Bryon Wilfert

[Tourist Industry, December 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Chinese government announced successful negotiations with the U.S., which means Chinese tourists can officially visit the United States.

One hundred and thirty-four countries are now on China's approved destination list, but strangely, Canada is not. This failure will cost Canadian businesses millions of dollars. The previous Liberal government had reached an agreement in principle with the Chinese government to get this done.

Did the government intentionally ruin our relationship with China, or did it just bungle it?

[Lester B. Pearson, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Lester B. Pearson.

The Nobel selection committee said that Pearson had “saved the world” when he diffused the Suez crisis through the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force.

The concept of peacekeeping changed the world and Canada's role in it forever.

For Lester Pearson, the Nobel was only the beginning of a lifetime of contribution and achievement.

As prime minister, Pearson operated strictly within the confines of a minority government and yet he changed this nation too: the Canadian pension plan, loans for students, a new flag, a bilingual nation and health care for all.

Known to history as Lester, beloved by a nation as Mike, Pearson shall be forever known as one of the most influential Canadians of the last century.

On this day, I invite my colleagues in the House to proudly remember the contribution and the legacy of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, with an infrastructure deficit of $123 billion, the member is absolutely correct. When the Conservatives were in office from 1984 to 1993, they had the opportunity to take the FCM program on infrastructure at that time and adopt it. They did not, so they have no credibility on infrastructure.

There is no question about it. We are seeing bridges collapse. We are seeing road problems. What the FCM has announced is just to deal with existing infrastructure issues. It does not even look at the future.

I think it is an important issue. This is why we are the party that understands urban Canada in particular and of course rural Canada because of our caucus members. We certainly want to work on this with people across the aisle, but they have to get it. They do not get it on this issue.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments. The simple answer is no. The answer is no because, again, we believe in the kinds of corporate taxes that create jobs. I know the member is very concerned about jobs in his community and in fact across the country. We on this side of the House think it is very important that these companies reinvest. In dealing with taxes, there has to be an overall tax management approach. We cannot just simply deal with one aspect, in this case the one in clause 181.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if the member had checked the record, he would know that we talked about harmonizing the GST with provincial sales taxes. By the way, the government just tried to do that recently with the province of Ontario, but because of bad faith, unfortunately, it did not go ahead.

We talked about harmonizing the tax, not eliminating the tax. As for what would happen with harmonization, if the member were to read the record very carefully, he would know that this was and continues to be the position of the Liberal Party, and that when it comes to dealing with tax cuts, again, income tax cuts are the way to go. That party talks about wanting to reduce taxes, but the best way to go is obviously to reduce income tax and put more money in people's pockets.

Again, on the GST, $5 billion to $6 billion a year in the national treasury does not have that effect. The Conservatives should know that. They should see what other countries have done and which way they have gone. Clearly, it has not been by way of the elimination of a consumption tax.

[Budget and Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2007, December 7th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate and I want to first of all say that government members often like to say that in 13 years the Liberals did not do this and did not do that which of course is utter nonsense, but the one thing that the government never says is that in 13 years we left them the strongest economic policies of any government in the history of Canada.

We inherited a $42.5 billion deficit in 1993. One-third of all of the money spent at that time by the Government of Canada was borrowed money. It was the strong economic policies of the Liberal government that created jobs that translated into an economic performance which was the wonder of the world.

I remember in 1995 it was suggested in the Economist that we were going to be the sort of basket case of the G-8 and that we might even have to go out and get a loan from the international development bank.

What happened? The Liberals came in. We re-organized and did the kind of things that needed to be done in those 13 years. When the election occurred and the current government came in, it inherited so much money it did not know what to do with it. So, it just spent it, but it has not invested it.

Look at its policies, the ones dealing with the GST. Any economists worth their salt would tell us the GST, which in this amendment I notice is missing and the NDP seems to cherry pick when it comes to dealing only with corporate taxes, costs the national treasury $5 billion to $6 billion a year. Think of the kind of money that we could be investing in terms of social programs and post-secondary education. The Conservatives are silent on that.

The fact is that they simply see the role of government being one of shrinking itself. It is not to be an agent of positive change in supporting people or giving them a hand up, not a handout as some of our friends in the corner might do.

The Liberal Party has a strong fiscal record. Let us look at the record of the current government. When it comes to universities, we have massive, growing debt for university students who come out after four years. We need to have a national conference and look at getting the provinces, the federal government and university organizations together, and look at how we can really tackle the issue of debt and investing.

When it came to the millennium, instead of building some monument, we decided on this side of the House to invest in the millennium scholarships. That was and continues to be one of the most positive programs for students across the country. We invested and created 500 chairs of excellence in universities across the country.

We kept and we brought back the best and the brightest. We do not hear those kinds of visions from the government across the aisle. That is a shame because we need to make sure that our students have the right equipment, that they are ready to compete not only at home but abroad.

In the area of corporate taxes, we were the government that reduced them from 28% to 19% and the Conservatives took a bold step of reducing them to 18.5% from 19% by 2011.

Our leader made it very clear that we need to continue to deal with the issue of corporate taxes because lower costs obviously help Canadian companies invest. We think that is very important, particularly now when the economy is starting to show some bumps on the road. We still have not heard about a national manufacturing strategy or forestry strategy from across the aisle. We certainly need to see that.

We see that unemployment is back up to 5.9% which is the latest statistic. We never hear government members talking about investing in our cities. I certainly have talked about that over the past. They say what a wonderful job they have done on cities. I guess FCM said that it was extremely unhappy about the fact that the government was recycling half of the so-called $33 billion from the building Canada fund and that in reality the mayors and councillors should be happy. We know that because the government told them to stop whining.

The federal government said it does not deal with potholes. I have not heard that kind of comment in over a decade. As a former councillor and former president of the FCM, I thought this was back to the future. I could not believe that we were hearing that kind of rhetoric.

Obviously, cities need to be vibrant. We need to invest in roads, bridges and sewers and deal with waste management and those kinds of things, but we also need to invest in those post-secondary institutions in our major cities. We need to make sure that we have an innovation agenda. Under the previous government, we had a very strong innovation agenda. We do not hear innovation from across the aisle.

We have an amendment before the House that deals with only one aspect of taxes. We know about dealing with taxes because we brought in the largest tax cut in Canadian history in 2000, the five-year $100 million tax cut.

There is no question that we need to attract investment in this country. We need to have a vision and say to the world that we are open for business and prepared to welcome those companies that are on the leading edge. That is why corporate taxes are important.

I certainly believe in foreign investment. There is a difference, of course, between foreign investment and foreign ownership.

Sometimes across the aisle the Conservatives talk about the GST, the terrible tax. The reality is that consumption taxes, as any economist will tell them, are not the way to go. Even the Fraser Institute told them that. The CAW told them that, but they know better. When my constituents are buying a pair of blue jeans, I am sure they are delighted to get a 1% reduction, but not too many people are buying yachts or luxury vehicles, which is where they would actually save money.

Again, the government talks about economic vision. We have a Minister of Finance who brought Ontario to its knees with a $6 billion deficit when he was the minister of finance there. It is not surprising that we do not have the kind of vision that we really need when it comes to dealing with the economy and with real issues.

We have heard before about health care. We have heard about the lack of progress on wait times. Again, there is a failure to lead. The Conservatives talk about 13 years, but in the almost two years that they have been in office there has been a failure to lead and a failure to provide a vision to Canadians.

The Conservatives said that we would have peace in our time with the provinces, but now what do we have? They had more provinces angry with them after the budget than they did when they went in. Clearly, they do not understand.

It is a small government. It is a government that believes in reducing the role of the national government instead of saying that we can be leaders, not only at home but abroad, and work with our partners. The provinces are out there are saying they need to deal with these issues in a collaborative way, but for them it is the highway or no way. That seems to be what the Conservatives like to put forward.

The Conservatives spend all this money and yet they fail to invest. Canadians are not bribed: they know that these people do not have the ability to deal with crumbling infrastructure, nor do they have the ability to deal with the issues on innovation. Therefore, this is of grave concern.

When the next election occurs, whenever that occurs, we are going to see a very pronounced difference between this side of the House and that side of the House when it comes to leadership, when it comes to investment, and when it comes to understanding our cities, our communities and our rural areas. Again, there is a failure to lead.

Immigration is another issue. More and more of our workers will come from abroad, yet again there is a failure to lead on that issue. There is a failure to create that kind of collaborative role with provinces and municipal governments in order to integrate foreign workers. Again, it is a failure.

One simple example of just not being prepared is the passport issue. We saw tremendous lineups. Why? Because the government failed to prepare. The Conservatives knew they would need to have extra people to be online and to support the thousands of applications, yet again it was a failure to lead.

I get tired of hearing that side of the House saying that we did not do this or that. The reality is that we did a heck of a lot. The Conservatives need to look in the mirror. They need to look at what they have not done and at what they have not delivered. They continue to talk about the past. They are in government. They need to start leading, but maybe that is too much to ask of a government which really believes that we should be smaller and less involved in trying to promote this country, both at home and abroad.

[Business of Supply, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that the members from York region on this side of the House have been very supportive of this project.

In 2004 the federal government of the day, a Liberal government, along with the province of Ontario and the municipalities supported a wide-ranging GTA transit proposal. Unfortunately, the Conservative government does not like to see things happen. It does not like to see success, and that proposal was basically mothballed.

The province of Ontario earlier in June of this year announced support for the extension of the subway to Richmond Hill.

I want to point out that we on this side of the House have written to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transport as well. We want to see this project go forward. There is absolutely no reason that it should not. We need the partnership. That is why the federal government's participation is critical. Given the cost of infrastructure, it is important that the federal government come to the table. As I said earlier, the Conservatives do not understand it and that is why they are lagging behind.

The residents of York region and particularly south York region are very anxious to see this go ahead. On this side of the House we will continue to push the government on this very fundamental issue, which I am sure, with the right amount of pushing, we may get.

The Minister of Finance is in the House. We hope he will respond accordingly in very short order.

[Business of Supply, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised at the member. There is no question he may have some members on the other side who have municipal experience, but not municipal leadership when it comes to that caucus. Where are they on these issues? They need to show leadership. They have been silent. I guess it is part of the gag order that they do not talk about these issues. They pretend, but they do not act.

I make no apologies to that member or anybody else when it comes to what this party has done or for its platform and the policies. We got the job done by working with municipal governments. The Conservatives did nothing for 10 years on the infrastructure program. Now the johnny-come-latelies are saying, “Look at what we are doing”. They are doing nothing.

If in fact they have leadership on that side, where is it? Maybe they have talked about it and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities have not listened, and that is the problem. Maybe I will give the member credit that they have members over there, but nobody is listening to them, unfortunately.

On this side of the House, our leader and our party are listening to the members on this side, not only to those with municipal experience but to those who understand the social implications and economic issues for cities. They have been able to put together a very important dynamic program. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the provinces and the provincial and territorial associations believe it will address these critical issues facing Canadians across the country.

[Business of Supply, December 6th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted, both as the member of Parliament for Richmond Hill and as a former president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to participate in the debate.

If ever there were a more fundamental difference between this side of the House and the government, it would be on this issue. The Liberal Party is the party of cities and communities. It is the party that understood the problems that cities were facing with a shrinking revenue base over the years.

In 1994, when the Liberal government came to power, it implemented the national infrastructure program, which was a program proposed by the FCM in 1983. However, when the Conservatives came to power in 1984, the Mulroney government ignored our cities.

Therefore, it is not surprising that today we see that same lack of understanding and vision when it comes to a very important order of government, the municipal government in Canada.

The Liberal Party is not resting on its laurels for all the work it did with cities for the last 12 years. We got the job done by working with cities. Now we have a seven point program to deal with the crying need to address municipal issues in Canada.

Although, under the Constitution, municipalities, and I hate this phrase, are creatures of the provinces, the reality is that we cannot ignore the fact that 80% of our citizens live in big cities across this country. We need to help as partners. What the FCM and provincial and territorial associations have been asking for, for years, is that they be treated with respect and fairness. They do not expect to come to Ottawa, which happened a couple of weeks ago, to be told to basically keep quiet, to get to work and that the government was not in the pothole business.

We are in the business of working effectively with our provinces.

I am very proud of the Liberal seven point program. I would note that we on this side of the House are addressing the kinds of issues that affect municipal governments. One of these issues is the transfer of the gas tax. This is not something new. It is only new in terms of how we will shape it.

The prime minister in the last government announced a new deal. We understand these issues. In our proposal, we would immediately commit $2 billion in transfers over five years and then we would extend that indefinitely beyond that. We believe it is important for municipal governments to have a source of revenue they can count on. Most municipal governments in Canada depend on property tax, which is antiquated at best. We think it is important to give certainty to municipal leaders across the country.

We are also proposing a transit infrastructure fund. My colleague referenced the fact that many colleagues on this side of the House have municipal experience, which is probably why we understand this issue better than others in the House. The fact is that we would have a transit infrastructure fund of $7 billion, not only to deal with the issue of expansion, but also to deal with the replacement of existing infrastructure, transit in particular. This is very important.

We talk about the environment. We talk about getting people out of their cars and into transit systems but we need capital funding, which is where we are going with this particular recommendation. The motion today addresses this issue. The lack of understanding and lack of vision by members on the other side with respect to this issue is not surprising because they never embraced the infrastructure program that the FCM put forward back in 1983.

The Conservatives have a johnny-come-lately approach. They say that they are doing all of this but all they have done is basically repackaged money in this Canada fund and then they have municipal governments competing for a smaller pot. The $17 billion is recycled money. Probably the only thing on the environment that the government understands is recycling, in particular, Liberal money from the past.

I am very proud of the physical infrastructure fund initiative that the Liberal Party undertook. Again we are talking about $1 billion. We are talking about dealing with waste treatment plants and repairing bridges and roads. We are laying out very clearly not only what we are prepared to do as the government in waiting but also funding it. This is extremely important.

On the social infrastructure fund, our cities are home to 80% of the population. We understand the importance of having vibrant cities, cities that can compete not only on the North American continent but around the world. To do that, we want to support municipal governments across the country and allow them to have access to funding.

The areas of culture, sport and recreation are very important. They are simply not a place where people work, but where the activities of communities take place and people are able to participate in the arts. We want to showcase our arts not just at home but abroad. This is another piece of our platform that we are enunciating very clearly.

With regard to the border infrastructure fund and rural infrastructure, my colleague from Thunder Bay made it very clear that we are not only addressing the large cities and communities, we are addressing rural Canada. We understand better than any party in the House the needs in rural Canada and we want to address those issues.

Regarding infrastructure at the border, we understand the importance of commerce and being able to get across the border. Providing that kind of assistance is absolutely critical if we want to move ahead. Committing $500 million and then $200 million after that is part of the program.

We are also looking at the hub strategy. The Liberals came up with the gateway proposal in British Columbia. We know how important Asia is. We understand the need to move goods across the Pacific. We can look at that kind of hub strategy for other cities across Canada, including Vancouver and Winnipeg.

We also understand partnerships to deal with policy issues. I remember in 1989 when the Conservative government of the day, the Mulroney government, decided to bring in a significant hit for municipal governments without any consultation. Then it decided to give cities a 10% tax cut. That meant the CBC paid 10% less as a federal institution than CTV. Although the same fire services, et cetera, were provided to the CBC building, it paid 10% less than CTV. That is a lack of understanding and vision by the other side.

We point out that we will do active consultation on policies. If the Government of Canada is going to make policy that is going to impact cities and communities, a we are going to have the cities at the table. They are an order of government in our country. We cannot put our heads in the sand and say, “It is somebody else's responsibility. Let the provinces deal with it”.

The other side likes to write cheques to the provinces and let them to take care of the cities across Canada. That is a paternalistic approach which this side of the House does not agree with and will not support. We believe they need to be part of the process. Therefore, policy is extremely important. If a policy issue is going to affect our cities, we are going to have them participate actively. At the end of the day they are consulted and they provide input. That is extremely important.

In 1996, as president of the FCM, I was able to address, for the first time, a joint federal-provincial-territorial meeting on environment and natural resources policy, which affected cities across Canada. Fortunately, the Liberal government of the day understood that and was able to work with the provinces and have the FCM do a presentation. We were not at the table for the whole meeting, but we had the ability to respond to these issues. That is extremely important because we need to consult our partners.

This blueprint, as I said at the beginning, shows stark contrast to the understanding of the Conservative government. Making the gas transfer permanent will give assurances and stability to our cities and communities across the country. The Liberal Party has the cities and communities caucus. We understand their needs and are sensitive to those particular issues. Maybe that is why so many municipal politicians wind up running for federal politics on this side of the House and not elsewhere.

Many of my colleagues from across the country have been part of that discussion over the years. I am sure we will hear some nonsense from the other side, but the reality is the Liberal record is a solid record. Liberals are very proud of the record and the platform that we are presenting Canadians.

[Canada Elections Act, December 5th, 2007]

I have no idea, Mr. Speaker, why the Conservatives are not standing up, but I can say that on this side we are standing up for Canadians and for the political process in this country.