Madam Speaker, it is my honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-29, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures. I am also pleased to rise today so I can express my complete disappointment with how the bill has been introduced and the structure of the bill.
Bill C-29 is 234 pages, has 146 clauses, and would amend 13 pieces of legislation. How is this bill supposed to get proper review, study, and consideration? It simply will not, and the government know that and it is counting on that.
This kind of behaviour comes from a government that either has something to hide or does not want the public to know what it is up to. I suspect that a government which has not lived up to its promises on so many fronts, such as electoral reform, on the relationship with first nations, on meaningful reform to the Canada pension plan, and on its commitment to help the workers and former workers at U.S. Steel Canada is now finding it is necessary to hide its real intentions, and that is to fudge the facts, invent new and meaningless buzz words, and obscure the truth.
I need to take a moment to speak about what is to me an unfolding example of the government's desire to mask its real intentions behind a wall of rhetoric and doublespeak. I refer to the government's plan to privatize public infrastructure by selling off public assets and creating a new infrastructure bank to monetize future infrastructure projects.
As a former city councillor, I know about the dire state of our local infrastructure. I know about the lack of assistance for municipalities to help fund vital infrastructure rehabilitation. I have also seen the effects of both the federal and provincial governments downloading the costs for infrastructure projects onto the municipalities. This has helped create a staggering crisis.
No one should be fooled by the government's plan for infrastructure. The Liberals plan to privatize. No one should be fooled about what this means. It means user fees. It means toll roads and toll bridges. It means downloading the costs onto me, other members and all our constituents.
The finance minister's advisory panel on economic growth issued a report, and we expect some of its recommendations in the minister's economic statement tomorrow. Among those recommendations were the following: first, develop a focused federal infrastructure strategy which is in line with the government's economic growth agenda; second, create a Canadian infrastructure development bank to leverage institutional capital and deliver over $200 million with the projects over 10 years; and, third, create a flywheel for investment by catalyzing the participation of the institutional capital in existing assets.
We all know and agree that there needs to be new investment in infrastructure. Canadians from coast to coast have been calling on the federal government to take meaningful and substantial action for years. However, we are concerned by reports of the Liberal plan to privatize our infrastructure.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has expressed some serious concern that the government will take money that has been promised for housing and local projects and instead put it into its new infrastructure bank. That would mean less money for local priorities. That would mean less money for communities that were counting on addressing urgent infrastructure needs.
There are also reports that suggest the Liberals are moving ahead with plans for selling off existing public infrastructure, like airports and bridges. Having failed to sell their privatization schemes by calling them asset recycling, they have now invented the new term, “flywheel for reinvestment”. Do not be fooled. This is just a new word for privatization. Why do the Liberals want to sell off the valuable infrastructure that hard-earned dollars of Canadians have built? To pay for their budget shortfalls. This is just another example of the government trying to keep its promises from and then trying to use sleight of hand to fool Canadians into thinking otherwise.
The bill before us today is just another example of how the government is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The bill is far too big and far too complex, and the time allotted for debate is far too short to allow for the in-depth consideration and discussion that a budget should receive.
We have discovered, however, that the bill does contain some positive measures that the NDP has fought for, but it comes nowhere near what the Liberals have been promising, and nowhere near what is necessary to strengthen our economy and to combat inequality.
We are disappointed that the Liberals have decided to let the value of the new child benefit erode over the next four years, taking the equivalent of $500 away from families. We wanted to see more aggressive action to ensure tax fairness, including more to combat tax evasion by multinational corporations, and to close the stock option loophole for wealthy CEOs. It is also unacceptable that the Liberals are making adjustments to eligibility for small business taxes without restoring the promised tax cuts for small businesses.
Canadians were hoping for better from the current government. Many people have been left shaking their heads wondering why the government, which promised change, is acting like the Conservative government.
I can tell members that people in my community are shaking their heads, especially the 25,000 workers and retirees of U.S. Steel Canada, who thought that the current government would stand up for them through the bitter corporate restructuring currently taking place. Instead, we have seen a government and a Prime Minister turning their backs on the people of my community. This is a Prime Minister who, during the election, promised to do everything he could to help, but has left our pensioners and workers out in the cold.
One year after the election there has been not a word from the government or the Prime Minister about providing any help at all. It is shameful, and the people of Hamilton are not soon to forget. People in my community expected better, but like all Canadians, they have been left shaking their heads.