Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to rise again in the House in this Parliament.
I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Dufferin—Caledon.
I want to commend you, Madam Speaker, on your appointment as Deputy Speaker. It seems all members have been standing in the House thanking everyone back home who has helped get them here and I would like to do the same.
I would first like to thank God for this remarkable opportunity to serve the people of Crowfoot. I want to thank my constituents and constituency for supporting me in the last election.
We all have supporters who help get each one of us elected. I would like to thank my wife Darlene for her unwavering support and love, and the help she gave me in the work that I do constantly. A supportive spouse in a place like this is absolutely imperative and I am very blessed to have the one I have.
I also want to thank my two children, Kristen and Ryan. This is about the only time I can do it. Both of them during the campaign helped out by their support and being there. Today is my daughter Kristen's 19th birthday and far too often members of Parliament are working here in Ottawa as our loved ones back home are celebrating some of the significant events in their lives. Dad wishes he was home today with her, but we will be celebrating on the weekend. I thank Ryan for his help around the farm and the ranch when I am not around.
I had a campaign manager who has campaigned with me for the last four elections, Steven Snider. I thank him for his expertise, as well as my official agent, Neil Thorogood. We all have those who have hung around for all of these elections over the years. My riding is quite extensive geographically and I have campaign offices set up throughout it, with many people staffing the offices in Camrose, Three Hills, Strathmore and others.
Throughout the years in opposition, Conservatives diligently worked toward the day where, as a political party, we could bring forward effective change through budgets and throne speeches or addressed during budget time. We wanted to see taxes lowered. We wanted to see a reduction in taxes.
We wanted a country, a government and a nation being able to pay down the debt load that every Canadian is faced with. We wanted to be able to spend federal funds effectively and efficiently. We wanted to stand up to those who would abuse our criminal justice system and to tell criminals there are going to be tougher sentences while supporting those who have been victims of crime. We wanted to be able to implement many other policies, including the Senate, over the five elections that I have been involved in and campaigned on.
Today, we have the opportunity to address this budget implementation bill, to discuss some of the issues, to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that hopefully we will be able to achieve some of what we have promised. I am proud to report to all the people I have mentioned, the campaigners and voters who supported me, that we will keep our promises and live up to our word.
The budget we are working on today is almost exactly what we introduced before the election. During the election campaign, we said we would bring back the same budget or many of the measures that were in it, and we kept our word. The budget includes some of what we campaigned on and the budget implementation bill that we are debating today keeps the promises we made.
In my riding of Crowfoot and the surrounding ridings in the province of Alberta, we are certain about a number of things. We are certain, first, about our political views. We know what works well in the province of Alberta, in our homes and communities, and we continue to push for the things that we value.
For the first time in my political career, the electors in my riding are enjoying a majority government. The Crowfoot riding has always been one of those ridings that has been fiscally conservative, most of it very socially conservative in that it is compassionate about those who need help.
In the 41st Parliament, the MPs from across Canada who share our views have been elected, elected to form, not just government as we have for the last five and a half years but government in a majority sense. We have waited a long time.
Today we are debating the budget implementation bill. The budgetary process is complex. Canadians have already heard the news that the next phase of Canada's economic action plan has been approved. It was approved last night by the House of Commons.
It is technically correct, the budget passed, but what the House passed is merely a general motion that approved our Conservative government's budgetary policy. What we debate today is needed in order to implement the provisions that we passed last night. This is standard procedure.
The budget implementation bill will be sent to committee now for hearings and then returned to this chamber for report stage and third reading, and then it will repeat this process as it goes to the Senate. Once the budget implementation bill is passed, we can move forward on the measures in the budget that will help hard-working Canadians and their families.
The measures in the bill focus on the Canadian economy. It contains measures that support hard-working Canadians and their families, and it will aid in the economic recovery.
We said it during the election campaign and we say it again, “We will keep taxes low”. We are targeting investments to support jobs, to support the creation of new jobs, and to also hold and keep the jobs we have already. We want to see growth. We are improving the quality of life for our seniors, our families and our children.
We said in the budget and in the budget implementation bill that we will control government spending and stay on track to eliminate the annual federal budgetary deficit with a plan to do it by 2014-15.
At a time when budgets are tight, our government believes that taxpayers should not be overburdened with an annual $27 million subsidy for political parties. We are freeing taxpayers from that yoke that was around their neck with this bill. We believe that engagement by individual Canadians is what empowers political parties.
I noted one day that the NDP member for Hamilton Centre spoke on this issue. We have a difference of opinion. We talked about democracy that day and the importance of democracy. The view, and I believe his is well-intentioned, is that taxpayers should fund this democracy in a way that we believe is not right. We believe that political parties are not entitled to taxpayers' dollars, but that we should raise those funds from within our own ranks and from our supporters.
As Canadians support a political party, I will approach my supporters, my volunteers, and those who vote for me and I will ask them to contribute to the effort. I will not simply say to the 45,000 who voted Conservative in my riding, “Don't worry about it. There will be $90,000 a year coming in to the political party”. No, we will ask for their support. It is not the entitlement any more. We should not be automatically going to the treasury of our country and asking for that type of funding.
Taxpayers, at least what they told me in the riding of Crowfoot, believe there are better things the government should be spending their money on. In fact, the default position of the voters I represent is, “Please, stop taxing me to death. Reduce my taxes. Stop spending my tax dollars on everything possible and instead, only spend taxpayers dollars on necessary and desirable programs and services”. Those were some of the quotes that I heard in the last election. One of the best ones was when an older gentleman from Hanna came to me and said, “Tell Ottawa to spend less so we can keep more”.
This budget does a lot for seniors and for Canadians. We look forward to being able to implement this, hopefully sooner rather than later. Hopefully we can do this in a short number of days.
