Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver East.
I thought I might start my reflections on the budget just by noticing some things in the budget that I think are a step in the right direction. I am thinking specifically of the provisions for parental leave and of the now five days' paid leave for Canadians fleeing situations of domestic violence. That is good.
When the government announced this measure in the fall, it was three unpaid days. There was some great work by some of my colleagues on the NDP benches to point out that it would be hard to access for folks who are leaving difficult situations and do not have the luxury of missing paid days of work. I thought that was a positive change. For people in Manitoba, the province I represent, that now means they are covered both at the federal level and the provincial level, because the previous NDP government also introduced provisions for paid leave for folks fleeing domestic violence. It is good news for Manitobans to now be covered at both levels.
One of the major omissions of the budget, and it is important whether someone is looking at it from the point of view of fiscal responsibility or social justice, is the lack of serious action when it comes to going after tax evasion, whether that is through tax havens or other kinds of significant tax loopholes. On the fiscal responsibility side, that is lost revenue for the government that really ought to be contributing to balancing the books. On the social justice side, it is also money that can be spent on the kinds of things Canadians need, whether it is expanding their drug coverage through a national pharmacare plan or investing in affordable housing, which we know is a crisis for many Canadians across the country.
Whether we are looking at it from either of those sides, hemorrhaging that amount money off to other jurisdictions where we have special sweetheart deals is a serious problem. It is something I am sad to see the government did not take the opportunity to address. However, it is in keeping with the kind of sweetheart treatment the Liberals give a lot of big players, such as CEOs who continue to benefit from the CEO stock option tax loophole. This is infuriating for Canadians who are seeing the cost of housing and other important costs go up and who continue to watch the people at the top end of the earning spectrum save money on their taxes because they have the ability to be paid in stock options instead of by salary.
We see this special treatment when we think of financial consulting firms like KPMG, which have been reported to be right at the centre of some of the largest tax evasion schemes and yet are being treated with kid gloves by the government. We saw the kind of natural affinity that the finance minister has for the banking sector when there was controversy over the past year about the government depriving credible financial institutions like credit unions, all the credit unions across the country, from being able to use the language of banking services and banking, which is the common sense term Canadians use when they talk about making deposits, other kinds of investments, or getting their mortgage. They trust credit unions to do that. Credit unions do a good job of that. However, because the banks decided to undermine their competition and knew they had a friend in the finance minister, the finance minister was quick to jump when they said that maybe credit unions should not be able to use that language.
It is frustrating to see that kind of special treatment for banks when banks do not afford that same respect to the communities they serve. We are seeing that happen right now in Transcona, where the TD Bank, which has recorded the highest level of profits for any bank in Canada this year, is closing a local branch that has been the cornerstone of Transcona's downtown for decades and decades. TD is not saying it is because it was losing money at the branch. TD is saying that it wants to increase its overall profits across the country by 1% or a fraction of a per cent. It is closing branches in communities like Transcona all across the country regardless of the costs and the toll it takes on the people in those communities who have been faithful customers and want to be able to access in-person banking services in their community.
Contrast that with the credit unions which came under fire from the government in terms of using the language of banking and banking services that are responsible to the customers and are keeping local branches open, and doing that quite successfully from a financial point of view. The contrast is stark.
We have heard over a number of days now debate about the budget and we have heard it in question period. A theme of this budget, as reported by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, is the fact that, first of all, although having announced over $186 billion in infrastructure money, most of which is to come long after this Parliament has come and gone, and hopefully long after the government has come and gone, despite having announced that big number, there is no plan for how to spend what it is calling a record amount of money for infrastructure. That is totally irresponsible, for one thing, but it is also important to note, when I talk about that money coming later after the next election, that of the small amount of money that is actually to be spent in this Parliament, the PBO reported that approximately 25% of that much smaller amount of infrastructure money will be allowed to lapse instead of actually being invested in our communities.
We are living that right now in Winnipeg where Red River College, which is our biggest community college by far, wanted to make an investment in Winnipeg's downtown through a new innovation centre. That is a centre that is meant to help start-up businesses in the tech sector, among others, and to have a good collaborative relationship between the college and the private sector in Winnipeg's downtown. It has had to put a hold on the tenders for the $90-million project because of the $40 million that was announced to support it by the federal government. That money has a quite unrealistic deadline in terms of when they expect completion, when the federal government is demanding that the project be completed, so much so that the college has had to put a hold on those tenders.
What that means is the potential for missing out on a total $90-million investment in post-secondary education right in the heart of Winnipeg's downtown, which would also have an important economic benefit to Winnipeg's downtown. When we hear about the lapsed funding, we often hear from the government it is because it takes time to finish projects and the receipts have not come in. In this case we see that quite clearly, and I am sure it is not the only instance across the country where it is actually unrealistic parameters being put on the project by the federal government that is the problem.
I understand that the Minister of Natural Resources, who is the member for Winnipeg South Centre, has been trying to advocate within his own government for that project, or at least that is my understanding, and members opposite can correct me if I am wrong on that. However, I think that signals a problem that he is not being taken seriously enough within his own government. Why it is that the only cabinet minister for Manitoba's say-so would not be good enough, or that the seven Liberals that represent Winnipeg ridings would not be able to have influence within the government is troubling.
I would forgive Winnipeggers for wondering about the value of electing seven Liberals to represent a city if it is going to mean that they get taken for granted and one of the major infrastructure projects committed to by the federal government does not get the follow-through they deserve. They may be wondering that, or they may be wondering if maybe this is a problem with the way the Liberals have set up the regional economic development agencies where, instead of having ministers from the region being responsible for economic development activities, it is all consolidated under one minister, in this case one from southern Ontario, who does not understand projects in Manitoba and does not understand the needs of Winnipeg, and is clearly ignoring his colleague from Manitoba instead of moving ahead with a very valuable project.
I say all of that just to show that when we talk about lapsed funding and infrastructure, the numbers sometimes are quite big, and it can be quite abstract and kind of hard to get one's head around. However, those are the kinds of very concrete problems that those numbers represent in Winnipeg and across the country when we start talking about lapsed infrastructure funding.
I am very sorry that I do not have more time to get into more of the issues with the budget. I have tried to show how some of those issues come right back home to affect us. As much as it sounds like bickering here in Ottawa, or as much as the numbers may be hard to get our heads around, they really do have real consequences for us at home.