Jim Flaherty

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Chair, absolutely not, of course. We have reduced the cost of fuel by 2% in terms of the GST reduction, which is a reduction for all Canadians.

We know what the auto industry in Canada is keen on, and I think it makes some sense, quite frankly, and that is to get the older vehicles off the road. We have that program. As we know, they are the most polluting vehicles out there.

There is that program to get those vehicles off the road and then there is the auto innovation fund of $250 million. That is saying to industry that we want to work with it on that--

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Chair, I know that the Liberals only had 13 years to get things done. I know that they think it was not long enough and if they had had one more majority government they would have got all those things done that they talked about.

It is this government that has made the gas tax permanent. It is this government that now provides municipalities with about $2 billion per annum each and every year. Now the municipalities know that they have the guarantee of the $2 billion per year every year going on in perpetuity. It gives them what they wanted, which is the ability to go out and engage in public-private partnerships and lever that money going forward. This is a tremendous cashflow for the municipalities because of the Conservative government in Ottawa.

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Of course, he has cities, but not in Malpeque.

With respect to municipalities, that is being done. In budget 2008 that was made permanent. I can tell you, Mr. Chair, it was the most important issue that was raised with me by municipal leaders which was--

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for Malpeque for his advice with respect to agricultural matters, but we are talking about cities now and the gas tax fund.

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Chair, the Canada first defence strategy is in budget 2008, in fact in every budget that we have presented, three budgets so far. We have dealt with properly equipping the Canadian military so that it can take on its role--

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Again, Mr. Chair, these are internal matters within cabinet and cabinet committees, and I am not going to breach my oath and get into that kind of thing. As we just said, this comes into effect in 2010, so there is certainly time to get that in order. The big story here though is what has happened. We have a government that is actually rebuilding the Canadian Armed Forces after many, many years of Liberal neglect

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Chair, I cannot answer the direct question, of course, because I honour my oath about cabinet confidentiality. We do not talk about what goes on in cabinet. The increase in the spending in the military, as the member knows, is going to be 2% over the next 20 years, starting in 2010.

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Chair, I will make two points in response to the hon. member's question. First of all, the transfers to the provinces and territories have gone up very substantially as a result of achieving fiscal balance in Canada. He is talking about a particular program and some millions of dollars. This is of course billions of dollars in increases in transfers to the provinces and territories of Canada.

The other thing I might mention to him, and I recently gave a speech on this subject in Washington, is the investment by Canada in financial literacy which was in the last budget and is an important form of literacy, particularly as we go through more difficult economic times, as we see people looking at more options with respect to mortgage financing and so on.

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Chair, I do not recall making an announcement with respect to cuts in September 2006. I think there were some spending reallocations and reductions that were announced by the President of the Treasury Board at that time.

[Business of Supply, May 28th, 2008]

Mr. Chair, I see the members opposite are becoming animated which is a good thing. They are probably animated by the score at the end of the second period which is 2:1 Pittsburgh. I bet a lot of people in Peterborough in the riding of the hon. member for Peterborough are trying to watch that hockey game on television and want to have the ability to have electricity in their homes at a reasonable cost, and want to be able to put gasoline in their cars at a reasonable cost. All of that will be made terribly more difficult by the Liberal carbon tax.