James Moore

[Manufacturing Industry, January 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, it was the leader of the Liberal Party who, in Windsor last week, said that the Canadian government should move away from supporting manufacturing altogether. The policy of the Liberal Party is not neglect but is actually proactive abandonment of the manufacturing sector. That is, of course, mindless.

Our policies are working for Canadians. Let us let the last word on this go to Jayson Myers, the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters CEO. He said:

...the programs the Conservative government has put in place do support manufacturing, and do it very well.

[The Economy, January 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we believe in lowering taxes on small business and New Democrats voted against that. We believe in lowering taxes for families and they say it is a bad idea. We support the national shipbuilding procurement strategy and they voted against it. We believe in expanding free trade with Europe and they are going to vote against it. We believe, of course, in supporting our automotive sector with the automotive innovation fund, and they have voted against it.

Every single time we have taken measures that have been praised around the world for supporting the creation of jobs in the Canadian economy, it has always been the NDP that has been against them. Some 1.2 million net new jobs have been created since the recession. We have done that while lowering taxes, not raising taxes. We have a balanced budget, and the Canadian economy will be strong well into the future.

[Manufacturing Industry, January 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, of course, when it comes to supporting the middle class, this government has done more than anybody else.

There was a well publicized, well documented study on the front page of the The New York Times which said that Canada has the wealthiest middle class in the world. It is because our government has delivered for the middle class by lowering taxes, supporting key industries in all parts of this country, and ensuring that good-quality jobs are happening all across this country for the benefit of all regions of Canada. That is why we have our national shipbuilding procurement strategy. That is why we are supporting the automotive industry.

We are keeping taxes down. We have a 13 percentage point lower corporate tax rate than what is offered in the United States, which is creating jobs in Canada in all of our regions. We are leading the world. There have been 1.2 million net new jobs created and we are going—

[Manufacturing Industry, January 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, as I just said, that is not at all the case.

We are creating policies that will protect, promote and definitely expedite our access to good-quality jobs in every region of Canada. We have made investments in the regions for the auto sector, not to mention the Asia-Pacific gateway and Canada's east coast. We are definitely in a position to say that we have good news about the future and we will soon make announcements about investments.

[Manufacturing Industry, January 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we are in the process of implementing policies that are truly in the interest of our economy in every region and in a number of sectors of our economy. This is what Jayson Myers, the president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, had to say, and I quote: “Many of the programs the Conservative government has put in place do support manufacturing, and do it very well”.

It is very important to have policies, commitments and approaches to protect our industries across Canada and to diversify our economy. That is what we are doing.

[Manufacturing Industry, January 27th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, any time a New Democrat starts a question with “Will you adopt our plan?”, I am going to go ahead and say no.

We do have good numbers when it comes to manufacturing sales. The member singled out the province of Ontario. Sales in manufacturing in Ontario are up 41% since the recession. Just in the past month, Chrysler has announced that it is investing $2 billion into the city of Windsor. Honda motor company in Ontario says it is going to invest $850 million to create jobs. Ford motor company is investing more money as well into Oakville, which is going to create 1,200 new jobs in Oakville in the auto sector.

We do have policies that are working, that are creating jobs, that will support the manufacturing sector well into the future for Canadians.

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to (a), the altered image was produced for an internal event celebrating the fifth anniversary of Canadarm2.

With regard to (b) to (d), in 2006, the Canadian Space Agency, CSA, employees made the modifications to the original photo, at their own initiative.

With regard to (e), as soon as the CSA was made aware of the situation, it took steps to remove the altered photo from its Tumblr account. The agency also contacted both Citizenship and Immigration Canada, CIC, and the Privy Council Office, PCO, to have the altered image replaced with the original photo already available on the CSA’s website. The correct image has now been posted.

With regard to (f) to (g), the CSA’s communications and public affairs directorate.

With regard to (h), the altered photo was intended to be used for an internal event in 2006. As soon as the CSA was made aware of its error, it took steps to replace the photo with the original image available on the CSA website, including replacing it on the Tumblr website.

[Science and Technology, December 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, today in Markham, the Prime Minister announced the Canada first research excellence fund. This follows through on our commitment in the budget to support Canada's universities.

I think, as are all Canadians, we are incredibly proud of the universities we have and the great work they do, such as the world-class engineering schools at the University of Waterloo and University of Toronto, the brain research centre out of the University of British Columbia, the pediatric AIDS research that is being done at McGill University.

We want to take this research that is being done across the country and boost it, so that Canada will continue to lead the world in academic research and be proud of these great institutions.

The Prime Minister made this announcement, $1.5 billion over the next seven years, and we are going to continue to lead the world.

[Science and Technology, December 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the space agency is strong and going in the right direction under the leadership that we have put forward. Better than that, we have added new effective funding, for example, renewing our commitment for the James Webb Space Telescope, which will advance the globe's understanding of the cosmos and all that it entails for the future of scientific discovery.

This is something that the global scientific community has asked for. Canada has always been a leader in space. It continues to be a leader, and it will partner with these key projects that will keep Canada in the very front row of leaders in space.

[Science and Technology, December 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, of course we are very proud of Canada's role in space, topped off last year by the remarkable job of leadership that Chris Hadfield showed us as leader of the International Space Station.

In fact, we have answered the questions that have been raised by communities who are looking for leadership from Ottawa on the space file. We had the Emerson space report that came to the Government of Canada and we have acted on every single one of those recommendations. We have moved forward, including in this year's budget, with new commitments to Canada's space framework.

In fact, Suzanne Benoît, president of Aéro Montréal, said: “We salute the government's vision in making space sector a priority” for the Government of Canada.

We are taking action, delivering the goods for the space sector.