Mr. Speaker, it is again with pleasure that I stand to say a few words in relation to the bill and to comment on the budget such as it was.
When I read the budget of the few months ago sometimes I think of my old days as a schoolteacher. I often say that if some of my students passed in an assignment that was so incomplete and contained so little about the subject I would send it back to them.
We talk about a six month hoist. I think we should talk about just sending it back. We should forget about the period of time and demand that the government produce a real document. Having said that, we have to deal with what is before us.
A previous speaker from the NDP talked about the government squeezing every cent out of the Canadian public. It is so true. Poorer people are being squeezed left, right and centre.
It reminds me of the old story of the five parties in the House having a social together. Five flies were flying around and happened to pitch into each glass. The four parties on this side automatically threw away their drinks. The Liberal member took the fly, squeezed the beer out of it back into his glass and drank the works.
That illustrates the way the government operates. It is trying to grab every possible ounce, every possible cent it can out of the Canadian public.
I will mention a couple of examples. One is the $24 tax on air travel. That might sound insignificant to most members. Many of us travel to the far reaches of the country and the cost of our airfare is horrendous. That is another issue.
To fly return from Newfoundland to Ottawa is anywhere from $1,800 to $2,400 for a return trip. People in British Columbia are paying just as much or more. Some people will say that $24 on $2,400 is only 1% , big deal. What about the shorter flights taken every day by people who have to use air travel to get to work or small business people who have to use air travel to get to meetings across the country where the flights are perhaps a little over $100? Now we are looking at 24% extra. What does that do to the people who travel?
What does it do to the budget of students who are trying to get back and forth to colleges and universities? Students have not been helped in any way by the budget. A country such as ours should depend on youth because they are our future. We invest less in our main resource, our greatest resource, than we do in anything else. We completely ignore our youth just as I would say we ignore our aged.
There is nothing in the budget to help seniors. What is happening as all this unfolds? As our interest rates drop, seniors, many of whom are on fixed incomes, are surviving on their little investments. They have seen the return on their investments diminish to the point where they have absolutely no income. What has been done to offset that? Nothing. Of course that is the operable word with the government.
The EI fund with its $30 billion surplus is an insult to working people and small businesses. Did the government take into consideration suggestions such as a $3,000 exemption that would help many students who work during the summer and see a lot of their money being deducted to pay for EI premiums which they never draw back? No. It certainly was not even considered.
What about small business people who hire a lot of part time employees? I am thinking particularly of those in the restaurant, bar and hotel industry. Are these people who earn very little exempt? Do they have a basic exemption? No. That was not considered. Why? It would help a lot of people help themselves and the government has shown that it does not care.
When I talk about what is in it perhaps I should also talk about a couple of positive points. Let us not be totally negative because we get accused of doing nothing except criticizing the government. I had problems finding anything positive. One interesting one was in relation to a new infrastucture fund of $2 billion that would be set aside to deal with special projects such as water, sewer and environmental projects which could not be handled under ordinary infrastructure funding.
It is a bit ironic but a couple of weeks before the budget came down I spoke at length one day on the same topic. Several of the ministers over there responded to me when I asked questions about funding for the cleanup of St. John's Harbour, Halifax Harbour or Victoria Harbour. It does not matter which one. They are all in the same boat, pardon the pun.
The answer was that the government gave infrastructure funds to the provinces and they could do whatever they want. If they did not use them to clean up the harbours, that was tough. We know that the one-third, one-third, one-third cash shared municipal, provincial and federal funding is not enough to deal with the pressures on provinces to deal with water and sewer concerns throughout the many towns and villages within the different provinces.
That money could not be used for major projects. I suggested at the time a special fund be put in place to deal with major projects such as harbour cleanup.
Apparently the minister was listening to me. The former minister of industry who represented our province had been saying to use the old money. He did not have the creative mind to come with the possibility of a new fund. Anyway the new fund is there. Will it be delivered fairly and squarely? We thought so because an arm's length organization was to deliver it. Now we see the minister will be responsible. The government will be responsible. It is to handle the fund directly.
Will the funds within that fund be delivered to the different provinces fairly? We do not know. We hope there will not be political manipulation. We hope the funds will be used for what they were originally intended to do and that a place like St. John's will benefit from that fund to clean up a harbour, which will mean so much to the port, to the tourism of the province and so on.
Another interesting item in the budget in relation to infrastucture was the $100 billion cut from marine infrastructure. There was also $10 billion or so to improve the coast guard. What is ironic about that is that it happened after a damning report was tabled in parliament regarding the cuts that had taken place in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
The Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has done a phenomenal job. I recognize people from all sides of the House who sit on that committee. They have forced the government to make a move on dealing with the horrendous state of affairs within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans simply by bringing into the open what has been happening to the marine infrastucture and the coast guard.
Some good things were included because of the pressure of members on this side of the House. It has nothing to do with members on the other side. What is in the budget is one thing. What is not in it is interesting.
I mentioned there was nothing for seniors, nothing for our youth and absolutely nothing for our homeless. Luckily this is a very mild winter in this region. Ordinarily that is not the case. Quite often as we walk to work on cold mornings when it is 40 below outside we see young people, middle aged and even in some cases older people huddled in corners where they have spent the night. What is the government doing for them? What is in the budget? Not a word. What is it doing for the fishery? The word fish or fishery is not included in the budget.
What is in it? Very little is in it. What is not in it? A tremendous amount is not in it. I could go on for a week about the issue. I hope if we can keep this going we will get another chance. I am sure others want to thank the government for all it has done for all of us in this great country.
