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[Service Canada, October 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government clearly does not understand anything about what the unemployed in this country are going through. Some must even wait up to three months to receive their employment insurance benefits. Waiting periods are already too long, and the government is now adding to them by making cuts to the services offered by Service Canada.

Will the government finally explain why it is preventing unemployed Canadians from accessing the insurance they themselves paid into?

[Sports in La Pointe-de-l'Île, October 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, on a different note, I am pleased to rise in the House today to celebrate the success of the Rangers, a hockey team from Montreal East. The team is currently ranked first in its AAA league. I would like to thank the municipality of Montreal East and those in charge of the team, but I would primarily like to congratulate the players for managing to balance sports and schooling. I tip my hat to them and encourage them to exercise their passion for our national sport while excelling in their studies. Go Rangers!

Last Saturday I attended the awards ceremony for those who volunteer with the Pointe-aux-Trembles soccer association. I would like to congratulate all the coaches, assistants, volunteers and the board of directors for their time and devotion, which has allowed these young people to flourish in a sport that encourages team spirit and respect. I would like to thank you for your commitment to helping our community's youth.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, before beginning my speech, I would like to set the record straight about some things that the hon. member claims I said, which I did not. I said that, when the taxes of large corporations dropped from 45% to 30%, investments decreased. They therefore did not increase. This shows that the decrease in large corporations' taxes did not increase investments. Now, I would like to start my speech.

My priority is to stand up for the interests of families, youth, workers and seniors. That is the mandate that the people of La Pointe-de-l'Île gave me. These are the issues that made up the NDP's campaign platform. Meanwhile, the government continues to give tax credits to large corporations. We are talking about $2 billion this year alone, not to mention the mess involving the use of public money during the G8 or the use of helicopters and planes for personal reasons.

Meanwhile, look at the cold reality Canadians are facing. Let us think of the large and growing gap between the rich and the poor in Canada. From 1998 to 2007, one-third of the country's income growth was among 1% of the wealthiest Canadians, those with incomes of $400,000 a year or more.

The IMF published a study that found that the more equitable the distribution of income, the longer and more stable the periods of economic growth. However, this budget does not do anything to solve the problems that thousands of Canadians are experiencing every day. The government clearly has no idea what Canadians actually need. A big part of the population in my riding is aging. We must work to prevent seniors from falling into poverty. We must offer them affordable housing. We must provide them with financial support so that they have a decent standard of living. The bill does not include any plan for creating affordable housing. We want concrete measures, not just half measures, to fight poverty and allow the Canadian economy to truly recover from the recession. Eleven million Canadians do not have retirement pensions through their employers and, meanwhile, approximately 250,000 seniors are living in poverty.

The budget says that seniors living alone who have a maximum income of $2,000 will receive an additional $600 a year. It does not make any sense to claim that a mere $600 extra a year will help a senior escape from poverty. That is approximately $2 a day. Can someone really escape poverty, feed themselves, pay for their prescriptions and pay their rent with approximately $2 extra a day? They cannot.

What is more, this credit will decrease as their income increases. When a senior living alone gets an annual income supplement of $4,400, they can no longer benefit from the tax credit the government is proposing in this budget. That is despicable. Seniors need our help. They also need to have peace of mind and know that they will have enough to eat and can get the medicine they need.

I would like to talk about tax credits because, for days now, the government has been saying that it has created tax credits that will help people. But what good is it to give a tax credit to someone who is not working or to someone who pays little or no income tax? These people cannot benefit from tax credits. These tax credits will have no impact on the people who really need them, the people who need help from this government. For example, the tax credit for caregivers is insufficient and will discriminate against countless low-income families.

I would like to give the government a crash course in tax credits. The problem with tax credits is that they are only given to the people who have enough income to actually claim the credits. Since 65% of households with a caregiver declare a combined income of less than $45,000 and 23% declare less than $20,000, the majority of caregivers will not be able to benefit from this tax credit. Why not create a tax benefit that all caregivers can qualify for? Now there is a concrete solution for this government.

I wish the government would stop saying that the NDP is refusing to negotiate. It is the government that is refusing to listen to the offers we are making. The Conservatives are using their majority to pass bills that have no impact on Canadian society, the unemployed, families or seniors.

We could also talk about families. Tax credits to promote the participation of children in physical, artistic and cultural activities are a good idea, I agree. However, this initiative does not take into account the 30% of people living on the island of Montreal who did not pay taxes or the people in my riding who cannot afford to send their children to these kinds of activities. I think it is great to help families that can afford to send their children to such activities; I have no problem with that. But I also think we need to help the families that cannot afford to pay their rent, let alone enrol their children in such activities. Parents should not be forced to choose between feeding their children or paying the rent and enrolling them in physical, artistic and cultural activities.

Once again, a tax benefit would allow most families living in poverty to send their kids to such activities, yet another concrete measure the government should examine and consider. This government's budget does not invest in social housing and does not take into account the reality of thousands of Quebeckers and Canadians. The government must understand that it is crucial to develop a plan to give families, seniors and everyone access to affordable housing so that they do not have to worry about choosing between paying their rent and feeding their families. This government is forcing families living in poverty to make that decision, and this is unacceptable in a society like ours here in Canada.

Why does this government keep cutting taxes for corporations, oil companies and the banks? This takes away billions of dollars that could otherwise be invested for Canadians. Then the government announces $4 billion in cuts that will have a direct impact on public services for Canadians. The government is making cuts at Environment Canada and Service Canada and we are already seeing their disastrous impact on Canadians. A number of people in my riding have been waiting for their employment insurance cheque for months. One constituent in particular came to see me at my office. After waiting for three months for her employment insurance benefits, she went into foreclosure because she could not pay her mortgage. She lost her home, she is homeless, she has no money left for food and she is worried about her children. I am sure she is not alone. This is unacceptable and it makes no sense.

This $4 billion in cuts is money that could easily have come out of the oil companies' $100 billion annual profits or the $10 billion on average in tax credits and gifts given to corporations every year. Glen Hodgson, from the Conference Board of Canada, told the Standing Committee on Finance a number of times this week that tax expenditures, including ineffective tax cuts given to corporations, should be included in the scrutiny of government spending. The Department of Finance itself recognizes that infrastructure investment has five times the economic impact of corporate tax cuts. This fact is published in the appendix to budget 2009.

The thing that is even more shocking about the government's position is that in addition to announcing billions of dollars in cuts, it is now asking Canadian taxpayers to foot the bill for its radical policies on crime and defence. Is asking Canadians to pay millions of dollars for prisons, jets and whatever else they can come up with part of an economic recovery plan? It is totally illogical. While the government muzzles us and uses its majority to pass legislation that is totally absurd and out of touch with reality, 1.4 million Canadians are still waiting for a real job creation action plan—2 million if we count those who have given up or are underemployed.

Furthermore, the government claims to have created 600,000 net new jobs. That is another sad distortion of the truth. Since the peak of job creation before the start of the recession in May 2008, barely 200,000 new jobs have been created. However, the labour force has increased by 450,000 since then. Thus, 250,000 more jobs are needed just to maintain employment at pre-recession levels. Between July 2008 and July 2011, only 260,000 jobs were created. Even based on July 2007 figures, only 495,900 jobs were created between 2007 and 2011, not 600,000 as the government claims.

The government is abandoning millions of unemployed workers and is not really investing in job creation. The budget does not include any plans for job creation. For example, energy processing consists primarily of petroleum refining. This sector of our economy is in decline in Quebec and Canada. What is the government's response? Use Canadian capabilities? No. Create jobs for Canadians. Of course not. It has chosen trade over jobs for Canadians. This government prefers to build pipelines such as the Keystone pipeline to export crude oil to the United States for refining. With what result? Members will be surprised—the loss of thousands of jobs. In my—

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about corporate tax rates. He was talking about very low tax rates.

For example, the corporate tax rate for the federal government and the Ontario government combined was cut drastically, from 45% in 1999 to 30% in 2010. However, during the same period, investments in machinery and equipment dropped from 8.3% to 5.5%. This shows that lowering the corporate tax rate does not lead to more investments.

Could my colleague comment on that?

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 6th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I was actually quite surprised that the hon. member opposite was so upset when asking the question.

It is outrageous that taxpayers must pay for political parties. What is more outrageous is that the government is saying that taxpayers need to pay for prisons, jets and all kinds of right-wing policies. This is outrageous.

Why are these policies part of an economic plan for a country that is in a recession?

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 6th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, this timing is perfect, since my colleague was just talking about the arts tax credits at the end of his speech, credits for children's artistic activities. First of all, most families in my riding cannot afford to enrol their children in these kinds of activities. The amount parents have to spend in order to benefit from these tax credits is much too high.

Perhaps the government lives in an imaginary world in which all families can afford to enrol their kids in these kinds of academic or artistic activities, but that is not the reality. If the Conservative government really wants to make artistic activities accessible to all children, it needs to either reduce the amount needed to have to access these tax credits or else subsidize these activities, because not all families can afford to enrol their children in such activities.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

But that is what she said.

I would like the hon. member to explain what she meant by that. Does she mean that companies should not have to pay any taxes? Who would bear the tax burden? I do not know if she is living in a fantasy world. I would like her to tell me who is going to pay the taxes. If it is not the companies that are making billions and billions of dollars in profit each year, who is going to pay them? Will it be the people of Canada?

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I heard the hon. member say:

“Unlike the official opposition, we understand that companies do not pay taxes, people do”.

I would like the hon. member to explain what she meant by this. Is she trying to tell us—

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would like to commend the hon. member for her speech.

In fact, the mistake that the government made here is that it invested in only one sector of the economy, the private sector. Indeed, we find this very surprising. As the hon. member said, the government provided $2 billion in tax credits to large corporations. For several years, the government has been giving large corporations more and more money. As a result, the coffers of these companies are full, but billions of dollars have been lost that could have been spent to help youth, seniors and families, particularly since the OECD has found that Canadian families have one of the highest rates of debt in all the OECD countries.

I would therefore like the hon. member to comment on the government's economic policies and the impact they will have on our families, seniors and youth.

[Keeping Canada's Economy and Jobs Growing Act, October 5th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to hear what my colleague has to say. The Conservative member who spoke before him talked about investments in green energy with respect to the oil sands. I would like the member for Outremont to talk to the House about the government's new policy on the Keystone project and on its new policy for the mass export of our oil to the United States. With this policy, we will not be able to profit from our own natural resources because we will be required to buy back the refined oil from the United States, which means that it is impossible for us to invest in green energies. Furthermore, this policy for the mass export of our oil will lead to the loss of thousands of jobs for Canadians and Quebeckers in my riding and elsewhere.