Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand today and discuss the budget put forward by the government. It would be remiss of me not to point out the fact that there has been a stunning rejection of this budget by everyone who has been watching the financial situation of Canada, indeed by my constituents in Milton, Ontario.
We can look at the issues from a higher level, and oftentimes in the House of Commons, that is exactly what we do. We think about the bigger picture, about the financial health of Canada and the security of Canada. If we argue on that basis alone, this budget is failing incredibly, just like the government has been such a failure for Canadians, middle class or otherwise.
If we take a look at what the government's record has been and where we are going in the future, what we see is that there is no plan to balance the budget for 25 years. We see, as well, that there have been material hikes in personal income taxes in the past two years. We have seen the introduction of a national carbon tax, an aggressive attack on small business, and associated risks around NAFTA. These are the things being spoken about in places like the Financial Post. Mr. Martin Pelletier had a very good article this morning about the fact that while the government may beat its chest and say that we have a great economy and are doing well, the reality is that there are storm clouds on the horizon. The government's approach has been to do nothing but spend more. It is not saving or putting money aside, as the Province of Quebec has done. It is spending more.
In the high-level picture, why it is important to ensure that we balance the budget? I give members the example of Ontario versus Quebec. For the past number of years, the Province of Quebec has shown fiscal restraint, and what do we have today? It is able to lower income taxes and pay down its debt for the first time since the 1950s at such an extensive level. What do we have in Ontario? We have a government that has announced that it is going to continue to spend us into oblivion, tacking even more billions in debt and deficit onto my kids, who live in Milton, Ontario, and onto the kids who live all around Milton, Ontario.
This can all be boiled down to a fundamental difference between the government and what we believe on this side. The government believes that it should be the be all and end all of everything in this country. It believes that it is there to actually create public sector jobs to employ the entire country. What it does not get is that true economic growth and true job growth come from allowing and unleashing the private sector to create these jobs. That is what works in this country. It is a proven fact, from the time we were in government, that getting these jobs going is what makes our local economies and our country in general more prosperous.
What do I see in this budget? Well, I see the promise made to constituents, my constituents and those across the country, that we are going to do targeted infrastructure spending to spur the economy. That makes sense. We like infrastructure spending for the reason that it creates private jobs that will continue to spin off into the economy. They are not jobs created in Ottawa. They are jobs created in Milton, Ontario. What has Milton, Ontario, seen of this infrastructure money? Not an awful lot. What I see in this budget is the fact that the Liberals are pushing off into the future $4.2 billion in infrastructure spending and are still showing deficits in the billions of dollars this year. Automatically, my mind goes to what they are spending it on. What are they possibly doing?
Milton, Ontario, my home, is a growing community. The majority are small-town families. Actually, the biggest proportion of the growing population was under age 10 at one point in time, and we can see that from the schools that are newly being built, and of course, the portables that go with them to house how many children there are in Milton right now. Parents tend to work outside of the riding of Milton. They tend to work in Mississauga and other places all around. There are some stay-at-home moms. There are some moms who go to work. There are some stay-at-home dads, and there are some dads who go out of the house to work as well. It is a wonderful mix.
As I put myself in their shoes and I talk to them about what is in this budget for them, I actually do not see a lot in there. What are they getting for their higher taxes? What are they getting for these bloated deficits that their children, who they are placing all their hopes on, are going to receive?
There is an interesting article in the newspaper today talking about the issue with respect to employment in the country. There are over 400,000 jobs that need to be filled. We hear about a labour shortage, a crisis, but we also have people who are searching for jobs. There is a mismatch in skills. There is nothing in the budget that addresses the issue of people going into jobs and employers who do not know what skills they need, and there is no communication. When we were government, we recognized that, understood that. We put resources into making sure that at least parents knew what skills were going to be needed for the future. Employers knew what they were going to need from people and knew to interpret the experience they needed to help them in their companies.
In the few minutes I have, I want to talk about one major funding announcement that was not in the budget this year. It came very recently from the government, and it has to do with the deployment of our national forces to Mali for a peacekeeping mission. It is well known that the UN asked the Prime Minister and the government two years ago to take part in the Mali mission. In November, the Prime Minister was pressed when he had a conference in Vancouver to talk about peacekeeping. He was pressed about when he would be announcing the peacekeeping initiative. He said at the time that he had to take it seriously and had to think about it, and the decision would come. He recognized that he would be putting soldiers and sailors “in harm's way”.
Knowing this decision was being made, knowing that the Liberals were in the process of it, I find it odd that they did two things. They cut the money in the financial update in the fall that would be going to the military. They cut the amount of money they would have for military equipment.
Indeed, when I look at the budget, I always go to the table of contents, because that is where we usually get the top line of who is getting what in the budget this year. Eagerly, I took a look at part 3, “Upholding Shared Values”, and there was nothing in there for national defence. I scanned part 4, which is “Security and Access to Justice”, and there was nothing in there for national defence. This made me upset and angry and very concerned, and for this reason. Yesterday in the House of Commons, I asked the Prime Minister a question, knowing that oftentimes we are given advice about the risk associated with personnel deploying to dangerous war areas. This is a dangerous war area. There has been 162 peacekeepers lost since 2013. Last year, there were 220 incidents of attack against the blue helmets, which was more than happened in 2015 and 2016 combined. It is not getting better. It is getting far, far worse, and the targets are the men and women in blue helmets.
The targets will be our Canadian Forces. That is recognized by the government, and it is recognized by the opposition. More importantly, when I asked the Prime Minister yesterday, he gave assurances to the House that he would have mitigation in the form that the forces would have all the equipment and all the support they need.
However, where is it? It is not in the budget. It is not in the Liberals' budget within National Defence, because they have not been given that money; they have had money taken away. There is a big problem when we decide to send our men and women overseas without the appropriate equipment and supports. The way in which the Liberals announced it yesterday, with the minister saying one thing and the chief of the defence staff contradicting and saying another, I have great fears for this mission that they will be undertaking. We know this is a very dangerous place. It is a place that is dissolving in terms of democracy, and it has been for a very long time.
There have been two coups in Mali. There is insurgency, not just in the north but in the central part of Mali as well. We have a situation where blue helmets are being targeted, and yet we are “happily”, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, accepting the UN invitation. I would hope that the Prime Minister has a lot more to say, as opposed to happily sending our men and women into a very dangerous place without having the appropriate equipment. I cannot understand why he thinks that the most important decision a prime minister ever takes about sending our men and women into harm's way is a request from the UN that he happily gave.
On a last point, I have done much reading about the importance of women in peacekeeping, and I fundamentally believe in it. However, I believe in it where there is communication in communities and where there is intelligence gathering. In this case, 80% of the forces are being used to protect the other forces.
My fear is that the Prime Minister has negotiated perks with United Nations with respect to his desire for the security seat. As a result, he has decided to send our men and women into the most dangerous mission in the world without support, without money, without resources, and without equipment. We will hold him to account.
