Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on the motion before us. As this motion is very much aspirational with respect to budget 2017, I will use my time today to talk about the things I believe Canadians need to see in it.
New Democrats have expectations for this budget that are entirely reasonable given the commitments the Liberals have made, either during the last election or since. We will welcome all concrete initiatives to address the many pressing issues facing Canadians today. Frankly, everyone has pretty much had it with rhetoric at this point. It is time to follow through.
A good way to start is by building a fairer tax system, closing loopholes for the wealthy, and cracking down on offshore tax havens. While most Canadians pay their fair share of taxes, our tax code is full of loopholes that allow the wealthiest among us to pay less. Altogether, our unfair tax system takes tens of millions of dollars from Canadians annually in lost revenues, money that should be spent to support services like health care.
The Liberals campaigned on a specific promise to address a gaping hole in our tax code that costs the government more than $800 million each year: the stock option deduction used by CEOs. They have since abandoned that promise in response to lobbying from corporate executives.
The government also curiously left untouched Stephen Harper's radically low corporate tax rates, which were slashed by a third and continue to cost the government more than $12 billion each year. In spite of this giveaway, Canadians have not seen the promised increases in investments or jobs.
The Liberals could also use this budget to deliver on promised investments in public infrastructure, rather than selling off airports and pursuing their infrastructure privatization bank scheme. While selling off Canadian assets like airports to turn a quick buck may make short-term sense, from an accounting perspective, it will leave Canadians to pay the costs through increased user fees for many years to come.
Canadians are increasingly stuck in precarious jobs characterized by part-time, low-paid, and temporary employment without benefits or pensions. Let us also hope that this budget will make a priority of creating and protecting good full-time jobs for Canadians and of improving conditions for all workers. It can implement a $15 federal minimum wage and restore promised small-business tax reductions.
Canada can also create good full-time jobs and be a leader in clean energy if the Liberals take the necessary steps to invest in home energy retrofits, to train workers for the emerging green economy, and to get critical infrastructure dollars out the door.
As Canada celebrates its 150th anniversary, it is unacceptable that indigenous people continue to face third-world conditions as a result of a long and indefensible history of chronic underfunding of services. They lack adequate access to housing, clean drinking water, mental health services, and education. The budget must make immediate investments to rectify this long-standing injustice by immediately investing the minimum required $155 million to end discrimination in the delivery of child welfare services, as per the unanimously passed NDP motion last year.
It should also provide the necessary resources to end the dozens of boil-water advisories affecting indigenous communities and ensure that all communities have access to clean, safe drinking waiter. It should, likewise, make an immediate injection for mental health services for first nation and Inuit communities to address the tragic funding shortfalls for such services, shortfalls that have been acknowledged by department officials. It should also lift the punitive 2% gap in funding transfers that continue to apply to most of the base funding that supports indigenous communities. That was a key election promise.
These commitments were made to our indigenous brothers and sisters in a very public way. The fact that the government has yet to honour them shames and embarrasses us all to no end.
Following from this, it would be great to see stable, predictable funding for the many native friendship centres throughout the country. With over half our native population living off reserve, friendship centres provide an array of services to urban natives but lack a regular funding formula. This has forced a number of these centres to close, while many others struggle from month to month to keep their doors open. On a yearly and grant basis, it is impractical to expect organizations such as our Can-Am friendship centres to consistently be able to strategize and provide these services.
It is crucial, as well, that this budget take the next steps to meet the health care needs of Canadians. Currently, one in 10 Canadians are unable to fill their prescriptions due to financial constraints. It is simply unacceptable that Canada remains the only country in the world with universal health care that does not include prescription drug coverage. It is time to fill this gap by committing to a universal pharmacare plan. This will not only make critical medicine more affordable for Canadians but will save provinces and our health care system billions in lower drug costs.
Despite lofty promises of a renewed co-operative federalism, the government has used a divide-and-conquer approach in provincial-federal health accords. It has forced deals on provinces that are, disappointingly, based on Stephen Harper's planned cuts to health care transfer increases. In fact, the Liberals, who I would like to remind this chamber were elected as a real change government, are giving only the same 3% escalator proposed by Harper for core health care funding, far short of the resources required to ensure the quality of care Canadians expect. More disturbingly, the Liberals have agreed to ignore violations of the Canada Health Act by accepting private clinics, such as MRI clinics in Saskatchewan, in order to cut a deal, another short-term gain that will result in more privatization and more costs down the line. As well, new funds for mental health and home care services are heavily back-loaded, with just 2.7% of new funds to flow in the first year. This will leave Canadians waiting for improvements and suffering.
Lastly, the Liberals made a promise to civil society groups during the previous election, as part of their successful campaign to woo progressive voters, to establish, if elected, an office of the mining ombudsperson. The ombudsperson would operate independently of government and would provide much needed oversight of Canadian extractive industries operating abroad, oversight these industries are in dire need of, given the increasing number of well-documented human rights abuses, as well as violence, associated with their operations around the world. I would say to the current government that it wooed them, it got them, and now it needs to honour its word and create this office.
One of the main reasons the Liberals were trounced out of power 12 years ago was that Canadians had grown tired of a party that seemed willing to say and do just about anything to stay in power. It has unfortunately only taken a year and half for the Liberal Party to re-establish its reputation along these lines. However, with this new budget, all could be changed. The Liberals can show Canadians that when they make a solemn commitment, they intend to follow through, or not.
We will be watching.