Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have an opportunity to speak to the Conservative budget. The budget is no pleasure, but to have a chance to talk about what is wrong with it, where it is lacking, the negative direction it is taking the country and some of the things that my party, the NDP, would do instead is something I cherish.
The Conservative budget would spend billions in handouts to the wealthiest at a time when the government should be investing in accessible child care, affordable housing and supporting seniors who are struggling to get by. Places like Newfoundland and Labrador and the people there and the Atlantic who have critical issues that need to be addressed, like regional economic development and supporting communities, issues such as the constitutional obligation of the government to support Marine Atlantic, are absent from this budget.
Absent as well are the $280 million that the government promised the government of Newfoundland and Labrador in a fishing industry development fund in response to the consequences of CETA and the request to remove its powers to expect local processing in fisheries. Where is that? All of these are absent.
Instead, we have a claim for an allegedly balanced budget. After nine years, in which the Conservatives increased the size of the deficit by a total of $150 billion, they now have an allegedly balanced budget, and this is supposedly a talking point that they think will take them to the election and bring them another majority government. That is not going to happen, because people are starting to realize that the Conservative administration is, in fact, not the prudent fiscal manager that it claims to be.
How did the Conservatives balance the budget? What do we have here? They claim to have a balanced budget. How did they get there? They got there by taking $2 billion out of the contingency fund. It used to be $3 billion, and now it is only $1 billion. They achieved $2.1 billion by selling off GM shares to add to the budget. If they had waited another couple of weeks, they would have actually made another $100 million. Now there is prudent fiscal management. There are another $3.4 billion. Where did they get it? They stole it from the EI fund, the employment insurance fund.
We have $3.4 billion, we have $2.1 billion, and we have another $2 billion shaved from the contingency fund. That is where the Conservatives come up with a phony balanced budget. Are we really talking about prudent fiscal management or are we talking about a shell game that is designed to confuse people and let people believe that they have somehow or other magically balanced the budget through prudent fiscal management? What really has happened is that they taken away important sources of income from the government, like the corporate taxes that are necessary to pay for the services that Canadians need and deserve, and they have done that in a way that is basically a corporate gift. We now very likely have the lowest corporate tax rate in the whole OECD. All of the wealthiest nations in the have corporate tax rates higher than ours.
We would do something about that. If people want to call it raising taxes, yes, that would be raising taxes. My colleague in the provincial party in Newfoundland, when confronted with the notion that the NDP was supposedly a tax and spend party, said yes, it was a tax and spend party. It would tax fairly and spend wisely. The Conservative government would do the exact opposite of that. It would take away the taxes that other countries all across the world make corporations pay, give away revenue and then take away the services for which that revenue pays.
When we look at the things the Conservatives do have in the budget in making special arrangements for the wealthy, the first one that is obvious and jumps out at everybody is the income-splitting proposal, $2.4 billion. It is income splitting for families with children under 18, income splitting that does zero for single-parent families that are among the poorest families in the country and families without children under 18 or parents who are in the same tax bracket. With a cost of $2.4 billion, this gives zero benefit to 86% of families, but helps the wealthiest.
Is that wise spending of the government's money? Is that good for the future of our country? Is that good for solving some of the problems Canada has? No. When we add on top of that the significant increase, almost doubling, of the tax-free savings account, what do we get? We get another program that helps, and is designed to help, the wealthiest of Canadians.
We just heard someone opposite talk about his mother, aged 98, putting money into a tax-free saving account. It is wonderful that she is able to do that. We need a reality check with the government because it is ignoring the vast majority of Canadians.
There was a survey done by the Canadian Payroll Association, and this is not a left-wing think tank. Last September it said that 51% of employees found it difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheque was delayed by one week. Therefore, they are living from paycheque to paycheque. They are not putting $10,000 each or $20,000 per couple into a tax-free savings account. They are just not capable of doing that because they are doing their very best to try to meet their obligations, paycheque to paycheque.
That is just people who are working. That is not people who are unemployed, or people who have been looking for work for a long time, or who are disabled or living on social assistance because of their difficult circumstances. These people are working. Where is the benefit to the people of Canada to have this tax-free savings account almost doubled. It is not there. It does nothing to solve the problem Canadians have now.
What is the government's answer? The answer of the Minister of Finance when someone said that this was putting an unfair burden on taxpayers to take away this source of revenue, and it will grow over the years, was that we would let the Prime Minister's granddaughter solve that problem. That is the answer. The Conservatives will let the Prime Minister's granddaughter solve that problem somewhere down the road.
We have a plan that will make our children and our grandchildren better off, because we want to have a program that serves their interests now. One of the most obvious ones—we have announced it already and it is something that is gaining more and more attraction as time goes on—is the national child care plan for a maximum $15 a day child care.
What would that do? It would ensure that single parents would have an opportunity to get to work, to finish an education, to ensure that their children would be looked after and have a better income for themselves. It would ensure that couples would be able to work as well as look after their children, instead of having, what in many cases is, the next highest expense next to their mortgage. That is what needs to be fixed to make life better for our children and our grandchildren, and not go the other way, which the government seems to be quite happy and content to do.
We have proposed measures that will do positive and good things for the future of our country and help solve some of the problems of inequality, ensure that families have a better opportunity to look after their families and the future of their families, and the government ignores those needs in a crude attempt to try to buy the votes of people with their own money. It is an old game, and it is one that will not work because Canadians are wiser.
We look forward to an election coming up later on this year because we have plans and proposals that we believe can help solve some of the problems that Canadians have. We have a vision for a more equal Canada and a greater opportunity to work together to build our country instead of tearing it down.