Debates of March 10th, 2015

Opposition Motion—Government Investments

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for raising the issue of loan guarantees. It is something that I and my party have supported going back to 2004 and 2005. We were there supporting the notion of a federal loan guarantee for the Lower Churchill development long before the current government made any commitment in that regard.

Clearly, it is a positive thing that the federal government finally decided to support a loan guaranteex for Newfoundland and Labrador hydro development. However, never before today have I heard it referred to as a small business measure. This is an $8-billion project, and it will have a loan guarantee of $6.2 billion. In our understanding, that is not a small business; that is a very large business.

While we recognize that it is an important role for the Government of Canada to play, what we have offered is a cut in the small business tax rate from 11% to 9% in recognition that 98% of all businesses in Canada are small businesses, and they do need help because they are the big job creators.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I agree with my colleague. Canada's middle class is not doing so well, whether in his province or in my region of Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. Yesterday, I asked the minister a question about this. I pointed out that 85 jobs were lost in my region last week. Those were good jobs that paid well.

I also agree with the report that was presented to us. It shows that the middle class is struggling in Canada. Good jobs are rare. The Conservative government chooses to put its eggs in the wrong basket.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on what could be done to help small and medium-sized enterprises create good jobs in communities. These enterprises create a lot of jobs in the country.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I know that many regions of the country, and the member talked about his, are suffering from job losses. However, one of the biggest job creators, certainly in the private sector, has been small businesses. In fact, 78% of all new private sector jobs between 2002 and 2012 have been created by small business. Yet, the Conservatives have really ignored the small business owners in favour of the wealthier corporations. They have cut the corporate tax rate for the wealthiest corporations by over 25%, but their support for small business has only been a cut of 1%. We know where their emphasis has been.

We also know where the job creation is in the private sector. It is in many regions of the country, particularly in rural areas, such as that represented by the hon. member, and in places like Newfoundland and Labrador where every job counts. When there is an unemployment rate of 11.4%, a persistently high unemployment rate, it needs the support of public measures such as those we are proposing in order to advance and provide those jobs that people need.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this House on the aspirations of working-class families and building an economy where people who are struggling move into the middle class, and the middle class gets ahead.

Members of the high-tax parties believe that governments must run the lives and spend the money of struggling families, that they can reduce poverty by taking money from working families and spending it for them. Conservatives believe that the best social safety net is a strong family and that the best anti-poverty plan is a good job. That is why our low-tax plan helps families and creates jobs.

Members of the high-tax parties here today will tell us that they are more generous. The truth is that they are more generous with other people's money. They like to spend it on themselves. However, wealthy union bosses, well-paid lobbyists and lawyers who charge hundreds of dollars an hour to do so-called advocacy litigation have nothing to do with social justice. Despite all the high-minded rhetoric of the high-tax parties, the evidence is in. It shows that two things have happened since our government has taken office: one, families are moving out of poverty and into the middle class; and two, the middle class is getting ahead. In fact, it is ahead of any other middle class in any other country in the world.

Here are the facts. Between 2005 and 2011, during which time our government has been in office, take-home pay among low-income families is up by 14% after tax and inflation. Even Andrew Coyne, who endorsed the Liberals, wrote:

In 2011, the latest year for which StatsCan has figures, the proportion of the population living on low income—that is, with incomes below the agency’s Low Income Cut-off (LICO)--fell to its lowest level … well, ever. At just 8.8%, it beat the previous record of 9.0%, set in 2010. As recently as 1996, it was at 15.2%.

We have gone from 15.2% of families living in poverty to 8.8%, a cut of almost half in just two decades from when the Liberals were in power until we took office. That is an extraordinary phenomenon and there are other statistics to support that it is a sweeping phenomenon and not an isolated statistic.

Let me go on. Throughout the world, while the global recession came about between 2008 and roughly 2011, one would expect that child poverty would go up. Millions lose their jobs and have lower incomes and as a result more children are living below the line, but not in Canada. In fact, in Canada child poverty actually dropped by 180,000 children between 2008 and 2011. Was this the result of some expensive new government program? No, the evidence is clear that we reduced poverty by putting money back in the pockets of families.

David Morley of UNICEF said, “If Canada is faring better than other western democracies, it is due to measures that are favourable to families, like tax credits, fiscal measures and benefits that have been maintained or put in place to counter the effects of the global crisis.”

It is not hard to understand why. Let us look at the universal child-care benefit. Over 13 years, the Liberals spent billions of dollars trying to set up a government-run daycare program. Bureaucracies, government-funded lobbyists and researchers got all kinds of money, but in the end it did not create a single, solitary daycare space. The Liberals and the New Democrats, high in the ivory tower looking down, think modest families cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, that we need a bureaucracy to control every aspect of their lives and all of their money. I am proud to say we cancelled the Liberal bureaucracy. We divided up the savings and sent it to parents in cheques in the amount of $1,200 per child under the age of six. We called it the universal child care benefit.

I asked my officials what the impact is of this benefit on poverty. Very methodically they gave me an answer. First, we use the low-income cut-off lines, which take after-tax incomes of all families with children to determine how many are low-income. Second, we did the very same comparison but based on what a family's after-tax income would have been without the universal child care benefit. The answer showed that there are 41,000 kids whose families would be beneath the poverty line without the universal child care benefit, but are above it because that benefit exists.

That was not all. We increased the amount of money that families can earn before they start paying taxes and removed one million Canadians from the tax rolls altogether. Let me quote the Parliamentary Budget Officer on our tax reductions, because there has been a lot of misinformation about who benefits from those tax reductions. Let me quote his report:

In total, cumulative changes have reduced federal tax revenue by $30 billion, or 12 per cent. These changes have been progressive, overall. Low and middle income earners have benefited more, in relative terms, than higher income earners.

The report also points out that the highest 10% of income earners benefited the least with after tax gains of just 1.4%. The $30 billion in annual tax cuts sounds like an incomprehensibly large amount of money. It is; that is a lot of tax cuts. Let me say what it means for an average family. We have a country with 35 million people. Divide $30 billion by 35 million, we get $850 per person, per man, woman and child, in lower taxes. For a family of four that is $3,400. That might not sound like a lot of money to wealthy limousine Liberals or champagne socialists, but the reality is to an average family working hard to make ends meet and get ahead, that $3,400 can make the difference. That is why we are going to continue to reduce taxes for Canadian families.

I should emphasize that with regard to the $850 per person in tax relief that happens every year under our government, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said specifically that the money went disproportionately to low- and middle-income earners.

The reality is that when we put money back in the pockets of everyday people, they do the right thing with it. They lift themselves up and they do the same for their children. They give their kids a better start in life. We have to believe in families and in workers and in small business owners to trust them to keep their own money. We on this side of the House believe in Canadians and we trust them to keep their earnings.

It is not just the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report or data from StatsCan that shows we are getting better off in Canada, in fact even the liberal-leaning New York Times wrote, “Life in Canada, Home of the World's Most Affluent Middle Class”. It also compared the years when the Liberal Party was in power and found that after-tax middle-class incomes in Canada, substantially behind in 2000, now appear to be higher than in the United States.

Overall, since taking office, personal income taxes are down by 10% and take-home pay is up by 10%, on average across income levels. In fact, the lower quartile of income earners have actually benefited more than all others across the spectrum. The median net worth of Canadian families is up by 24% since 2005 when the Liberals were in power.

That brings me to the question before the House on the family tax cut and benefits that we recently instituted. I just finished talking about everything we have done in the past nine years. Now let us talk about the present.

In the fall, our Minister of Finance introduced the family tax cut and benefits for families, which did three things.

First, it allowed couples to split their income to save up $2,000 on their taxes. Therefore, if one spouse earns more than the other, the higher income earning spouse can give enough to the lower spouse to equalize that, which will reduce their tax burden and allow them to keep more of their money. This allows families to make choices about how they raise their children.

Second, we increased the universal child care benefit from $1,200 to $1,900 per preschool child, that great poverty-fighting, middle-class supporting benefit that I discussed earlier. We also extended it for children under the age of 18. Any child who is over the age of 6 and under 18 will be eligible for up to $720 per year.

Finally, we increased the daycare tax credit by $1,000 so families that put their kids in a local community daycare could claim more of those costs on their taxes.

What does this mean for a family? Let me provide a few scenarios.

For families with incomes of $95,000 and $25,000 with two kids, one under 6 and one between 6 to 17, the net federal benefit for the 2015 tax year as a result of these new tax breaks is $2,835.

Families where both mom and dad each earn $60,000, with two kids, one under the age of six and the other in the adolescent years, would save $875.

A single income couple making $60,000 with one parent in the home and two kids would have a $1,605 benefit.

The net benefit for a single parent with a modest income of $45,000 and a child under the age of six the net benefit for the 2015 tax year as a result of these new breaks we have brought in for families will be $402.

In fact, every family with kids is better off as a result of the family tax cut and benefits.

Through this motion today, the high-tax opposition parties have announced that if they ever get the chance to take office, they will take that money away. They will reach their hands into the pockets of hard-working families and take away these hard won gains. We will not let them.

As I said at the outset, the best social safety net is a strong family. That is why we are helping families with the family tax cut and benefits.

The best anti-poverty plan is a good job. That is why we have a low tax plan that creates jobs. It has created 1.2 million net new jobs, 85% of which are full time, 80% in the private sector, and two-thirds in high wage industries. That is the best relative job-creation record in the G7.

Let me quote the International Monetary Fund, which said:

Over the past several years, Canada has taken numerous steps to reduce the economy’s vulnerabilities through policies designed to keep financial institutions and the financial system as a whole safer.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer said, “The current system of taxes and transfers serves to increasingly equalize income as inequality increases”.

These improvements allow for a stable and strong economy that creates more jobs for Canadians.

Our job creation plan is widespread and sensible. It includes trade, tax cuts and training.

Let me talk for a moment about training. As we were growing up, we were told that the only way we could be a success was to go to university. University is great. I had the honour to attend the University of Calgary. However, there are also honourable and prosperous lives to be had in the trades. We wanted to reorient our training program to fill the one million skilled job vacancies that we expect will appear in Canada over the next decade.

We need more plumbers, electricians, carpenters, stonemasons, and I could name many more. Our government created the apprenticeship grants, which help those families that want to give their children a chance to learn these great trades so they can go on to high salaries and incomes in high demand fields.

I am thinking now of those families with working class backgrounds that struggle to get by. People know the types I am speaking of, those who scrimp and save and set aside every penny they can so their 18 and 19 year olds can go to college and get a certificate to practise in the trades. Some of them just do not quite make it. That is why we brought in this grant, so these families with these young people could get their shot. They can get their opportunity to make a good life and have a better future, literally building our country.

This year we went beyond the apprenticeship grant and brought in the apprenticeship loan. For those young people who do not quite have enough money to retool their skills, we will now give them an interest-free loan while they study so they build those skills and ultimately build a better life for themselves.

Already it is working. Half a million young people have benefited from our apprenticeship grants. Even though we just announced the loan at the beginning of January, we already have 2,000 young people who are benefiting from those loans. This is just the beginning.

We are going to reorient our economy. We are going to give the proper esteem to these important trades jobs, because trades are just as a good as professions, college is just as good as university, and a good blue collar job is just as beneficial to the Canadian economy as a white collar job. Working class Canadians deserve that respect, and they also deserve the same benefits and help as everyone else. We are going to ensure that they get it.

There is a difference between the high tax parties and our low tax government. The high tax parties are for union bosses; we are for workers. The high tax parties want to spend millions on a new office headed by a “children's commissioner”. We believe there are already eight million children's commissioners across country whose names are mom and dad.

The high tax parties want to turn workers against business owners; we want to turn workers into business owners. They want to make the rich poorer; we want to make the poor rich. They believe in a hand out; we believe in a hand up. They want a government that stands in the way; we want a government that stands by people's side.

We are going to continue to work to keep Canadians working. We have come so far. Working and middle-class families have made so much progress over the last 10 years. However, our work is not done. There is still more to do.

We need to put yet more money in the pockets of middle-class families so they can spend in their communities, start small businesses and save for their futures. We need to create yet more jobs; 1.2 million jobs is a lot but it still is not enough. We need more.

We are going to ensure that people have the skills they need for the jobs of today, and we are going to continue with our agenda of trade, training and tax cuts to take our country forward so families can secure and build on the gains they have already won, and build the dreams they envision for themselves.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always entertaining to listen to my colleague across the aisle when he talks about all the Conservatives have done for working people in Canada, for students and for the middle class.

When I talk to Canadians from coast to coast to coast, what I hear is that we need sound policies from government. By the way, I am not referring to just union-loving, or an NDP-supporting group like the CIBC, or boards of trade and other people. People recognize the need to look at raising the minimum wage. The $15 minimum wage has been welcomed in many parts of Canada. This is from the business community as well.

They also see the value of a national child care plan that is implemented provincially. They do not see that plan as taking their children away from them. They see that as providing real economic and educational opportunities for our young children.

How is the income splitting going to create more jobs and help working Canadians?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will tell the member how it is going to help. A family with a single income of $60,000 will save $1,600 from our family tax cut, which is income splitting and an increased universal child care benefit. That is how it is going to help. It is going to put $1,600 back in that family's pockets. The NDP and the Liberals, the two high-tax parties, will take $1,600 away from that family. That money is now already in the family's pockets. It applied for the 2014 tax year.

Therefore, when the high-tax parties tell us that they are going to be cancelling a future benefit, they are misleading Canadians. In fact, they will be retroactively raising taxes on middle-class families if they get the chance to take office. I am talking here about a family that earns $60,000 and the NDP wants to take $1,600 out of that family's pockets. That is a pay cut for middle-class families and is the reason why Canadians will reject these high-tax parties and re-elect a low-tax government.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to contest a point made by my hon. colleague. He talked about tax cuts and $800 per person. What Canadians need to know is that these tax savings are an illusion. The federal government debt has increased by about $160 billion, which is something like $4,000 per person. People might have received tax cuts, but they actually still owe that money to whomever invested in Canadian government bonds or to tax debts in the future. Their kids are going to have to pay that money back in something.

It is completely an illusion to claim that the government has put money back in people's pockets. It was their own money to begin with and they still owe it. I want Canadians to know that. If my hon. colleague would care to respond to that, that would be fine.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to see the member in the House in good form.

The reality is that Canada, under this government, has by far the lowest debt as a share of our economy of any country in the G7. In fact, our debt to our GDP is about 33%. The second place country is Germany, which is around 50%. In other words, we have by far the lowest debt of any of our competitors in our peer group.

The member is from a party whose leader says that the budget will balance itself. They held a convention recently where the Liberals argued that the debt was too small, that we needed more debt, according to the Liberals. On this side of the House, we balanced the government's budget. Now we are cutting taxes to help balance the budgets of families.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the minister's speech. He talked a lot about the benefits that we were providing to middle and low-income Canadians. He talked about the expansion of the universal child care benefit. He talked about the income splitting, which really targets families with one person working or maybe making a little more than his or her spouse, to provide tax fairness for those families.

Could the minister elaborate on exactly how the income splitting would work and how it would provide support for both medium and low-income Canadian families?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hard-working parliamentary secretary for his excellent work on behalf of Canadians.

Our tax code was fundamentally unfair until we fixed it. While farmers, small businesses, seniors and even divorced couples have been allowed to split their incomes for decades, salaried couples with a single income have not been allowed to do that until now. Let us say one spouse in a family earns $60,000 and the other spouse stays at home to look after the kids. The breadwinner will be able to give half of her income to the stay-at-home dad to reduce their tax bracket and, therefore, their tax bill. This will ensure that household is treated the same as the household next door, which earns $60,000 through two incomes.

That is tax fairness. It will put money back in the pockets of middle-class families that make the sacrifice to care for their kids in the home, and it will ensure that children in families have more resources to get ahead. That is our agenda, a low-tax plan for families, versus the high-tax schemes of the other parties.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech by my Conservative colleague. He talked about the importance of creating good jobs in Canada. However, the reality is that a person who works 40 hours a week at minimum wage to support his family is living below the poverty line, even if he periodically gets help from the federal government. We cannot underestimate that. Obviously, the middle class is also suffering, but people living in poverty cannot make ends meet, even if they work 40 hours a week.

I would like to know if my Conservative colleague thinks it is normal for a person working 40 hours a week to support his family to still be living below the poverty line.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the best way to improve families' income and quality of life is to reduce the taxes they are paying. That will give them more income. However, the New Democrats and the Liberals want to raise taxes. That will lower the income of middle-class families and families living below the poverty line.

What we are doing has a direct impact. The New Democrats do not even realize that 90% of workplaces fall under provincial jurisdiction. Our Parliament does not control minimum wage. However, what we can control is taxes. Our government is lowering taxes so that people who are working hard to improve their lives and their children's lives benefit. We will continue to do that.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the minister to explain to the House and to Canadians why his government continues to give tens of billions of dollars to large corporations when we all know that jobs are mainly created by SMEs.

Can he briefly explain this strategy? It is driving middle-class Canadians further into debt, when the government should be proposing other options, something that it has not done yet.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is not true. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that our tax cuts have helped all Canadians, particularly middle-class Canadians and Canadians living below the poverty line. Even proportionately, middle-class families and people living in poverty are the ones who have benefited from our tax cuts. Lowering taxes will give the average family approximately $3,400.

Let us talk about job creators: companies. We are lowering their employment insurance premiums. The New Democrats and the Liberals want to create a 45-day work year, where someone could receive employment insurance benefits for an entire year after working for 45 days. That would increase the cost of the program by over $4 billion and raise taxes for small and medium-sized businesses.

This proposal would kill jobs, and that is why we are rejecting it.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Saint-Lambert.

It is an honour for me to rise in this place on behalf of the good people of Davenport in the great city of Toronto to speak in support of the motion before us.

I will begin by saying that many of the people the CIBC report references and talks about live in my riding of Davenport. I am talking about cab drivers, web designers, office cleaners, bartenders, dishwashers, carpenters, consultants, and micro-entrepreneurs. As I go door to door in my riding, I hear a consistent refrain: Where are the stable jobs in the Canadian economy? Where is the promise of that middle-class stability the current government keeps talking about but never delivers? Not only do the Conservatives not deliver it, they willfully ignore the reality.

We did not need a CIBC report, although maybe the folks across the way needed a report from one of their trusted allies, to underline what many of us know if we go door to door in our ridings, which is that we have young people who are 24, 25, 26, or 27, with post graduate degrees, still living at home because they cannot find a job in their profession.

It is very hard to find a full-time job at some of Canada's very profitable companies, such as, for example, grocery store chains, where most employees are hired on a part-time basis. We have an issue here of serial part-time work, people working on contract, people working freelance, and people being self-employed. We also have people who on Monday were employed at a company only to wake up on Tuesday to find out that they have been deemed independent contractors. In other words, we have a significant issue of misclassification of workers.

Then, of course, as we speak about often in this place, we have many young people and newcomers to Canada who are actually working for free as unpaid interns, because they are desperate to find that experience to put on a resumé, which they hope will lead to a stable job. However, what we are finding, and this CIBC reports underlines it, is that those stable jobs are not there at the end of all of that work. Those stable jobs are not there at end of a post graduate degree, on top of which there is $50,000 in student debt. Those stable jobs are not there at the end of serial unpaid internships. Those stable jobs are not there at the end of a six-month, short-term contract.

Let us underline what links all of these kinds of workers. Some are urban workers by design. In other words, they are self-employed people who want to be self-employed. I was one of those people. I worked for 25 years in the arts and culture sector as a freelancer, and I can tell members that while that is the life I chose, for many people in today's economy, there is no choice. We are seeing, as we see in the CIBC report, a staggering statistic, which is that self-employed employment grew four times faster than regular employment, and as the report also underlines, that self-employment pays significantly less than conventional employment.

These urban workers right across the country have no access to a workplace pension. They have no access to benefits, such as health benefits, extended benefits, sick leave, or compassionate leave. They also do not have access to any of our rapidly diminishing income security measures, like employment insurance.

In other words, our labour laws have been predicated on a workplace reality that no longer exists in this country. That reality was that one could leave school, even high school, and find a stable, full-time job. A person could imagine raising a family and buying a house, and in fact did, and after 35 years could retire with a pension that would ensure that one's senior years were lived out in a dignified fashion.

If you come to my town, Mr. Speaker, and I know you are dying to visit Toronto, you will see the effects of the Conservative government's disinterest in the realities of urban workers. Seniors are barely getting by. Young people are stuck in a cycle of short-term contract employment and free work.

As I look around this place today, I can imagine that many of the members in my caucus and also on the government side know these stories very well. Many of them likely have adult children who are struggling in today's economy. We are failing a generation of young people today by not addressing these realities.

I am not here today to promote a private member's bill. I am here today to speak in support of my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley's motion.

When we talk about precarious work, we also have to look at solutions. When we talk about precarious work, we have to ask ourselves whether the government has considered measures that would address these issues. It has come up with income splitting as a way of addressing precarious work. I cannot imagine where that fits in with this issue, because anyone who can access the government's income splitting scheme is not precariously employed.

I know that many of the members opposite have displayed a relative disinterest in the goings on in the economy of the greater Toronto area, even though it is the largest, most significant engine of the Canadian economy. It is important to note that today roughly 50% of all families in the GTA cannot find or access stable, full-time jobs. That should outrage every member in this place and anyone who cares about growing the Canadian economy.

What we see in this CIBC report is, in many ways, a castigation of the economic plans and policies of the government, which have failed to address some of the most pressing issues for Canadians, including how to create an economy that builds more stable jobs. How do we create an economy in which our young people graduate from our colleges and universities, and even from our high schools, into stable employment?

We have never heard anything from the government about the quality of jobs it says it creates. We now know what the quality of those jobs is. They are low-paying. They are part-time. They are contract. They are freelance. They are self-employed. They do not come with a workplace pension. They do not come with benefits. There is no income security attached to these jobs.

We need to fix that. An NDP government will fix that.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as with previous speakers, we welcome these comments because they highlight such a stark difference between the approach of the opposition and the approach of this government.

The member presents, in a rhetorical way, the same falsehoods about jobs being somewhat precarious, low-paying, and so on. If he takes the example of the area of the country where his riding is located, southwest Ontario, manufacturing suffered greatly there during the recession. What has happened in the time since the recession of 2010 to today is that job creation numbers in heavy manufacturing in my community have gone from 30% unemployment to 6.7%. These are high-paying jobs with benefits. There are thousands of them.

Therefore, how does the member square his comments with the fact that what is happening in southwestern Ontario right now is a resurgence of heavy manufacturing and all types of manufacturing, creating good-paying jobs? His numbers are completely incorrect. How does he respond to that?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to report that I agree with the member on his opening comment. Indeed, we and the government are in stark contrast and hold starkly different views about how we deal with this issue.

Perhaps it is news to Canadians that the member for Brant considers the deputy chief economist of CIBC some kind of radical, or at least someone who is pushing nefarious statistics, but these are not our numbers. These are coming from the CIBC itself, which says that after each recession, it is clear that those stable jobs rarely come back.

That is what we are seeing here. Following the 2008 recession, we have not seen the resurgence and we have not seen the jobs that we lost being replaced with stable, full-time jobs. We see the numbers. The numbers are here.

If the member comes to Toronto, he can get a taste of what these numbers actually look like on the ground.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very heartfelt speech. He mentioned young people. It is true that we are currently failing our young people. We need to address the future of jobs in the manufacturing sector, not the resource sector.

We heard the member for Brant talk about the successes in his region. Every time he rises in the House, he tells us that everything is going well in his riding. That is odd, because we do not often hear that kind of speech.

I would like to ask my colleague why he thinks the government continues to give us the same old story about the economic action plan it has implemented, which is obviously not working, and in passing insults the CIBC economists.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question, because it is something that frustrates many Canadians. Certainly when I am in my riding in Davenport, I hear this story all the time. We have an unemployment rate for young people that is twice the national average, and that is the official unemployment rate. The real unemployment rate for young people is a lot higher than that. If we are not building an economy that includes the next generation of workers, then what are we doing?

They can obfuscate or start up a fog machine of rhetoric around job creation, but we need only ask the parents of adult young people whether they think the middle class that they raised their children in is strong, healthy, and thriving in the way the government seems to think it is.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government and its majority remind me more and more of the orchestra on the Titanic: the ship is sinking, but do not panic, let us continue to play the same music. While the Canadian economy is springing leaks everywhere, middle-class families are drowning.

The Conservatives tell us over and over that their policy of unconditional support for western oil companies has allowed them to create 1.2 million jobs since 2008, while lowering taxes. Evidently, this government is completely blind to the toxic effects of its policy and refuses to listen to the common sense measures we are proposing to kick-start our economy and create good jobs for the middle class.

Let us take a few minutes to examine the facts. On March 6, CIBC published its Canadian employment quality index. The picture is alarming. This index takes into account the distribution of full-time and part-time jobs, the distribution of paid employment and self-employment, and compensation. The CIBC report supports everything we have said.

We said that most of the jobs being created were part-time jobs. CIBC proved it. We said that the jobs being created were for lower and lower wages. The CIBC report is damning. In 2014, the number of low-paying jobs increased twice as fast as the number of high-paying jobs. This is a trend that began in the 1990s.

As a result, CIBC's Canadian employment quality index for 2015 is at a record low. Nicely done, Conservatives.

We said that the Conservatives' economic policy was bad for our economy and the strength of its investments. Once again, we were right. CIBC predicts that unless there is a major shift in economic policy, which must include strong support for investment and innovation, this decline will be part of a long-term trend that could last decades.

Like most of the policies the Conservatives have implemented, the economic record that they are trumpeting as they seek re-election is a sham.

Their economic policy is based primarily on the idea that tax cuts for big businesses are good for economic growth. This notion was crushed by the January 27 report by the Institut de recherche et d'informations socio-économiques, or IRIS, entitled “Portrait de la surépargne des entreprises au Québec et au Canada”, about oversaving by businesses in Quebec and Canada.

This was a damning report for the government and the Conservatives. It ripped the economic policy they have been advocating for the past 10 years to shreds. It pointed out that major non-financial corporations have seen their tax rate drop from 22% to 15% since 2008.

Did these major corporations create jobs as a result of these tax cuts? No. Did they invest money in production or innovation? Definitely not. The tax gifts the Conservatives gave them did nothing. The major corporations hoard this money and just sit on it.

IRIS was unequivocal: $575 billion has been hoarded in the past seven years. The findings of the IRIS report are definitive. In three sentences, they obliterate the foundation of the Conservatives' economic policy:

Here is an excerpt from these findings:

...the policy whereby we must lower taxes for corporations to give them room to manoeuvre and encourage them to invest is no longer valid...

That is an inescapable finding that calls for a rethinking of all public action on the economy.

That is what the NDP has done with workers and the middle class these past few years. The economic plan announced by our leader is the result of those efforts, and this motion presents what we will do to create good jobs for the middle class.

As we do with everything, we start with the facts. The economic fabric that generates employment depends on SMEs. Between 2002 and 2012, they created 78% of the new jobs in the private sector. The manufacturing sector and SMEs drive our wealth and innovation.

In 2014, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce determined that Canada's inadequate support for innovation in its manufacturing sector was one of the top 10 obstacles to making our economy competitive.

That is why the NDP has already proposed three key measures that will help spark economic activity and create jobs. These measures are part of a clear, coherent plan that will support a transition to a new era for the Canadian manufacturing sector.

First of all, the NDP will reduce the small business tax rate to 10%, and then to 9%. This translates into $1.2 billion for our SMEs, which will stimulate activity at a time when growth is stagnating.

In terms of the manufacturing sector, we will also extend the accelerated capital cost allowance for manufacturing and processing machinery and equipment, which is set to expire this year.

Lastly, we will introduce an innovation tax credit for the manufacturing sector for businesses that invest in machines, equipment and goods used for research and development that stimulate innovation and competitiveness. This measure will allow Canadian manufacturers that make crucial investments in research and development to put $40 million a year back into that activity. This measure will also undo the damage done by the Conservative cuts to the scientific research and experimental development tax credits and will encourage innovation in Canada.

The main stakeholders in this field have welcomed our announcements. Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters pointed out the basis of our economic policy when it stated that “the NDP has made the manufacturing sector the cornerstone of its economic plan today in Ottawa”.

We will help the manufacturing sector and our SMEs create good jobs for the middle class by implementing targeted and coherent measures. SMEs are the ones that are innovating and creating good jobs, not the western oil companies, which are destroying our environment and sitting on their billions.

New Democrats understand that in order to get Canada back on track and help middle-class families succeed, we need to take concrete action in order to diversify the Canadian economy. This motion lays the groundwork for rebalancing our economy, which will stimulate growth and job creation.

For all of these reasons, I ask all MPs who say they want to encourage job creation and help the middle class to support this motion.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my NDP colleague for her excellent speech.

This debate really highlights the difference between the NDP vision to support small and medium-sized businesses that create more than 70% of new jobs in Canada, and that of the Conservatives, who prefer to stay out of the economy and not stimulate job creation in Canada. It is too bad. That is why the unemployment rate is so high in Canada, especially in resource regions like mine, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. It is not easy.

I would like my NDP colleague to say a few words about the NDP plan to support small and medium-sized enterprises so that people in the middle class who fill many of these jobs in the SMEs, can earn a good living and raise their family with decent salaries. They especially need to have jobs because the issue of employment is crucial in 2015, especially for our young people.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I said in my speech that the quality of jobs for hard-working Canadians has never been as bad as it is right now. This is the result of a decade of successive Liberal and Conservative governments. What makes the NDP so different is that our plan and the action we want to take will truly return the economy to the service of Canadians and not the other way around. It is by giving SMEs the power to invest in innovation and be more competitive that we will enable them to create real jobs, full-time jobs, and not unsteady jobs that unfortunately only push the middle class further into poverty.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague for her very articulate and detailed speech, which really highlighted the NDP position on this situation and the turmoil in the Canadian economy, which the government is not addressing.

The government is not commenting, nor is it bringing down its new budget or coming up with new solutions. We hear over and over again the same old song about the plan to date, which does not take into account what is happening today. I really liked the image she conjured up of the orchestra that kept playing on the Titanic.

I would like to know how she can continue to hope that the government will hear the NDP's common sense message.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question.

With respect to his question about the hope we hold out that the Conservatives will change their tune, I firmly believe that the only way to give hope to Canadians today is to replace this government. That is what the NDP must do next October.

It is vital to discern and understand where the middle class stands today and what it really means. The Conservatives have not yet understood what it means to be a member of the middle class. Thus, they cannot really provide the resources required by the Canadians who need them the most.

[Dany Morin, NDP, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the last comment that my NDP colleague made because we see that the Conservatives do not understand the reality of the middle class. The same goes for the leader of the Liberal Party.

The question I have for my colleague is about income inequality in Canada. That is what truly defines the reality of the middle class in 2015. Their salaries are stagnating and even decreasing over time, while the very rich grow significantly richer. The Conservatives are helping that to happen.

What does my colleague think about this income inequality?