House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 53% of the vote.
The Environment May 12th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment says Canada cannot meet its Kyoto targets. If, on the advice of her U.S. republican pollster, she wanted a made in Canada plan, why then did she cancel a made in Canada program that would have met at least 10% of our Kyoto target? Why has she cancelled an investment of $538 million in Ontario to help close four coal-fired electricity generating plants by 2009?
The Budget May 9th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I will respond to the hon. member from Timmins on the specific points he raised. On access to higher education, we created the millennium scholarship fund, which had that precise objective in mind.
During the last electoral campaign, we put forward the fifty-fifty proposition where we would pay for 50% of tuition fees in the first year and 50% in the last year.
Thanks to us, municipalities got the GST rebate. In the last five years they received $5 billion for their infrastructure funds, for strategic infrastructure, for border infrastructure and for municipal and rural infrastructure.
We also delivered, in the previous regime, the gas tax money that was a further $5 billion to municipalities. Had we been re-elected, we would have increased the strategic infrastructure funds by $5 billion over the next five years. We were building on a record that we had already established.
The Budget May 9th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, we have taken as our model, and even our gold standard, the child care system in Quebec. We have seen that when there is a real choice, as in Quebec—the member across the aisle knows very well—parents want a system based on the CPEs. There are waiting lists for the Quebec system.
The Quebec system is the model in North America that we would like to have for the rest of Canada. That is why we wanted to support and salute Quebec’s pioneering efforts in this area.
When Quebec instituted its system of CPEs and daycare centres, it gathered up all the little funds that existed and created an integrated system based on the CPEs. At the same time, these centres are surrounded by other child services, other family services.
It was to strengthen the Quebec system and not break it up that we supported it and recognized it as the leader.
The Budget May 9th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Labrador.
There are two very curious aspects to the budget and some have just been referred to recently by my hon. colleague from Scarborough. The first is a total confusion between what I would understand to be a true Conservative philosophy of libertarian laissez faire, small government versus, in the same budget, social engineering, economic meddling administrative burdening and inefficient fiddling.
The second further fundamental confusion is about the very purposes of society itself, the functions of a state and the limitations of individual actions in effecting change.
Let us begin with the inherent contradiction of the budget. On the one hand, we are told that the purpose of tax cuts is to put more money in the hands of citizens and businesses, to increase freedom of choice for citizens and businesses and to reduce the heavy hand of the state in making social and economic choices.
On the other hand, there are many examples in the budget of tax policy where the state is clearly, as my colleague from Scarborough said, acting as a nanny, a know-it-all, a bossy-boots and an unrepentant, economic dirigiste.
A real expert on everything.
Let us take the case of children and families, as the hon. member for Peace River has just done. On the one hand, we are told that the $1,200 taxable annual child allowance for children under six is all about freedom of choice for families in making child care arrangements, although of course parents do not have to spend a cent on child care to get the money.
How many times have we heard the words, “There are millions of experts whose names are mom and dad” in justifying parental freedom of choice? But wait, the government is also providing a $500 tax credit to cover registration fees for children's sports. What if mom and dad would prefer piano lessons, dance lessons or art classes for their children? Nope, father knows best.
The bossy-boots federal government is now dictating to parents which extracurricular activities are worthy for their children and which are not. What happened to freedom of choice? How come mom and dad are experts in child care but raving incompetents when it comes to after school activities? If the government can give $1,200 without condition, why can it not give another $500 for children under 16 years of age without conditions and let parents decide how to use the money? Why create an additional paper burden with proof of payment for swimming lessons?
Beyond this selective social engineering, this “we know best what's best, we know what is best for families when it comes to sports”, a similar attitude prevails in singling out certain economic sectors for special treatment. We just have to look at the fiddling around in selected industries, such as jewellery, wine produced by small vintners and beer produced by small brewers. Since when, under classic conservative philosophy, is it the duty of the state to micromanage microbreweries? When did the state decide that small vintners are better than big vintners?
Todd Hirsch, economist for the Canada West Foundation, said that the budget neither reduces the size of government nor simplifies the tax system, nor represents a return to more sound economics, criticism echoed by John Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
If the budget is full of inconsistencies from a classical conservative point of view, it also fails the second test: understanding the respective roles of the individual citizen and of the state in the modern world.
Let us examine three cases, two of which we have previously considered. Child care and early learning is a good example. The national child care and early learning strategy of the previous Liberal government had the ambition of creating a major social system, like the public education system or the public health system. A government cannot create a major social system with tax breaks for individuals alone. It is the role of government, for example, to build and run hospitals, to build and run public schools and to build and run early childhood learning and care systems for those who need it. There is only true choice when the public system is available. No one would talk about choice in education if public education were not available as well as private or charter schools.
My second example is the $500 credit for costs related to physical activities for children.
Children may have the best equipment available but without an arena, a park, a community centre or a public swimming pool they cannot engage in their activity. Once again, there are no options for taking the place of the government when it comes time to provide public infrastructure.
This is why, during the last election campaign, the Liberals promised to create a $350 million fund in order to generate a total investment of over $1 billion, including the contributions of municipal and provincial partners, to put in place the Community, Sport and Recreation Infrastructure Fund.
My final example is public transit. The Liberal approach was to use three separate funds: a renewed strategic infrastructure fund; continuing gas tax money; and a special two year $800 million transit fund to build new public transit systems. This budget reduces the total of those commitments to building public transit and substitutes a tax credit for transit passes. A tax credit for transit passes, as transit operators have noted, do not build new subway lines or purchase new buses. It creates greater demand on existing systems, but builds no new capacity.
Once again, favouring individual transit users is not a substitute for direct government intervention in favouring and building new capacity for public transit.
There we have it, a budget which is schizophrenic, which speaks in one breath of putting money back in the pockets of taxpayers and giving them freedom of choice and in the next, starts bossing them about, dictating choices to parents and singling out certain industries for special treatment over others.
Finally, it is a budget which fails to understand that there are some things which individual taxpayers cannot do and which society and governments must do, such as building public transit systems, building public recreation facilities and building a public system of child care and early learning.
Taxation May 4th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the provinces want much more than that. They want more federal money, about $10 billion more each year to correct the fiscal imbalance.
The government has spent its entire surplus on tax breaks and programs.
Where is the new money for the provinces?
Taxation May 4th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the government is playing a dangerous game with the provinces. On the one hand, it has created expectations by promising to correct the fiscal imbalance this year. On the other hand, it has allocated the entire budget surplus to program spending and tax breaks.
How can the Minister of Finance give the provinces more money without creating a deficit, when he has already spent the whole budget surplus?
Business of Supply May 4th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, I have several comments and questions for the member opposite.
The first one is about the question of partnerships with the private sector and with not for profit organizations producing up to 125,000 child care spaces. Has the hon. member actually spoken with three of her colleagues, that is to say, the Minister of Health, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Finance, who were in a government that tried this very strategy and failed abysmally?
Second, the fact is that there will now be $4.6 billion less over a five year period for the provinces, money they were counting on. Does that get added to the sum of the fiscal imbalance? Does that not increase the fiscal imbalance over a five year period by $4.6 billion?
My third observation and question for the member would go something like this. Using the logic of putting so much emphasis on individual choice, why does the hon. member not suggest abolishing the public school system? The public school system also is a system that is designed to help all parents with children in similar situations. I do not understand why one simply would not extend this to almost any social system.
The Environment May 2nd, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the Quebec environment minister wrote to the federal minister, however, asking her to speed up negotiations to conclude a federal-provincial agreement.
Why does the minister prefer to negotiate with the United States rather than with Canadian provinces such as Quebec?
The Environment May 2nd, 2006
Yet, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment recently said she was going to follow the American lead in establishing the so-called made in Canada scheme, and of course the NDP has sold out on Kyoto, so what are we going to end up with? A plan that all the provinces of Canada want to work toward or an ineffective scheme copied from the United States?
The Environment May 2nd, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been sounding off about a Canadian greenhouse gas reduction plan as an alternative to Kyoto, yet the minister--