Gary Goodyear

[Telecommunications, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, that is high energy coming from a member who voted to cut this program away back in 2004.

This government decided to extend that program. We extended the program until the time came when public libraries had Internet, and most people live very close to a public library, within 25 kilometres. That is number one.

Number two, today in 2010, 80% of Canadians have the Internet; and the member might remember, although he might not have been here for the vote, that the government put $200 million toward providing broadband to every community in this country. That is what we are doing.

[Telecommunications, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, let us look at the facts. The Liberals have been trying to shut that program down since back in 2004-05. We extended the program until 2010, and 80% of Canadians now have Internet in their homes.

We are also providing Internet services, which are now available, to 93% of public libraries. As well, we are putting $200 million toward broadband services for all communities across Canada.

[Telecommunications, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Globalive has met all the Canadian ownership and control requirements under the Telecommunications Act.

The government did not remove, reduce, bend or create an exception to Canadian ownership and control requirements in the telecommunications and broadcasting industries. In fact, our goal as a government is to do what is in the best interest for Canadians, which includes greater competition in the telecommunications industry that lowers prices, provides better services for Canadians and more choices for consumers and business.

[THE BUDGET, March 9th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, the member has worked very hard for his riding, and I want to applaud him on the round tables that he has had and the information he has been able to feed back to me. My colleague mentioned programs that help seniors and students. Some of those programs were introduced in last year's budget and again in this year's budget. How did the NDP vote on those programs?

[THE BUDGET, March 9th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I will ask my hon. friend a reasonably simple question.

Last year's budget did in fact contain funding for the National Research Council and the granting councils, including some funding through the Federal Economic Development Agency, that actually did provide funding for dementia research and various dementia initiatives. Last year, the member and his party voted against that budget.

This year there is more money for these organizations which will continue the work on dementia. It is a very serious issue that this government is working to get on top of. Again, however, it is my impression that members of the NDP intend to vote against that. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot stand in the House and say that we need to do this and then vote against it when we do it.

How does the member respond to those silly directions he is getting from his leader?

[Science and Technology, March 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this morning the presidents of 13 universities said, “For that vote of confidence in higher education and advanced research, we are indeed grateful to the government”.

Also the Association of Universities and Colleges stated that the budget “shows that the government recognizes the vital role universities play in creating opportunities for Canadians in the new economy”.

We are investing in science and technology to make a stronger Canada now and in the future.

[The Budget, March 8th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I wish I could respond in more detail, but I can tell the member that just prior to that the Liberal government at the time cut funding to science and technology in the last recession. This government has taken an entirely opposite approach on stimulating the economy by putting more funding into science and technology to redevelop those programs that will create jobs and strengthen our economy for the future.

[The Budget, March 8th, 2010]

Obviously, Madam Speaker, the member and I differ on this idea of free trade and freer trade with other companies around the world. It is the goal of this government to invest strongly in science and technology as we have done. We have provided $2.2 billion in our first three budgets and $5 billion last year.

In fact, the whole idea of creating jobs for Canadians is to invite companies to come to Canada, to set up shop here, to create jobs here, to take the discoveries that our scientists make, and get those discoveries out to the factory floor where workers can earn a good wage in a highly paid job, and best of all, get those technologies built and sold to the marketplace so that Canadians can benefit from those discoveries, so that people around the world can benefit from those discoveries.

I think of a company in the Waterloo region, Bend All, that received an investment from this government, repayable. As a result of that investment, it has brought its workers back from the United Kingdom. Manufacturing jobs are coming back to Canada.

[The Budget, March 8th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for allowing me the opportunity to clarify her figures. The fact is $148 million is absolutely false. What members opposite have done is added up year one with year two and year one, then with year three, year two and year one. The number is absolutely incorrect.

We have increased funding to the granting councils on average by 20%. All of the money that was in fact correctly taken back under a strategic review was put back into the granting councils. All that money went back to the granting councils. The member's figures are wrong.

The final point I would like to make is that when the concept of a strategic review was brought up in the House, not one member on the Liberal side stood to object to it.

[The Budget, March 8th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry and the hon. member for Burlington.

I am very proud to stand here today as the hon. member for Cambridge, North Dumfries and as Minister of State (Science and Technology) (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario) to outline new investments in the science and technology sector that underscore the government's solid continued commitment to developing Canada's economy of tomorrow. Even as we continues to face challenging economic times, our government recognizes that Canada's future prosperity depends on our collective capacity to innovate and compete.

Science and technology creates jobs, improves the quality of life of Canadians and people around the world and it strengthens our economy for future generations. There can be no doubt that the government has a long-standing, unparalleled, extremely strong commitment to science and technology.

We realized and released our science and technology strategy mobilizing science and technology to Canada's advantage in 2007. In every federal budget since that time, including this year, the Conservative government has increased science and technology investment.

Science and technology investments included in the budget 2010 economic action plan, phase two, build upon the more than new $7 billion in science and technology funding that the government pledged in budgets in 2006, 2007, 2008 and, of course, as part of Canada's 2009 economic action plan.

This year, 2009-10, our government's annual budget will reach a record $10.7 billion for science and technology.

As members can see, we have increased funding for Canada's research granting councils since 2005 budgets by more than 20%. No country in the G7, including the United States, is better at supporting higher education research and development as a percentage of GDP than Canada.

I want to take a few moments to think through and read how budget 2010 builds on our science and technology strategy. With the current budget, we continue to demonstrate our commitment to build a talent advantage in science and technology through support for the best educated and most skilled workforce on the planet. This budget will increase the federal granting councils' combined annual budgets by $32 million per year. We will also add $8 million per year, as we have been requested to do by the universities, to the indirect costs of research programs to help Canadian universities, colleges and research hospitals absorb the additional activity resulting from the increases to our granting councils' budgets.

Budget 2010 will also provide another $45 million to the granting councils to establish a flagship Canada post-doctoral fellowship program that will retain and attract global research talent and leaders to Canada. When fully implemented, this new program will annually fund about 140 new two-year post-doctoral fellowships valued at $70,000 each per year, which is, by all accounts, the most attractive post-doctoral program in the world. This program builds on our support for Canada graduate scholarships, for the Canadian apprenticeship program and for the Vanier graduate scholarships to cover the full spectrum of support for the development of high quality research talent.

Budget 2010 also offers increased support to strengthen our knowledge advantage in specific areas of advanced science and technology, including: $222 million in funding over five years to support research and commercialization activities at TRIUMF, Canada's premier laboratory for nuclear and particle physics; $75 million to Genome Canada to allow it to launch a new research competition and sustain funding for the regional genomics innovation centres; and 45 million new dollars over two years for research and development relating to medical isotopes.

Budget 2010 also takes steps to strengthen Canada's entrepreneurial advantage, to encourage greater private sector performance in research, development and innovation. This is crucial to build Canada's economy of tomorrow. Our private sector must now adopt these initiatives and drive innovation, and we will compete. We will win in the new global economy.

We are the first federal government to recognize the value so significantly in colleges. Given the important role that colleges play in enhancing innovation in Canada, we have doubled the annual budget of the college and community innovation program by providing an additional $15 million per year to support additional research collaborations between businesses and colleges. This follows last year's incredibly successful investment in the CIP and the massive boost to the CFI's budget.

Further, our government provides $40 million over two years for small-sized and medium-sized enterprises through the innovation commercialization program, a pilot initiative through which federal departments and agencies will adopt and demonstrate the use of innovative prototype products and technologies developed by our small-sized and medium-sized businesses.

The budget goes on to support innovation in many other ways, by renewing and making ongoing $48 million in annual funding for the regional development agencies to support local innovation all across Canada.

Budget 2010 further provides $397 million over five years to the Canadian Space Agency to develop the RADARSAT constellation mission, the next generation, the leading generation of technology in the world of advanced radar remote sat sensing devices.

This type of critical investment builds on our ability to protect Canada and remain at the forefront of advanced technology in space and support our government's policies in the Arctic.

Finally, budget 2010 provides $135 million over two years to the National Research Council's regional innovation clusters, plus $8 million over two years to extend the international science and technology partnerships program, again to promote collaborative research and development activities with our international partners.

Our government continues to demonstrate an unparalleled and unprecedented strong commitment to our science and tech community to make Canada a world leader in science, technology and innovation. To suggest otherwise is to not have done the research.

I look forward to working with my parliamentary colleagues and all Canadians to create the economy of tomorrow in which Canada can realize its vast potential as a world leader in science, technology and innovation.

In closing, over the last few months I have had the opportunity to conduct many roundtables all across southern Ontario, consulting with business leaders, municipal leaders, community leaders, scientists and researchers, and on, on how best to conduct phase two of our economic action plan.

In my own riding of Cambridge and North Dumfries, I have received dozens of emails, letters and phone calls, and through my website even more information. I want to thank everyone who took the time to submit and share their thoughts with me. This has been very helpful in the development of the throne speech and the budget. It is very heartwarming to see so many ideas show up in this budget.