Bryon Wilfert

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there are lots of questions I could ask this particular member, but I will just ask him one specific question.

The fact is that if dedicated taxes go to specific programs, there is always the danger of overfunding in some programs and underfunding in others. This hon. member has raised issues in the House where he says the government should respond in emergencies. Where would the flexibility be if we were to take the hon. member's advice and simply dedicate taxes to put us basically in a financial straitjacket?

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the member's prayers have been answered. We have a 10 year national infrastructure program. Talk about long term planning, she has already got the answer.

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat disappointed in the hon. member's comments. She talks about Manitoba. As an example, Manitoba's NDP government has refused the City of Gimli a 5¢ tax on liquor sales to be used for its police forces; talk about dedicated taxes, which the member suggests that she supports.

I think the member and I agree on the issue of the mechanism. Again, talking about the former minister of finance, the former minister of finance does not agree with the motion across the way. What he suggested was that provinces create a way for municipal governments to reap the resulting revenue.

I think the hon. member would agree, and I would like her comment on this, that nothing in the motion says the provinces agree that the funds will be truly incremental to the cities. I do not see that in the motion.

So in other words, we have to go back to faith. Of course anybody who believes anything the party across the way says has obviously been out in the sun too long, because this is the party that for 10 years made a heyday of saying it opposed infrastructure and it opposed the national infrastructure program. I sat in committees with these people. At least the NDP is a little more honest. It is at least a little more honest in saying that there are elements in the national infrastructure program that it supports. The member knows that I know some members of councils, certainly in her riding, who have been very vocal and very supportive of our program.

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Splitting hairs, he says, Mr. Speaker. The reality is facts are facts.

Is the hon. member in agreement that it must be municipally driven because the municipalities know best what the projects are in conjunction with federal, provincial and private sector partners?

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the hon. member. He talked about infrastructure programs, and I just want to make sure I was clear on what he said. I think we are in agreement that the program the government brought in in 1993 works extremely well, and continues to work well. Except for the naysayers in the Canadian Alliance who never supported it in any event, the fact is it is municipally driven. We both know, because of that member's experience in the city of Windsor, that it has to be a municipally driven project.

I will give a simple example. The York region proposed an overall transit plan, a quick start program. The chairman of the region of York asked for my support. It put $50 million down and I worked hard to ensure that we put $50 million down. However it was the province again, always late, that did not deliver.

The member raises a good point. We cannot depend on the provinces necessarily in terms of us just turning over the money, as our friends across the way would say.

I want to point out that they keep mentioning in the House the former minister of finance. The former minister of finance has nothing to do with the motion by the Alliance. The former minister said that if we were to vacate any portion of the federal tax, it would have to be matched by the provinces. That is not what the motion says.

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the Canada strategic infrastructure fund, the province of Nova Scotia certainly has benefited with, I think, over $30.5 million for Highways 101 and 104.

I agree with the member concerning the difficulty with dedicating taxes. If we were to overfund in one area and underfund in another we may not be able to reply to emergencies.

Concerning the type of funding for Highways 101 and 104, is that the type of cooperation the member is looking at? Does he have any suggestions in terms of how we can build upon that type of cooperation?

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I particularly concur with the hon. gentleman's comment with regard to cooperation, that it is in cooperation with municipally generated programs. The hon. member made a good point in terms of needing to work cooperatively with the provinces and municipal governments in Canada. That is what the government has been doing since it first came into office. The fact is that the government has made sure through the national infrastructure program, through the strategic infrastructure program and others, that they are municipally generated.

The issue the member touches upon is that we do not want to abrogate responsibilities. Simply by having one order of government raising money and turning it over to another order of government so that order of government does not have to take responsibility for it but can spend the money is an issue with which members in the House have to deal. If members think that this is a good approach, then obviously there are going to be implications. The member's point about cooperating is a very important one. Simply, the provinces getting money from the Government of Canada and hoping they will turn it over to municipalities, at least in the province of Ontario, has not been successful. I commend the member for that point.

I would ask the member very specifically about the issue of vacating tax room. Let us assume for a moment that we agree with the Alliance motion. It is based on the premise of the provinces being able to take the money and turn it over to municipal governments. How would that be structured to ensure that in fact it would work? Why is the option of cooperation probably the better road to take?

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the good news is that now we have a government in Quebec with which we can actually work, a government that has indicated, as has the Minister of Finance, that they are looking forward to working with Mr. Séguin.

The fact is that there will always be issues between the federal government and the provinces, but working in a collaborative manner is very important. Therefore we obviously are pleased to hear that the minister in Quebec indicated very strongly that he will work with the Minister of Finance.

The member says that we are leaderless, that we are adrift. If the member were correct, I would hate to see if we did, because the 2003 budget deals with health care funding, infrastructure, child poverty, and a vast array of issues, but still continues to have no deficit. We have had six balanced budgets or better.

The member talks about infrastructure issues, yet what I cannot understand and what I have not heard is that if there is an imbalance, as the member says, why is it that the provinces have the same fiscal capacity as the federal government? If there is a problem then maybe Quebec, certainly under the PQ it preferred to blame us rather than work with us, maybe the PQ should have looked at its own fiscal house and dealt with that issue. We know the problem the PQ had because of course it left the cupboard bare: $4 billion. Obviously it did not have a lot of money. I do not know what the PQ did with it.

The PQ talked about moneys from the federal government and yet it sat on $600 million from the federal government because it did not want to spend it on areas upon which it thought we were imposing. However the PQ sat on it and still said, like the little boy in Oliver Twist , “Please, sir, give us more”. It is very odd.

In this case I do not know how the member could stand and say what he did, given the shabby treatment that the PQ handed out to the municipalities in Quebec. Without the support of the Government of Canada and the national infrastructure program, more than half the improvements in cities in Quebec would not have occurred. At least the PQ had the sense to sign on even if it did cause a lot of difficulty for the municipal governments.

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has indicated that on the one hand we are imposing on Quebec and on the other hand we are not giving Quebec enough.

The Government of Quebec under the PQ, as I said before, did a unilateral cut of $500 million after cities in Quebec had already passed their budgets. This is what we call good cooperation between cities and the province of Quebec.

On the other hand, the PQ when it was in office did not have a very strong relationship with municipalities in Quebec because it did not provide the very thing that she suggested. The member suggested that they should have stable funding but how can they deal with a government that pulls the rug out? That is in fact what the PQ government did. I remember many mayors, in Quebec City, Montreal, Sherbrooke, and elsewhere saying that this was unconscionable by the Péquistes.

How does the member reconcile the fact that on the one hand she is suggesting that we are not providing enough funding for infrastructure in Quebec and on the other hand the Quebec government has not done its share when the PQ was in? She will dispute that but I would like to hear her comments.

[Supply, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I see some residue from the PQ government over there where his friends in the PQ talked a lot about provincial jurisdiction.

Yet, when it comes to areas such as health care, they are always after a handout saying that they need more and more. When it comes to infrastructure, nobody put a gun to the Government of Quebec when it signed successive infrastructure programs because it knows, as well as I and others, that the UMQ was strongly in support of the infrastructure program.

This member talks about dollars. It was the Quebec government, about seven years ago, that unilaterally cut back on funding to cities in Quebec, with no discussion, after the cities had already passed their budgets. I do not think we have to take any lessons from over there about dollars and cents. Maybe the hon. member should go back and ask those questions of his colleagues.