Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Provencher for sharing his time with me. The NDP and the Conservative Party often disagree, but we have been able to work well together in true parliamentary spirit.
I have five key points to make. Obviously, there could be more, since we are talking about an omnibus bill, but I will focus on five points that I believe should raised in today's budget debate.
The first is that the oil industry subsidies are being maintained, despite the government's promise to get rid of them. These subsidies are still in place. Budget 2019 is a missed opportunity to do something to fight climate change and provide additional revenue in order to truly invest in green energy, the energy of the future.
The second aspect I would like to address is another missed opportunity, and that is the fact that the government is not requiring web giants like Netflix to collect sales tax. That is important, and it shows a major lack of political will. Just look at Quebec. With the stroke of a pen, Quebec managed to do what the current government has not done in four years. We are seeing the consequences today, with massive layoffs at TVA. We know that our cultural industry is suffering the effects of this unfair situation, which would be so easy to fix. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a new tax. It is just a matter of applying existing taxes and the law consistently, as they apply to businesses here.
Third, I would like to talk about the fact that this is an omnibus bill. The issue of immigration and refugees comes up in this bill. A budget bill is creating a situation that is unfair and discriminatory towards refugees. Omnibus bills were criticized under the previous Conservative government, which is precisely why the Liberals promised not to use this kind of problematic tactic. As the member for Sherbrooke pointed out earlier in his speech, this matter was raised several times at the Standing Committee on Finance. Stakeholders and civil society representatives had to appear before the finance committee to share their concerns regarding legislative changes that will affect refugees. It is completely absurd that this issue appears in an omnibus budget bill. It is completely unacceptable.
Speaking of missed opportunities, my fourth point is about employment insurance, the 50 weeks, and people with serious illnesses who cannot get their fair share of EI and so are unable to return to work, despite having gone through a terrible ordeal while dealing with a very serious illness. We have been fighting for this for quite some time. Just think of people like Marie-Hélène Dubé and everyone fighting for the same cause. We in the NDP will continue to support them. This is another one of this government's missed opportunities.
I addressed my last point when I talked about the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Despite the government's repeated promises, it introduced a number of omnibus bills. Some of them were even longer than the ones introduced by the previous government. That is a broken promise that violates our rights as parliamentarians.
In closing, I would like to present an amendment:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
“the House decline to give third reading to C-97, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019 and other measures, because it:
(a) gives more to big business than to Canadians;
(b) does not establish a universal pharmacare plan;
(c) does not solve the current housing crisis;
(d) maintains subsidies to oil companies;
(e) makes major changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that are unfair and fail to meet the standards of the process established by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada;
(f) is an omnibus bill that is contrary to this government's promises; and
(g) limits the Members' ability to vote separately on the various divisions of the Bill.”