Mr. Chair, it is clear that $3 million has been cut. You can try to change reality, but here on this side, we know what the reality is.
Can the minister tell us where the department thinks the board will find the means to accomplish these savings?
House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2015, with 22% of the vote.
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, it is clear that $3 million has been cut. You can try to change reality, but here on this side, we know what the reality is.
Can the minister tell us where the department thinks the board will find the means to accomplish these savings?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, that is too bad.
Does the minister know that $3 million has been cut from the National Energy Board's budget for 2013-14?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, the minister clearly does not know the answer.
I will try another question. How many projects is the board expected to be responsible for reviewing in 2013? Does he know the figure for this year, for 2013?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, it was a simple question. The minister should know his portfolio, but clearly, based on how he has to shuffle through his papers, he does not know the answer. He did not answer the question correctly.
I will try again. How many new resource development projects was the National Energy Board asked to review in 2012?
BUSINESS OF SUPPLY May 21st, 2013
Mr. Chair, I will be using my full 15 minutes to ask questions.
Can the minister tell me how many new resource development projects the National Energy Board was asked to review in 2012?
Transportation May 9th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, for years, the residents of Vaudreuil-Soulanges have been asking for better train service.
They are fed up with traffic jams on autoroutes 20 and 40 and construction on the Turcot and Saint-Pierre interchanges. Yesterday, the Agence métropolitaine de transport announced that new trains would not be available until 2015.
The NDP proposed a pragmatic infrastructure and transportation plan, but this government voted against it.
What do the Conservatives plan to do to relieve traffic congestion in the Montreal area?
Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1 May 6th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the Conference Board of Canada came out with a report just recently, the 2013 Mid-Sized Cities Outlook. It looked particularly at the city of Brandon and said that since 2008 the economy of Brandon has shrunk by 1.6%. It is hardly a thing to brag about, if the economy of Brandon is hurting right now.
The report says that half of Canada's mid-size cities have not recouped the jobs they lost during the recession. These are places like Medicine Hat, Miramichi and Brandon. What is the government going to do to create real jobs and to make the economy grow? It obviously has not been doing it.
Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1 May 6th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, in February, I actually visited Westlock—St. Paul, the member's riding. I visited a power plant there in Dapp. It was a biomass plant. I asked the people there if the member had ever visited, and they told me, “No.” This is a plant that takes wood waste from Edmonton and turns it into electricity. The electricity that comes from this process is distributed to all the farmers around. It is a great community project that powers 600 houses with electricity from the grid.
When I got there, people asked me a few questions. The first one was, “When is there going to be a national energy strategy that includes renewables?” I would ask the same question to the member across.
The other thing is, I would point out that there is only $1 million for SDTC this year to promote projects, like things that are happening in Dapp with its biomass plant. Will the government commit to funding SDTC more at the front end rather than the back end in 2018?
Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1 May 6th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I am an avid reader of the World Economic Forum's competitiveness report that comes out every year. In this year's report it had Canada ranked at 82 for the category of “business costs of terrorism”. From what I have seen from the government, it seems to have misplaced or does not really know how it spent $3.1 billion in the realm of security defence. Does the member know where the money went?
How can her government be credible on the budget when it does not even know where the money goes? Where did the $3.1 billion go?
Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1 May 6th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his excellent speech.
Canadians are deeper in debt than they have ever been, and municipalities are having a hard time making necessary upgrades, whether they involve substandard private septic systems or the pyrrhotite used in building houses. These are serious problems, and Canadians are currently saddled with debt.
Does my colleague feel it would be appropriate to include in the budget initiatives aimed at regulating septic systems installation and addressing pyrrhotite problems? Could my colleague comment on that?