Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-66, which is intended to help some Canadians with high and rising energy prices. As I have just said, some Canadians.
While I support the government in its intention to assist those who need it, the legislation really misses the mark. The Conservative Party of Canada believes that tax relief at the source would ensure that all Canadians who pay for energy receive assistance. This bill, by targeting it to a select few, ensures that many who need assistance will get none. In fact, a few who do not need assistance could end up with government help anyway.
It was not too long ago that we heard stories of the dead and the imprisoned receiving special government payments. Also, many Canadians do not know that the rebate program the government ran last time took over four years to get a cheque into the hands of those in need. Canadians cannot afford to wait four years for help. Many are already struggling with rising gas and utility costs.
My main concern with the legislation is the people who need it and who are in need but who will not receive a dime of help. The only ones who will receive help are those receiving the national child benefit or the guaranteed income supplement. Therefore anyone who is not a low income parent with dependent children or one of the few low income seniors, they will get nothing. In fact, 300,000 seniors who are eligible do not receive the GIS.
My main concern is for disabled Canadians on fixed incomes. This group is 3.6 million strong. Most disabled Canadians, employed or not, have many expenses that other fellow Canadians do not. They do not have extra money. In fact, quite often we find them the poorest of the poor, something we Canadians should be very ashamed of. This Liberal plan does nothing for the disabled. Those on a Canada pension plan disability do not qualify automatically. These are people who are hard-working Canadians who now find themselves in need of extra assistance. They too will not get any help under this plan.
There are many other Canadians who will not get help either. They include those with a high dependency on fuel to do their jobs and run their businesses.
There will be no help for taxi drivers. Most are self-employed and already face skyrocketing repair and maintenance costs. They will not receive a cent of help from the government. Their extra gas money will have to come out of their salaries.
There will be no help for couriers. While we all know the large companies, most couriers are local independent operators. They are the ones who deliver our flowers, our pizzas and other local deliveries. They face a huge increase in their single largest expenditure category.
There will be no help for bus services. Most of the extra costs for fuel for the buses will be passed on directly to the consumer. Unfortunately, the consumer of bus travel is often too poor to afford anything else. These travellers cannot afford a price increase of any significance at all.
There will be no help for truck drivers. Truckers are constantly having to absorb extra costs that did not exist 10 years ago. First it was all the extra repair costs as the provincial and federal governments let the highways deteriorate. Next it was all the extra paperwork and delays associated with tougher border standards. Now it is the crushing cost of fuel. Some truckers can pass on these costs but many are in long term contracts. Even if the costs are passed on, it will only make their products more expensive. I can only imagine what fresh groceries will cost next February. The bill would not help the truckers or their consumers. In fact, I recently saw one hitchhiker with a sign offering to help pay for the gas.
The bill would not help cities meet the rising costs of transit, emergency services, public works or any other department. While the federal government rolls around in more and more budgetary surpluses, the local governments are desperate to continue their existing services. The cost of providing transit alone has increased significantly. At a time when the federal government is expecting everybody else to reduce pollution, it is making it more expensive for cities to provide an environmental alternative.
The bill would do nothing to help cities.The bill also would do nothing to help rural Canadians. Rural seniors are especially hard hit because of the expense of travel and the rise in cost of heating fuel and general necessities.
Those living in rural areas usually have lower incomes than those in the cities to begin with because of the types of jobs available. Compounding the problem is the fact that their fuel costs are often much higher as they have to drive long distances, driving their kids to school, shopping for groceries, travelling to work or appointments with doctors. Rural Canadians will not be getting any help with Bill C-66.
Rural Canadians who definitely will feel the gas crunch but who will be unable to afford it are our farmers. Farm input costs have skyrocketed in the last several years. At the same time, commodity prices have dropped. Fuel increases for farm equipment will remove any chance for farmers to make a profit. We have just come through the harvest season and it has cost farmers $1,500 to $2,000 a day to fuel combines. That is just combines and not trucks, tractors and all the other necessities of taking off the harvest.
Making a profit is a very relative term as most of these farmers are heavily in debt from years of struggle and inaction by the government. In 1948 a farmer could fill up his truck for $5 and wheat's final price was $4.50. In 2005 the same tank of gas has cost $80 plus and the price of wheat has dropped to $2.50.
Some farmers will be able to pass along the increased fuel cost to the local consumers. Our exporting farmers already are competing with heavily subsidized foreign competitors. Many of the countries that our farmers compete with do not rely on fuel as much as we do. Cheap labour is their constant competitive advantage. Our farmers will feel rising fuel costs more than any other nation's farmers. Unfortunately, our farmers will not get a single dime of assistance under Bill C-66.
As we can see, millions of Canadians will not get the assistance for which they were expecting or hoping. Furthermore, those who rely on fuel the most, those that are the hardest hit, will get nothing.
If the government had taken the advice of many Canadians and the Conservative Party, it would have cut taxes at the pumps. If taxes had been cut at the pumps, it would have ensured that those who used fuel the most would benefit the most. The relief would have been instant. Canadians could have been pumping cheaper gas and buying cheaper home heating fuels for over a month now.
Instead, the payment system proposed in the bill will ensure that nobody gets help in the near future. This will be the paper pushing project designed to employ Liberals for years to come.
I urge the Liberals to take a moment and seriously ask themselves who needs the help and if they will get any under the bill? I then urge them to look at their constant budgetary surpluses and ask if they need to keep overtaxing Canadians like this. Canadians are not looking for free fuel. They do not want to be paying so much in taxes when the Liberal government gets such a boost and such a surplus. It is time for fairness.
