House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 34% of the vote.
The Budget March 26th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I know the member was not here at the time and neither was I, but he really should know that the spending levels were much higher under the Liberal government. The hon. President of the Treasury Board has mentioned that point on several occasions. The member should also know that no one will take Liberals seriously on this question until they tell us what happened with the $40 million in the sponsorship scandal, the biggest government advertising scandal in Canadian history.
The Budget March 26th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, we have not cast education aside. We respect that it is under provincial jurisdiction.
Even so, we are providing $10 billion a year in transfer payments to the provinces for post-secondary training. That level of funding is much higher than at any time in the past, particularly under the Liberals.
In addition, we have earmarked $2.7 billion a year for labour market transfers to help people find work. There are a number of initiatives related to this in the budget. We have a youth employment strategy, an opportunities fund for persons with disabilities and an aboriginal skills and employment training strategy.
These programs all contain an educational component and respect provincial jurisdiction, which remains one of the building blocks of our country and our Constitution.
The Budget March 26th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with my hon. friend, the member of Parliament for Don Valley West, who is particularly well suited, and I think very keen, to speak to the budget.
I would like to begin by complimenting our outstanding Minister of Finance, my neighbour and the member of Parliament for Whitby—Oshawa, on the latest budget. He and his team have once again set an extremely high standard. By continuing to look a little ahead, he is following the example of Sir John A's great finance ministers, Alexander Galt and Sir John Rose, Hincks, Tilley and Sir George Foster, who looked to the whole world for Canada's economic opportunity. By putting responsible resource development, manufacturing and innovation front and centre in successive budgets, they have articulated a truly national policy for the 21st century.
I would like to speak briefly today about four issues: debt, jobs, markets and the future.
Let us be clear from the start: as the minister said, the past seven years have belonged to Canada, from the performance of our troops in Panjwai, Afghanistan, in 2006, to the G20 summit in Toronto, in 2010, where worldwide fiscal consolidation was on the agenda. That is when the world started to see Canada in a different light. At the height of the crisis, the world turned to Canada for its economic leadership. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have never failed to provide that leadership.
The Muskoka initiative has delivered an ambitious global partnership for maternal, newborn and child health, even as we have launched the most ambitious trade liberalization agenda in our country's history, all the while remaining the best in the G7 for job creation, growth and government-funded research. The key to all these achievements, above all else, is fiscal responsibility.
If one compares our deficit projection for this year, $18.7 billion, with that of the U.S., their current projection is $901 billion, with many variables ahead in Congress and elsewhere. The U.K. is £108 billion for this year. As the lesson of Cyprus has shown in the past week, the world is still on a sovereign debt precipice. Many of our allies and partners are already exceeding the 90% threshold for debt to GDP, beyond which growth has historically slowed on average by 1.2% per year, even in conditions of low interest rates, as Reinhart and Rogoff have recently shown in a now famous paper.
Every country that has an average per capita income that is higher than Canada's also has a debt level that is lower than Canada's, be it Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Australia or other small countries.
This budget resists the temptation to throw caution to the winds and to sacrifice fiscal consolidation on the altar of short-term advantage to saddle our young people with an unnecessary burden. However, that is exactly what both opposition parties would do with their uncosted proposals, their inconsistent statements, their bureaucratic reflexes and their politics of instant gratification.
The Conservatives will not travel this path. We will not miss this opportunity to continue Canada's economic leadership in mining, where we continue to be the world leader in new financing of exploration and development.
In the aerospace and defence sectors. we have the capacity to produce the best products and develop future capabilities, and those sectors just received new support in this budget.
Nor will we miss this opportunity in advanced manufacturing, where we are taking action to promote innovation.
In the area of finance, Toronto and other very dynamic centres of Canada's financial sector—Calgary, Montreal and Vancouver—now rank among the top 10 financial centres in the world.
Also in agriculture, our exports of meat, grain, fish and other food products continue to grow. All of these sectors are creating high-paying jobs from coast to coast to coast, in urban areas and rural.
It is one thing to want to have a low-tax, high-skill jurisdiction; it is quite another to deliver on such a commitment. This Prime Minister and this minister have done both. International investors have been watching. We have the best business plan, according to Forbes Magazine. We have the soundest banks, according to the Davos forum. Over the past seven years, portfolio investment in Canada has grown 67%, while many other advanced economies have lost the confidence of investors, or stumbled. Direct investment by Canadians in the world has grown from $806 billion to $980 billion, while direct investment in Canada has advanced from $802 billion to $947 billion.
These are some of the keys to our recovery. These are the facts that underpin the creation of 950,000 net new jobs, most of them in the private sector and most of them high-quality, since the low point of the last recession. However, we must do more to ensure all Canadians have access to economic opportunity. That is why this budget also includes new measures to tackle homelessness, to build new affordable housing, to empower those with disabilities and to help young aboriginal Canadians find a trade or start a new business.
Let us be clear about our record to date. Canada's growth over the past seven years has been balanced and inclusive. Let us recall what TD Economics told us in December 2012. It stated:
Income inequality is both persistently lower and rising more slowly in Canada than in the United States. In fact, inequality in Canada has been flat since 1998, as measured by the Gini coefficient.
That is another record of achievement.
Let us look at the numbers showing the opportunity that Canada has. According to Statistics Canada, our GDP in 2012 was at $1.833 trillion. Again, according to Statistics Canada, as of now the estimated population is 35 million. That is $52,288 of GDP per Canadian, well ahead of larger countries in the G7 and well ahead of most of our peers.
Unlike the opposition, we harbour no illusions about the role that international trade has played in our success.
Let us be clear on what international economic experts are saying. Robert Z. Lawrence of the Peterson Institute said:
Trade has improved...living standards. With the exception of oil, emerging economies have been mainly complementary rather than competitive....
This is not what we hear from the NDP, who want to shut down all of our trade agreements in North America and beyond. The NDP is not coming clean with Canadians about what this would do to our living standards, our prosperity and to our future. Instead, the government is pursuing an ambitious trade agenda, building a powerful economic relationship with China.
We are pursuing free trade with India. We are negotiating an unprecedented free trade agreement with Europe for Canada.
We are multiplying free trade agreements with Latin America, and we are driving with the U.S., Japan and others toward a trans-Pacific partnership.
With regard to CIDA amalgamation with foreign affairs, I think all of us on this side of the House welcome it. It will help us to be more strategic about our position in the world, to have an effective policy for partnering with low income countries while trading and investing with developing middle income and high income countries coherently and powerfully.
Is it not a huge advantage for Canada to have a development commitment to the 54 countries of Africa, and to have mining companies that have invested, not $5 billion in 2005, but $32 billion-plus in Africa today? Does that not do more to raise living standards and to secure Canadian leadership?
What does this mean for a riding like Ajax—Pickering? It means young people will be considering apprenticeships in the many sectors where nearly a quarter of a million jobs are still going unfilled. It means small businesses will be seeking Canada jobs grants to plan for new hiring, even while welcoming the extension of the tax credit for new hires.
It means that investment in industrial equipment will continue. In 2010, there was an 11% increase and in 2011, the increase was nearly 25%.
It means that those who attended our pre-budget round table on youth, women and unemployment last fall with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development now know that they have been heard. It means commuters, families, and public transit and municipal authorities in Ajax—Pickering can now have confidence that the largest long-term commitment to infrastructure in Canada's history, $70 billion over 10 years, will benefit them. It means that those who believe in a strong defence industry for Canada will be looking to opportunities in shipbuilding, aerospace, and defence procurement to harness new ideas and support the next technological breakthrough in blast resistant materials or low emission propulsion.
During the ministry of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada represented only 1.3% of global GDP. Today, we represent something like 2.6%, after a crisis that has seen the share of other advanced economies slide and as emerging economies have seen unparalleled growth.
Global GDP has risen from $41 trillion in 2000 to over $70 trillion today, but Canada's place remains prominent. Canada's prospects remain bright. Canada's leadership remains strong, thanks to this budget.
The Budget March 26th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, my question is very simple: how can my colleague claim that increasing taxes can create growth and more jobs in Canada?
The NDP—including the member and the party's leader—makes very vague references to additional taxes: a carbon tax and a sales tax. The NDP is making all kinds of claims, but what we have learned over the past decade is that higher taxes do not help create jobs or make a country more competitive.
How can she claim that the opposite is true? How far will she go in increasing taxes on Canadians?
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act March 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River for his contribution to this lengthy and lengthening debate. However, he has called for a wall-to-wall review of the military justice system.
That review was done 10 years ago by the Right Hon. Antonio Lamer, former chief justice. We have still not translated those recommendations into legislation. We have quite an audience here today and across the country for an issue that has been before four Parliaments. Canadians are asking why we are still debating these urgent matters that need to come forward.
Will the hon. member please tell us why, if this amendment is so good, it was not raised by the NDP in committee. It certainly was not raised in this forum. It was not raised in the 78 often repetitive, to be very honest, speeches by him and his colleagues at second reading. It was not raised in the 40th Parliament. It did not even feature among the amendments brought forward at report stage in the 40th Parliament where we were in a minority position and the NDP had much more influence over the shape of the bill. Why is it coming so late? Why the delay? Why no military justice updated and modernized for our Canadian Forces?
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act March 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, let us be clear, the Right Hon. Antonio Lamer's recommendations in that regard have been shelved for almost a decade. Justice LeSage's recommendations will never give rise to legislation until this bill is dealt with.
A number of opposition members have already said that the bill is good enough. Let us be clear and have unanimity on one point: the amendments are not very good. You do not refer to an administrative document in a bill. There is no precedent for that. The bill, without the amendment, already requires the Provost Marshal to make the instructions available to the public.
Does my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou agree that this is a good time to vote on this bill?
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act March 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Brossard—La Prairie is painting us a very nice picture of what the NDP could do. He says he wants a better military justice system. Excellent. He says he wants to improve the bill. In reality, his party and he himself are supporting an amendment that, over several weeks of study, was never proposed in committee.
At second reading of this bill in this House, it was never mentioned, despite the 78 speeches made by New Democrat members. In the last three Parliaments when we had a minority government and they had much more influence over bills, there was never any question of the amendments proposed today by the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
In reality, it seems that the NDP wants to needlessly prolong this debate by doing what it always does, which is to vote against the interests of the Canadian Forces.
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act March 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. member for Gatineau and to her response to the first question. However, I still do not know how she feels about the amendments. She has yet to speak about them and has not shared a single new fact about her opinion.
Does she know what is in the amendments? Why does the NDP support the amendments today, when it did not support them in committee? It did not propose them or support them at second reading or during previous parliaments. What has changed over the last 10 years?
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act March 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, once again, my question is very simple. Why is the NDP favouring an amendment that it has never mentioned before today? It never mentioned it in committee, at second reading or during the previous Parliament.
Is it because the NDP lacks expertise and had to wait to hear from the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands in order to understand the idea? Or is it simply because the NDP is trying to needlessly prolong this debate?
Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act March 21st, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the question is very simple. Clause 4 was in this version, the version of Bill C-15 that was reported back to the House in the 40th Parliament. It was in the same version after consideration by his colleagues in committee in this Parliament. Why is there suddenly, after four Parliaments' consideration of the bill, a desire on the part of the NDP to amend clause 4?