Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity. I think there was a far better speech in the offing a few minutes ago than may happen now.
I am glad my colleague, the member for Don Valley East, began her speech remembering the folks in Victoria state, Australia, and the terrible fires that are happening there. It is an area that I know very well, having travelled very extensively in Victoria over the years. I know the communities of Healesville, Lake Mary, Gippsland, Beechworth and the neighbouring communities very well. I am constantly thinking of the people who have died and their families, and the people who have faced such terribly destructive fires in the last few weeks.
The budget and Bill C-10, the budget implementation bill, are what we are debating now in this House. It comes as no surprise that someone sitting in this corner of the House, a member of the New Democratic Party, will be voting against this piece of legislation, as we voted against the bill.
It comes as no surprise to Canadians because we knew it was going to be a stretch to find a way to support the budget and the government, given its past record, given its complete dismissal of the economic crisis that Canada and the world were facing not so very long ago.
I am not going to make any apologies for saying before the budget was tabled that I was going to be hard pressed to support it. I have lost complete confidence in the government to address the issues that Canadians are facing and to address this economic crisis. Certainly, the budget that is before us and the budget implementation bill have done nothing to restore my confidence or make me change my mind about that. I will make no apologies for the decision I have made in that regard.
If we look at the Conservative budget in the very biggest picture, just how much money, how much of a stimulus is this piece of legislation and this budget going to offer to Canada in this period of economic crisis? Other countries, other international organizations have suggested rates that should be allocated toward appropriate stimulation in this time.
Even at the G20 meeting that the Prime Minister attended last fall, a conclusion was made there that 2% of GDP would be an appropriate level of spending to stimulate an economy and help deal with this economic crisis. We have fallen very short of that in this budget from the Conservative government.
President Obama's American economic stimulus package is at least 3% of the GDP of the United States. The Americans have taken that message from the G20 and actually increased their commitment to helping Americans get out of the troubles that have been caused by the current economic crisis.
In Canada, our economic stimulus package, as offered by the Conservative government, is only .7% of the GDP. That statistic comes from the parliamentary budget officer, a non-partisan officer of Parliament who has looked at the budget figures and looked at those calculations.
That is one third, proportionally, to what the Americans are spending to help Americans deal with this economic crisis, to help the United States get out of the crisis. It is only half of what the G20 recommended and what the Prime Minister apparently agreed to at the G20 meeting.
Even in the very broadest picture that we could look at, this economic stimulus package falls short of what is required by the analysis from experts all around the world to actually deal with the current economic crisis.
The crisis is absolute across this country. That was made very clear with the most recent job loss statistics that came out for the month of January. In British Columbia alone, the net job losses were 35,000 jobs lost in the month of January. That figure of 35,000 jobs lost really does not tell us the full impact of what is going in British Columbia.
The reality in British Columbia is that 68,000 full-time jobs were lost in the month of January. Now there were 33,000 part-time jobs created in that period for that net loss of 35,000 jobs in British Columbia.
I think we have to be very careful in how we look at those statistics. We all know that a part-time job does not replace a full-time job. It does not replace the wages of a full-time job, the salary of a full-time job, and it does not replace the benefits that are available to a full-time worker as opposed to a part-time worker. This statistic for British Columbia really tells of a very serious economic dislocation in my home province.
The rate of unemployment in British Columbia is increasing dramatically. It is now 6.1%. That is up from 5.3% in December and it is up very sharply over March 2008 when British Columbia had an all-time low unemployment rate of 3.8%. That is a very dramatic almost 3% increase over the past 10 months in terms of the unemployment rate in British Columbia.
British Columbian families are suffering in this economic downturn in very dramatic ways. Losing their jobs is one key way they are being affected by this economic downturn.
What is the government's response? In an economic downturn when people are losing their jobs, employment insurance is a key program to assist people at least initially with the effects of losing their jobs. Unfortunately, the government has chosen to almost completely ignore employment insurance in its budget and in the budget bill we are debating.
There is one measure. The government has decided that those people who qualify for EI will be entitled to another five weeks of benefits. That is something, I suppose, but it does not ensure that anyone who does not qualify for EI will be able to. It does not increase the rates of employment insurance that people are paid and it does not get rid of the two weeks that people have to wait through before their benefits start to flow.
The whole commitment around extending the five weeks is really a very tiny commitment. There were figures from one of the deputy ministers in the Department of Human Resources presented recently to a committee. It seems it is less than $15 million a year in terms of increased assistance to the employment insurance program in Canada.
That is less than $15 million a year to some of the most vulnerable people in Canada who have lost their jobs. At the same time, the government continues with its massive $1 billion program of corporate tax cuts to the most profitable corporations in Canada. There is no excuse for not having done better to help workers who lose their jobs through difficult periods and for not having better utilized the EI program.
We know that EI has been gutted over the years. It is not the program that it once was in Canada when it offered real assistance to Canadian workers. We know that far too many people who actually pay into EI are never eligible to collect it. We know that far too many Canadians never contribute to EI, either, and are not even eligible to engage the program at any level. That needed to be addressed in the budget, especially given the economic downturn and job losses being suffered across this country.
Employment insurance stimulates the economy in the sense that when people are on EI they are not saving money. They are spending every dollar they have. That money goes back into the communities that are affected by layoffs, and plant and mill closures. That money is important to communities, the broader community and the businesses in those communities to ensure the economic well-being of those communities. It is a crucial program and a huge opportunity has been lost. If for no other reason, the failure to address the EI program is reason enough not to support this budget and the bill before the House.
There is another problem arising out of the increased layoffs and job losses in British Columbia. The people who deliver what remains of the EI program do not have the resources to do the job properly. The processing centre located in my riding of Burnaby—Douglas was receiving 7,500 new applications for EI a week and it does not have the staff to keep up with that number of new applications.
Therefore, people are having to wait longer and the people delivering that program are working overtime. One can imagine, with that kind of workload and delivering an important program like this, the stress on those workers is very significant because they know how important it is to the people they deal with who need this program and the employment insurance income.
The government is totally unprepared to meet the challenge of even delivering the existing EI program given the changed circumstances that we have in Canada and British Columbia. Attention needs to be given to that immediately.
An aspect of the budget that I think is also severely lacking is the attention to the housing crisis in Canada. We know that a significant number of Canadians are homeless. We know that other Canadians are couch surfing. We know that others are underhoused and that their housing is overcrowded. We know that health conditions in a significant part of Canadian housing leave a lot to be desired.
While there are some measures in the budget, such as measures for housing for seniors, not one of these measures even comes close to being what is actually needed to address the housing crisis in Canada. Sadly, a lot of them are one-off programs. We do not yet have a long-term national housing strategy for Canada, a national housing program for Canada that commits to building homes for Canadians over a long period of time.
New Democrats have called for a 10-year national housing program that would actually build homes for Canadians. That is not delivered in the budget, and it is still an absolute requirement to help Canadians deal with the circumstances they face and are increasingly going to face because of this economic downturn.
There is no long-term national planning for housing in Canada. That is a huge failure of the government and of the budget. We need that kind of support in communities across Canada. Every weekend on street corners in greater Vancouver and around British Columbia, citizens do silent protests called Stands for Housing. Their slogan is “Homes for All”. That began before the economic downturn. It was a crisis then, and those silent witness protests are continuing.
Regarding infrastructure programs, we know there is a huge limitation on what the government has proposed. A lot of it depends on matching funds from municipalities and provinces. Unfortunately, not all municipalities in Canada have the ability to match funds.
An infrastructure program in Burnaby, the Burnaby Lake dredging program, has been readied. The environmental approvals are done, the province has kicked in, the municipality has kicked in and we are still waiting for a commitment from the federal government. That one is shovel-ready, and I hope that shortly the federal government will approve funding for that important project.
I know that all political parties have called for that in the recent election. I hope the government will move on it shortly.
