Karen Redman

[April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate these chances to have adjournment proceedings. I wish that we would have more back and forth debate in this House because I think it is what Canadians would like.

However, what Canadians also deserve is honesty from this government and all members of Parliament. It is interesting to hear the parliamentary secretary talk about my province of Ontario when it is his government's finance minister who went out and told the world that people should not invest in Ontario because it was not a good place to invest and who took on my premier and my province when we all recognize that for years Ontario has been the economic engine of Canada.

I would also point out to my hon. friend that governing is about making decisions and balancing priorities. The government decided it would give two one-point GST reductions. The first one cost the coffers $5 billion, the second around $7 billion. Thirteen billion dollars went toward paying down the debt when it could have been invested in Canadians.

There are no more shock absorbers in our fiscal outlook. We said at the time when the budget came forward that we were one SARS crisis away from deficit. We are now a heartbeat away from deficit.

[April 28th, 2008]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was just checking to see if you were listening.

Our Liberal leader made it clear that a new Liberal government will keep Canada's books balanced. This contrasts sharply to the record of the current Conservative finance minister, who was part of the common sense revolution in my province of Ontario that left a $5 billion deficit.

The finance minister has a devastating record which includes broken promises on income trusts and a damaging flip-flop on interest deductibility.

With the downturn in the economy, Canadians are looking to the federal government for leadership and economic vision, but what do they find? They find a Conservative government that has completely been preoccupied with fabricating and misrepresenting Liberal priorities. This continued lack of economic stewardship is irresponsible and damaging to Canada's economy.

[April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I asked a question about the economy in the House back in February and the Conservative government did then what it continues to do, and that is to manufacture misleading communications on a vast range of issues.

This winter we saw the Minister of Industry attempt to rewrite the history of deficits in Canada with both false and bizarre comments on the various components of the Liberal plan for Canada.

The Conservatives released a 67 page document that disingenuously claims that the Liberal spending priorities would drive Canada into deficit. The Conservative interpretation of the Liberal spending priorities is quite simply totally wrong.

By way of an example, the Conservatives describe the cost of the Liberal demand for corporate tax reductions as simply unknown. This is despite the fact that they themselves included this measure in their fall economic and fiscal update. It causes one to question.

Further, the Conservatives grossly overestimate the cost of the 30/50 plan to reduce poverty in Canada, claiming that the entire plan would be paid for in the first year, and not over the five year period as we have committed to.

The Conservative document also double counts the Liberal commitment to invest $1 billion in manufacturing jobs in technologies, claiming that we would both create an advance manufacturing prosperity fund and match the Ontario government's manufacturing fund.

We have been worried for some time about the capacity of the Conservative government to be trusted to provide valid financial analysis.

The Conservative government inherited a strong economy two short years ago. After 13 years of Liberal leadership, Canada was in a robust fiscal situation, the envy of the G-7 countries. What has the government done? It has squandered Canada's economic good fortune in two short years with spending priorities that are determined by short term political gain without any consideration for Canada's long term economic stability.

After two years of Conservative government, manufacturing sales have plummeted to a three year low and Canada's trade surplus has shrunk to its lowest levels in nearly a decade. Conservatives are losing credibility on important files like the environment, homelessness, immigration and foreign affairs, all of this at a very alarming rate, but their lack of initiative and vision on the economic file is alarming to say the least.

It would seem that this recent campaign of lies is designed to discredit the stellar economic and fiscal record of the Liberal Party.

If I may take a moment to boast, the previous Liberal government delivered the longest string of budgetary surpluses since Confederation. Moreover, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has repeatedly made it clear--

[Elections Canada, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a clearly established pattern with the minority Conservative government that all the power is centralized in the Prime Minister's Office.

I ask the Prime Minister, will he throw away his book of dirty tricks, allow the procedure and House affairs committee to meet without government members filibustering as they have for the past seven months, and allow us to hear witnesses on this scandal of the ad scheme of in and out? What is the government trying to hide from Canadians?

[Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, April 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Liberals will be voting in favour of the motion.

[Committees of the House, April 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Liberals will be voting in favour of this motion but I would like to point out to the House that the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine has left the chamber and should not be counted in this vote.

[Business of the House, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Discussions have taken place between all parties and I believe that you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That during debate scheduled for later this day on the motion to concur in the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, no dilatory motions, quorum calls or requests for unanimous consent shall be received by the Chair and at the conclusion of this debate, the motion to concur in the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics shall be deemed carried without amendment on division.

[Afghanistan, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, fundamental in the motion that was passed by this House of Commons was greater accountability and greater transparency to this House and to Canadians about our mission in Afghanistan.

Now that the minister has had a chance to talk to his NATO colleagues in Bucharest, could he tell us straight out what was discussed at those meetings? Could he tell us what changes are being made to refocus this mission on development and reconstruction? Explicitly, what will change in our mission after February 2009?

[Afghanistan, April 10th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, when members of this House passed a motion that both changes and extends our mission in Afghanistan until 2011, Canadians benefited, especially the men and women serving on behalf of Canada in Afghanistan.

However, the government seems to think that it received a blank cheque. Well, it simply has not.

Could the Minister of National Defence tell this House exactly what changes are being made in our mission in Afghanistan to reflect, not the will of the Conservative government, but the will of Parliament?

[April 9th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary because it is very refreshing to hear someone on the Conservative side who is not bashing Ontario, unlike the finance minister who tells the whole world that Ontario is the last place in which they should invest.

I want to point out for my parliamentary friend that 19 of 21 recommendations unanimously brought forward by the industry committee were ignored by the government. Further, the finance minister had the ill-fated feebate project, which came through the last budget, that hurt all the manufacturers in Canada. The cars that qualified for that were not manufactured in his riding of Oshawa, let alone anywhere in Canada. They were manufactured in the United States.

Again, where is the vision of our country? Where is the vision of the government in helping the automotive sector? There is real pain in my community and across Ontario and—