Mr. Speaker, although I have made statements and asked various questions during this session of Parliament, this represents my first full speech. I want to say at the outset how very grateful I am to the residents of Brant for re-electing me to serve as their representative here in Ottawa. As so many fellow members of the House have stated, it is truly a privilege and an honour to serve one's constituents. I feel sincerely indebted to the citizens of Brant for their confidence in me and for providing me the opportunity to be here.
Just briefly, I would like to tell members about Brant. It is a most interesting riding that comprises the city of Brantford, with a population of approximately 90,000, and also encompasses the most populated first nations community in Canada, that being the Six Nations of the Grand River. In addition, within my riding are the picturesque communities of Paris, St. George and Glenn Morris. I also represent the hard-working individuals who form a rural sector in my riding, individuals who live in or near the villages of Burford, Oakland and Scotland. All in all, Brant is diverse in its population base and rich in both its industrial and its agricultural history.
The budget which we are debating does not represent the shared feelings or views of the hundreds of Canadians with whom I speak. As someone once said, taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. I rarely hear from a constituent complaining about the level of taxation in Canada. Much more often, I hear from constituents who are prepared to share, who are prepared to do their part financially and otherwise to build a tolerant, generous society.
The budget delivered by the Minister of Finance does not, in my respectful view, represent the best of Canada and does not represent the best of Canadians, nor does it in any way present a compelling vision for the way our country should now advance. A country is not ultimately gauged or judged by how much money it returns to its shareholder residents. Rather, a country is properly assessed or judged by how it treats all of its citizens. I was extremely disappointed with the treatment afforded to the citizens of Brant and, by extension, of Canada, in this budget.
I think, for instance, of those hundreds of Brantford families who live in very close proximity to brownfields, acres and acres of industrial wastelands that have lain dormant and decrepit for many years. These brownfields are unsightly, they are dangerous and they need to be cleaned up.
Communities like Brantford, as vibrant and as economically viable as we have become, cannot count on private developers to spend the millions of dollars needed to remediate or clean up the brownfield sites. A prudent developer simply will look elsewhere and will typically choose to build on a greenfield site, away from residential areas.
Without federal government assistance, as it is frankly beyond the financial means of municipalities to clean up brownfield sites, those families who live in very close proximity to brownfields will continue every day to walk or drive past contaminated acres of land, which their children are warned not to play in or near.
That is why I was very pleased to receive from the Liberal government in 2005 a $12 million commitment to assist my city of Brantford in the remediation of the Mohawk-Greenwich brownfield site. The members of my community were ecstatic. Nearby residents could finally look forward to the day when their neighbourhood would be like other neighbourhoods, with a park close by rather than an ugly brownfield site.
When the Prime Minister campaigned in my riding in January, he stated, “We will help you clean up your brownfields”. As other members on this side have stated during their speeches, the environment was barely mentioned in the budget, and there is seemingly no realistic expectation that brownfield sites will be the beneficiary of federal money, notwithstanding the Prime Minister's campaign promise.
In the budget of 2005, delivered by the then Liberal minister of finance, $150 million was committed to the remediation of municipally owned brownfield sites. There is absolutely no mention of federal assistance for those sites in this budget.
The issue is leadership. It is about the federal government taking a leadership role. It appears from this budget that the leadership role has been abdicated.
The termination of the early learning and child care agreements is extremely disappointing to parents and caregivers in my riding. The government has a view of a typical Canadian family as consisting of two parents residing together and able to afford a home having a value of $350,000. What a peculiar example the Minister of Finance used in making reference to his much vaunted but only marginally important 1% cut in the GST.
A $350,000 home does not represent all Canadian families or most Canadian families. Thousands and thousands of single parent families have children under the age of six. I spoke to many parents who were very pleased with the early learning and child care agreements which had been signed by the then minister of social development and his counterparts in all parts of Canada.
Parents were pleased as they finally saw an opportunity to return to school to better themselves or to accept an employment opportunity without having to worry about what would happen to their children. They were pleased that their child or children of pre-school years would be stimulated, nurtured and cared for during the parents' studying or working hours by a licensed, certified and very capable early learning and child care provider. They were gratified that early learning and child care centres would be assisted by federal funding.
Their hopes and expectations have been dashed and the provision to them of a few dollars a day in order to obtain care for their child is insulting and grossly inadequate. These young parents will have no choice now but to stay home, will have no choice but to put their education plans on hold and will have no choice but to reject any employment opportunity.
How visionary the early learning and child care agreements were. What a demonstration of leadership those agreements represented. Unhappily, in this budget there was no such vision and no such leadership.
How disappointed the 11,000 residents who live in the first nations community of Six Nations on the Grand River were when this budget effectively scuttled the Kelowna accord. How ironic for members opposite to talk about the longstanding problems faced by our first nations communities and how long term solutions will be required in order to correct problems which have taken years to develop. How sadly ironic it is that the long term problems have not resulted in a long term commitment by the government to one of Canada's founding peoples.
The budget, rather, presents temporary band-aid solutions only, and inadequate ones at that, for the significant economic, social, health and educational issues which confront first nations communities across Canada. How much better it would have been for the budget to speak about long term plans for first nations, a real commitment to our first nations peoples.
Other components of the budget have been trumpeted by members opposite as being generous but, in reality, those measures are almost inconsequential. How meagre the assistance is to our post-secondary students, the non-taxation of their scholarships and bursaries, when we all know that most students pay no income tax in any event. How token is the $80 credit for textbooks.
The Liberal Party would have provided to all post-secondary students, unconditionally, $3,000 outright in their first year of studies and $3,000 in their graduating year. This was not a tax credit. This was not a token. This was an outright grant of $6,000 to students so that education, one of our most precious resources, could be affordable for anybody who wanted to attend a post-secondary institution.
Under the budget tabled by the government, presumably the sons and daughters of parents who live in $350,000 houses will be well able to afford a university or community college education, but the more typical Canadian student will suffer the loss of $6,000 which would have been provided to him or her by the Liberal Party.
All in all, this is a disappointing budget and one that, in my view, does not speak to Canadians, does not speak to their core values and does not speak to the advancement of a society that should be inclusive of everyone.
