Jeff Watson

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, since this is about the budget I have a very simple question, but I will give a quick preamble.

It has been two and a half years since the government came to Windsor and announced $150 million for the border infrastructure fund to make improvements to the corridor and there is still no pavement between Windsor and Detroit. The third crossing will cost some $300 million to $400 million, and at least hundreds of millions of dollars more for pavement to link highways to the third crossing, yet there is only $50 million left in this budget.

Why are there no additional dollars in Bill C-43 to solve the problem at the Windsor-Detroit border? Does the government not care about the people of Essex and Windsor?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I am glad the hon. member prefaced his speech with pride for budget surpluses. I have a preface and then a quick question.

When he was the Liberal finance minister, this Liberal Prime Minister cut $25 billion from health care. He closed offshore tax havens except for the Barbados, where he registered his ships to pay 2% tax in Canada. At the same time and in fact in the same piece of legislation, he imposed a cruel 70% tax hike on Canadian seniors collecting U.S. social security for their retirement, forcing thousands from their homes.

The question is breathtakingly simple. Is this a humane way to create budget surpluses: on the backs of senior citizens?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2005, May 18th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I want to talk about choices and child care. Home schooling is very popular back home in my riding of Essex, as it is in Ottawa.

Home schooling parents in Canada will be paying high taxes to build what will eventually be a $10 billion per year Liberal child care and early learning system. What benefit will they get from this system?

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments, May 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP budget, Bill C-48, proposes $4.6 billion in spending left out of the Liberal budget, Bill C-43.

The member for Davenport earlier said that this was money for Liberal priorities. If these are priorities, why have they been left out of the Liberal budget? Did the finance minister not get his priorities right the first time and needed a napkin passed to him to remind him of what Liberal priorities were?

We know the NDP priorities are fiscal ruin and a return to deficits. Could the member for Medicine Hat tell us what real Liberal priorities are?

[Sponsorship Program, May 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the real fact is that Liberal admissions of Liberal Party corruption continue. Senior Liberal organizer Marc-Yvan Côté confessed his part in a Liberal Party network that laundered sponsorship tax dollars: a suitcase and envelopes with $120,000 in ad scam cash funnelled to 18 Liberal candidates.

With so many senior Liberals working together passing around taxpayer dollars to Liberal candidates in the Prime Minister's backyard, how can Canadians believe the Prime Minister knew nothing about that Liberal corruption?

[Sponsorship Program, May 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, sworn confessions show that senior Liberal Party officials were major ad scam players. Top Liberal organizer Marc-Yvan Côté admitted he received three separate wads of sponsorship cash totalling $120,000, which he doled out in envelopes as illegal cash donations to 18 Liberal candidates in the 1997 election.

This is more sworn evidence from another top Liberal organizer that tax dollars were used by Liberals to benefit the Liberal Party. How can Canadians believe that the Prime Minister knew nothing about this Liberal criminality and corruption?

[Government of Canada, May 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the people of Essex understand that we need an election. We need an election to get rid of a corrupt and scandal ridden Liberal government for a clean Conservative government.

We need an election because the Liberal government is emptying the treasury, $22 billion in spending announcements since the Prime Minister appeared on TV begging for his political life. We cannot afford a 10 month pre-election campaign.

We need an election because the Liberal budget was bad and the new NDP budget is even worse. There is no auto policy and high taxes on auto makers, no aid for Essex farmers, no new money to fix our border congestion, and no rollback of the brutal 70% Liberal tax hike on Canadian seniors collecting U.S. social security.

We need an election because the Liberal government has lost the confidence of this House. The Liberals have lost the moral, financial and constitutional authority to govern. We need an election now.

[Federal-Provincial Relations, May 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, if one listens closely, one can hear the gears of the Liberal election machine being oiled with treasury dollars.

The Prime Minister sent his revenue minister to warn Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty that his talk of a better deal for Ontario was a threat to federalism. Nine hours behind closed doors on the weekend changed the Prime Minister's mind. By signing onto McGuinty's program the Prime Minister has, in the words of his own minister, “put the essence of Canada at risk”.

Could the revenue minister tell us, does he still think the Prime Minister is a threat to federalism?

[Federal-Provincial Relations, May 9th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Prime Minister sent his revenue minister to attack Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty for asking that Ontario get a better deal from Ottawa. This weekend behind closed doors the Prime Minister, doing his best Monty Hall to stay in power, made a deal that cut his revenue minister off at the knees.

I ask the Prime Minister who just had this miraculous deathbed conversion to the $23 billion gap, which Liberal was right, his revenue minister or Ontario's premier?

[Sponsorship Program, May 6th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to read the following:

As Gomery testimony grows ever more sinister,More fingers point at the current Prime Minister.

Frantic and panicked, at an election he's balking,To calm himself down let the fingers do the walking.If the Prime Minister wants to rest and feel fine,He can reach out and call the corruption help line.Press one, Alain Renaud, under oath he did say,This Prime Minister talked contracts with Claude Boulay.Press two, Jean Brault, who was given no choices,To give to Liberal campaigns and bill false invoices.That, he was told, was the price he must pay,For Liberal commissions and contracts directed his way.Press three, Castelli, the PM's aide and friend,Who ensured Serge Savard got adscam bucks in the end.Press four for Kinsella, a tale of contracts peddled,To Earnscliffe only because this Prime Minister meddled.Press five for Gagliano, or six for Guité,Or if the Prime Minister really wants adscam to go away,Press seven and Canada's cavalry will save the day.A Conservative government will make every Liberal adscammer pay.