Deepak Obhrai

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments, June 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise to speak on Bill C-48, a budget bill that was introduced by the Liberal government.

What is important about Bill C-48 is the backroom deal that was made by the NDP and Liberals for the government to stay in power. Originally, Bill C-43, the budget bill, had a lot of sense to it, but when the Liberal government felt threatened it suddenly made a deal with the NDP in Bill C-48, which committed $4.6 billion extra as demanded by the NDP.

Without thinking, without consultation and without any kind of plan, the deal with struck. Now we have a bill before the House that has an additional $4.6 billion for expenditures. It is causing concern across the country because we do not know how the money is going to be spent.

Of course there are vague ideas such as housing, foreign aid and things like that, but there is absolutely no concrete plan because this was struck very quickly. Neither did the NDP members ever have an idea about what they wanted to spend the money on, but because there was an opportunity presented to them they signed a deal and said they wanted $4.6 billion to be spent on certain areas, which they identified.

Now Canadians are stuck with it. Today we are debating the bill. It is not possible under any circumstances for any person who is fiscally responsible to support the bill, because this bill, in its generalities, is just about spending money.

Of course one of the areas that has been targeted is foreign aid, which the NDP keeps thinking is its domain. I have been in Parliament for almost eight years and have constantly heard from the NDP that it wants to increase the foreign aid budget to 0.07%, because this was a figure that was pulled out of the air and now the United Nations is committed to it. I think that is a substantial sum of money.

But the dynamics have changed. I come from the continent of Africa, which has been a recipient of the largest amount foreign aid for years and years and I have seen the effects when foreign aid is given without a plan and how it becomes a completely ineffective tool of development. Today, Africa and Latin America have not--and I repeat, have not--borne any fruit from the money that has been poured into these countries with good intentions. Today Africa has the highest levels of HIV and poverty. It has an education system and a health care system that are collapsing. So does Latin America.

People have the idea that if we throw money at this, which is what this budget is all about and what the NDP came up with, for some reason or somehow the extra money will solve the problem and we do not need to have a plan.

Even this week Mr. Lewis was crying that there needs to be 0.07%. What I do not understand about the 0.07% issue is how the money is going to be spent for these people. As a former critic of international development, I have gone round the world. I have been to Europe and I have seen the foreign aid budget for Ireland and for the Netherlands and the foreign aid budgets for all these countries that are pouring in more and more money, but for what and how are we going to use it?

Let me give a small example. When the tsunami disaster took place, the world responded with generosity. Suddenly there was all that money coming in, but there was no plan for how to spend it. The money was there, but how would we spend this money? That today is the issue of foreign aid.

The finance ministers at the G-8 have just wiped out the debts of all these poor countries. I do not see anything wrong with that because those countries were being burdened by their debts. They could not spend money on education and social services that were required in their countries because they were paying this heavy debt. There was no tangible economic benefit received for the money that had been borrowed because nobody was interested in seeing how development took place in these countries.

Now we have the same scenario. We have cleaned up the debt. Fine, but what have we really done? We have changed the fundamentals. Let me explain. Yesterday, even the World Bank president admitted there was a serious flaw. Unless we correct the fundamental flaws that cause poverty in these countries, we can throw as much money as we want at them but nothing much will happen. Let us talk about these fundamental flaws that are causing concern around the world.

Trade barriers to these countries are the largest impediments to development. Farmers in these countries cannot sell their products to us at all because we put artificial barriers on them. The subsidies that we give out, the thousands and thousands of dollars to agriculture, are hurting all those farmers in those countries. If they cannot sell their products, they will remain beggars. We come along and throw a couple of dollars at them and call it foreign aid, but it does not work. That is a fundamental flaw. We need to change that. The WTO is saying that change is required if we want to take Africa and Latin America out of poverty. That is one of the critical factors.

Another factor is good governance, responsible governance. NEPAD has come into place in Africa to provide good governance to Africans. That is fine. One can understand that we would support NEPAD. If Africans can police themselves well and bring in good governance, we would be happy with that, but the case of Zimbabwe shows that NEPAD has a serious flaw. No one is holding Mr. Mugabe accountable for the simple reason that Mr. Mugabe fought for independence in that country when it was under white rule. Out of courtesy to him and out of courtesy for that war that he fought in the bush, nobody is willing to hold him accountable despite the fact that every factor indicates that Zimbabwe is going down.

How could we expect that these kinds of people will be brought to justice? Mr. Mugabe did his job but it was time for him to move on and he did not. These examples keep going on and on. It does not take long for countries that are not sound to fall down. We need to stand behind the African countries and tell them they have to have those institutions. We need to support those institutions.

Only recently, CIDA narrowed its focus to 25 countries. Prior to that we were in 106 countries giving a few dollars and doing what? I do not understand what we were doing. Today my colleague questioned the Minister of International Cooperation as to why we give aid to China. China itself is giving foreign aid to other countries and Canada gives foreign aid to China. Somebody needs to knock their heads here. In answer to our questions we hear, “No, we do not give aid to China. We give it to the other institutions to help them”. They have the money for their institutions to move forward. WTO negotiator John Weekes is working to help China in the WTO.

I could go on and on about foreign aid. It is difficult to support this budget because there is no plan. There is no plan on how we want to spend this thing out here. Hopefully, somebody will hold the government accountable because these are Canadian taxpayers' dollars that we are talking about.

[Supply, June 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Edmonton—Sherwood Park.

It is a pleasure for me to rise and speak to this Bloc motion that is before the House. The motion reads:

That, in the opinion of the House, due to the increasing number of factory closures associated with globalization, the government should establish a strategy to help older workers who lose their jobs, a strategy that should include income support measures.

I am the former Conservative critic for international trade and now for emerging markets. I have gone around the world and have seen the impact of globalization, not only on Canada but across the world as economies open up. It creates a change in the economy. As we develop new opportunities for Canada, at the same time we will lose some ground. This is not only a unique feature to Canada but to every country due to globalization.

Canada is a trading nation. Close to over 42% of our GDP is tied to international trade. International trade becomes a critically important part of Canada's prosperity.

As many of my colleagues and people who have come before our committee have said, globalization has been extremely beneficial and has given unprecedented prosperity around the world, Nevertheless, it has some drawbacks. We lose workers and some factories close down. This is the case here.

When those factories close down, it becomes natural to retrain the younger workforce. We have many retraining programs in order to send these individuals back into the workforce. At the end of the day, it is beneficial for Canada to have more people at work.

Naturally, it is with those older workers, and that includes myself now, where we see a need and training becomes difficult. It is not because they do not want to be trained. Other factors come into play that make it difficult for them to be retrained. It is natural that we as a country should ensure that we support these workers. They have been out in the workforce and they have helped to build this country. When these unfortunate circumstances do take place, it does not mean that we close our eyes and walk away.

My party will be supporting the motion before us, as will other parties. We recognize the importance of having people in the workforce, irrespective of age.

As recently as this week, Ontario removed the retirement age of 65. We recognize that we need the expertise that is out there. We need older workers. Our economy is growing and we have a shortage of skilled labour as well.

We need these people to come back into the workforce as quickly as possible. This is a way to help them and ensure that they are employed. It is our responsibility to ensure that Canadians get the first choice in jobs. We want to help them in whatever capacity we can. This motion talks about bringing these people back into the workforce. It is a timely motion that I do not think anybody in their right mind would not support. It is a pleasure for us to support the motion.

Many people have talked about factory closures. The riding beside me has suffered textile closures due to globalization. On many occasions my colleague representing that riding has stood in the House and spoken about the plight of workers in his riding because of this globalization issue. We recognize that factory closures do take place and there is a need for us to address this issue. This issue of factory closures and globalization is being addressed all over the world.

Can the globalization march be stopped? No, it cannot be stopped. It is something that has brought a tremendous amount of prosperity to all.

As I have mentioned, we are a trading nation and we need these kinds of agreements to ensure that we have outside market access. We are a country of only 30 million people with a huge amount of resources. Who will we sell these resources to? It will not be to ourselves. We need to trade.

I and my party support the principles of the WTO because we need a rules based system where larger economies do not nudge us out because we do not have deep pockets, as does our neighbour to the south or the European Union. Naturally, from all aspects my party has supported the concept of the WTO and globalization because we believe that in the final analysis globalization is beneficial to Canada.

As I and many colleagues have stated before, we have pinpointed some negative aspects of that but, nevertheless, it impacts Canadians. It is a pleasure for me to support the motion to recognize that older people who may lose their jobs require support from us.

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, again I am asking the hon. member this. He said fine, so why is he having difficulty supporting this motion? If he thinks that what Gomery has said has been done, then he should support it. Why are the Liberals standing now saying that they cannot support the motion, using all kinds of excuses?

However, to continue on this, he said that such findings would be the focus of an inquiry only to the extent that they would be necessary to carry out the mandate in the terms of reference. The reference that is there does not allow that to happen.

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, precisely, he just said it, so why is he having difficulty supporting this motion? This is exactly the motion. You should be supporting it.

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to the motion put forward by the Conservative Party on the Gomery terms of reference. This commission is becoming a pivotal issue in Canadian political history. Its implications are far wider than we can imagine, as are the implications of its findings and its report. We have seen the Prime Minister on television pleading with Canadians to let the Gomery commission do its work before he calls an election, so a lot of things hinge on this.

What is of more importance about this commission is that Canadians are angry. For the first time, Canadians have seen the biggest political scandal in the history of this country. Everywhere we go, we see that Canadians are angry. They have put their trust in the government. They said, “Here are our tax dollars”. They expect us to use common sense and fiscal responsibility in spending their money. What has happened is that their trust was completely shattered and absolutely broken.

But it took the Auditor General to point it out. The Auditor General said there was something seriously wrong. The trust that Canadians have put in government has been broken, battered and abused, as we have seen. Of course, then what did the Liberals do? They needed to protect themselves, so they called the commission because that trust was broken by the Liberal government, by the governing party.

Day after day in front of the commission, as I have stated, we see Liberals coming in and talking about how money was misused for their personal use, for gain for their party. Every day it is not a good picture for Canada, which prides itself on having a transparent system. The transparent system was broken and it was broken by the Liberals sitting on the other side and their friends out there.

What is amazing, as we can see from the reports coming in, is that this was done in election 2000. I was part of election 2000. Never could I have imagined that taxpayers' money would be used for personal gain by that party, that it would be used to gain votes. What is coming out at the commission is unbelievable.

There is anger out there and the Liberal Party knows it. The Liberals know that something rotten happened. They know that something wrong happened.

It is amazing. I am talking about election 2000. How many members sitting on the other side are from election 2000? They get up and pretend that this was something from the distant past, that these are new faces and they do not have anything to do with the past.

So we have the commission. We have heard what the Prime Minister says when he gets up. Of course, day after day the public works minister, a new face because the old face is gone, says quite simply, “Let us wait for the Gomery inquiry”.

Yet the Prime Minister had no problem firing the former public works minister when he was our ambassador to Denmark. It did not take him long. It begs the question: why did he fire him? Obviously the Liberals knew something was wrong. We saw them fire the CEO, Mr. Pelletier. Why?

So actions have already been taken which the Liberal Party knows are pointing a finger at them about what was rotten and what went wrong. Canadians want to know. First, through the commission they want to know how. Then they want to know why this happened. We all know why it happened. It is not a big secret.

They want to know how. Through the hearings of the commission we are finding out how it happened. They also want to know who is responsible and who will take the blame? That is the crux of the motion we are debating. As has been stated, the government in clause (k) in the terms of reference has said, “without expressing any conclusion or recommendation regarding the civil or criminal liability of any person or organization”.

That says it quite clearly that the Gomery commission cannot point out who was responsible. That big question will remain. If the Gomery commission is let go without answering that question, Canadians will have no confidence in the political system of the country. We have to gain back the trust in this institution. We are held responsible for the use of taxpayer moneys. As I stated before, that trust has been broken.

All we are asking for is that Justice Gomery be allowed to name names and assign responsibility. Subsequently, the RCMP and other enforcement agencies can pick up whatever evidence comes out of that. It is important that Canadians know.

We all know it was the Liberal Party. It was under its rule. The Liberals are the ones who benefited the most. Therefore, it is not the issue who is responsible. We know it is them. We want to know who did not fulfill the responsibility of his or her job. We want to know people ultimately will be held responsible.

I will be sharing my time, Mr. Speaker, with my colleague, the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla.

Back to the main subject and that is the political landscape has changed. We now have a minority situation and hopefully we will not in the next election. We will throw those guys out hopefully and we will take over. We are telling Canadians that we will bring responsibility and transparency. One of the platforms we are looking at is giving more resources to the Auditor General to ensure that Canadians feel that their tax dollars are being spent wisely by the government.

Canadians are law-abiding citizens. They do not mind paying taxes. Ours is an honour system. We ask Canadians to be truthful about how much money they earn. Then we tell them how much they need to pay so we can run the government responsibly. Canadians agree to that. Yet when that trust is shattered, they must be made aware of the answers.

It is absolutely necessary and important that we know the commission can say who was responsible for this. That is what the motion states. I know the members of the Liberal Party will not support the motion because they are on the hot seat.

[Supply, May 31st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the other side just mentioned the fact that all inquiries have similar language. He touted all the other commissions that have been brought in and said why they have similar language and should be the same.

The difference here is that this is all about the governing party. It is about the governing party's corruption. The Liberals are held responsible. Every day when we listen to the Gomery commission, who is out there? The Liberals are out there talking about corruption. It is their governing party that was responsible for this corruption, so here is what I want to ask the member. How can we have a commission with a reference that is similar to that of other commissions we have had when the mandate of this commission is different?

In this case, the mandate of the commission is simply to find out. Canadians want to know the truth and the truth has to deal with the Liberal Party Why are the Liberals afraid to let the Gomery commission talk, take responsibility and say who was responsible for this fiasco?

[Foreign Credentials, May 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Race Relations Foundation states that the refusal to recognize foreign credentials by professional bodies amounts to systematic racism. Since 1993 we have been calling to address this issue. We still do not have any evident action from the government, just lip service. Why? Why no action?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has said that the Liberal government knows how to balance budgets. I would like to correct that and say the Liberals know how to overtax Canadians, which they have been doing since they have been in government.

For him to stand up and say that we did not look at our platform, that we do not understand municipalities, I do not know at which platform he was looking. However, as I said in my speech, it was about five years ago when I demonstrated with others in Calgary, saying that the gas tax should be given to the municipalities so they could address their infrastructure.

Every Conservative member has been talking about that. I do not know where the member was when we were talking about it.

Now that they have stolen that plan, they want to make it their own plan. Look at Hansard and look at the former debates. You will find out that this party talked about giving infrastructure money, gas tax money, to the municipalities.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for bringing up this issue. It is precisely that today, with a minority government, it was agreed that we needed better estimation from the finance department. The government itself agreed.

The Board of Internal Economy allowed us to have more money so we could get a better estimation than what the government was giving. In that estimation it was playing with the numbers. That is why we were seeing these surpluses.

If that was not the case, then why would the Board of Internal Economy give us extra money to have better forecasting done on the budget? It was the forecasting that the government was playing with which created the surpluses.

For the member to say that we do not understand, let them not play with the figures.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we are on the eve of a confidence vote that is going to take place tomorrow on the budget. This budget seems to have become one of the main issues now facing Canadians with respect to the continuation of the Liberal government. The Liberal government has been going around the country touting that if the government were to fall, there would be major and severe impacts because of the promises it made in the budget it tabled in February 2005.

Today we are speaking on Bill C-43, a budget implementation bill which followed the budget and of course tomorrow we will be speaking on Bill C-48, the other budget implementation bill. We will have votes on both Bill C-43 and Bill C-48.

As we rise in the House to speak to these main issues all we hear from the Liberal government side are all the expenditures that have been promised to everybody in the budget. Should the budget not pass and should the government fall, the Liberals say there is going to be a major impact, as if everything is going to come to a stop. They talk as if the Conservative Party does not have a plan, as if the Conservative Party members would suddenly close their eyes and not do something about faults in the Canadian economy addressed by the budget.

I have stood in the House many times in the past eight years to speak about budgets which contained many of the issues that the government is now saying it will implement. We talked about the gas tax, about royalties to the provinces, infrastructure, raising money for seniors living on fixed incomes, and tax relief for individuals and businesses.

The Conservative Party members have been standing up in the House and pinpointing all those issues. We know that the current Prime Minister, who was the finance minister for eight years, has been talking about surpluses and surpluses, and how he brought the books under control. Let me ask this question. Where do surpluses come from? Obviously, there was something wrong in the way that they were being forecast or Canadians were being taxed and were not being told the truth. They were being taxed and we did not need their money. They should have reduced taxes a long time ago and not announced surpluses over that eight year period.

Today, on the eve of this vote, the Prime Minister is signing and writing cheques all over the country because he says these are moneys that are needed. Obviously, the government did not address this before, and now it has become so urgent. We are talking as if the whole structure of the country will come to a stop if the government falls. No, the Conservative Party is saying that if it forms the government, it has a fiscally responsible platform that talks about where investment would be made in the Canadian economy, starting with tax breaks and infrastructure.

As a matter of fact, the leader of the Conservative Party just met with the Liberal leader of Ontario and told him that the Conservatives would honour whatever has been signed. The Canadian public should not expect that there would be no money to address many of their concerns and issues that we have talked about if the government falls.

Let us talk about infrastructure. The mayor of the city of Calgary has been writing to us for a long time about the gas tax. This was an issue in Calgary that I talked about when I ran to become a member a year ago. Many years ago we pointed out how much tax the government was taking. Why was the government not returning the tax dollars back to the cities.

We have been talking about this for a long time. As a matter of fact, I remember having taken part in a demonstration in Calgary to point this out. Lo and behold, today, after the Prime Minister made his deal, he says that this is the most important thing.

If the Conservative Party were talking about that deal, why would we not fulfill that deal? As our leader and finance critic have said, we know where to invest in this country. We have presented a plan on where we have to invest in this country, and that plan is a sound, responsible plan.

There are certain things with which we do not agree. The example is in Bill C-48, the deal that the Liberals made with the NDP to stop corporate tax cuts and, as the NDP likes to say, to make investment in some social areas.

We recognize there is a need for investment in social areas, but not to the extent the NDP expects. The NDP thinks that business is some kind of entity which has a bottomless pit where it can always go and grab money. We have to present a responsible economic environment and we have to see it that way.

Business is already talking about the need for tax cuts as well as for individuals. Money in the pocket of a Canadian business is better spent than money in the pocket of a government run by the Liberals, which we note from the Gomery inquiry that is going on and what the Liberals were doing with the money that they were taking from Canadian taxpayers.

The Conservative Party platform will address the issues. It is wrong for Liberal Party members to stand up and say that if they are defeated tomorrow, all these promises will stop.

The Atlantic accord was signed with the provinces and it is part of Bill C-43. We said we could support that, but it must be changed. Of course, the government did not want to change it. It wanted the whole thing. There are provisions which we cannot support. The government knew that. We said that if it removed the Atlantic accord from the budget, to ensure that it passed, we would expedite it. We believe that the Atlantic accord was and is important for that province and that region.

However, the spin doctors on the Liberal side of course are saying that if the budget is defeated, the Atlantic accord would go. Let us put it another way. We have said that we will support the Atlantic accord. What would it take if, say, tomorrow the government goes and a Conservative government is returned after an election? It would only be 37 days. We would put the Atlantic accord before Parliament and pass it as quickly as possible, so the benefits would go to that region. We know it is an important benefit for that region.

In conclusion, the Conservative Party has a plan. The Liberals say that if they are defeated tomorrow on the budget, all of these implementations will not take place. I want to say that the Conservative Party has a plan and Canadians do not have to buy that kind of propaganda and spin doctoring from the Liberals.