Debates of March 10th, 2015

Opposition Motion—Government Investments

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague made a very good point, which was that 98% of our businesses in Canada would be regarded as small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 500 employees. In New Brunswick, where I am, probably 90% of businesses have fewer than 10 employees, and a lot of them are export driven.

The government is focused on a clear trade agenda, including a global markets action plan. In our trade committee, we have heard that 1,000 companies have participated in the Go Global workshops. This is one way to diversify our exports so that our businesses can grow and bring money into our economy to make ourselves richer. I would like to ask the member opposite this: Given that it is very important for growing businesses and even small businesses, why is it that the NDP does not support the majority of our trade agreements?

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the opportunity to respond to this question.

Although the Conservatives like to paint the NDP as anti-trade, the NDP is by no means anti-trade. The NDP does, however, think that it is the responsibility of any responsible government to make sure that its trade agreements are made with countries that have good, strong human rights records so that the manufacturing and work being done in those countries do not come at the cost of the people who live there.

Ours is not an anti-trade agenda but a human rights agenda.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley for introducing this opposition day motion. This motion is pertinent and important to the vast majority of Canadians because it relates to our quality of life and standard of living here in Canada.

I want to read the motion. It states:

That, in light of sustained high unemployment since the 2008 recession and the long term downward trend in job quality since 1989 under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, as documented by CIBC, the House call on the government to make the first priority of Budget 2015 investment in measures that stimulate the economy by creating and protecting sustainable, full-time, middle-class jobs in high-paying industries in all regions of Canada and abandoning its costly and unfair $2 billion income-splitting proposal.

It is an excellent motion.

In raising this motion, we are calling for a number of changes that we want to see take place.

The Minister of Finance quite surprisingly called the CIBC statistics sham statistics. He is saying that the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, that radical socialist organization, has produced sham statistics. However, no one can deny the long-term decline in employment quality in Canada over the last 25 years or that we need to take immediate action in budget 2015 to turn this trend around. We need to create good-quality jobs, we need to protect and improve existing jobs, and we need to address some of the key challenges of the middle class more broadly.

When I speak to people in my riding in Parkdale—High Park, I find that although they may have what have traditionally been secure middle-class jobs, a growing number of them are feeling insecure. Young people are going into these formerly good middle-class jobs on term contracts, on short-term hirings. They may be receiving no benefits and can be in that precarious situation for years. That makes it difficult for them to get on with their lives, because they never know if they will be able to keep their job. The CIBC has done us a real favour by presenting this report highlighting the growing precariousness of jobs across Canada, but we have some practical solutions to propose, and I want to get into those in a few minutes. However, let me first speak more about my community in Toronto in Parkdale—High Park.

Toronto is now the inequality capital of Canada. We see greater and faster-growing inequality in our city than anywhere else in the country. As I said, we see a growing insecurity even in traditional middle-class jobs, but the number of very precarious jobs, minimum wage jobs, is vast and growing. People are on very unpredictable, precarious schedules and do not get enough hours to make a living, or they work full-time hours but do not make enough money to live because they are at the bottom of the pay scale.

Thanks to the work of a constituent, University of Toronto Professor David Hulchanski, we are now aware of a great disparity in inequality between neighbourhoods. Increasingly, those at the bottom of the income scale are newcomers, new immigrants, people of colour, visible minorities, and women. Different neighbourhoods around our city demonstrate great and huge differences with respect to equality. In fact, over the last decades inequality has widened in our city at twice the national average, so it is ballooning.

The OECD has confirmed what we know from studies about inequality: growing inequality hinders GDP growth. It hinders the broader economy and is invariably negative. We also see other social problems that result from inequality. Increased violence, increased imprisonment, addiction, obesity, greater ill health, and increased child mortality are all social outcomes of rising inequality. They should certainly should trouble all of us.

In my city of Toronto, 165,000 people are on the waiting list for affordable social housing. I see people who are badly housed and living in very poor conditions. They live with mould. Elevators frequently do not work in their buildings. Appliances do not work. We see families that are subject to a great deal of overcrowding because they can afford only a bachelor or a one-bedroom apartment, even though they have kids who should have their own room, their own space, because it is impossible for them to study otherwise.

As well, because of the lack of investment in infrastructure, people cannot get around the city. To get to their minimum-wage jobs, they have to stand an hour or an hour and a half on a bus and then on the subway to get to the other side of the city.

We are seeing growing stress on people at the growing bottom of the economic scale and we are seeing greater stress even on those in the middle. The all-time high personal debt that Canadians are experiencing means that people are taking on more and more personal debt. They are swimming faster and are running faster just to stay in the very same place. They are taking on more debt just to maintain their current standard of living.

I want to thank CIBC for its study on employment quality, which is entitled Employment Quality—Trending Down. The Minister of Finance said, shockingly, that it is based on shoddy statistics. I would argue that the bank has no vested interest in embarrassing the government, but in fact is doing the country a favour and helping us all by pointing out this very dangerous and destructive trend.

The bank's report is very clear. Our measure of employment quality is now at a record low. Employment quality is at a record low. That is a pretty shocking statement. As well, the report says the trend is clear: since the 1980s, the number of part-time jobs has risen much faster than the number of full-time jobs. The damage caused to full-time employment during each recession was in many ways permanent, and full-time job creation was unable to accelerate fast enough during the recovery to recover the lost ground.

The report also argues that the decline in employment quality in Canada is more structural than cyclical. In other words, just coming out of a recession is not doing the job. We have structural problems in our society and our economy that need to be dealt with by serious measures. What we have seen over 2014 is a 0.7% increase in employment. Employment is essentially stagnant.

Here are some of the things we should be doing. Rather than giving the wealthiest 15% a tax cut with an income-splitting proposal, which is a Leave It to Beaver mentality that will keep the good little lady at home, we should be creating jobs, helping families, helping young people, and investing in a national child care program.

What we should be doing immediately is raising the minimum wage. Let us give Canadians a raise and help them pay their bills. New Democrats want to see a $15 minimum wage.

We should be investing in infrastructure and building good-quality housing. Let us also help small businesses, which are big job creators. Let us help them invest in innovation and hiring and let us extend the accelerated capital cost allowance so businesses can create good middle-class jobs by investing in new technology.

New Democrats know what works. We have a plan for reviving the economy. Why do the Conservatives not get on board, accept our ideas, and include them in budget 2015? Then we can get the job done for all Canadians.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to again focus my attention on the government's inability to present the budget in a timely fashion.

The Minister of Finance is sending out a very confusing message to Canadians from coast to coast to coast when the government itself cannot present a federal budget in a timely fashion. Many people, including me, would argue that does more to add insecurity to the Canadian economy than anything else. It could ultimately work to the detriment of potential job creation and against the creation of more confidence within the small business community, which, I must say, is the backbone of job creation not only for today but into the future. It is highly irresponsible for the Minister of Finance not to be presenting the federal budget in a timely fashion.

The member made reference to it in the motion that we are debating today. I am wondering if she might want to pick up on the importance of the federal government presenting a national budget.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, business does not like insecurity. If a company is going to make an investment, it wants to be able to see, at least into the near term, whether that investment is going to be able to drive growth and earn a profit. Canadian businesses are sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars that could be invested if the government showed leadership and created greater stability. However, business is not investing, and it is not investing because of insecurity. When the finance minister does not bring forward a budget, does not lay out for Canadians how he sees the next year rolling out, does not outline his priorities and explain to Canadians how he is going to steer the economy for the good of all Canadians, it makes it much more difficult for businesses to make their own investments.

The government should be making investments in things like transit and good child care to help workers do better. Then we would see more private sector investment. That would be good for the economy.

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

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

She said that Canadians deserve a wage increase, because wages have stagnated across the country, and in some regions, they have even diminished.

I would like to know what she thinks of the situation facing people who work 40 hours a week in minimum-wage jobs and are raising a family and who, unfortunately, are still living below the poverty line.

Does she think the federal government should lead by example and introduce a $15 minimum wage for jobs under federal jurisdiction?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

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

He is quite right. Anyone who earns minimum wage is having a really hard time making ends meet. It is extremely difficult, especially for families, to pay the rent, to buy the groceries they need and to pay all of their living expenses.

Raising the minimum wage to $15, as the NDP is proposing, would immediately put more money in the pockets of the poorest people, in the pockets of people who really need it to help them pay the bills. This would help most people who are living in precarious situations and need more money. These people often work for large corporations like McDonald's and Walmart, which pay minimum wage, and that really is not enough to live on in Canada today. The New Democrats plan to solve that problem.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

Before we resume debate, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands regarding public safety and the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park regarding taxation.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Toronto Centre.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for York West.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to join this important debate. Over the past 30 years, the Canadian economy has doubled in size. However, median household income has only increased by 15%. A report released last week by the CIBC shows that this trend has only gotten worse since the 2008-09 recession. I would like to quote a few passages from the report.

“The Bank of Canada continues to warn us that the headline unemployment rate is not as rosy as perceived and, in fact, according to the Bank's new and improved measure of labour market activity, labour slack is still significant,” says Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist and author of CIBC's employment quality index.

He continues:

In many ways, the Bank has a point. Our measure of employment quality is now at a record low—suggesting that the composition of employment is sub-optimal. But a closer examination of the trajectories of our index's sub-components suggests that the Bank's prescribed remedy of low and lower interest rates might not cure what ails the labour market.

“While full-time paid-employment jobs are on average of higher quality than part-time and self-employment jobs, not all full-time paid-employment jobs were created equal,” says Mr. Tal. “The number of low-paying full-time jobs has risen faster than the number of mid-paying jobs, which in turn, has risen faster than the number of high-paying jobs.

“Over the year ending January 2015, the job creation gap between low and high-paying jobs has widened with the number of low-paying full-time paid positions rising twice as fast as the number of high-paying jobs. Those trajectories are largely behind the softening in our measure of employment quality over the past two decades.”

Faced with stagnating incomes, an increasing cost of living and mounting debt, middle-class Canadian families are struggling to make ends meet. Today, there are 159,000 fewer jobs for young people than before the recession. The Conservatives' action plan consists of income splitting and a $2 billion tax break that will mostly benefit the richest of Canadians while 85% of Canadian households will not see a cent.

The Liberal Party would invest those funds in areas that would really benefit the middle class, such as community infrastructure, post-secondary education and professional training, as well as research and innovation.

The Liberals feel that this country needs a new economic plan and, with each passing day, that feeling grows stronger. The economy of our largest trading partner, the United States, is on fire, but Canadian exports have dropped by almost 3%.

The Prime Minister wants to talk about anything but the economy. His priority is to give a $2 billion tax break to the richest members of our society, and he is more interested in fearmongering than in proposing economic solutions.

As we have heard from the CIBC, from a recent study by York University, from the IMF, whose concerns about the overheated Canadian housing market we cited earlier today in question period, there are some deep structural problems in the Canadian economy right now, particularly when it comes to the hollowing out of the middle class. We are becoming a low-wage, part-time economy for more and more Canadians.

The York University study I just mentioned has found that over the past 10 years there has been a 50% increase in the percentage of jobs in Ontario, which are part of this low-wage, part-time economy from 22% to 33% of jobs.

According to the OECD, in that organization of the world's leading economies, Canada has the third highest percentage of low-paying jobs as part of the composition of our employment.

The Bank of Canada is worried. In the monetary policy report for January, the bank said, “the proportion of involuntary part-time workers continues to be elevated”. As the CIBC has said, we are becoming a nation of part-timers.

As the Liberal Party has been arguing, what we need is an economic plan for the middle class to shore up Canada's hollowed-out middle class. We need a plan. A lot of what is going on is because of some of the new forces at work in the 21st century. A lot of what is happening is because of globalization, technological change, the rise of the sharing economy, or what some people are calling the “Uberization” of jobs, the “Taskrabbitization” of jobs.

However, the government can do something about it. The government is obligated to do something about that to adjust, to adapt our social and political institutions so that the Canadian middle class, rather than being the victim of globalization and the technology revolution, can actually thrive in these circumstances.

What we are seeing, I am very sad to say, from the government is the opposite. We are seeing that rather than trying to soften these forces, the government is leaning into them, particularly with its income splitting policy. Instead, what we would like to see from the government is an economic plan for growth, particularly growth of middle-class jobs.

Infrastructure is a big part of the solution. Those infrastructure jobs cannot be “Uberized” and they cannot be exported outside the country. Infrastructure investment has another great advantage. Big infrastructure programs help the economy to run hot. In those circumstances, the middle class has much more bargaining power, and we can see a reversal of these very terrible trends we have been discussing today.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Toronto Centre for her speech, much of which was delivered in French. I like hearing people speak French.

For the past twenty years or so, government after government has put forward austerity budgets. We all have to tighten our belts. Since 1995, these austerity budgets have been eroding our economy. The gap between rich and poor has been getting bigger and bigger, as has the wage gap between men and women. These budgets do nothing to stimulate the Canadian economy. They just make it weaker and weaker.

I would like to hear the member's views on all of these austerity budgets from various governments and their impact on our economy.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her question. I also want to apologize because I will answer in English. I am not ready to answer in French, but I will try to do so eventually.

I strongly believe that we are facing a couple of related economic problems right now. One is this hollowing out of the middle class, which we have been discussing at great length today, and to which I do think there are government solutions. There are actions that the government can take to improve the situation. On the contrary, there are actions governments can take, like the income splitting policy of the current government, which will actually make the situation worse.

A related problem, I believe, is the problem that some economists are calling “secular stagnation”. The economies of the western industrialized countries are not rebounding from the financial crisis, from the recession, with the sort of strength that a lot of people expected. We seem to be stuck in this low-growth economic space. We see it particularly in Europe with some interest rates now negative, which is shocking.

Therefore, I strongly agree with the direction of the hon. member's question. I think now is a time when we need government action to focus on economic stimulus, and that is why I concluded by talking about infrastructure investment, which I think can have a powerful impact on both economic growth and middle-class jobs.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the term “just on time” can be associated with the amount of inventory a tertiary or secondary manufacturer might hold and send to an assembly company or industry of some sort, just on time. Now we hear that term applied to jobs: just-on-time jobs. This is a direct result of Conservative economic policy, which is what my colleague has been saying about this economy and jobs.

What I see as an outcome of just-on-time jobs is income insecurity, housing insecurity and any number of other ill effects, including a lack of loyalty, frankly, of an employee towards their employer.

Could my colleague speculate and discuss with us other impacts of just-on-time jobs and the terrible impact that Conservative policy has had on jobs?

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member points to a real problem. The reality is that technology and advances in technology started off by allowing us to have just-in-time manufacturing where we did not need to keep great inventories of goods. We could get the goods to the factories just at the moment they needed them.

What has more recently been happening is that we have discovered that those same technologies have allowed employers to treat employees as a just-in-time input into the economic process. As my hon. colleague has pointed out, this has devastating effects on human lives. It means that people are unable to plan their family budgets. It means that people who have children, as I do, have a hard time organizing child care. Imagine if we knew we were going to work 40 hours a week but had no idea when those 40 hours would be.

I absolutely think it needs to be a priority for government policy to find ways to make sure that people have reliable incomes and reliable hours. I think this is something we can do in collaboration with employers.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to this issue today. It is certainly an issue about which all of us very much care.

I will read the text of the motion. It is not always easy to follow the tickertape across the bottom of the screen for anybody who may be watching and it is worth listening to the discussion today. The motion states:

That, in light of sustained high unemployment since the 2008 recession and the long term downward trend in job quality since 1989 under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, as documented by CIBC, the House call on the government to make the first priority of Budget 2015 investment in measures that stimulate the economy by creating and protecting sustainable, full-time, middle-class jobs in high-paying industries in all regions of Canada and abandoning its costly and unfair $2 billion income-splitting proposal.

Let me tell the House a bit about a young woman who lives in my riding of York West. For the sake of the discussion, I will call her Emily. Emily is in elementary school. She recently came to my office because, in her words, she was concerned about how her family was doing financially. Like thousands of young people in every region of Canada, Emily lives in a home with a middle-class family that is struggling to survive. Despite being headed up by two working parents, they are still having difficulty.

What Emily understands easily from her everyday life has again been quantified in the CIBC report that we are discussing today. That report, along with dozens before it, paints a picture of an economy in trouble at its root, around the kitchen tables of the middle-class homes like Emily's, but this crisis did not happen overnight and it did not happen by accident. In fact, it has been made much worse by an out-of-touch Prime Minister with the worst economic growth record since the dismal days of R.B. Bennett.

In 2006, the Prime Minister was handed a steadily growing economy from the Liberals, which had generated 3.5 million net new jobs, real jobs, declining debt and taxes, a decade of balanced budgets—clearly Liberals know how to do it—annual surpluses at about $13 billion and fiscal flexibility projected ahead for the following five years totalling $100 billion. It was all blown away in less than three years.

To be fair, it is true that the Canadian economy has continued to create jobs, but this report raises serious questions about the quality of those jobs. In fact, there have been several reports, including this one, warning that Canada's job market is not as sure-footed as it seems. This is over and above York University, the IMF, and now the CIBC, and I am sure there are countless other ones that we will hear about in the next short while.

Rather than accepting this warning, the Prime Minister blindly plunged forward. The government has only one prescription for everything. It does not matter what it is. It is austerity, austerity, and more austerity. To fix or at least camouflage his structural deficit, the Prime Minister hacked away at future federal funding for health care and old age pensions, and left nothing for quality job creation.

As a result, this report verifies that job quality has fallen to its lowest level in more than two decades. Worse yet, a CIBC index, which measures 25 years worth of data on part-time versus full-time work, paid versus self-employment and compensation trends, shows that it has fallen to its lowest level on record. The Bank of Canada's new labour market indicators call this slack, but Emily and her family understand that this is why moms and dads in middle-class households in the neighbourhood now work two jobs just to pay the bills. She also understands the serious social cost of latchkey kids, which she and her brother are.

The problem highlighted by this report is not just a labour market challenge, such as a low participation rate among core-aged Canadians. The problems with the economy run far deeper, as we heard from my colleague. In fact, this trend has serious implications for each and every one of us. A lack of hours, the loss of benefits and stagnating or declining wages emphasize why many middle-class households are already struggling to shore up savings and why consumer spending is on the cusp of crashing.

In it report, the bank said that this was partially caused by the fact that low-paying, full-time job creation had risen faster than the creation of mid-paying jobs over the last 20 years. The report calls this a widening job creation gap between low and high-paying jobs, with low-wage, full-time paid jobs rising at twice the pace of higher-paying jobs. This may sound very cynical, but at the most basic level, it means that good jobs are much harder to find than ever before, and when jobs are scarce, clearly, so is money.

As household finances get squeezed, the risk is that personal debt, already at record levels, will grow. As middle-class household debt goes up, the ability of those families, like Emily's, to cope with current and future economic turmoil goes down and that puts the households and the entire economy at risk.

Experts agree that middle-class families have not had a raise in more than a generation and that imbalance is putting the Canadian economy at risk. Why will the government not help with a solution? When presented with data outlining that Canadian job quality has fallen to its lowest level in more than two decades, the Prime Minister proposed measures to increase the TFSA limit. He is clearly out of touch, clearly not understanding the world in which Emily lives. He also foolishly promised an income splitting regime that would give the wealthiest people the largest tax break. Imagine a prime minister who is so out of touch that he thinks families struggling to buy groceries, pay the mortgage and hold down two jobs could benefit from the ability to save more. They do not have the money to keep putting milk and bread on the table.

In my 30 years of public service, I have never seen someone so out of touch with the working families of our country, and it is a very sad thing to see. However, the Prime Minister says that Canada is doing better than Spain. He forgets that Canada is not doing better than Australia, New Zealand, Norway or even our partner, the United States. Even if we were, Canadians are rightly tired of the grinding mediocrity that characterizes the government. Since when did Canada just strive to be in the middle?

We are constantly told to lower our expectations, to settle for less and to tighten our belts. The big part of that burden falls on Canada's middle class, on Emily and to her family. The Prime Minister may see an economic downturn as a great buying opportunity, but seniors, students and working-class families across the country know better. The Prime Minister can demand that Canadians tighten their belts, but for so many families there are simply no more notches in their belts. Middle-class incomes have been flat for years, but living costs and household debt have ballooned. On a weekly basis we hear about the amount of debt Canadians are carrying.

Seventy per cent of private sector employees cannot even count on a company pension. Sixty per cent of middle-class parents, like Emily and her brother's parents, worry about how they are going to afford education for their children. More than 40% of the empty nester parents have had their adult children move back into the house because they cannot afford to live on their own. They cannot afford to buy a house or a condominium so they move back with their parents and work at part-time jobs. Most discouraging of all, for the first time ever, over 50% of middle-class Canadians fear that their children will not do as well as they did.

All of this has happened under the Prime Minister's watch. The Conservatives are oblivious to these realities, but middle-class Canadians live them everyday. I know the government cannot do everything for everyone, and we all understand that, but surely the Prime Minister's cronies have their pockets full by now. It is time for the government to step up and get serious about helping families like Emily's.

We cannot blindly hack and slash our way to prosperity. We cannot ignore the foundation of our house either. We have to make the Canadian economy grow at a strong, sustained pace. We need smart policies that promote the growth and development of sound jobs with good wages and reliable benefits for Canada's middle class.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the CIBC report states that for the past few decades, economic growth has been slowing, and the gap between rich and poor has kept growing. The situation is getting worse and worse, and the same goes for the wage gap between men and women. As several people have mentioned today, it is getting harder and harder for many families to make ends meet, and all the while, the government's austerity regimes keep coming.

Does my Liberal colleague support the NDP's ideas about investing in the manufacturing sector and small businesses? We know that the manufacturing sector has shrunk by 25% over the past several years. We need measures like those proposed by the NDP to reduce the small business tax rate from 11% to 9%. What does my colleague think of that?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we need to ensure we invest where there are opportunities for businesses to grow. I was recently in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and visited several incubators. In the incubators, there must have been 100 students out of university all working on a variety of projects. Many of them said that their projects had potential, but without investments and encouragement from the government, there was very little space for them to go, other than taking these ideas to the United States, which is much faster to respond. We have always had to deal with these issues.

When we talk about job creation, the manufacturing sector is important. The auto sector is another where we have always had to find money to invest. Job creation is important.

If people have a good, solid job, they can buy houses, even though they are expensive. They have stability in their family to move forward so people like Emily know that their moms and dads have good jobs and can afford to put food on the table and a roof over their heads without having to worry about it.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I must commend the member for York West for the manner in which she articulated the importance of job creation and Canada's economy. She has a very caring heart in dealing with senior issues. She has been an advocate of the OAS and the fact that the retirement age should not increase from 65 to 67.

She talked about some policies. Could she add some of her thoughts regarding the importance of keeping the age of retirement at 65, as opposed to 67?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I continually deal with seniors who come to my office and tell me that they cannot work until to 65. They or their husbands have worked in construction. They have worked in jobs that have kept them on their feet all day. They are asking for help because they cannot work until the age of 65.

The idea of telling many of those people who have worked in challenging industries that they will have to wait to 67 will clearly put more emphasis on the provinces to bring in some other kind of welfare program. Many of the people I see cannot make it to 67. They cannot make it to 65 and they are asking that we change the rules to give them more assistance.

We know we can afford to change them. All the appropriate people from the economy have said that the money is there. It is the fact that the government wants to choose, take that old age security money and spend it elsewhere.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the wonderful member for Churchill.

I want to reference what the last speaker from the Liberal Party was saying about changing the retirement age from 67 back to 65. I was thrilled when our leader, in one of his first speeches in the House four years ago, was talking about reversing the mistake made by the Conservatives. I am glad to see the Liberals have finally caught up.

I have a couple of quotes here. One is from The Economist, January 31, 2015. It says the minister of finance:

....promised a balanced budget as recently as January 26th, despite the expected drop in revenues from the energy industry. The government had pledged a raft of tax reductions once that was achieved, but imprudently enacted them late last year. The delay in presenting the budget adds to the impression of fiscal disarray.

The former parliamentary budget officer put in place by the government, Kevin Page, said, “In the last 10 years, we have virtually made no progress on all of our big issues, long-term economic challenges. We have not closed innovation gaps in our country, dealt with an aging demographic that will put pressure on health care, nor dealt with environmental sustainability. We have not even had the discussions or proposals from this government”.

Let us think about the significance of that, in terms of where Canada finds itself today. Prior to coming to this place 9 years ago, I had spent 28 years in the labour movement in the Hamilton area. In Hamilton, I saw hundreds upon hundreds of businesses close. The first wave was following 1988, when we had the first free trade agreement. In Ontario alone, 500,000-plus manufacturing jobs were lost. That was in 1988 to 1990.

Then we had NAFTA and more jobs were lost. We have had decades of Conservative and Liberal leadership during which the quality of employment for hard-working Canadians has also dropped. It is not just that many of the jobs are not there anymore.

If we talk to young people today, who are 30 years of age, who are trying to raise a family, and who have maybe had the good fortune of having gone to university, we learn that they have come out $30,000 in debt, which means they cannot contribute that to the economy. They are working in what we refer to as McJobs. Some of them are working two and three jobs.

I sit in our local Tim Hortons regularly, hearing from people who are literally working three jobs. They are not even working at Tim Hortons; they are sitting and having a coffee in between jobs.

In the last while, since just before we had a change of finance ministers, we have heard about this income-splitting plan. Some call it a scheme, but I will refer to it as a plan, to be somewhat respectful. The past finance minister was a man with whom I was pleased to work, an honourable man. I sat on the finance committee for two years with him.

He cautioned this government very directly about the fallacy in this income-splitting plan that favours the top 14% or 15% of Canadians over the hard-working Canadians, the middle-class and lower-class Canadians. By lower class, I mean the people who are disadvantaged in our society. My community of Hamilton has a 20% rate of people living below the poverty line. What does income splitting do for them?

New Democrats understand that to put Canada on track, and for the middle class, we need to have concrete steps to diversify our economy. It seems to me, watching the last number of years, that all I have seen is the rip and strip of our resources off to other countries. Where is the value-added manufacturing? Hamilton was the core of value-added manufacturing in this country. We are known as Steel Town. The steel production there was supporting other industries.

Today there are still about 65 industries attached to steel in Hamilton, a mere shadow of what it once was.

We took resources and developed them. Value-added manufacturing put us in a place where we have one of the vibrant middle classes of the world. We have had that for several generations, primarily after the Second World War.

The homes in Hamilton that are 40, 50, and 60 years old were built and purchased by hard-working people who had a fair and decent income because of that value-added manufacturing in our community.

I recall, 20 years ago, a report came out for the City of Hamilton called “Vision 2000”. When I read it I was in shock, as a labour activist, because it talked about the decline of value-added manufacturing. That decline was under the Liberals. The report said that decline was going to continue. The value-added manufacturing jobs were going to be replaced by service sector jobs.

There is an obvious question. If we are now moving from a manufacturing base to service sector jobs, who is going to buy the services of the people who no longer have the other well-paying jobs? Is it only that 15% at the top that is going to get all this extra money from income splitting? It makes one wonder.

I can recall our leader, Jack Layton, two elections ago in our caucus meetings talking about small business and the importance of taking care of small business. We hear that from the government side, in fairness to it. However, Jack said there was nothing being done for them. He talked to our caucus and I remember him saying that these are the real job creators. These are the backbone of our country. We have to do something for them. We have to do something to spur innovation, to give them that entrepreneurial spirit and to turn some of it toward manufacturing.

The NDP currently has a plan. More of it will roll out over the next number of months before the election, but it is to do exactly that: to spur the next generation of middle class.

After a decade of Conservative economic mismanagement, middle-class families are working harder and longer, and yet they feel they are falling further and further behind.

We hear the talk about the 1.2 million net new jobs, to use the Conservatives' own language. It leaves out the 400,000 people who no longer have the jobs that went under during their time.

In the city of Hamilton, where the failed manufacturing is, the government has failed them. It has failed them on research and development funding. It has failed them in several areas. It has failed them in long-term planning. As I said earlier in my remarks, the rip and strip of our resources became the focus of the government and nothing else. As an end result of that, we have Canadians unemployed today at levels we have not seen in decades.

I was sadly visiting a food bank in my home lately. I walked into it and took a step back. I am of an age where I could be retired, and a friend of mine who had a plant job was at the food bank. One stops and considers: we were on a similar path at one point in the work we were doing, and his company went under.

The government has done nothing to protect these jobs. We allowed the Chinese to buy $15 billion into Canada and we allowed for future investments on their part. That company, CNOOC, has a horrendous reputation around the world. What are we doing for our own investment, for our own remanufacturing?

I am kind of losing words. I guess it is appropriate. I am at the end of my time, but it is so very frustrating.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to provide some comments in regard to income splitting and the alternatives. Jim Flaherty, the former Conservative minister of finance, pointed out quite correctly that income splitting was not the best way to develop government policy, that at the end of the day very few would actually benefit from it, yet there is a substantial cost. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars every year and close to $10 billion over a 10-year period of time, or something like that.

If we look at the costs to the middle class in regard to that specific and go to a question that I just finished posing to one of my colleagues in regard to seniors and increasing the age from 65 to 67 and the costs that would have, yet it would put a lot more people into poverty, there are always policy options, including infrastructure, another issue I have talked a great deal about today. Could the member provide comment on options the government has in policy?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are actually on two different tracks. Income splitting will affect working Canadians in an inequitable way. It is going to take about $3 billion a year out of the fiscal capacity to do things for other Canadians. In other words, the top 15% has $3 billion and the bottom, who need something, is getting nothing.

As far as the age of retirement is concerned, a cynical person would say this is simple dollars and cents. If people lived in Ontario and were on Ontario Works and welfare, at age 65 they would have gone to OAS and GIS and would have had a modest increase. Now they have to wait two years. If people were on sick benefits in the province of Ontario, at age 65 they got more benefits because they went on these other pensions. Again, they have to wait. In the meantime, the provinces are now going to pick up $6,000 per person, and that is money the government does not spend. The Conservatives are saving money on the backs of the people who are in the worst situation in our country and the seniors.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we know that income inequality in our country is spiralling out of control, that incomes in the top 1% have been surging for decades while the typical Canadian, the middle-class Canadian family, has seen income fall over the last 35 years.

I want to talk about the minimum wage because it is a mechanism that is used to lift people out of poverty. We know that, in real terms, the average minimum wage in Canada has actually increased by only 1% over the last 40 years. I want to know if my colleague thinks that is acceptable. I know that we proposed solutions, and I wonder if he can talk about some real, meaningful, tangible solutions.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minimum wage in Switzerland is $24 an hour. In New Zealand it was just rolled back; it was headed for $27 an hour. Let us think about that for a moment and think of the vast resources we have in this country. Conservatives want to put income splitting in, but why are they not paying a more reasonable wage? I am thrilled with our proposal of $15 an hour, but that is not enough. That is a beginning, not an end.

In the House we have the opportunity to provide leadership to the provinces, because this would only apply to federal employees such as the rail, airlines, and communications sector employees. There are not many people who would actually receive this—somewhere around one million workers, which is wonderful—but we have to ensure that the cleaners at the airport and the contract workers are paid well. It would set an example. Today the federal rate is set by looking at the provinces and using their numbers. It should be the reverse. The national government should be the leader in making sure that people receive an equitable wage.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek for his comprehensive speech, his analysis of what exactly is happening to our country under the leadership of the current Conservative government, as well as the foundations that were weakened or even taken away by the previous Liberal government.

I am very proud to stand in this House to speak to our opposition day motion. I want to make sure that it is clearly known what we are putting on the table. We propose, as the motion says:

That, in light of sustained high unemployment since the 2008 recession and the long term downward trend in job quality since 1989 under successive Liberal and Conservative governments, as documented by CIBC, the House call on the government to make the first priority of Budget 2015 investment in measures that stimulate the economy by creating and protecting sustainable, full-time, middle-class jobs in high-paying industries in all regions of Canada and abandoning its costly and unfair $2 billion income-splitting proposal.

This is all about priorities. We know that we are entering a time that is crucial when it comes to acting on priorities: budget time.

We have been very clear from the beginning that our priority in the NDP is one where we seek to invest in the economy. We seek to stimulate the economy through investment and through the protection of sustainable, full-time jobs in high-paying regions across the country, and investing in initiatives in housing, transit, broader infrastructure, education, and health care.

Then we look at what the Conservatives are proposing. Despite the rhetoric about a strong economy and supporting job creation, they are choosing to spend $2 billion on an income splitting proposal. This is at a time when Canadians have been told to keep their purse strings tight and not to expect to see any spending. In fact, those who are working for the federal government have seen record job losses. Canadians across the country may have seen their jobs leave the country. Some continue to be in poverty, and chronic poverty continues to go unaddressed by the current federal government. On the other hand, we see a commitment to income splitting.

I had the opportunity to speak across my constituency on what is happening to our country, and I feel that is very much what we are talking about today. We are talking about the vision of Canada that we have seen the current government hold steadfastly to, and the kind of direction the Conservatives have taken us in.

I come from a part of the country that is very diverse, particularly in terms of indigenous communities. There are also people who have settled there from across the country and from around the world. However, we need look no further than northern Manitoba and a lot of our northern regions in terms of the kinds of inequality that people across our country face.

Many of us were horrified just a few weeks ago by a report indicating that first nations in Manitoba face some of the greatest challenges in terms of quality of life. We know that across the country, first nations children face the highest rates of poverty, at about 25%, and if we look at Manitoba, that number jumps as high as 62%.

In this case, we are not talking about job creation only, or a strong economy as the government talks about. We are talking about chronic, sustained, deep-rooted poverty.

I wish that the federal government would spend some time talking about a vision when it comes to poverty on first nations. However, sadly, any time we hear Conservatives talk about indigenous issues, it is often to disparage indigenous leaders or peoples, or in the case of legislation like Bill C-51, to create barriers and threaten indigenous communities that are pushing for their rights to be recognized and for better opportunities in their communities and across the country.

Instead of spending $2 billion on income splitting, we would like to see the government place a priority on eliminating poverty, understanding that it has a different face in parts of the country, understanding that there needs to be investment in first nations education, that there needs to be investment in health care on reserve and that there needs to be investment in housing.

By making those investments we create economic opportunities. For example, in Manitoba, with the growing indigenous population, if more and more young people leave the north or in the inner city have a better chance at an education in terms of primary education, but also secondary and post-secondary, that they will be better able to contribute to their local economies, to our national economy, whether it is by accessing existing jobs or creating and innovating new jobs.

I also have the honour of representing people who depend on the resource extractive industry. I have no doubt that every single one of them would say that $2 billion can be better spent on the priorities many of them see as imminent, rather than spending it on income splitting.

Many of the folks I represent have seen their jobs exported outside the country because the government has not stood up for them, whether it is because of the softwood lumber deal or whether it is because of the way in which the agreements for foreign companies to buy out Canadian companies have become largely rubber stamps under the leadership of the government.

In the case of Thompson, my home community, a Brazilian multinational bought out a Canadian company, Inco, and soon after threatened to export all of our value-added jobs, jobs that we know are fundamental in our community and fundamental to our province.

Thankfully, as a result of public pressure and regional engagement, the company came to the table to try to find a solution. It was little thanks to a federal government that continues to allow foreign companies to buy out Canadian corporations, and either quickly or over a range of years, export value-added jobs, jobs that sustain our communities and our entire country in many cases.

I would also say that when we are talking about where we could spend $2 billion, it is pretty clear that when we look at the needs of newcomers to Canada, we need to see investments in education and training, in credential recognition, which arguably does not have a monetary cost but would allow people who come with tremendous expertise from around the world to contribute to our communities and our economy in a much greater way. Instead of that, the federal government chooses once again to spend $2 billion on income splitting.

I want to spend just one moment on what income splitting is really all about. Not only is it a ghastly waste of money in terms of $2 billion, but it is a proposal that has everything to do with reinforcing inequality in our country, and particularly marginalizing women in our country, because income splitting encourages women, who often earn less than their male partners, to stay at home and focus on what I am sure many in the government would consider the more “traditional” caring duties that women are supposed to do.

I want to say that I was taken aback with the Prime Minister's reference today to others being anti-women in their agenda when in fact many have argued, and I have certainly argued in this House, that income splitting is anti-women's equality. When it comes to things that we can really do to improve the equality of women, improve the equality of all Canadians, in means taking away that $2 billion, that waste of money on income splitting and moving it to the real priorities that we in the NDP are putting forward, and we know that many Canadians are putting forward as well.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in her speech, my colleague talked about income splitting, which will benefit only the wealthiest 14% or 15% of the population.

I would like her to talk specifically about the people in her riding, because in Quebec, for example, the average annual salary of a single person is $35,000. The Minister of Employment said that this measure was geared to couples who earned $60,000. We are not really sure whom this might benefit in Quebec.

Can my colleague talk about what substantive impact this measure will have on the people in her riding and in northern Manitoba?