Massimo Pacetti

[Libya, June 14th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party will be voting in favour of the motion.

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska. I think I got the name of his riding right this time. I want to congratulate him on his re-election.

We can easily give a number of examples, which we talked about during the election campaign. They could cut the costs associated with the prisons, the fighter jets and the corporate tax cuts. That is an easy answer.

If the members opposite were willing, everyone could agree that we should be giving more money to seniors.

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I too want to congratulate the member for York West.

I want to make a comment again about jurisdiction. In the Liberal Party platform in the last election we proposed putting money into social housing. It would have supplemented provincial moneys that were to be put in, but the decisions would have been made at the local level.

Every member in the House has people in their riding who need social housing. In a riding that is well-to-do, where people live well, there are still people who are struggling and have a hard time making ends meet. What the Liberal Party had proposed was the perfect answer, or part of the solution to respond to some of the requests that were made across this country for social housing.

It is not just people in my riding or in the riding of York West who need money, but members across the way also need money in their ridings for social housing. The Liberal Party had the right answer.

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, before I answer the question, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Nickel Belt on his election as well.

It is very simple: the increase is about $50 a month. The Conservatives, who are very good when it comes to communications, are spinning this by saying that it is $600 a year, and thus $6,000 over 10 years or $12,000 over 20 years. However, the increase should have been at least $100 a month. Instead of $300 million, they could easily invest $600 million or $800 million and cut Conservative spending on advertising and public opinion polls.

[The Budget, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Random—Burin—St. George's.

I am pleased to be rising in the House today to speak to the 2011 budget, which was tabled this week. I would first like to thank the constituents in the beautiful riding of Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel for giving me the opportunity to represent them for the fifth time in nine years. I should add that these wins would not have been possible without the help of my family and friends. As well, I would like to congratulate all of the hon. members here in the House on their victory, especially the newly elected members, who will enjoy the experience of a lifetime.

In addition, I would like to thank all of the candidates who ran as Liberals but, unfortunately, were not elected. We appreciate their hard work, their dedication and their loyalty to the party, and we wish them better luck next time.

Some things never change, and the Conservative government's budgets are one example. They are always more of the same old, same old. There is no vision or plan for the future. My leader, the leader of the Liberal Party, hit the nail on the head yesterday when he said that the budget shows profound complacency. There is no plan for job creation, for tackling the deficit or for poverty reduction. Essentially, this budget has nothing to help ordinary Canadians who are counting on the government. Yet, the budget did not leave out the friends of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance or the Conservative Party.

A plan for a country such as Canada would require that the federal government put in place measures in order to encourage Canadian industries to make investments in green technologies, research, innovation, education and the corresponding infrastructures that would help with the promotion of this plan.

Money should not be spent frivolously like we have seen in the past few years, where most of the stimulus money was spent on advertising, bill boards, polling and photo ops. Essentially, these sums should be invested, not spent, in strategically vital areas that would contribute to both the long-term and the short-term vitality of the Canadian economy.

Canada needs an entrepreneurial vision that promotes prosperity and equal opportunity for all Canadians. Instead, the budget revealed a lack of long-term vision and failed to present any new ideas.

Even groups representing accountants said that they would like to see more general reductions rather than targeted tax breaks, which only make Canada's fiscal and economic regime more complex and inefficient. I would even go so far as to say that, if Canada wants to establish a financial framework that promotes recovery and sustainable economic growth, the Canadian tax system definitely needs to be simpler, more competitive and more efficient.

The government must develop a credible plan to promote job creation. Granting a temporary hiring credit for small business to encourage the recruitment of new employees would be a good start. However, the regions and economic sectors that are still struggling need more than the $1,000 allocated in this budget.

This budget merely serves to confirm the Conservatives' preference for an inflexible right-wing ideology over sound, evidence-based policies, a preference that is particularly visible in the government's approach to crime, justice, the environment, the economic recovery and deficit reduction.

For example, this government wants us to believe that it is managing the public purse carefully. On the contrary, since 2006, it took the Conservative government only one year to spend the largest surplus ever accumulated in the history of Canada. It also created an enormous deficit on top of having the dubious distinction of the being the biggest spending government, year after year, in the history of Canada.

History repeats itself. Proof of this lies in the fact that the first thing the Prime Minister did as leader of a majority government was to increase the number of ministers. Let us not forget that, during his last mandate, he increased the spending budgets of ministers' offices; the Privy Council Office's budget has increased by almost $50 million in five years; and the Prime Minister's Office's budget increased by about 22%. This government dramatically increased advertising and public opinion research spending, which does not provide any tangible benefit to the Canadian economy but, rather, serves only to help the Conservatives get re-elected.

The Conservatives would like us to believe that they will balance the budget by 2015 but, to date, this government has got all its budget forecasts wrong. In fact, last week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said it is unlikely that the budget will be balanced before 2017 at the earliest.

The Conservatives should never have disbanded the expenditure review committee of cabinet established by the Liberals. However, I am very pleased to note that, from time to time, they borrow the Liberals' good ideas and have announced that the committee will be restored to deal with this issue. However, no committee can replace an action plan.

This budget proposes other ideological cuts. The government is spending less money on subsidized housing than it did before the economic action plan was implemented.

There are total cuts of $300 million, with a 45% decrease in funding for first nations housing. This really is not very surprising given that their recent election platform relied on cuts that the Minister of Finance himself could not explain. Today we see the results.

In their budget, the Conservatives are deliberately excluding low-income Canadians from certain measures, such as the caregiver tax credit and the volunteer firefighters tax credit. They are excluded by the fact that these tax credits are non-refundable and only help Canadians who have earned enough money during the year to pay taxes. I repeat, they are minimal, non-refundable tax credits that are not even available to low-income Canadians.

Furthermore, Canadian taxpayers with income of $20,000 or less, or who have a dependent—in other words, those who are most in need—are not eligible for the caregiver tax credit.

The guaranteed income supplement will be increased by approximately $50 per month for seniors. That does not even buy one cup of coffee per day. Canada will face many challenges in coming years. Canadians deserve to know what budget cuts will be made to reduce the deficit.

One of the cuts will affect the per-vote subsidies. We should not forget that the current regulations governing funding for political parties were established in order to limit the influence of big money in politics and to create a level playing field for all parties, especially small ones. We should also not forget that the Liberals are open to reforming funding for political parties, on condition that these principles are respected. No matter what changes are made, we are certain the Liberal Party will adapt and prosper. We will propose a positive, long-term vision to Canadians and will give our supporters a reason to make donations.

[Champlain Bridge, June 8th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the Champlain Bridge problem deserves to be taken seriously. The bridge is regularly partially closed and as a result Quebeckers spend more time on the road, arrive late for work and lose precious time with their families. It is a veritable nightmare. This situation is wasting Quebeckers' time and money. In the Conservative budget, replacing the Champlain Bridge was totally ignored.

Will this government stand up for Quebeckers once and for all? Can the minister immediately commit to providing the necessary funding for replacing the Champlain Bridge?

[The Economy, March 22nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as the finance minister tables his budget today I would like to remind the opposition parties and all Canadians of how history has proven over and over again that one cannot trust anything he says.

Since the time when he was the Ontario finance minister for the Harris government, he has done nothing but make false statements about how he left the province deficit free. However, when the Liberal government took power, it discovered an exorbitant deficit of $5.6 billion.

In 2007 he said there would be no recession. A few months later, Canada was hit with one of the worst economic downturns in history.

He said there would be no deficit. But then he plunged Canada into a deficit even before the recession began. All this led us to a historic $100 billion deficit.

He talks about austerity in spending, meanwhile his wastefulness and poor fiscal management has driven up government spending by 18%.

He therefore made his government the biggest spending government in history.

Why would anyone believe a word the finance minister says?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, March 21st, 2011]

With regard to the Italian-Canadian Advisory Committee of the Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP): (a) how often has the committee convened itself to discuss applications and on what specific dates; (b) what internal procedures has the committee put in place to vet applications; (c) has the committee kept records of their deliberations and, if so, what are the contents of these records; (d) how much money has the government allocated to the committee to fulfill its mandate; and (e) what is the total cost to date that the committee has incurred in order to fulfil its mandate, including (i) the item-by-item breakdown of these costs, (ii) the expenses that were reimbursed by the government, (iii) the expenses that were rejected by the government and the reasons for rejecting them?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, March 21st, 2011]

With regard to the Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP): (a) how much money was spent informing the Canadian public about the application criteria for the portion of the program that pertains to the Italian-Canadian cultural community and how were these monies spent; and (b) were any monies spent advertising the portion of the CHRP pertaining to the Italian-Canadian cultural community through private organizations and, if so, (i) which private organizations (i.e., newspaper, radio station, community group, etc.) were contracted by the government for this end, (ii) how much money was spent by the government to advertise with each private organization?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, March 21st, 2011]

With regard to projects pertaining to the Italian-Canadian cultural community and the Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP): (a) how many applications for CHRP grants and contributions related to such projects have been (i) received, (ii) accepted, (iii) rejected; (b) for each application that was approved, (i) what was the name of the applicant organization, (ii) how much money was given to the organization, (iii) what was the nature of the approved program or event; and (c) for each application that was rejected, (i) what was the name of the applicant organization, (ii) how much money did the organization request in its application, (iii) what was the nature of the rejected program or event, (iv) what was the reason for the rejection, (v) how was the rejection communicated to the group in question?