Colin Carrie

[Health, June 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, despite the favourable Supreme Court ruling, the Minister of Health said on Monday that private clinics would not reduce wait times for patients.

Yesterday, David Levine, an experienced health care administrator, announced seven new private clinics for Montreal. According to him, these new clinics will help cut wait times.

Who is telling the truth: the Minister of Health or the true experts on the front lines?

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her comments, especially the one about affordable housing. I was wondering if she was aware that back in 1998 the Liberal government put aside $2.2 billion for affordable housing and there is still $1.8 billion left in the kitty.

The problem is the way the system has been put together. The province has to match the federal money to put forth these projects. Because of the Liberal cutbacks, many of the provinces do not have the money to provide affordable housing for Canadians who need it. Also, the way that the housing initiative is set up now is very wasteful. In other words, a lot more money is being spent to build affordable housing that could be done in the private sector.

I ask the member, why throw more money into a system that does not appear to be working when, because there is a glut of real estate, we could immediately be giving tax credits to seniors and people who actually need it and get them into affording housing right away?

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to say where to start and where the question was exactly in there.

In talking to the 40 mayors who came up to visit the Conservative caucus, they were concerned because for the last 12 years they have had no contact with the Liberal government. As a matter of fact, they said that they were happy with the little crumbs that were finally being thrown at them by the Liberal government after so many years of neglect and so many years of downloading from the Liberal government to the provinces and then to the municipalities.

What my constituents are telling me is that they are sick and tried of paying increased municipal taxes to subsidize the big cities where the NDP and the Liberals want to vote buy.

She talked about the GM Beacon project and how the government is investing $200 million. Well I say thanks very much, finally, for an investment in the infrastructure that General Motors is going to invest in as well. However this is just an example of the Liberal government's policy toward industry.

What the government first wants to do is overtax the corporations, then over-regulate them and then, as we have seen at General Motors Corporation, once they start to struggle, subsidize them. This is typical of the NDP and Liberal approach. What they want to do is choke off business by overtaxing them and when they are running into problems, hand them out money.

That is not our approach. We are not into giving blank cheques to corporations. We are looking very closely at the money given to General Motors. I am very pleased to see that we are finally getting an investment but it is just a little bit. I would liked to have seen a little bit more planning.

If we are looking at an auto strategy, the Minister of Industry has been promising an auto strategy for years, and an auto strategy is not about throwing money at corporations. An auto strategy is investing in the infrastructure required to make investment, not only automotive investment but all industry investment, here in Canada and in our province of Ontario.

Where is the new border crossing at Windsor-Detroit? When the NDP had these guys on the ropes, it could have talked about that. The recent Senate committee said that it was an emergency situation, not something that needs to be put off another 12 years before the government decides on it.

We need to see some leadership from the government to move forward to get that border crossing put in there, not 10 years from now but now. We needed it 10 years ago. Where is the planning and the looking ahead? The government fails to look ahead and fails to plan.

If the government does not understand the situation I will explain it. One in seven jobs in Canada is related to the auto industry. Over $1 billion in revenue goes across the Windsor-Detroit bridge every day. When will the government step up to the plate? When will it look at the regulatory problems, the infrastructure and a power coordination over the entire country so that when industry wants to invest and do business in Canada we will a have stable electrical and power supply? When will that happen? That is what I want to see from the government.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, June 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Oshawa, I will be speaking against Bill C-48. By supporting it, it would be encouraging and allowing reckless spending, spending that is being deployed by the government in a desperate attempt to hold on to power.

The Conservative Party will not allow the government to spend without a plan and we will not allow the Liberal Party to buy the votes of Canadians. We cannot give our approval for an irresponsible budget to a corrupt government that lacks the moral and constitutional authority to govern. The Conservative Party is committed to standing up for Canadians and Bill C-48 is clearly not in the best interests of Canadians.

In exchange for NDP support, the Liberal government has made careless promises and is engaging in reckless spending. Even before the deal was made with the NDP, program spending under the Liberal government soared by $18 billion, or 12% more than last year to more than $158 billion. The Liberals have now committed to spending an additional $5.1 billion over the next two years, funded entirely through contingency funds set aside for unforeseen circumstances.

To fully implement all the programs included in this bill, the government would need to post $8.5 billion in surpluses over the next two fiscal years. Leading economists have warned that these spending commitments rule out fiscal flexibility to cut taxes, reduce the debt or increase spending over the next few years. The Conservative Party will not support such irresponsible fiscal policy.

If enacted, this bill will have detrimental effects for Oshawa, as it would for many cities in the country. Let us not look at the fact that this is a bill to spend without a plan, but let us look at where the Liberals claim the money will be spent.

The Liberals say that this is a bill to lower tuition for students, but when reading the bill, not once does it say student and not once does it say tuition. It is not mentioned. It talks of supporting training programs and enhancing access to post-secondary education. This is an example of misleading the Canadian public. This statement could mean anything. If the Liberals wanted to lower tuition, why did they not just say so?

They claim the bill is for the environment, for low income housing and for improved public transit. Recently we have learned that by far the greatest benefactors of the gas tax are the big cities. For example, Toronto, which only has 20% of the population in Ontario, will receive half the gas tax. The NDP mayor of Toronto was recently quoted as saying that he was thrilled with the results of the public transit deal. That is not a surprise, considering Bill C-48 disproportionately benefits big cities.

I stand here today on behalf of the hard-working taxpayers of Oshawa who are sick and tired of subsidizing these big cities. According to my calculations, Oshawa pays approximately $30 million per year in gas taxes, which means $150 million over five years. According to the Toronto Star , that Liberal paper right from the centre of the universe, over five years Oshawa would receive back a total of $11.3 million. In other words, we take out of Oshawa $150 million and we get back $11.3 million, a difference of $138.7 million.

This is not acceptable. This bill is merely an attempt by the Liberals to buy big city votes while taking advantage of small-town taxpayers and rural Canadians.

Experts agree that to fund its budget, the Liberal government will have to use up the majority of the federal emergency reserves, a move that rules out any potential personal tax cuts at a time when Canada is dealing with near stagnant economic growth. Experts argue that this is just one more sign of the Liberal government's failure to acknowledge Canada's productivity crisis.

Over the past decade, Canada has ranked 18th out of 24 industrial nations in average growth, labour and productivity. GDP per capita is estimated at just 84% of that of the United States as a result of lower productivity growth in Canada. A recent Statistics Canada report indicates that last year was Canada's worst performance in terms of productivity in almost a decade. The finance minister commented on it and blamed the corporations. As a result, our standard of living is at risk.

Experts say that to improve this situation, Canadian corporations desperately need the $3.4 billion in tax relief that the government offered in its original budget. By reneging on this commitment, the Liberal government is ignoring the productivity crisis in the country and allowing the prosperity gap between Canadians and Americans to grow.

The government's agreement to scrap the corporate tax cuts in exchange for NDP support will also damage manufacturers and exporters that are already burdened by over regulation and an uncompetitive tax regime as a result of Liberal policies over the last decade.

The government has been warned that if these policies do not change, we are unlikely to be the number one trade partner to the U.S. five years from now if it refuses to address this reality.

I represent Oshawa, the jewel of Canadian and North American auto manufacturing. The manufacturing plants in Oshawa recently won the J.D. Power award for top automotive quality in North America. This is something of which I am very proud. For someone who worked on the line at GM while growing up, I know how hard the employees work and how much pride they take in their achievements.

Over the past few years General Motors, along with other Canadian industries, has dealt with a 30% appreciation of the Canadian dollar that has consequently harmed competitiveness and productivity. In other words, with our greatest trading partner, the United States, everything that we put across is costing 30% more.

The Canadian automotive industry is facing unprecedented challenges and competition from the offshore auto manufacturers. The threat of an influx of Chinese automobiles right now in North America is a threat that needs to be taken seriously, not ignored.

Recently General Motors announced 25,000 layoffs in the United States. According to the CAW, there will inevitably be a fallout here in Canada. Canadian auto jobs are at risk. What did the NDP do, the supposed champions of labour, at a time of unprecedented offshore challenges and a high Canadian dollar? In conjunction with the Liberals they hit the automotive industry when they were down. By removing the corporate tax cuts, they are further putting Canadian jobs at risk. If the NDP thinks it can affect the automakers bottom line without directly affecting jobs, it is not fooling anyone.

When the NDP members had the Liberals on the ropes and the Prime Minister was willing to agree to almost anything, they failed to make Canadian auto workers a priority. They could have easily forced the Liberals to table their elusive auto strategy. We have been hearing about this auto strategy for months. Where is it? They claim it is in the works, but they fail to release a transparent auto policy for all to see.

Instead the NDP members sold their votes for a deal, a deal that will ruin the finances of the country by allowing the government to spend and to spend without a plan and without accountability. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

To support Bill C-48 would mean the Conservative Party of Canada supports a government that does not have the authority to govern. We stand strong in our belief that accountability and transparency in government are vital to democracy in our country and that the well-being of Canadians should come first.

I stand in the House today to assure the people of Oshawa and Ontario that I, along with my Conservative colleagues, will not support reckless legislation that will harm Canadians and put Ontario jobs at risk. Therefore, we will vote against Bill C-48, and our votes cannot be bought.

The Conservative Party of Canada believes that our goal should be to give Canadians the highest standard of living in this world. Every Canadian who wants a job should be able to get a job. Our policies should be reflective of this. Every region, such as Oshawa, in the country should enjoy economic growth and new opportunities for the people in these regions.

Our goal is to make Canada the economic envy of the world. We want every mom and dad, every child in the country, to go to sleep at night and know that they can reach the Canadian dream.

Every family and person should be able to buy a house, save for their retirement and ensure that they have a little left over if they want to go to summer camps or on vacations. Maybe Canadians want to use their money. We should leave it in their pockets because they may want to start a business some day. That can only be done if the government does not tax too much and does not spend too much.

Bill C-48 is just that. It is opening up a blank cheque for the government to reckless spending. We cannot support this bill.

[Health, June 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister of Health, Canadians have access to waiting lists, but not to medically required care. The minister has said in this House that the health care system would be judged by waiting lists.

If more than one in three Quebeckers waits longer than is medically acceptable, how does this compare with other provinces?

[Health, June 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday we learned that 120,000 Quebeckers are on surgical waiting lists and 43,000 of them have waited longer than is medically acceptable.

What concrete measures is the government going to provide to resolve the waiting list problem highlighted by the Supreme Court?

[Request for Emergency Debate, June 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian auto industry is the largest manufacturing industry in the country and the biggest employer in my hometown of Oshawa. It employs directly and indirectly over 500,000 Canadians. The sector is crucial to the economic well-being of our country.

The Liberal government has been promising an auto strategy for ages and still nothing has been delivered.

Last week General Motors announced 25,000 layoffs in the United States. According to the CAW there will definitely be spin-off effects here in Canada.

The Liberal government seems content to accept job losses as an inevitable conclusion. Without a clear, concrete, public, transparent auto strategy, I fear it may be correct.

Auto manufacturers need to know what they are getting when they invest in Canada. An auto strategy would involve a new crossing at the Windsor-Detroit border. The government is content to wait 10 years and that is totally unacceptable. The strategy would also involve harmonization of our regulations; stable infrastructure and power supply; and human resources and other important points.

The government has failed to deliver and will cost Canada new plants, new investment and new jobs.

For that reason, I call for an emergency debate on an auto strategy before the government's dithering drives away our auto sector.

[Aerospace Industry, June 13th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec's industry minister stated on the weekend that Quebec could create its own policy for the aerospace industry in the absence of any federal policy.

For months now, since October to be precise, the federal government has been promising such a policy but nothing is forthcoming.

Given the importance of this issue and this sector for Canada and especially Quebec, it is high time the federal government showed transparency and tabled a real draft policy on the aerospace industry.

Awards

[Automobile Industry, June 10th, 2005]

Again, Mr. Speaker, another non-answer.

It is quite simple. Last fall the minister promised that jobs would grow. This spring he signed a deal allowing the loss of up to 28,000 jobs. Which is it? What he promised last fall or what he signed away this spring?

[Automobile Industry, June 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister of Industry to respond to the potential loss of thousands of auto jobs in Ontario. The minister, in typical Liberal fashion, skirted the issue and failed to answer. Does the minister stand by the statement he made last November? He said:

The 80,000 workers in the automotive industry will still be there in 10 years. The number will actually grow.

I will ask the minister again. Does he stand by his guarantee that auto job numbers in Ontario will grow?