Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on the final note of the minister's speech. He did say that the personal deductions on income tax were going to be raised to $10,000, but that would be phased in over a number of years and would barely keep up with inflation. That is hardly the substantive tax relief that this minister demanded from the government when he was in the opposition, but I guess intensity and passions change when one goes to the other side of the House.
I also want to comment as a comeback to his comment that the questions I asked him, when I had the opportunity to ask questions, did not pertain to his portfolio in public works. That is in part because if he was doing more in public works, frankly there would be more to ask questions about. I am going to instead curtail my speech here to my additional responsibilities as the transport critic for the official opposition. I am speaking of another portfolio that was left out in the cold in this budget.
Before I do that, Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Calgary--Nose Hill.
As transport critic for the official opposition, I must say that the budget, unless it is amended, has been an unmitigated disaster for Canada's transportation industry and in particular our aviation sector. In fact, one member of the House was so incensed by the finance minister's failure to freeze or reduce the rents at our airports that the Liberals charge, he wanted to put the Minister of Finance and his officials on a no-fly list, “so they could reflect upon what was happening in the air sector”.
That speaker was the hon. member for Outremont and he is gravely concerned. After all, Aéroports de Montréal, the operator of the airport closest to his riding, lost $10.3 million in 2004 after Transport Canada increased the rent by 306% to $19.5 million from $4.8 million the year before. If we do the math quickly, we will see that the amount of the increase, $14.7 million, is even bigger than the amount of the loss, so it shows that even by working harder, Montreal's airports cannot easily escape the financial jeopardy of Liberal greed.
It is easy for all of us to understand the concerns of an MP who lashed out at the finance minister for irresponsible Liberal policies that negatively affect major institutions in his or her own riding. However, the hon. member for Outremont is also the federal transport minister. As we all know, it is virtually unheard of for a sitting cabinet minister to attack a cabinet colleague. It is even more taboo for a cabinet minister to attack the finance minister's budget the day after the budget was tabled in the House.
However, I can understand and even agree with the transport minister's outrage. Imagine being a cabinet minister and hearing in a budget speech that the department for which he is responsible is going to threaten the financial viability of a large institution in his own backyard, and that he is powerless or incapable of defending it. I cannot imagine a greater public humiliation or a more profound sense of impotence.
In his latest speech, his latest budget, the Minister of Finance has effectively publicly confirmed the irrelevance of the Minister of Transport. In his 7,000 word one hour and 15 minute speech, the word transport is not mentioned once, and the only mention of the transportation sector is in the context of increased regulation to meet our Kyoto commitments.
In his speech the Minister of Finance praised the “able direction” of his colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, applauded the people in the Department of Public Works and Government Services, and commended the hon. members for Whitby--Oshawa, Huron--Bruce, St. Catharines, Etobicoke Centre and Gatineau for various initiatives.
Furthermore, the night before the budget was tabled, the finance minister reportedly had briefings for the Ministers of the Environment, Industry, International Cooperation, National Defence and Social Development, as well as the Minister of State for Families and Caregivers. Conspicuous by his absence from both the budget speech and the previous night's briefings was the Minister of Transport, a man who doubles as the Prime Minister's Quebec lieutenant. In effect, in this budget the Minister of Finance has effectively sidelined the Minister of Transport.
Airport rent is perhaps the most important issue with regard to the aviation sector, perhaps more important an issue than anything else dealt by the transport minister. In fact, in his very first appearance before the Standing Committee on Transport, the transport minister promised to find a solution to this issue, and then tellingly he said, “I have to go to my colleague, the Minister of Finance, because I'm not for auto-flagellation”.
Less than two weeks later he was back at the transport committee telling us:
Everybody recognizes that we have to correct some inequities in the system...I recognize that I have to move on that. I have to go to cabinet, show them the charts, and show them the reality...I want to move on that. I hope to be able to go to cabinet before Christmas, because we know the new year is a deadline for them, and then be able to move on to a fair and more equitable system.
On December 10 he was quoted in the Globe and Mail saying that he was about to seek cabinet committee support for his plan to freeze airport rents for 2005 as an interim step and then have them permanently lowered. When he was quoted again by the press on February 16, 2005, in the Montreal Gazette , saying that the federal government would likely unveil long awaited changes to airport rents in the upcoming budget, there was reason for optimism.
Presumably, the transport minister's February 16 statement was his way of confirming that the cabinet committee had agreed to his plan to temporarily freeze airport rents for 2005 and permanently lower them thereafter.
So when the budget failed to mention the word transport or any relief or freezing of airport rents, it is easy to see how it demolishes the transport minister's credibility both on a national level and in his own backyard where the local airport is threatened by the increases being imposed by the transport minister's own department, albeit as a result of the finance minister's budget.
It is difficult to imagine how the finance minister could more artfully have destroyed the transport minister's credibility. We are now left in the bewildering position of wondering what, if any, purpose the transport minister now serves the air industry. In this light, it is perhaps easier to understand why the transport minister would want to put the finance minister on the no-fly list that he joked about.
However, this petty political one-upmanship is damaging to the country. Airports like Vancouver and Toronto cannot play meaningful roles as transit stops on Asia-South America or Europe-U.S. trips if the Liberal's airport rent policies tax them out of existence.
As an MP from the lower mainland of British Columbia, I am very mindful of the importance of transportation and the crucial role that it can play in making British Columbia an essential part of growing China-U.S. trade.
On February 1, just a few short weeks ago, I called the finance minister's attention to the most recent report of the B.C. Progress Board. That blue ribbon panel sees transportation as an economic growth engine for British Columbia and proposes using B.C.'s improved transportation infrastructure to strengthen Canada's global competitive advantage. I am sorry to say that the budget has not significantly embraced any of the B.C. Progress Board's findings.
Moreover, even where the budget supposedly delivers, it comes up short. I was at the Liberal Party convention over the weekend as an observer for the official opposition, and the motto repeated mindlessly and endlessly by the Prime Minister in his speech was “Promises made. Promises kept”. As we all know, during the last election the Liberals made hundreds of promises. I want to look at just one.
In the last election the Liberals promised to:
Decide by this year-end on a plan to provide, for the benefit of municipalities, a share of the federal gas tax (or its financial equivalent).
The Liberals stated that “the amount will be ramped up within the next five years to 5¢ per litre, or at least $2 billion”. In his budget speech the finance minister promised to start at $600 million annually, “then rising as promised to 5¢ per litre, or $2 billion, in 2009-10, and continuing thereafter indefinitely”.
On the face of it, we might be fooled into thinking that this constitutes a promise kept. However, the budget actually proposed to transfer $5 billion in gas tax revenue over five years. During the same time period, gas tax revenue is expected to exceed $26 billion to Ottawa. So the return to municipalities will not be 50% of the 10¢ per litre that Ottawa will collect, but rather 19%. Rather than sharing 5¢ per litre, the Liberals are really only sharing 1.9¢ per litre. It is only a promise kept if we use the Liberal Party's definitions. By any other standard of honesty, accountability, fairness, and what the Liberal's themselves promised in their election campaign, this is a promise made and a promise broken.
From a transport perspective, this budget is an abject failure. There has been no movement to put gas tax dollars into the hands of municipalities right now in a meaningful way as promised in the campaign. There has been no promise to have a freeze on airport rents as the Liberals and transport minister himself promised. There has been no commitment to get rid of the $24 air tax.
There has only been a commitment by the transport minister to look at opening skies with a seven page discussion paper, half of which constitutes rhetorical questions with no real blueprint to get us there. Nothing whatsoever was mentioned with regard to VIA Rail. Nothing was mentioned with regard to increased port security. Nothing was mentioned with regard to increasing competition on our rail lines. Nothing at all was mentioned with regard to transport.
From a transport perspective for the official opposition, we can only give this budget an F and condemn the transport minister for his failure to stand up for the department for which he was assigned, for an industry for which he is responsible, and hope that within the time that we have to debate this budget going forward, the Liberals will come to their senses and recognize that transportation is part of Canada's national infrastructure. It should not be seen as a source of revenue. That is something that needs to be understood by the Liberal government before any progress can be made.
