Madam Speaker, I was thinking of taking those very same papers and putting on them a piece of tape that said, “Promise kept.” Unfortunately, I will not be able to do that because it would be a prop and adding to what the member has cited.
What a privilege it is to stand in the chamber and talk about yet another very important piece of legislation that the government has tabled. Of course, it is all about the budget. When we think about the budget, we know it is all about priorities.
One of the things that today's Prime Minister stated a number of years ago when I was sitting in opposition with the then leader of the Liberal Party along with my colleagues at the time, was that there was an expectation. The expectation was that we as caucus members would go out and consult with Canadians and listen to what Canadians had to say about a wide spectrum of issues. I can say that virtually since our Prime Minister took on the role of leading our party he has been consistent on that very important issue that we need to work with Canadians, listen to what Canadians are saying, and then reflect what we are doing in this privileged House to ensure that Canadians are getting what they want the government to accomplish.
I would like to use an example. I have a constituent, Kourosh Doustshenas, who raised an important issue with me. It was dealing with budgetary types of measures. He raised the issue and I suggested that he maybe go out and do a petition on it, to try to show me and show the government some additional support. I want to provide this petition to the Minister of Finance because he and a few others, in particular members of the Winnipeg Real Estate Board and Manitoba Real Estate Association, had taken interest in doing that.
Let me share with the members of the House what that petition stated. Since 1992, the homebuyers' plan, the HBP, has helped over 2.8 million Canadians achieve their dream of home ownership. Also, the petition goes on to say that due to inflation the HBP has lost about $5,200 in purchasing power compared to 1992. It goes further to say that purchases resulted in over $2.9 billion in spinoff benefits and more than 22,000 jobs. The petition is calling for us to consider indexing the HBP to preserve its purchasing power and allow more Canadians to use it due to significant life changes.
I thank my constituents and I thank those who were involved. Most important, the reason I bring it up is because I truly believe that this government, more than many governments before it, is very genuine when it says that it wants input from Canadians. If we look at what the Minister of Finance has been able to accomplish in the last 11 months, it is overwhelming. I am going to do a year in review momentarily, but hundreds of thousands of Canadians have been reached out to by departments.
If I reflect on my colleagues within the Liberal caucus, I know there have been dozens if not hundreds of town hall meetings. In virtually every region of this great country, we have had MPs hosting or participating in town halls with the single purpose of trying to better understand what Canadians would like to see us as a government put in as priorities. I am proud to say that this government has delivered in many different ways.
That is unlike the Conservative Party, which lost touch with what Canadians wanted. I would suggest that had the Conservatives not lost touch, they might have done a bit better in the last election. Because they lost touch with real Canadians, we were provided an opportunity to form government. As the Prime Minister clearly indicated not only during the election but prior to the election, we can always do better. This is reinforced by this Prime Minister. In fact, many of my caucus colleagues genuinely believe that, and our efforts are in order to be able to achieve that.
When I look at this budget, I say it is all about priorities. What sorts of priorities have we seen from this government in the last year?
The first piece of legislation was a significant decrease in taxes for Canada's middle class. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars being put into the pockets of more than nine million Canadians.
We will often hear from the opposition benches, “What about small businesses? Give small businesses a break”. Let me tell members that what drives Canada's economy is Canada's middle class. The healthier the middle class of Canada is the healthier our economy will be. If we put money in the pockets of the middle class, we will find that, generally speaking, the middle class will spend that money, which helps the economy.
That was the very first initiative. That was a promise given by the Prime Minister, and that was a promise that was kept.
I was very proud when the Prime Minister indicated that we were going to have a public inquiry with respect to the 1,200-plus murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, many of whom actually used to call Winnipeg North their home. This is an area I was truly concerned about. I believe that Manitobans and in fact all Canadians care passionately about this issue. Within a couple of months, we saw a commitment to have that public inquiry. I think it was long overdue. I had petitioned the government in the past. Many members of this chamber had asked the prime minister for that to take place.
These are but a couple of the initiatives that were taken right out of the gate.
The other day we were talking about gender equity and how important it is. We saw a Prime Minister, for the first time in Canadian history, introduce a cabinet with gender equity. I think that sends a very strong message. Not only do we have a better cabinet as a result; it demonstrates leadership from a Prime Minister that truly believes in gender equity.
We have seen a government that responded to what was taking place in Alberta. We are all concerned about the plight of many Albertans. For many years, Alberta, as a province, was contributing immensely to our nation. Many people would go to Alberta to generate income and would often go back to their home regions to continue to support families and so forth. Alberta is an important province. This has been demonstrated by numerous ministries. We have seen literally hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the province of Alberta, because we recognize how important it is to be there for that province.
We have seen employment insurance changes that have enabled individuals who are suffering hardship the opportunity to have a bit more money. Where we can help, we have offered additional stability. We hope, and we know, that it is only a question of time before Alberta is back in the role of providing that strong leadership.
There have been many issues since those first three months. Where do I start? How do I try to encapsulate the many different things that have taken place?
I do not know how many speeches I have given inside the House dealing with seniors. Seniors are such an important policy matter for all members of this House. I am so proud of how much we have done in such a short period of time.
I could talk about the fear factor of Stephen Harper, when he said that there was a crisis looming and we had to raise the age of retirement from 65 to 67. Many of my colleagues will recall that.
Within months of taking office, we reversed that decision. We know that Canada, as a nation, can in fact afford to allow individuals to retire at age 65. That is something I think sent a very positive message with respect to our seniors.
However, that is not all. We also introduced substantial increases to our guaranteed income supplement program. That one hits home for me because of the many doors I knocked on, and we all knocked on doors. Imagine the seniors who we talk to, the poorest, the most vulnerable of our seniors, telling us they do not know if they can afford to buy their medication because they have to put food on the table, or they say no to food, or go to food banks because they have to buy medication?
This is a very real issue for many of our seniors. With the increase to the GIS, the poorest and the most vulnerable of all our seniors will receive up to $900-plus additional a year. When they make $12,000 or $13,000 a year, that really helps. That is something of great substance we are giving to our seniors.
Many Canadians, and I have produced petitions on this, have argued the importance of our three seniors programs, those social programs that are fundamental, that make us feel good about being Canadian. I have talked about two of them. I will now talk about the third one, and that is our Canada pension program.
For years we sat in opposition and asked the Government of Canada, led by Stephen Harper, to do something about CPP. For years he turned his head and ignored the issue. There was no will at all from the former Conservative government to deal with the need to increase CPP into the future.
Just months ago, we were able to come to a historical agreement. Individuals who are working today will have more money in their pockets when it comes time to retire because of the leadership demonstrated by this government and its ability to work with the provinces.
Even though the Conservatives today oppose what we are doing with CPP, I should remind them that all the provinces had to agree. All that Ottawa could do was demonstrate the leadership, which we did, and encourage it. We had to get the support of other governments.
It pleases me to indicate very clearly to Canadians and to the House that we achieved that agreement. Because of that, many individuals will retire with more money. On the one hand, the GIS is lifting people out of poverty. On the other hand, the CPP will prevent future seniors from living in poverty. Seniors are important for the Liberal Party and the government.
Let us talk about the other end. We often hear New Democrats being somewhat critical. I think they are just looking for excuses for voting against this progressive budget. They often mention Canada's poor or those who do not make more than $35,000 a year. The Canada child benefit program has been greatly enhanced. That increase will allow literally tens of thousands of children to be lifted out of poverty. It will be based on a scale of affordability. We do not need to give multi-millionaires the same money we give a single parent who has two or three children and is finding it difficult to make ends meet. There is more fairness in the Liberals' Canada child benefit.
I would challenge my New Democratic friends, who saw fit to vote against the budget, to show me a budget in the last 20 or 30 years where they have seen such a redistribution of Canada's wealth, where there has been more of a will to try to assist those in need.
Think of indigenous people and the level of commitment that is there in a tangible way. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. However, it is not just the money. We are seeing a new era of recognizing the value of the many different stakeholders.
There is nothing more important, and the Prime Minister himself has said this, than the relationship with indigenous people and a nation-to-nation attitude. Does that mean we will be able to resolve every problem, such as foster care? Trust me, I know the issue of foster care well. I represent Manitoba, which has the highest per capita number of children in foster care, and that is not a good thing. There are a lot of wonderful things. I will talk a lot about the positive things in Manitoba, but when it comes to foster care, the answer is no.
Many of the issues correlated with indigenous people have become so problematic over the years that it might take some time, but I believe that we have started off on the right foot. That is because we have seen the level of interest in this government in working with others.
We saw another achievement here today. A big part of this government's agenda is jobs. We recognize the value of jobs. In fact, I suggest that if we were to do a comparison, we would find that past governments did exceptionally well. I am thinking of former prime minister Jean Chrétien and some of the policy initiatives he brought in. We can contrast that with the last 10 years, when we saw a government that took a back seat and said it did not want to get involved. We now have a government that genuinely cares and is prepared to get involved.
The CETA agreement was signed yesterday, and I applaud the Minister of International Trade and her efforts. I know the immense amount of commitment, time, and energy she personally put into that agreement. As the Prime Minister and she herself acknowledged, we appreciate the efforts of the previous government. The signing of that agreement has fantastic potential for Canada's economy, manufacturing, and jobs. We are a trading nation. The Liberal Party is very much aware of that.
The last time Liberals were in power, there was a multi-billion dollar trade surplus. We understand the importance of trade surpluses and are actively trying to reverse the hole the Conservatives put us into. When they inherited that multi-billion dollar trade surplus, they turned it into a multi-billion dollar trade deficit. It might take us some time to do that.
I only have one minute remaining, but I have so much more to say. We have helped students pay for their educations. We have ratified the Paris Agreement. I could speak for half an hour on the historic investments we have made in infrastructure. We introduced a new teacher and early childhood educator school supply tax credit. We have invested in innovation at Canada's post-secondary institutions. We have built new business relationships abroad. There is so much more. I have not even talked about immigration.
I will leave it at that. I hope there will be questions.