Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Beaches—East York.
I rise today to speak to the recent Conservative budget and how it has failed to address the real needs of Canadian families and, specifically, the needs of British Columbians and the citizens of West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast--Sea to Sky Country.
The Conservative government inherited a strong fiscal record from the former Liberal government. It inherited eight years of balanced budgets, a 30-year low in unemployment and a record surplus that was the envy of all G-8 nations.
It is absurd that the government is now raising income taxes and slashing spending by $1 billion a year without, I may add, telling any Canadians exactly which programs will be cut. It is a complete lack of a vision for Canada's future prosperity.
The Conservatives are also throwing out fiscal prudence and spending programs that are on the books that they cannot account for.
The budget is both fiscally irresponsible and socially destructive.
The budget has failed to provide real tax relief for low and middle income Canadians. The budget has, in fact, raised the lowest level of personal income tax from 15% to 15.5% and has lowered the basic personal exemption from $9,039 to $8,639. How is this helping the middle class, helping working Canadians?
The bottom line, however, is that even after considering the GST tax cut the Conservatives are so happy to parade around and the new Canadian employment credit, which is basically a $1,000 increase in the personal exemption, the budget actually is a wash for low and middle income Canadians.
Eliminating the Liberal income tax cut in favour of their 1% GST cut has been panned by every serious economist in this country as a plan that will benefit higher income Canadians off the backs of the poor. Reducing the GST, while a strong political and public relations move, is a terrible economic move. Economists and public policy experts all agree. The GST is not even charged on essentials, such as housing or food, which make up by far the greatest expenditures for low income Canadians.
The people I have talked to in my riding since the budget have told me time and again that on the surface the budget looks pretty good but that in reality it is all smoke and mirrors, just a con from the Conservative government.
The budget has also failed to achieve any kind of fiscal integrity. The previous Liberal government's fiscal framework contained a contingency reserve of funds intended to guard against unforeseen events, a fund that was anywhere between $1 billion and $4 billion. The Conservative budget, this budget, eliminates all economic prudence.
The cushion gave the previous Liberal government the fiscal room to weather unforeseen events, such as September 11, mad cow, SARS and the Asian currency crisis, all without going into deficit.
At the same the Conservatives have spent and cut their way very close to the line. They have removed the cushion which was an integral part of the federal government's ability to turn this nation's finances around.
The budget has also failed to address the issues of climate change. In fact, I would believe this is a pro pollution budget because it represents a 93% cut to environmental funding and a complete disaster for future generations of Canadians. The Conservative budget has all but gutted every cent of the previous Liberal government's commitment toward the protection of the Canadian environment. The government has eliminated climate change programs and is getting set to pull out of the Kyoto accord. It also represents a 100% cut in funding for climate change, ensuring that Canada will be unable to meets its Kyoto commitments.
The Conservatives' response is a transit cut that is both costly and ineffective. It will cost almost $400 million over two years and only increase transit use by, get ready for this, 5%. This translates to a cost of $2,000 for each tonne of carbon dioxide saved; 10 to 100 times the cost per tonne under the previous Liberal project green plan.
To quote Dale Marshall of the David Suzuki Foundation:
[The] Prime Minister...has dismantled the only climate change plan our country had and replaced it with subsidized transit passes that will do little to fight air pollution or convince people to leave their cars at home. It’s completely irresponsible.
Furthermore, the Conservatives plan to pay for this, even though their so-called climate change program is still under development, by scrapping $2 billion of the existing climate change program. They are trying to develop a strategy as we speak.
The budget is deliberately misleading about its alleged environmental funding.
In the budget speech, the minister claims that his government will dedicate $2 billion toward the development of a climate change plan but the budget itself provides absolutely no money. The government also claims that it will spend $1.3 billion on public transit but this is not new money either, having been committed by the previous Liberal government.
The city of Squamish in my riding is an ideal site for the production of wind power. Quantum Windpower, a team of entrepreneurs with a commitment to develop and manufacture commercial wind turbine equipment in British Columbia, is seeking to build a manufacturing plant for wind turbines. Government funding is invaluable in order to launch Quantum's manufacturing facility and its business plan, which includes export potential.
With no money for renewable energy, no money for energy retrofits and no money for energy efficiency programs or green initiatives, the Conservative government is turning the clock back on real climate change initiatives.
As well, the Conservatives have failed to provide a real child care choice for parents. The Conservatives are completely out of touch with, or simply do not care about, the needs of the majority of Canadian families. If a paltry $20 a week for child care is not insult enough, the Conservatives will actually take $1 billion from Canada's neediest families by cutting the youth child supplement of the Canadian child tax benefit. The Conservatives are cutting $1 billion from this program which was supposed to reach $10 billion by next year. The Conservatives have failed to establish a real plan to create child care spaces at all.
Rather than honouring the Liberal child care agreements, something that the majority of the provinces, parents and advocacy groups have demanded, the government insists on forging ahead with a nebulous plan which will mean provinces will lose stable funding agreed to by the previous government. Giving with the one hand and taking away with the other, is that the Conservative idea of support for Canadian families?
Last year British Columbia signed an early learning and child care agreement with the previous federal government promising British Columbia $633 million over five years to improve child care services. This was an important step forward in providing B.C. families with the child care choices they desperately need.
Last October, using federal dollars, the first improvements to B.C.'s fragile child care system began. My riding saw improved child care subsidies, increased operating grants to child care centres, special services for families through the child care resource referral program and increased capital funding to build child care centres.
In my riding, the many preschools, day care centres, family child care, parent-child care activities and family resource programs will experience the loss of federal dollars that will result from severe cuts to child care services and the child care subsidy program, increased child care fees for all parents and losses of child care spaces.
For the constituents in my riding who could use this money the most, the true value of the proposed allowance could be as little as $1 a day per child aged six and under. Meanwhile, parents with school age children will receive nothing. My constituents tell me repeatedly that they need to work. Child care is not a matter of choice for them.
As well, the Conservatives have failed to address the very pressing needs of Canada's aboriginal people in this budget. Rather than honouring the historic Kelowna accord signed last November, which would have substantially improved the lives of our first nations people, the Conservative government chose to ignore them, cutting planned funding by 80% from $5.3 billion to just over $1 billion.
My riding is home to many different native groups, including the Squamish first nations, and many have agreed that this budget does very little to deal with the gap in the quality of life between aboriginals and non-aboriginal Canadians. The B.C. First Nations Leadership Council has called one the Prime Minister to live up to the financial commitments contained in the Kelowna accord in order to address the critical socio-economic and infrastructure gaps suffered by first nations.
Chief Gibby Jacobs of the Squamish first nation, one of my constituents, has also expressed great concern over this budget. The budget has failed dramatically on education and innovation. It has also failed on its priorities to Canadians. One of the strongest priorities to Canadians has been health care, which has been completely panned and ignored by the government. The federal budget provides no additional funding for wait time reduction nor any explanation of how the wait time guarantee will be implemented. What happened to the Conservatives' priority of fixing waiting times?
The budget has failed to honour the promises to British Columbians and the Conservatives have slashed vital programs. During the election the Prime Minister promised to recover 100% of the illegally imposed softwood lumber tariffs. He promised to replace and upgrade the naval vessels stationed at CFB Esquimalt, establish the Canadian Coast Guard as an independent agency and invest $276 million over five years in expanding and updating the fleet. Perhaps British Columbia is too far away from Ottawa for Mr. Harper and the Conservatives.
In conclusion, I think this is a destructive budget. It will harm British Columbia and there will be no help for western Canada.
