build a Canada that was fair for all, where everyone had access to opportunity, to health care, and to education.
Today, that very same community's contribution to our cultural, commercial, and social life is one of Canada's great success stories. Portugal Day provides us with an opportunity to reflect not only on those accomplishments, but on who we are as Canadians, and the Luso Canadian community's vital role in shaping the Canadian identity.
I invite my colleagues and Canadians from coast to coast to coast to celebrate and congratulate the Portuguese Canadian community. We wish Portugal good luck in the World Cup.
Viva Portugal. Viva Canadá.
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Sarnia—Lambton, I would like to highlight the importance of the agriculture industry across Lambton County. With Lambton County's first ever Breakfast on the Farm event recently selling out, with over 500 tickets sold in a matter of days, we will see first-hand how important this sector is on June 14.
With almost 600,000 acres of prime farm land, farmers across my riding are pleased to see their crops planted and already growing, and they are eager to showcase their products. Their efforts will lead to huge yields of soybeans, wheat, sugar beets, corn, and other fruits and vegetables too numerous to name here today.
Our farmers do not just feed cities, either. They provide important source materials for a booming bio-based chemical industry that is rapidly growing in Canada.
The next time members enjoy food from Ontario, there is a good chance that the product on their plate came from Sarnia—Lambton. They should stop and think about that, and join me in wishing our farmers and their families the best for the current season and beyond.
Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON
Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a great leader from our community in Durham, a leader who also happens to be my father, John O'Toole. He is retiring this week, after 19 years as our member of provincial Parliament.
While raising a family of five children and working 31 years at General Motors, he was always active in our community, ultimately becoming school trustee, local councillor, regional councillor, and then MPP in 1995. In the government of Mike Harris, he served as the parliamentary assistant to the minister of finance, the late Jim Flaherty, and to the minister health, who is now our President of the Treasury Board.
He served with great distinction, and the families of Durham will be truly thankful for his work as an advocate and a champion for our community. He was the iron man of the legislature and spoke in the House more than any other member. I will have to serve 50 years in this House to have as many appearances in Hansard as my father.
He remains a personal inspiration to me. I thank my dad for his public service, and I wish him and my mom a happy and healthy retirement.