Guy Caron

[Taxation, March 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have done nothing but pay lip service to the issue of tax evasion. The main estimates foresee cuts of over $400 million to the Canada Revenue Agency. How do the Conservatives think the agency will be able to step up the fight against tax evasion with an even smaller budget?

[The Economy, February 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, during the last 13 years of the Liberal regime, middle-class incomes stagnated. Salaries increased by only $1.07 or 8¢ a year in real terms.

The Conservative government decided to continue in the same direction, with attacks on employment insurance, unions and pension plans. These concrete measures help reduce the debt load of middle-class Canadians and make life more affordable them.

The report in question has been gathering dust in a government drawer somewhere for seven years. Why is the government ignoring it? Why is it leaving the middle class to fend for itself?

[Taxation, February 14th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am confused about the third party's question. About two months ago, the Liberal leader said he was in favour of income splitting. A few days ago, he again said that the idea had merit. I am a bit confused, but I have to ask the government to answer my question. This question also has to do with income splitting.

On Wednesday, the Minister of Finance said that he was not sure about the merits of their policy. A few hours later, the Minister of Employment and Social Development said that his government was determined to keep its election promise. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that, once the budget was balanced, they would perhaps think about implementing this policy. All of a sudden, we found out on Twitter that assistance to parents would replace income splitting.

What is the story today?

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, more and more provinces are coming out against the Conservatives' budgetary approach. One thing that really frustrates them is the April 1 ultimatum regarding the Canada job grant. By refusing to hold consultations and interfering in provincial jurisdictions, the Conservatives are punishing workers first and foremost, and they are stifling economic development.

I understand that things are not so rosy right now between the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Employment. Could they at least talk to one another and commit to withdrawing their ultimatum, which is doing nothing to help train workers?

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer quickly, even though the question does require a little more time.

There are two parts to my answer. First of all, when we talk about the choices this government makes in terms of its policies, there is something called the multiplier effect. Each of the various measures has a different effect on economic growth. For instance, infrastructure measures will help create $1.50 in economic growth for every $1 invested. Measures meant to help the most vulnerable families—whether in the area of employment insurance or social housing—will create about $1.45 for every $1 invested. The reason is that those people spend money and therefore contribute to economic growth. Measures like reducing corporate taxes, as the Conservatives did, can have a positive impact, and they hope it will, but in the end, it has been proven that in the short and medium term, this yields only 30¢ of economic growth for every $1 lost in revenue. In that sense, the government is clearly not going in the right direction.

As for the issue of policies, the former parliamentary budget officer clearly demonstrated that austerity policies usually mean that fewer jobs can be created—sometimes thousands fewer and sometimes more than 10,000 fewer.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have a feeling that the member did not really follow what happened before the budget was tabled.

We made four specific requests. We asked that the eco-energy program be reinstated. It had three objectives: to fight climate change, to assist taxpayers and to provide jobs. The eco-energy program provided 15,000 people with work. That was coupled with our other requests, which were to establish a tax credit for hiring young people and an additional tax credit to help small and medium-sized businesses increase hiring. Our fourth request was to bring back veterans' offices.

Our requests would cost approximately $500 million. We were not asking the government to spend an additional $500 million. We were simply saying that the budget is a question of choice. The government's initiatives are less effective. Instead, the government should take the ideas we proposed so that more jobs would be created. Unfortunately, the Minister of Finance did not listen.

I would like to remind the hon. member that the Minister of Finance himself reports on the state of public finances in the federal government and the provinces. Since 1982, or since 1987, depending on where my colleague wants to start, in all the provinces, the NDP governments have been the best and most effective at balancing the budget.

Yes, the NDP understands the importance of economic growth and a balanced budget, particularly in an economic cycle. The Conservative government, however, does not score well in this particular subject, at the federal level in particular.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg North for his question.

Economic growth and job creation are indeed connected to good governance and the policies that go along with that. I completely agree with the member. The Conservatives brag about balancing the budget, but they are the ones who created a deficit before the recession even hit, as a result of the measures they implemented, measures that most economists called ineffective.

As for the Conservatives' management, since they came to power they have increased our national debt by $123 billion. Now they are bragging about balancing the budget eight or nine years after they came to power. Aside from their first two budgets, the one after the 2006 election, when they took over from another administration, and the one in 2007, when the surplus had already shrunk by about half, the last time that a Conservative government balanced the budget was in 1912 under Robert Borden.

The government needs to do some soul-searching about how it has managed the economy and about its priorities. It refuses to do so, which we think is shameful. The economy goes hand in hand with balance, but the Conservatives only seem to talk about the fiscal aspect.

The economy is complex. Taxes are an important element, but they are not the only things that help ensure a healthy economy. We need to adopt policies that will address issues such as income inequality, energy and energy prices. Those policies must cover everything that makes Canada attractive to investors. The Conservatives are not doing that. They are blind to the complexities of the economy and the more sophisticated measures that are required to achieve that prosperity.

[The Budget, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to finish the speech I started yesterday on the federal government's 2014 budget.

I will start with a quick summary of what I talked about yesterday. I provided an overview of Canada's economic situation. The government painted a picture of it, but the real picture is not as pretty as the government would have us believe. The last four budgets have been about austerity and cuts, and this budget is no different. The government is not trying to hide that fact. What it is trying to hide is the fact that its cuts are bad for economic growth and job creation.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer pointed that out in his latest reports to the House. The Parliamentary Budget Officer also pointed out that economic growth, or Canada's current economic performance, is about 1.6% lower than it would have been without the cuts. That might not seem like a big difference, but 1.6% amounts to tens of billions of dollars that did not contribute to economic growth and that were lost in terms of potential economic prosperity.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer is not the only one to have pointed that out. In its latest report, published in January, the International Monetary Fund clearly indicated that the Canadian government's austerity measures, including those in the previous budget, resulted in economic growth that was 10% to 15% lower than it would have been without those measures.

We can tackle growth and job creation if we delay balancing the budget until 2016 or 2017. Canada is still in a strong position compared to our partners, even though our situation is not as rosy as the government says. Still, when it comes to balancing the budget, the debt-to-GDP ratio, we can wait. That is what the International Monetary Fund said.

The government still says that we are leading the G7 on economic growth, but that is no longer true. The growth outlook puts us third, and we are sliding slowly because of the Conservative government's inaction. The OECD says the same thing: we are now in the middle of the pack, and other countries that have come up with more ways to promote growth and job creation are edging past Canada.

While our economic growth is stagnating, the federal government is turning a blind eye. The goal of this budget, the not-so-secret objective, is to achieve a balanced budget in 2015. The Conservative government's open secret is that it wants to have good news to spread in 2015, just in time for the election.

That is not the best way to run a country or to demonstrate good governance. That is not what it means to work for the common good of Canadians, but it is what the Conservative government has decided to do.

I would like to mention one final point to remind hon. members of what I was saying yesterday. I was shocked to hear one particular statement from the Minister of Finance during his budget speech, and I will repeat it again. The Minister of Finance said:

...our government remains committed to balancing the budget in 2015, but I must be clear. We did not do this on the backs of ordinary Canadians or Canadians in need...

How can the Minister of Finance say such a thing? I am well aware that, not only in my riding, but in my part of the country, massive cuts have been made to employment insurance. If the minister does not see that employment insurance provides assistance to people in need, then he is really out of touch. There have been significant cuts in other areas, too, including VIA Rail, Canada Post, Service Canada, veterans' services and food inspection, as well as in science and technology, which help Canada remain competitive in the world, both economically and in terms of technological advances. It is absolutely absurd for the minister to claim that the cuts made over the past four years have had no effect on ordinary Canadians or Canadians in need; on the contrary.

I just mentioned food inspection. There are a handful of measures in the budget that we actually agree with. Of course, as the government members rise to express their support for this budget, they will choose certain measures here and there, mentioning a given fantastic measure on a given page. They will probably choose measures that we agree with.

The main job creation and economic growth measures are not in the overall budget.

To come back to food inspection, we applaud one measure in particular, and that is adding inspectors to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. However, this measure speaks to the government's denial of certain situations.

It is good to add 200 inspectors and the equivalent of roughly $350 million or $360 million to improve food safety. The problem is that for two years, the government has been denying that its massive budget cuts have had any impact on food inspection. It is finally opening its eyes and including a measure in this budget to add 200 inspectors. What did they do for the 300 inspectors who have been laid off in the past two years? They did not say in their budget.

At the end of the day, we still have a lot of work to do to make this government realize that it has to have a direct hand in filling the gaps left by its previous budgets. It has to stop waiting two years to consider each major problem pointed out by the opposition.

I am also in favour of the measure to provide rural homes with high-speed broadband Internet access. I fully support that measure. Why did the government eliminate most of the Internet access programs that provided funding for using the Internet at rural libraries?

First, the government takes away an essential service from the rural regions for two or three years, and then it wakes up to the fact that the rural regions are suffering from this lack of access and decides to give them something. I look forward to seeing concrete results. Having 280,000 people connected to the Internet may seem like a lot, but countrywide it is not so much per riding.

We can get behind many measures that will be beneficial. The first budget implementation bill will probably be introduced in April. That is when we will be able to discuss it and see how the government would like to begin applying these measures.

Often the devil is in the details. If these measures are acceptable, we will support them in the Standing Committee on Finance. The government knows full well that the vote on budget implementation bills, like the vote on the budget itself, includes all the measures.

Although we can agree on some of the smaller measures that will be significant to the community, most of the major job creation and economic growth measures are just not in the budget.

I would like to close by talking about the government's approach to its different programs.

Take the job grant for example. Trying to connect the unemployed with jobs based on their skills is a noble objective. We agree. However, we are not talking about objectives; we are talking about how it is done. In terms of the job grant, which is a provincially run training program, the Minister of Finance said that it is the federal government's money and that it is going to spend that money as it pleases. Just imagine the resulting problems with implementing those key measures.

Once again, we agree that it is a good objective, but confronting the provinces in their own area of jurisdiction creates problems in implementing those measures. If those measures are needed now, the government members will agree with us that the provinces must be on board and consulted to ensure that the measures can be implemented as soon as possible.

Instead, what is the government doing? It is picking quarrels with the provinces. We saw all the provinces react right away. Let me say that they were also not happy with the Minister of Finance's comments after the budget was tabled. They did not understand.

This is not the only issue on which the Conservatives have failed to respect jurisdictions and to co-operate with the provinces. There is also the single securities commission. They have renamed it but it is still a move toward a centralized securities regulator. However, that too is an area of provincial jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court said so.

The federal government's role is to monitor the whole system, even though the provinces apply the rules. The provinces understand the importance of creating a synergy amongst themselves in order to ensure that we have a strong financial system that protects us, while creating as few obstacles as possible for investors.

The provinces work together. With a passport system, for example, an issue that creates a legal precedent can be recognized as case law in all provinces, and the accreditation of someone working in the field can be recognized across Canada, even if he or she works in one particular province. Co-operation among the provinces and the passport system have eliminated many obstacles.

Just imagine how quickly we could set up a system that would achieve the government's objectives, if it worked with the provinces that set up this system. Unfortunately, the government prefers its own system and is now looking for the provinces' co-operation. To date, only two provinces are working with the federal government while eight have declined.

How much time will we have to spend trying to convince some provinces that are not really willing to adopt this system, when we could have a system that would achieve the same objectives much more quickly if the government accepted the provinces' initiative?

That is not all. This budget would also eliminate the immigrant investor program. We can and should discuss the effectiveness of the program. However, in the end, the government made the decision without the provinces' agreement. Just yesterday, the Premier of Saskatchewan, Brad Wall, rejected the government's one-way initiative.

The government has no idea where it is currently headed or how a federation works. To achieve its objectives as quickly as possible, a federal government has to come to an agreement with the provincial governments and work with them. Instead, this government is being confrontational and as a result it will take much longer to develop the objectives and elements of good governance, even when that is possible.

In that sense, this budget clearly does not achieve the objective that a government should set for itself, that is, to focus government resources on economic growth and job creation.

They will talk it over and tell themselves that it can be done, but believe me, this budget will not meet any of its objectives. The only objective in this budget is the arbitrary objective to balance the budget in 2015, so that the Conservatives can hand out goodies and try to win over the Canadian public with their claims of good governance.

I guarantee you that the public will not be fooled and that at the next election in 2015 it will hear all about the lack of good governance.

[Petitions, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition signed by more than 100 people. It can be added to the others that have been signed by hundreds of people, urging the Canadian government to take any measure necessary to preserve the rail line between Montreal and Halifax.

We know that the segment between Bathurst and Miramichi is currently for sale and may close down, which could compromise rail transportation in eastern Quebec and the Maritimes. The more than 100 names on this petition are an addition to the hundreds of signatures that the House has already received. We are asking the Canadian government to take action.

[The Budget, February 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, if indeed I have eight minutes before I am interrupted, I will talk about the current economic situation, with a view to putting yesterday's budget into context.

To hear the Conservatives crow about the budget and the current situation, you would think that the recession is a thing of the past, that Canadians are working again and that the current situation is as good as it was before the recession. However, that is not the case.

In May 2008, before the recession hit the country, the unemployment rate in Canada was 6.1% while the labour force rate was 68%. Those figures are much more positive than today's. According to the most recent data available, the unemployment rate in January was 7.0%, almost 1% higher than it was before the recession. The labour force was down, at 66.8%.

That means that far fewer people are in the labour market. This is a major problem. Specifically, we are talking about 1.4 million unemployed Canadians, or 300,000 more than before the recession. No, the government should not be acting as if the recession were over and as if a balanced budget must be achieved in 2015 at all costs.

We will say it over and over again: achieving a balanced budget is important, but it must be done according to the economic cycle. The economic data clearly show that we have not come to the end of an economic cycle. The government should still be taking steps to stimulate job creation and economic growth.

In this budget, which the Conservatives themselves have called a “do nothing budget”, there are absolutely no measures along those lines. In upcoming speeches, we will hear them talk about measures that come out of this budget of almost 500 pages, so that they can feel better about themselves.

However, when you draft a budget, you have to make choices. The fiscal situation in Canada is important and the Conservatives' drive to achieve a balanced budget in 2015 is clearly a vote-getting goal. The Conservatives themselves are not even trying to hide that anymore. That poses serious problems for job creation and economic growth.

The Conservatives boast that Canada is leading the G7 in terms of job creation and economic growth. I have a little bit of news for them: Canada now ranks third among G7 countries and is continuing to slide below the other countries.

Within the OECD, that is, among industrialized nations, Canada is in the middle of the pack. Over a year and a half ago, the OECD predicted that Canada's slide would continue, so no, Canada is not really in such a great position and is still feeling the effects of the recession.

Drafting a budget means making choices. The Conservatives do not really understand the true cost of their cuts, of what many people call their austerity measures. Even though things are not as bad as they are in Europe, this is still austerity because the government is cutting its investments.

This is the fourth round of austerity measures, the fourth budget before the government starts handing out goodies for the election next year in an attempt to bribe Canadians.

Clearly, there is a price to pay for achieving an artificially balanced budget at all costs in 2015 rather than 2016 or 2017. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, because of all the cuts, the Conservative government's past four austerity budgets have undermined our economic growth potential.

Current economic growth, as represented by our GDP, is 1.6% lower than it would have been without the cuts. That means tens of billions of dollars in lost earnings for our economy. I know that the government does not hold the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer in high regard.

Perhaps they would be more inclined to believe the International Monetary Fund which, in its January report, indicated that federal government cuts will dampen economic growth by at least 10% to 15%. I will repeat this for the government: Canadian economic growth would be 10% to 15% higher without these cuts and austerity measures.

I was very surprised, taken aback in fact, by what the Minister of Finance said when presenting his budget yesterday. It is worthwhile quoting him:

...our government remains committed to balancing the budget in 2015, but I must be clear. We did not do this on the backs of ordinary Canadians or Canadians in need....

I was elected in 2011 and, since then, I have been fighting against the Conservatives' cuts, which have a real impact on the everyday lives of the people in my riding in eastern Quebec. Whether we are talking about employment insurance, VIA Rail, Canada Post, Service Canada, veterans, science and technology or food inspection, to name just a few on a potentially long list, the Conservative government has made cuts to essential services. It claims to be cutting the fat when it is now cutting to the bone.

Front-line services for Canadians and Quebeckers have decreased because of the Conservatives' measures. That has an impact on economic growth and job creation, which they have not been able to sustain and which no longer seem to be priorities in this budget.

I know that my time is up. I will come back tomorrow to continue my speech, and I will talk about the measures in this budget, which, instead of promoting economic growth, will further hinder this growth.