Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to join in the debate today. I am very much supportive of the initiative by my colleague from Saint John in the motion, which reads:
That, consistent with the spirit of the Liberal New Deal for Cities and Communities, this House believes it is in the best interest of Canadians, that the government should take steps to make permanent the sharing of the Federal Excise Tax on Gasoline with all Canadian municipalities for the purpose of enhancing local community infrastructure.
I am pleased to speak to the motion. It is a topic for which I, along with many of my colleagues on this side, have worked. We remember very well when some of us were elected almost 15 years ago and the issue of supporting municipalities had long been neglected for a series of reasons, and it was clear to most Canadians. In 1992-93 the country was gripped by recession after eight years of Conservative government. We had deficits that were spiralling out of control.
The leader of our party at the time, along with the then finance minister, who later became the next leader of the party, made it abundantly clear that investment in people and in cities and partnering with cities was one of the best ways to achieve a better, stronger Canada. I represented many communities at the time, Pickering, Ajax and Uxbridge, and I also represented Whitby at the time, which is now the riding of the Minister of Finance.
I see the Minister of Transport is here with us today to participate in the debate. He will have the opportunity in a moment.
It seems to me that we have built a tremendous amount of goodwill in the country based on recognizing the need for affordable housing, public transit, restoring our sewer and our water facilities. These are not only goods in and of themselves. We want to ensure that we maintain a standard of living. All governments have an important role, regardless of the questions on the Constitution, to ensure that Canadians from coast to coast are able to at least access the kinds of resources that build stronger and safer communities and build the kind of communities that build a stronger Canada.
I had a bit to do with this at the outset. In 1998 I chaired a committee of Liberal members of Parliament. It looked at the idea of using gas taxes that were derived from municipal and federal coffers to assist municipalities. Members will recall that in August 2001 I wrote a letter to the then minister of transport, asking him to consider very strongly the idea of using a portion of gas tax, which I felt was the GST compounded on the other taxes, and that this amount could go to municipalities to leverage some effect in building and restoring some of the transit needs.
In my region of Durham at the time, which is now part of my riding in Toronto, the need for transit back in 2000 was over $300 million. Today, in 2007, we know our transit needs are certainly not being met.
The Conservative government, which walked into town back in March 2006, said that it would be put $800 million into Toronto. In fact, it put a pittance in eastern Toronto. Ridings anywhere east of Bayview or Yonge Street, all the way out to Oshawa, received $2.5 million for transit. This is an area of well over two million Canadians and it received $2.5 million for transit. No wonder our roads are blocked. No wonder there is a sense of cynicism that all the proposed money went into one basket.
I heard the parliamentary secretary quote some money that was given to the city of Mississauga, and that is great. However, I also am cognizant of the position taken by the mayor of Mississauga, Hazel McCallion, who was extremely upset, along with other members of the FCM, at the new arrangement by the government to do a smoke and mirrors approach to funding.
Some of the money was taken from previous programs, which we introduced under the new deal, and some of it was taken from gas taxes. This how the government came up with the so-called $33 billion. Cities cannot even access a good portion of that $33 billion. The hon. member from British Columbia, who spoke before me, talked about the P3 project. Others talked about border crossings. These are not areas that the cities will be readily able to access to meet their needs.
Our party has taken the position, as it has in the past, of ensuring that there is an important link between cities and the federal government. While the Conservative government's approach is that cities do not necessarily rate and that it is more interested in working and making arrangements with the provinces, we believe respect for municipalities from all levels of government is paramount.
More important, there are realities in our country today. The presence of so many new Canadians coming to our communities and the need for settlement, the need for affordable housing, the need for recognizing the burdens that have been placed on many of the municipalities, compels us to looking more deeply, more intensely and more respectfully to the provinces.
Under the Liberal government, of which I was a proud part, we had a cities mandate. Issues of cities were very carefully treated. I would not say we had a secretariat, but it was an area within government, within cabinet, that was taken very seriously. It has now been rolled up.
I hope that the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities is well aware that this is now his responsibility, as it comes under his mandate.
That is nice, but it demonstrates once again that the Conservatives are not serious about cities. They are not serious about treating them in a respectful way, the way in which they clearly deserve.
In 2005 the Liberal government renewed the municipal-rural infrastructure fund, the Canada strategic infrastructure fund, the border infrastructure fund and the public transit capital. That commitment was worth $1.65 billion annually through 2014 for a total of $11.5 billion from 2007 to 2014.
The Conservative budget, which the hon. member believes is such a great thing, only includes $4 billion of the funds that were renewed from these same programs, a cut of $7.5 billion to municipalities. The Conservatives have also included in their grandiose scheme $11.8 billion in gas tax funding and $5.8 billion in GST rebates for municipalities as part of that $33 billion what they call building Canada fund. Both the rebates and the gas tax transfer were Liberal government initiatives. I know the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities does not like that, but that is the reality. They are picking and choosing and trying to cobble something together.
Above all I think what is most vexing for any objective onlooker is the fact that the money will not be given in a predictable sense over the long term. That is exactly what our motion calls for today. We would like to see the government ensure that there will be ongoing predictability and funding for municipalities and in particular, I will speak to this more passionately in just a moment, ensure that gas tax revenues are dedicated permanently to municipalities, not just for the next year or two and then re-appropriate the money somewhere else.
With all due respect, many of our cities are on life-support. I believe only four municipalities, and the record will clearly show this, do not run something equivalent to a debt in Canada. All other municipalities are sinking. It is clear to me that Canadians readily identify with or understand the problems of crumbling infrastructure, bridges that fail, climatic concerns with respect to bridge and sewer infrastructures and to ensure the quality of our water.
Ontario had an inquiry two or three years ago with respect to how the water systems failed the people of Walkerton. Since the municipalities are on the front line of delivering services every advantage, every optimal opportunity that we have as a Parliament must be given to ensure municipalities can continue do the work that they do while recognizing ever increasing burdens.
There are issues that we will try to work with in time, but let us talk a bit about the gas tax for a moment.
Right now in my province of Ontario, the province takes 14.7¢ on every litre of gasoline. That price does not go up and down with the price of gasoline. It is a fixed price. In 1998 we recommended that the amount be dedicated strictly to roads and to the provision of transportation for which the tax was intended. I am not here to tell the provinces what to do, but it is clear to us that it would have been opportunity for consumers and would have given the provinces an opportunity to give back some of the downloading that took place, admittedly by the federal and provincial governments during that period of time.
The second component on the taxation is 10¢ a litre, which is the federal excise tax. The federal excise tax does not change with the price of gasoline or other fuels. On any non-commercial type of fuel like gasoline used by passengers day in and day out, there is also the provision of a 6%, soon to be 5%, tax that is added to it.
Here is the issue of contention. In 2000 the then leader of the opposition, now public safety minister, challenged the Liberal government to ensure that those taxes went back to consumers, using the report I had written in 1998. In fact, what he did was pick and choose. We said that amount of tax, the GST applied to the 10¢ in Ontario and to the 14.7¢, should find its way back to consumers. Since no provision could be made to do that, the next best step was to ensure that it went toward public transit.
A number of colleagues will be nodding their heads, recognizing that this would be a way of ensuring that public transit or roads or infrastructure to better finance our highway system and municipalities would be an extremely important and useful mechanism ensuring that Canadians could take advantage of the some of the best roads in the world, particularly in my community.
Highway 401, which goes through my riding, and I suspect the ridings of a good number of members of Parliament, is really the backbone of our economy. Without that infrastructure, it would be hard to imagine any type of success in economic vitality. Yet what the government has failed to understand is the need to ensure that tax power, through gasoline going to municipalities, is absolutely indispensable in providing long term viability, not only for our roads but for the health and well-being of our communities. Time and time again Canadians have accepted the primacy and importance of ensuring municipalities are properly funded.
I have had an opportunity to look at what it has done for communities in my riding over the years with respect to infrastructure. Communities that I formerly represented, Ajax, for instance, were able to take advantage of some of the initial infrastructure funding in 1993. That would be the same infrastructure the then Reform Party said would be like trying to use a penlight battery to start a 747. A 747 is up in the air and flying. That was one heck of a battery.
However, what we also understand and recognize is that governments will make proper investments not as a means for the private sector to take advantage of it, but to recognize that governments have a very important role in ensuring that all players in the lives of Canadians, all structures of government, all offices and agencies, have an opportunity. Clearly, I hope what will come out of this debate is a recognition by the government that it got it wrong with respect to cities.
We had a very good relationship with the municipalities. We received the support of a lot of municipalities across the country. Yes, there may be some partisan considerations that are given to this, but overall there was no doubt in anyone's mind that if they had to choose a time between 1993 and 2005 as one of the hallmarks of the government, which I was very proud to be part of, it would be the deal we had with cities to make cities a better place.
We all have a responsibility to ensure that the priority here has to continue to be looking after the well-being and interests of our cities. They are important players. While the Constitution of 1867 has them as kind of a consideration within the purview of the provincial governments, I think very few Canadians would dismiss or not readily recognize this. When we talk of communities like mine in Durham region or York region to the north of the city of Toronto, these institutions and communities have matured and have a very important stake to play in the lives of Canadians.
We cannot ignore the fact that our municipalities are going through a very difficult time in terms of financing. Perhaps there are creative ways coming down the road. Our party has certainly suggested some. My colleagues have talked about some of the priorities we would like to see. Some of those ideas come in demonstrating not only a difference between our party and the governing Conservative Party, but we would direct money to transit systems to allow them to increase service and purchase new equipment.
The Conservative plan gives a tax credit to users and does not give anything to municipalities to allow expansion or improvement of the current transit system. That is very serious, considering buses, trains and rapid transit ideas will not get the benefit of expansion. Buses that are some 35 years of age are being literally kept on the roads because there is only enough money to cover that amount of vehicles.
The federal government has said that it will give money to users. It is great to give a tax credit to users for buses that do not work. I cannot see a more nonsensical approach to not recognizing the problem as opposed to dealing with the symptom. Riders will not ride a bus that is will break down or cannot arrive on time or worse, that it will get stuck, or lose a wheel, or the engine will break down, or whatever the case may be and there is no opportunity to take advantage of those credits.
We have to recognize that with transit communities like Toronto, transit among communities in Durham, transit across this country, particularly green transit, which I think brings us into a whole different field, it is not just the benefit of building better transit and better municipalities but also the outcomes, such as more people riding transit, with newer technologies being introduced. Yes they are costly, but they will pay dividends for the country in ways that are numerous.
We have talked to the manufacturing sector. I am a vice-chair of the industry committee. We have talked about the need to ensure that green technologies are used and new technologies are brought forward in order to advance better employment opportunities for Canadians.
There is a very important trickle down effect in terms of the federal government recognizing its responsibilities with transit.
In terms of general infrastructure programs, it is clear that the government has only promised to maintain the current agreements we have in place with no mention of any future investments. What Canadian cities have long called for and what this motion addresses in very plain language is the promise of long term funding and support.
Plans and programs that are one or two years in length are of absolutely no help. The reality is that cities need to look ahead with 10 to 20 year programs. That is important. They need to have that kind of sustainability and predictability in their funding. The federal government could play a much better role in doing that, not rehashing old programs, or mixing up a few and saying that the provinces can decide, or that it is not a federal responsibility and therefore the federal government will not have anything to do with it, or worse, trying to make it look like a $33 billion commitment when in fact it is a cut of $7.5 billion in terms of real money going to cities.
We as a government created a separate department, as I mentioned earlier, to promote cities at the federal level. I had the opportunity to be with the minister of transport who had made some comments. It was not a full ministry but it was a separate seat at the table, something that had not existed since the days of Prime Minister Trudeau. It is clear that once the swearing in of the new government took place, the cities department was rolled into the Department of Transport. That is unfortunate. It sends the wrong message.
We need to know that cities are growing. They need our help. They deserve our attention but they also deserve respect. This is not some kind of political football between parties. We need to recognize once and for all, the Constitution notwithstanding, that cities are here to stay. The role of cities and the importance they have is not just in terms of the representation they carry, but they are the distant early warnings in many of our regions across the country. It does not really matter where we are, the government in the first instance for a good number of Canadians, in fact for all Canadians, is their municipal governments.
We must not fail to address their needs. We must recognize them, as we did as the Liberal government with respect to the GST rebates, as we did with respect to the federal government providing one-third of the financing to help municipalities meet their needs, in particular as it came to water, transit and infrastructure.
We must continue to recognize these things, not just in terms of piecemeal approaches here and there and several other priorities. It is incumbent on Parliament tonight when it deliberates on this particular important and very successful, I believe, resolution by my colleague from Saint John that we can never overemphasize the need to support our municipalities in tangible ways. The need is real. The growth is real. If we want to plan ahead and grow consistently, I suggest that Parliament adopt this motion. It is a very worthwhile motion. It is high time Canadians understood that this Parliament stands firmly behind our cities.
