Kevin Sorenson

[Safer Witnesses Act, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the New Democratic Party for being part of this and working with the government. I have the privilege of chairing the committee, which is now studying the economics of policing. The committee is looking at a trip right now. The gentleman sitting behind the member, whose constituency I cannot recall, has done some good work on this.

The member's party had two concerns. The first concern was the money. Through the speech that the parliamentary secretary gave today, we know that everyone who appeared before the committee said finances are not an issue. The RCMP and a number of witnesses said that if ever there is a need, the government has always responded by providing the finances required.

The other question at the time was in regard to the number of applicants for this program. Canadians need to know that last year there was an acceptance into the witness protection plan of 38. There were 108 cases examined by the RCMP and 38 were accepted. At that time, the RCMP made it abundantly clear that if the 108 needed to go into the program, the finances would have been available. Maybe he could respond to his party's seemingly ongoing concern.

Before we get to that—

[Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, May 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the NDP has known about corruption in Quebec politics since 1994, yet he chose to keep it secret for 17 years.

Now we learn that he kept this information to himself because he did not think there was anything wrong with the mayor of Laval offering secret envelopes to “help” him. The leader of the NDP had first-hand knowledge of corruption in Quebec, but he did not think it was wrong. As parliamentarians, we must uphold a culture of accountability.

If the leader of the NDP is called to appear at the Charbonneau commission, will he testify, or will he continue to maintain that there was nothing wrong with covering up corruption for 17 long years?

[Committees of the House, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I really wish that the member would come to my riding of Crowfoot in Alberta. I would love to take him around the riding and show him the restaurants where signs say they cannot find waitresses or employees or people to fill the jobs. Come to some of the places where oil and gas companies are doing everything they can to keep and retain their employees. They tell us that the temporary foreign worker program is very important, as are many of the programs this government is bringing forward.

If the opposition members are serious about connecting Canadians with available jobs, I would encourage them to take a look at the measures in budget 2013. They are put there because, as we heard earlier, we realize the situation. We realize that 90% of the employers who apply for temporary foreign workers are from Alberta. They are from a place where they cannot find Canadians who are willing to work in those places.

What is the opposition's plan for dealing with skills and labour shortages? We know it has a $21 billion carbon tax it would like to put in to drive the economy down more, but what plan do you have for places like Alberta where we cannot—

[Committees of the House, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, certainly in the area I represent, in the province of Alberta, the biggest threat to our economy is a lack of labour, and skilled labour is in great shortage. I know many companies in the oil business and many other types of businesses that cannot find people. There are too many jobs that go unfilled in Canada because the right type of people cannot be found. However, part of our budget, part of this last economic action plan, is the Canada job grant and part of this program would allow business to pay a portion.

The member spoke about youth. Does he believe that part of recruitment will now be carried out by the business community?

Businesses will move into the high schools and explain why they want to hire youth and give incentives. In the past, governments and others tried to perhaps find unemployed persons and put them into positions. However, businesses will now recruit these young men and women, help them get skilled and train them if they work for them. That is the job grant. Perhaps the member would like to expand on that.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to see that the public service is being reduced in some way. As much as we can do will be done through attrition. That is, it will be done through retirements. Some of the student layoffs and some of those things that the member makes reference to, although I have not seen the report, very well could be in temporary types of jobs as the employees are between college and another initiative.

However, this budget would bring forward a Canadian job grant that would be remarkable for students. It would allow them to retain a skill where governments and businesses help with the funding. Students today are excited about this because the studies that they will be taking will prepare them for the market and for jobs. That is what they want above anything else.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see everyone rushing in to catch the tail end of this speech. I appreciate that.

I was just going back through my notes again. If I left the hon. member with the impression that I am saying that Europe and the social programs were the cause for this recession, that is not what I said. I said that it was the issues in Europe and certainly in the United States, the housing markets and the banking industry. In fact, I went on and spoke about the sound banking that we have in this country, and that goes back years to other governments as well that laid out certain regulations for our banking industry. I certainly do not want to leave the member with the impression that I in any way said that it was social programs in Europe. I did not say that in my speech.

However, I would like to speak on the other point that this member brought forward. The Auditor General was very clear. He went back 10 years on the books, looked and asked if this $3 billion was from this file or that file. The Auditor General was clear that there was no money missing. It was out of the terrorism file, and going back to the former Liberal government of 2001 when all of a sudden we were thrown into quick responses on the terrorism file. Some things maybe were taken out of other departments. However, the Auditor General said that no money is missing.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House again and to speak in support not only of the budget but also of Bill C-60, which is the budget implementation bill. It lays out the measures the Conservative government will bring forward in the economic action plan for 2013 and onward.

One of the reasons why I am pleased to stand and speak to the budget bill is the amount of work that we did in the riding of Crowfoot. Prior to the budget being given, we had meetings throughout the riding at Strathmore Town Hall and other town halls where constituents came together to say what they believed was important to have in the budget. I am going to talk a little more about how some of those ideas have been moved here and how our Minister of Finance and our government are implementing some of those ideas that come from back home and from many different constituencies across this country.

I believe, first of all, that this is a very positive blueprint, a very positive strategy as to how we believe the Canadian economy must be advanced and built. We would be strengthening the economy in a number of ways through this budget implementation bill.

First of all, we would be helping manufacturers to buy new equipment through tax relief. We would be helping small business create more jobs with the hiring credit. We would be helping our municipalities rebuild roads and bridges with record new support in infrastructure, and there is much more.

This budget builds on the work our Conservative government has been doing since forming government in 2006. We are working to create an economy that will build jobs. It is not that our government is going to create jobs; we are going to create an environment in which small and medium-sized businesses can create jobs and make certain that those families that now have jobs will be able to keep more of their money in their pockets.

Canada has been quite successful. We have over 900,000 net new jobs since the depths of this recession took place. More than 90% of those 900,000 jobs that have been created are full-time jobs, contrary to what many of the opposition members say when they say that these are the wrong kinds of jobs, part-time jobs, just not the right kinds of jobs. Some 80% of the jobs are in the private sector. This is not job creation through continuing to expand the size of government. The majority, 80%, are in the private sector.

Canada has a very good record as far as job creation goes. In fact, we have the best record of the seven most industrialized countries in the world, the G7. The International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development project that Canada's growth will be among the strongest in the G7 for a number of years going forward.

For the fifth straight year, the World Economic Forum has ranked Canada's banking system as the soundest in the world. Canada has the lowest overall tax rate on new business investment in the G7. Canada is one of the few countries that still has the Triple-A credit rating. Our combined national debt to gross domestic product ratio remains the lowest in the G7 by far. Why? It is because there is a plan and a strategy. The strategy in the past five years has been working, and the strategy moving forward is building on that and will continue to work, although the opposition feels somewhat concerned because the statistics that are coming out are exactly what Canadians, including my constituents, want to hear.

The opposition members call for more spending—spend, spend, spend—and they have the tax increases to pay for their spending. I am not going to talk much about the $20-billion or $21-billion carbon tax they are discussing, but they have an idea on how government can be expanded, how government can get bigger, and they would love to see that happen.

One of the reasons I am pleased with this budget is that government expansion is not going to happen under this watch. Opposition members would expand government and add to the national debt. What happens to countries that take that route? What happens to countries that choose to go down that road?

Canadians do not have to just sit back and surmise what may happen. We can take a look at what did happen in Europe. Governments burdened their citizens with unmanageable annual budgetary deficits, massive accumulated debt, huge and paralyzing government bureaucracies. What about unemployment in some of those countries? Unemployment in the eurozone tops 12%. In some of the countries, it is much higher than 12%.

Our Conservative government understands that Canadians want us to continue to emphasize the importance of maintaining Canada's strong fiscal position, especially during current difficult global economic times. To be quite frank, that is one of the major reasons we were elected. One of the reasons we were elected to a majority government is they understood this Prime Minister is the Prime Minister Canadians want to see, especially at a time when the global economy is in turmoil. Canadians want that type of leadership. Canadians know that our Prime Minister and Minister of Finance have built a stellar reputation for Canada in the international marketplace. Canadians want a stable government, one that is capable of making decisions, sometimes swiftly, and implementing them.

For many years I have heard from my constituents in all corners of the riding of Crowfoot that I represent about the importance of balancing our books. My constituents want our federal government to operate without having to borrow money to pay for a deficit every year. My constituents are farmers, ranchers and small business operators. The gas and oil sector is major in my riding of Crowfoot, but we also have a tourism industry in Drumheller and the Canadian badlands that is somewhat seasonal.

All of the families in my riding, from smaller towns, villages and cities, are all very careful in how they operate, and they want to balance their budgets around their kitchen table. That is the type of discussion they have. How are we going to be able to pass this farm on to the next generation? How can we operate within a balanced budget?

Our government is on track to balance the budget. One of the things that made me very pleased in the last budget speech was when our Minister of Finance rose and said, “...before I proceed, I need to make one thing very clear. It is simply this. Our government is committed to balancing the budget in 2015.” When he stood and said that, a burden was lifted off my shoulders, because that was the message that my constituents wanted to hear.

On page 12 of the budget there is a chart that says in 2012-13 there is a projected deficit of just over $25 billion; in 2013-14 we will have a deficit of $18.7 billion; in 2014-15 we will have a deficit of over $6 billion; and by 2015 we will be at a surplus of almost $1 billion. In the two years after the budgetary surplus, it is projected to grow by $4 billion and then $5 billion.

How are we projecting? We see the official opposition coming forward with these budgets with nothing costed, nothing planned out and nothing on paper. We have a very concise strategy that has worked in the past, is working now and will continue to work in the future.

From 2006-08, our government paid down approximately $37 billion in debt. When the global recession hit, we made a deliberate decision to run temporary deficits to protect the Canadian economy, and that plan worked.

We have helped create over 900,000 net new jobs, and we are on track to come back to balanced budgets. At the same time, we are doing things. The deficit reduction action plan is recognizing that we want to quickly come to balanced budgets.

We have an ongoing effort to control government spending. We work continuously to eliminate wasteful and inefficient spending. In total, our government implemented measures that will reduce the deficit by over $15 billion per year in 2014, 2015 and beyond.

Economic action plan 2013 announced saving measures that will total $2 billion by 2015-16, such as examining departmental spending to make sure we are operating efficiently, reducing travel costs, modernizing the production and distribution of government publications, and standardizing government information technology to reduce costs. We are closing tax loopholes. We are improving compliance programs to reduce tax evasion.

These are some of the things that this book of 300-plus pages lays out for Canadians to hear and see. Again, it is a pleasure to speak to this budget, and we look forward to all support on this budget.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague across the way for his speech. Although we know that he does not support the government's budget, which is no surprise since he is part of the Bloc Québécois, there are measures in the budget that are good.

I would like to ask him about one of the points in the budget and how important it is to his municipality. Every time I go to the gas station and fill up my car or my truck, there is about a 10-cent excise tax. That 10 cents that the governments collect gets transferred back through the provinces to the municipalities.

The fuel tax rebate is a major thing for our municipalities, as we heard from the member for Huron—Bruce. It has tripled over the last number of years. Municipalities now know that they are going to be receiving that much.

What it also does is allow the municipalities to borrow, knowing that the money is coming. The budget would also implement a measure that would not only guarantee that it is going to happen but that it would be indexed, so that as inflation goes, municipalities know that the indexed amount will be there to help.

Could the member tell me how important that is to the municipalities in his constituency?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague across the way. She serves on the committee that I chair, where she is a new addition, and we appreciate her being there, although I am troubled by some of the comments she gave in her speech. She used words like “appalling” when she talked about the strategic plan this government has. She used some pretty tough language.

Canada has the best job creation in the G7. The International Monetary Fund and the OECD are projecting that Canada will have the strongest growth of all the industrialized countries over the next number of years. For the eighth straight year, the World Economic Forum has said that Canada's banking system is the most sound and on the firmest foundation around the world. We see many countries where financial institutions in the banking sector are faltering, and it is driving the whole economy into a turmoil with uncertainty.

Canada has a Triple-A rating. Why do you use words such as “appalling” and “no strategy”? This shows that the strategy we have is working.

[Petitions, April 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions this afternoon, signed by over 400 Canadians, calling for a moratorium on the release of genetically modified alfalfa. They want to ensure a proper review of the impact on farmers in Canada. They showed me the courtesy of visiting me at my constituency office in Camrose to personally deliver this petition. I appreciate very much meeting with them and the discussion we had that day.