Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate today in the debate on Bill C-50, the budget implementation act. As the name suggests, this is the bill that will implement the Conservative government's vision for the future of our country.
To date I have listened to the debate on both the budget and Bill C-50, and I know that many members, particularly on the Liberal side of the House, have decried the budget as having no vision at all. The Toronto Star echoed that sentiment in its headline of February 27, which said the budget was “devoid of big ideas”.
In fact, quite the opposite is true. This budget does have a vision. It is one of the most ideologically driven budgets in the history of this country. The problem is that it represents a vision that the majority of Canadians would categorically reject if they were to become aware of it.
That is why the Prime Minister muzzles his Conservative colleagues and scripts their every word in the Commons. Fortunately for Canadians, he forgot to muzzle his top dog. The Prime Minister's former chief of staff, Tom Flanagan, who remains one of the key advisers, let the cat out of the bag. He praised the Conservative government for pulling off “quite a performance”, achieving radical changes with successive revenue cuts without ever tipping its hand about what it was up to.
Flanagan described the Conservatives as “turning the screws on the federal government” and “boxing in the ability of the federal government to come up with new program ideas”. If that sounds familiar, it should, because the Conservative government has taken a page right out of the playbook of the Bush administration. It is simultaneously increasing the military's budget and cutting government revenue to set the stage for future cuts to social programs.
I can see the government members of the House starting to squirm. They loathe being compared to their Republican counterparts south of the border, not because they disagree with the Bush administration but because they know Canadians disagree with the Bush administration. They would just as soon implement their Republican ideas without being exposed for doing so.
Let us look at the facts. Just like George Bush, who also came into office with the so-called problem of huge budget surpluses, the Prime Minister is well on his way to achieving the neo-conservative objective of permanently hobbling government's ability to fund anything but the military.
Murray Dobbin published a brilliant analysis of this online on March 4. He points out that Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a dedicated Bushite, might well have been speaking for the Prime Minister when he said, "My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub".
Previously announced Conservative tax cuts will mean an annual loss of government revenues of $40.2 billion by 2012-13. Put differently, the tax cuts will cost as much as it currently costs to run the entire non-military side of Canada's government.
Programs that New Democrats are championing, such as a national child care program, a national housing strategy and a national drug plan, are all meant to become impossible dreams, and government revenues as a percentage of GDP are to drop to levels that existed before the establishment of key programs, such as medicare, so that these programs too will appear increasingly unaffordable.
For those people from Ontario who may be watching today's debate, this approach is eerily reminiscent of the Harris government in Ontario. All of us will forever remember John Snobelen's comments that he was going to create a crisis in education so that the Conservatives could then implement their own agenda. It is déjà vu all over again.
Once again, it is hard-working families and seniors who will be paying the price. They will be paying it directly through increased taxation and indirectly by losing government support for the programs on which their families rely.
Let us look at the taxation picture first. I would encourage everyone to have a look at page 201 of the English version of the 2008 federal budget and to take a look at table 5.4. It is also available online.
At the end of March, we finished what is called the 2007-08 fiscal year. Table 5.4 presents for all of us sources of government revenue or money coming in.
For personal income tax, tax paid by individuals, we see that the figure for 2007-08 is $112 billion. Two years from now, for the 2009-10 fiscal year, it will be up to $125 billion, which is a 12% increase. On the next line, we see corporate income tax, tax paid by corporations and companies here in Canada. For the same period, we see $42 billion today, but that goes down to $36 billion for 2009-10, which is a 14% reduction.
The table shows a 12% increase for ordinary Canadians and a 14% reduction for profitable corporations. Nothing shows more clearly that the gift the Conservatives are handing to their corporate friends will be paid for by hard-working families in my hometown of Hamilton and, indeed, right across this country.
How did we get to that point? It is not complicated to follow the trail. Last fall, with their usual fanfare, the Conservatives announced that they had the solution to the hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost in the forestry and manufacturing sectors. They were going to give out $14 billion in tax cuts.
There was one little problem for the Conservatives, who make themselves out to be the big experts on the economy. Most of these corporations did not make a profit last year, for the simple reason that after the government put all its eggs in the oil sands basket, the loonie soared to heights never before seen, making it increasingly difficult to export forestry and manufactured products. The more the Canadian dollar is worth, the harder it is, of course, to export.
Where did the so-called tax reductions go in regard to helping the manufacturing and forestry sectors? They have all gone to the most profitable sectors of our economy: the big oil and gas companies, which are the biggest polluters, and the banks, which are already making enormous profits.
Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector, which has lost 350,000 jobs over the last five years, continues to hemorrhage an additional 300 jobs a day.
As the member for Hamilton Mountain, for Steeltown, this utter disregard for the key engine of our economy is the most devastating impact of the government's misguided budgetary policy. The little bit of money for the auto sector for research and development, which the government did allocate in its budget, in no way amounts to an adequate strategy to help our manufacturers and exporters deal with the spiralling dollar in Canada.
Even Jay Myers, president of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, is on record as saying that the Conservative government “doesn't seem to understand the seriousness of the problems facing industry in Canada today”. Where is the plan to deal with the high dollar? Where is the national “buy Canadian” procurement policy that most other developed countries use to boost their local products?
Where is the plan to balance our trade so we do not export all of our good jobs? Where is the green job strategy? Where are we positioning Canada and our economy for the 21st century? Simply, we are not.
To the Conservative government, people are there simply to serve the economy, when it should be the other way around. The economy is a man-made construct. Our economy must serve Canadians. In that way, the economy is a moral issue. It must be judged by how many people it leaves behind.
As the manufacturing sector is confronted with a tsunami of job losses, we must look at this in terms of its impact on workers. Older workers desperately need income support, yet the budget implementation bill offers nothing.
Employment insurance, which is funded solely by worker and employer contributions, is being denied to those who have faithfully paid their premiums. Why do Ontarians get an average $5,000 less in EI than those in other parts of the country? Why is it virtually impossible to access retraining benefits when disaster strikes?
Instead of reworking the EI system so that it is there for workers when they need it most, Bill C-50 sets up a crown corporation. Instead of greater benefits, workers got greater bureaucracy.
What happened to the $57 billion surplus that has accrued in the EI accounts? Why is the new bill setting aside only $2 billion for the new corporation? Where is the rest? It is legalized theft from working families.
Budgets are about priorities. They are about walking the talk. We know that the priorities of the Conservative government are about downsizing, getting out of services and getting out of the things Canadians care about most. Its priorities are about helping its friends: the big banks and the big polluters.
However, there are millions of Canadians who share a different vision for our country. They are asking the same questions that we in the NDP have been asking since the government took office.
Where is the national child care program? Where is the national drug plan? Where are the additional health care workers for the over five million Canadians who are still without a family doctor? Where is the wait times guarantee? Where is the national housing strategy?
Where is the plan for accrediting foreign credentials? Where is the money to reduce the immigration backlog in a fair and accountable way instead of allowing the minister to cherry-pick who gets to visit or work in Canada?
Where is the infrastructure investment to help our aging cities and to provide property tax relief for tenants and homeowners alike? Where is the increase to the OAS and GIS so that seniors can retire with dignity and respect? Where is the help for the building trades so they can accept temporary jobs away from their homes without suffering undue financial hardship?
Where is the assistance to make post-secondary education and training affordable for young people? Where is the concrete action on climate change?
Where is the vision that sees the federal government as an agent for positive change? It certainly is not in the 2008 budget and it is not in the corollary Bill C-50. For the Conservatives, that is by design.
However, the Conservatives have the support of only a minority of Canadians. The majority of Canadians know that we can and must do better. I am proud to stand in the House and represent their aspirations by voting against the bill. I know that my NDP colleagues and the members of the BQ will as well.
For the life of me, I do not understand why the Liberals will not. They talk the talk, but they refuse to walk the walk. There is so much at stake. This budget severely restricts the ability of any future government to undo the damage done.
