Mr. Speaker, it would of course be unparliamentary for me to comment on the presence or absence of many members in the House during my remarks, but I am not surprised that members of the government backbench do not want to hear what I have to say. In fact, I know that many members of the government backbench are genuinely embarrassed about the policies of their own government with respect to these issues. I commend them for their shame when they listen to the words of the foreign affairs minister, who is clearly not willing to do basic things when it comes to international human rights. All the same, I invite them to look their own failings in the eye and participate and listen to this discussion, because it is only through honest confrontation of their failures that they can hopefully turn the corner.
I say all that with the best of regard, because we all have a stake in Canada turning a corner and returning to a principled foreign policy, one that actually measures up to the words spoken by the minister, but we are certainly not there now.
I was in the process of discussing the issue of defence spending and reminding members who are in the House now that it was the last president, President Barrack Obama, who spoke about the need for Canada to contribute more to our national defence and to our collective security. I am under no illusion that we can get to that 2% of GDP overnight, but we need to have a realistic plan to get there, because if Canada and other NATO partners are not realistically engaged in ensuring that we are meeting our obligations under NATO, then at some point, taxpayers in the United States are going to become frustrated, and it is going to add pressure and create some real problems for us.
This discussion was ongoing throughout the last number of months and years. I think many members of the government thought that finally, in budget 2017, we would see a substantial new investment in national defence. Actually, I did a panel with one member of the government, who, it seemed, was trying to send the signal, “Do not worry, we are going to make these investments. We recognize now the need for Canada to do more.” These were supposedly coming.
However, what did we see in budget 2017? Actually, in the budget, the Liberals cut $8.48 billion that had been earmarked for military equipment purchases. That, combined with last year's cut, actually brought us to a $12-billion shortfall. We had substantial cuts. This is what the Liberals telegraphed earlier, in their original throne speech, when they talked about having a leaner military. It was quite a contortion of language to do their best to make it sound as if it was a great thing having a leaner military.
When the government talks about cutting back the resources it gives our men and women in uniform, the defence is, “Our men and women in uniform do a great job, and we pull more than our weight, because our troops are so skilled at what they do.” Let me say clearly that on this side of the House, we agree with that phrase about Canada's armed forces. They do an excellent job, but I do not think anyone in the armed forces would tell us that they do not really need the resources and are doing more with less. The right way to acknowledge and recognize the great work done by our men and women in uniform is to give them the proper resources that allow them to do their job.
I do not think the minister mentioned NATO in her talk about international issues. NATO is obviously a critical multilateral institution that serves our interests. If we are not meeting our commitment sunder NATO to at least work toward that 2%, then we are putting the security of that alliance at great risk. The government is not moving toward 2%. It would have been unrealistic to expect that budget 2017 would bring us to 2%, but it is not moving us toward 2%. It is actually moving us away from 2%.
The minister talks about the importance of collective security, about the importance of our being engaged internationally on all of these issues, about the importance of responding to groups like Daesh and being part of NATO, and about the importance of defending Canada's interests in eastern Europe, the importance of defending Latvia and being present in Poland and other places. There are many different hot spots and threats around the world, places where Canada can be present, as well of course as at the discussion of prospective peacekeeping operations in Africa.
The minister talks about all of these things and yet the Minister of National Defence is cutting back on expenditures in our military. There is pretty clear dissonance here.
The person who wrote the minister's speech that was given today clearly did not reflect enough on the government's record. In a way, the government's approach is condemned through the very words of the minister. The minister said that nations that do not properly invest in their own defence risk becoming client states of other nations, and yet she is choosing—or perhaps I should blame her colleague or the government as a whole—to pull back its spending on the military. Again, there is an area of clear dissonance between the reality of the government's record and the flowing words we heard in the speech.
Let me talk about Sir Lanka. During the election, the government made very specific commitments about supporting justice and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. When I raised these issues during committee of the whole, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said she wanted to assure the committee and the House that she was very concerned about the situation and that she had, and I am paraphrasing here, good feelings and feelings of solidarity towards the people in that situation.
Expressing goodwill inside the Canadian House of Commons is not enough for the people on the ground who are suffering as a result of human rights abuses, especially when the government made specific commitments to be involved in supporting the advancement of justice and human rights on the ground. Again there is clear dissonance.
I have mentioned Saudi Arabia in my questions. The Liberal government's approach to Saudi Arabia really is quite striking. Saudi Arabia does not give basic citizenship rights or basic human rights to women, but that does not mean we cannot have a strategic partnership on certain kinds of issues.
It is important for us to engage with countries with whom we disagree, and confront issues of fundamental disagreement while working together on areas of strategic interest. Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is quite important in terms of how we collaborate and in terms of how we counter the influence of Iran in the region. I want to be clear that it is not a situation where we should have no engagement with Saudi Arabia.
If we are going to have engagement with countries with whom we disagree, we have to be clear and unapologetic about stating what our values are. If we are having a relationship with a country and that country is doing things that violate fundamental human rights, it is not difficult but in fact necessary for us to be specific and identify those issues.
If we have an interest in working with other countries and other countries have an interest in working with us, that collaboration is still going to happen, and it is going to happen very clearly with Saudi Arabia. There are opportunities to collaborate on things that are important for Saudi interests. which are not going to be lost, not going to disappear. If the minister were to have the courage to simply say that it is a bad thing for Saudi Arabia to be on the UN women's rights commission, that would not change Saudi Arabia's interests with respect to its relationship with Canada.
If the Prime Minister were to speak more clearly, or if he were to speak at all, about human rights in China, it would not change the fact that China still has an interest in accessing Canadian energy. It would not change the basic logic of the economic relationship. What do we have to lose by being true to who we are? The minister asked if Canada was an essential country. I say yes, but we have to be true to who we are.
With respect to the minister's speech, we had a lot of discussion on the issue of the environment, greenhouse gas emissions, and the government's response. I find what the government has said and done really interesting. Of course, we know that under the last Liberal government there was a dramatic increase in overall greenhouse gas emissions. The approach of the Chrétien government was to put all of the emphasis on this idea of signing a big international agreement. It signed the Kyoto protocol and launched major promotional advertising to let Canadians know that it had signed on to being part of this response to global greenhouse gas emissions. Basically, it did nothing else. Global emissions went up. Canadian emissions went up.
Then we had that glorious day, January 23, 2006, when Stephen Harper won the election. Under the Harper Conservative government, greenhouse gas emissions went down. Every time I say this, people scoff and shake their heads. Look at the numbers. Greenhouse gas emissions went down under Stephen Harper, whether anyone likes it or not.
The responses that typically came from the current government and others were to say, “Well, that was only because of the bold action of the Kathleen Wynne government”. Now the current government is not as keen to associate itself with Kathleen Wynne as perhaps it once was, yet it says that the only reason that emissions went down was because of the bold steps that were taken by the Kathleen Wynne government.
The other thing the Liberals said was that emissions only went down because of the global economic recession. The only time that they remember we even had a global economic recession was when they are talking about the environment. They completely ignore it when they talk about economic history, but on the environment they say that greenhouse gases only went down because of it. Here is the reality. If we look at the numbers province by province, not just the overall numbers for greenhouse gas emissions, we will find that if we compare the period of the Chrétien government to the period of the Harper government, in every single province emissions either went down or went up by less than they had under the previous Liberal government. Therefore, when it comes to real, achievable results on greenhouse gas emissions, progress was achieved under the Harper government in every single province across this country. That completely blows out the “Kathleen Wynne is so great” argument that I am sure many members of the Liberal caucus from Ontario would perhaps have been more reluctant to make in the past than they are now.
The other counter-argument is that the Liberals would say that greenhouse gas emissions only went down because of the global economic recession. If we look at the numbers, we see that global emissions went up during a period when they went down in Canada, yet Canada was one of the countries that was least affected by the global economic recession. Therefore, the world over, the economy was more negatively impacted by the recession, yet emissions were going up; Canada was less affected by the recession, yet was able to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. We were able to see overall economic growth at a time when our emissions were going down. I think that very clearly blows this counter-argument out of the water. Canada was able to achieve real results.
At the same time, we recognized the reality of the Kyoto protocol, which was that the Kyoto protocol would have asked Canada to spend Canadian tax dollars to buy emissions credits from other countries without actually reducing our emissions or theirs. It had a built-in system that facilitated a transfer of wealth between different countries based on where specific targets were set. We quite rightly said that the money is better invested in actually achieving environmental improvements here at home. Canada is a country that is leading on environmental innovation. It can continue to lead, it can continue to reduce emissions, and it can share its technology, but we have to do that in a way that does not cripple our economy.
What is the approach of this new Liberal government? Aside from of course failing to recognize the reality of the successes of the Harper government on these issues, it is to try to use the environment as an excuse to try to raise more revenue for government. The Liberals said their carbon tax plan would be revenue neutral, but in fact now we know that they will be collecting GST/HST—for the federal government, it is GST—on the carbon tax, so it is a tax on tax, a big increase in federal government revenue.
That is quite striking, is it not? The Liberals are talking about the environment and yet they have a plan aimed solely at raising revenue, which completely ignores the experience of the Harper government, which showed that we could achieve real reductions in emissions with binding sector-by-sector regulatory targets. The approach we took was to ensure that, through our binding sector-by-sector regulatory targets, we were not reducing the capacity of the economy to grow. We were making it possible for companies in Canada to continue to invest and grow. We were not creating a kind of environment where companies just had to go out of business because they could not possibly meet with the new regulatory burden. We were very careful to do that, because we recognized that reducing our emissions was what we wanted to do, not chase jobs out of the country. If, with punitive regulatory structures, we chased jobs to other countries, we would not help the environment, especially if we were chasing jobs to countries that actually have far less stringent environmental regulations than we do.
I am very concerned that the government's approach when it comes to the carbon tax, far from actually achieving advances when it comes to the well-being of the global environment, will actually just force job creators out of Canada. They will make those investments in the United States where there are completely different environmental standards, especially now, and that is going to lead to worse outcomes when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and significantly worse outcomes when it comes to the Canadian economy.
How does that make any sense? It does not make sense for greenhouse gas emissions at all. I do not really like this term because I am generally a fan of virtue ethics as a philosophy, but this is what has come to be known colloquially as virtue signalling. The government wants to send the signal about its alleged commitment to some principle without actually doing anything about it.
That is the issue of greenhouse gas emissions. This came up during questions and comments, and the minister may have mentioned it in her speech as well: the rights of gays and lesbians around the world. This is an important issue and an issue that is perhaps not one of the best known successes of the last government, but this is an example where the Harper government really led with respect to standing up for fundamental human rights.
The then prime minister directly raised these issues internationally with world leaders, but also the former minister of immigration, Jason Kenney, set up a specific program to help gays and lesbians escaping from Iran. It was a way of facilitating and prioritizing gay and lesbian refugees coming out of Iran. This was cancelled by the Liberal government. This was a program.
The minister said that there are things going on with Chechnya that she cannot tell us about. On some level, we can recognize that when it comes to foreign affairs, there may be certain things that the minister is less inclined to talk about publicly, but we do not really have any strong indications of the government's commitment when it comes to doing concrete things to stand up for the fundamental human rights of people in this situation, because of the fact that the government chose to get rid of this program that was helping gays and lesbians who were escaping the severe persecution they face in Iran. At least we could be raising these issues with Iran.
Instead, speaking of Iran, the government is eager to seek a closer relationship with Iran, and this flies in the face of our strategic interests, of international law, and of our fundamental regard for human rights: the rights of religious minorities in Iran, the significant issues facing the Baha'i community, the rights of gays and lesbians, and really, actually the rights of all people, even those who are members of majority communities but still face severe repression as a result of the terrible things being done by the regime in Iran.
What else did the minister speak about in her speech? She spoke about free trade, about how we could support development and be agents of change around the world. The government has completely failed when it comes to the trade file. It has carried on the inertia with respect to things that were started under the previous Harper government. It did its best, frankly, to completely screw up CETA negotiations, but nonetheless there was enough inertia in place from the work done by the Harper government for that agreement to get over the finish line.
The government has failed to stand up for the trans-Pacific partnership. The minister spoke about the rise of Asia. It is not something she is ignorant of, yet she does not seem to appreciate, or at least the government does not seem to appreciate, the importance the trans-Pacific partnership in setting the terms of trade in the Asia-Pacific area in a way that reflects our values.
The trans-Pacific partnership would have been an opportunity for us to work with like-minded countries and set terms of trade that would favour respect for intellectual property, fundamental human rights, the environment, and workers' rights. Those things were established and could have been protected through the framework that was established by the trans-Pacific partnership.
It would have been difficult to see that proceed in its current form, in light of the disposition of the new American administration toward it. It absolutely would have helped if the Canadian government had actually been willing to lead, though, on the issue of the trans-Pacific partnership, if the Government of Canada was actually willing to stand and speak about these issues in a concrete and specific way.
Now, in light of the situation that we are in, this would be a good time for Canada to lead in defence of a free economy and to seek the kinds of relationships and partnerships in the Asia-Pacific that would allow us to ensure the dominance of the democratic and free rule of law idea in that region. We should seek deeper trading and other partnerships, with countries like Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. India was not part of the original the TPP, neither was Taiwan, but deepening our partnerships there, commercially and in other areas, would be very important for advancing our values and protecting the security of our values in the region.
The minister talks about trade, yet we do not see action in that vital area. We merely see the continuation of things that were already begun and undertaken under the previous government.
The minister's final point was about the idea of there being a crisis of confidence in the global system in the west and this being a threat politically insofar as people within the middle class no longer had confidence in the global system. I do not actually see that being a major problem in Canada.
We are not really seeing at all the rise of the kind of isolationist, anti-establishment, populism in the negative sense we have seen in some other countries. We have a political consensus around, broadly speaking, the idea of an open society, and that is important. However, it also speaks to the success of the last government in putting the economic mechanisms in place, cutting taxes, for instance, on those on the low end, economically, to ensure that there would be an effective sharing of prosperity, not through the expansion of government programs but through policies that would encourage employment and that would allow industry to develop.
We were able to cut business taxes, cut the small business tax rate and establish a hiring credit for small business. These kinds of policies stimulated the economy in a way that benefited everyone, especially those who were looking for jobs.
The government risks creating new problems with its policies, which expand government and involve big, new subsidies for companies like Bombardier. It is a tax-and-spend approach. Also, if we look at those tax changes that actually matter for those who are looking for work, the Liberals have raised the payroll taxes through the CPP expansion. They have eliminated the hiring credit for small business. They have reversed themselves on a promise they made with respect to the small business tax rate. They had promised to lower it down to 9%. Actually every major party in this place had promised to lower the small business tax down to 9%, yet the Liberals decided to renege on that promise.
The tax changes that the Liberals have made do not just affect small businesses; they affect those who are looking for jobs and contribute to rising unemployment. Alberta has an employment crisis. The government's response was to give $30 million to the Government of Alberta. That is less than the amount paid out to Bombardier executives in bonuses.
When the government talks about how a crisis in confidence in governments contributes to problems in our global system, it needs to look in the mirror and ask why it does not stop taxing Canadians to death. It needs to start looking at our history and employing the measures successfully undertaken by the previous government. Why does it not proceed in that direction? Maybe that would address some of the issues about which it is concerned.
The other thing is, having been in the United States during the U.S. election, that there is a reality that America spends a great deal of money on its national defence. Some people say that maybe we should not be spending so much on the defence of other countries and other countries should step up and spend more. American leadership is important when it comes to supporting collective security, but it is part of why it is so important for Canada to actually invest in collective security and national defence.
I spoke earlier about the major cuts that the government had made, and is making, when it comes to national defence. It absolutely sends the completely wrong message when, in the midst of a time of increasing global insecurity and real and growing threats, the government cuts back on spending in national defence.
Having directly responded to many of the points that were made, I would like to talk a bit about the legislative context of this motion.
Before I do that, I believe we do not have quorum in the House.