Mike Wallace

[Business of Supply, March 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of sitting in the industry committee with the hon. member. We cannot be number one in everything, but we are working on it. That is why we have a strategy. That is why we are spending more money. We are spending $5.1 billion on new investments in budget 2009.

We have an action plan to make a difference. We have an action plan for Canada to bring us higher up as a competitor against other OECD countries. We are number two behind Sweden in terms of GDP. We have some room to grow, and we are growing. That is why we are committed to this strategy for science and technology. That is why we are spending this money. I believe that is why the Liberal Party is supporting the budget.

[Business of Supply, March 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Chatham-Kent—Essex for sharing his time with me.

It is my pleasure to speak to the motion put forward by the member for Westmount—Ville-Marie.

Investments in science and technology are a central component of this government's ongoing efforts to address Canada's social and economic challenges. In my mind the facts are clear: countries that invest aggressively in innovation have high standards of living and a high quality of life. This is why on May 17, 2007 the Prime Minister released the federal science and technology strategy entitled, “Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage”.

This strategy is a bold and forward-looking plan to build a national competitive advantage based on science and technology. Fundamentally, the science and technology strategy represents a new approach to the government's science policy. It places the emphasis on practical applications and commercial outcomes from public investments in research, through research aligned with the innovation needs of businesses.

The science and technology strategy seeks to encourage firms to be innovators, to keep Canadians at the forefront of research and discovery, and to help Canadians acquire the skills they need to participate in the knowledge-based economy. The government's sustained commitment to science and technology is reflected in the succession of recent federal budgets that have made major ongoing multi-year investments in this particular area.

Measures introduced in the federal budgets in 2006, 2007 and 2008 will have resulted in more than $2.2 billion in new science and technology spending by 2011. Budget 2009 further builds on this commitment through one of the single largest federal budget investments in science and technology to date. The economic action plan laid out in the budget includes $5.1 billion in new science and technology spending in the areas of infrastructure, research, people and commercialization.

This new spending is aligned with Canada's science and technology strategy and has been targeted to address challenges arising from the deepening global economic downturn. It can be no surprise to anyone in this House that the Government of Canada is providing substantial ongoing support for science and technology. The Government of Canada spends over $10 billion annually on all forms of science and technology in Canada and provides a further $3.7 billion per year in support to the private sector through the science, research and experimental development tax credit.

The global economy is in the most serious recession since the post-war period, and the ongoing financial market crisis is worse since the 1930s. As such, the budget announced a range of stimulus infrastructure investments supporting Canada's research capacity. The $2 billion national university and college infrastructure program will be leveraged with matching funds from other partners. This initiative is complemented by a further $750 million of investment in the Canada Foundation for Innovation, CFI, to support high-end research equipment, labs and facilities.

At a time of economic uncertainty, the university and college infrastructure program will create and maintain jobs for engineers, architects, tradespeople and technicians. Just as important, by renovating our colleges and universities we will strengthen Canada's capacity to innovate and to translate research into meaningful benefits for Canadians. It will also help achieve the objectives of the science and technology strategy by enabling these institutions to develop the highly skilled workers Canada needs to succeed in the future.

A particular priority of the government's science and technology programming is higher education, at the university and college level and particularly in R and D. As a country Canada spends more on this form of research as a proportion of GDP than any other country in the G7. Canada spends the second-most after Sweden among the 30 countries that make up the OECD. I might add that the United States ranks 17th among the OECD countries in terms of its support for higher education R and D.

To ensure that university researchers and their students across the country have funding for their initiatives, the government has increased funding for the three federal granting councils for their core programming.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, or NSERC, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research have received permanent increases in their budgets, totalling $40 million per year in budget 2006, $85 million per year in budget 2007 and $80 million per year in budget 2008.

To ensure continued support for the overhead costs of this research, these same budgets have also provided annual increases of $40 million, $15 million and another $15 million, respectively, in indirect costs for research programs. All these increases represent ongoing permanent increases to their core funding.

To build on our record of excellence in higher education and to build on our existing Canadian strengths, budget 2009 provides $50 million to the Institute for Quantum Computing, in Waterloo, Ontario to build a new world-class research facility and $110 million to the Canadian Space Agency to provide for the development of advanced robotics and other space technologies.

Budget 2009 also recognizes that the S and T strategy needs to be at the core of our response to the major challenges facing Canadians. For instance, to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the government is investing $1 billion over five years to support clean energy technologies, including $150 million over five years for research and $850 million over five years for the development and demonstration of promising technologies, including large scale carbon capture and storage projects.

In support of northern research, budget 2009 provides $87 million over the next years to maintain or upgrade our key Arctic research facilities.

Budget 2009 also provides $170 million over two years to secure a more sustainable and competitive forest sector. This funding will be used by companies to develop new products and processes and to take action on new opportunities in the global marketplace.

Budget 2009 supports private sector research commercialization through enhanced support of IRAP, or the industrial research assistance program. This includes $170 million in funding over two years to double the amount of funding available to help small and medium-sized companies bring their technology projects to market. An additional $30 million will help companies hire over 1,000 new skilled post-secondary graduates to support their R and D activities.

Budget 2009 provides $87.5 million over three years to temporarily expand the Canadian graduates scholarships program to support an additional 1,000 students undertaking masters degrees in each of the next two years. It also provides funding for an additional 500 doctoral students over the next number of years. This initiative will allow students facing a weak job market to deepen their research skills.

The government's focus on large scale revitalization of national research infrastructure is occurring within the context of an already well-funded research system, resulting from a succession of recent federal budgets, has made major ongoing multi-year investments in S and T.

As I mentioned earlier, the budget builds upon the strengths of previous budgets where our government has provided funding for specific initiatives, such as past investments in university research equipment through the Canada Foundation for Innovation, advanced genomics research through Genome Canada, improving the research for broadband systems across the country, supporting advanced physics research through the Perimeter Institute, a range of international research networks through the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and support for our international health research awards through the Gairdner Foundation.

Finally, I want to highlight one thing from my area. There is a new automotive innovative fund of $250 million that was established in budget 2008, of which I am very proud, to increase the research intensity of this important Canadian industrial sector. As we know, the automotive sector is going through some difficulties.

All these entities are still spending the multi-year funding provided in these budgets that have been awarded.

To conclude, we have been spending on the S and T strategy. We y have a strategy that this government put in place a couple of years ago under the leadership of our Prime Minister, Prime Minister Harper. We understand the need and the desire for Canada to be a leader in infrastructure that will provide for good quality research in our country so we can develop a—

[Health, March 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, through budget 2009, our government has contributed $305 million to first nations and Inuit health programs, increased the health care transfer by $1.4 billion and committed $50 million to develop a foreign credential recognition framework with the provinces.

However, what about Canada's nurses? Nurses are an integral component to Canada's health care system. Maintaining a quality work life is essential to ensuring that Canada has an adequate supply of nurses now and in the future.

Could the minister comment on what this government is doing to ensure qualify of work life for our nurses?

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the premise of that question. I will give a specific example. The organization representing forestry workers across the country, and we hear a lot about forestry workers in Quebec, came to see us to talk about work-sharing and how it worked for them.

However, they need an extension. That is exactly what we did. We listened and acted, which is what is different about this government compared with past governments. We hear, listen and take action. That is what our economic action plan does.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of yelling going on in the House today when members ask their questions. I appreciate that. I do not know if Canadians appreciate it, however.

I guess his question was, what are doing? In the economic action plan just passed, we have extended the benefits for the work-sharing program, which I talked about in my speech.

I am on the finance committee, and we had meetings with various people. Over and over again, we heard how good the work-sharing program was. However, the problem with it was we needed an extension. We have extended the work-sharing program to 52 weeks to help employers and employees get through these tough economic times.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member is very good at making a loud comment without making any sense.

Yesterday, he stood in the House and supported our economic action plan, an action plan that would put billions of dollars in the hands of provinces, municipalities and communities in order to create jobs through infrastructure development. I guess he did not read it or understand it. That plan is what will create jobs in my community, in Ontario and across the country.

It is a plan that will work. It is doable. We have support from all the provinces. We have support from every municipality. We will make it happen. As soon as we can get that money out the door, we will create jobs for Canadians across the country.

[Business of Supply, March 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary for sharing his time with me. It will be a tough act to follow with the knowledge that he has on this topic and the work that he has been doing on behalf of every Canadian in this country.

I welcome this opportunity to take part in this important debate initiated by the member for Hamilton Mountain, a member who I actually know quite well and respect and I appreciate her efforts on behalf of constituents. I just disagree with her politics on this particular item in the face of this global economic crisis.

I had the opportunity last night to visit Tsuneo Nishida, the Japanese Ambassador to Canada, who is an excellent representative of Japan. We had an excellent conversation and discussion about this being worldwide problem. Japan has unemployment issues as we have here. We have to understand that it is a global crisis, and not just Canada, but countries around the world, including our partners in Japan, are having the same difficulties.

Our government is very concerned about the plight of Canadians and those who have lost their jobs. We are determined to help them weather this storm and give them opportunities to acquire skills and to recover and adjust to the ever-changing demands of the global economy.

No Canadian worker is totally immune to the effects of this economic downturn. Yet the structural changes affecting the global economy mean that some communities have been hit worse than others. Indeed, some Canadians who have spent their whole working lives in the same industry now face the prospect of unemployment.

Those workers and their families face uncertainty. They worry about making ends meet and putting food on the table. They want to work and provide for their families. Canadians who have lost their jobs, or are at risk of losing them, have this government behind them and we stand up for them.

Changing industries and markets are inevitable in the global economy. While we cannot single-handedly bring jobs back to industries in decline, we are determined to help hardworking Canadians adjust to these changes in the global economy.

We believe in Canadian workers. We believe that those who have worked in the same industry for many years can learn new skills. We have faith in their ability to do so. These Canadians have decades of experience, and we take offence when members of the opposition say that older workers cannot be retrained and that older workers simply need to be bridged to retirement.

We believe in the potential of older workers across Canada. That is why, as part of Canada's economic action plan, we are investing close to $500 million over the next two years in measures to help these long-tenured workers facing job losses or unemployment during these difficult times.

Before I describe how these measures will work and whom they will benefit, let me provide some context. Research shows that structural changes affecting the Canadian and world economies are increasing the demand for a highly skilled and flexible workforce. This fact is driving the need for new and flexible approaches to how laid-off workers are trained.

Those who have worked a long time in a single industry have many assets and much experience, but they have specific job skills and are less transferrable to a new environment. Of all unemployed, those long-tenured workers are most likely to need skills upgrading. It is likely they need encouragement and incentives to gain those new skills that will help them, their families, and their communities prosper.

To thrive in the 21st century, our country needs workers who are able and willing to take their existing skills and expertise and quickly adapt them to a new context as the situation demands. We need workers who are ready to learn a new skill set altogether.

To that end, in partnership with the provinces and territories, our government is embarking on an initiative called the long-tenured workers pilot project. Through this project, we will extend benefit duration from the employment insurance program to long-tenured workers while they pursue training to embark on a profession in a new occupation or sector. We estimate about 40,000 Canadians will benefit from this pilot project.

Of course, even when they are armed with new skills, new jobs may not simply fall into their laps. That is why, in addition to extending benefits from the EI program during the training itself, this project will provide benefits for up to 12 weeks following the completion of training. This will give these individuals a financial cushion so that they can conduct their job search. All told, the pilot project will extend regular benefits up to 104 weeks.

In a complementary move, the economic action plan will help workers with severance and other separation payments to become eligible for earlier access to EI benefits if they use some or all of this severance to upgrade their skills or invest in training.

Through these measures, long-tenured workers can be eligible for up to two years of benefits under the long-tenured worker pilot project and can start receiving benefits sooner while receiving viable training to build new skills. That is truly a win-win result for Canadian workers and their families.

Many hard-working Canadians have held down good jobs for years and rarely, if ever, drawn on the EI program. Now when times are tough they deserve every opportunity to sharpen their skills without falling further behind. This pilot project will give them that chance.

As we can see, this government is taking action. Just today, as a matter of fact, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development announced important enhancements to work-sharing agreements so more Canadians can continue working while their companies weather this temporary slowdown. The minister has extended work-sharing agreements by 14 weeks, to a maximum of 52 weeks, and increased access through greater flexibility and in the qualifying criteria.

Work sharing is designed to avoid layoffs by offering EI income benefits to qualifying workers to work a reduced work week while the employer recovers.

In the face of economic uncertainty, our economic action plan is designed to keep Canadians working and help unemployed Canadians get back to work and put our economy back on track while we do whatever it takes to help Canadians weather this economic storm.

We will pay special attention to those hard-working Canadians who need and want to start new careers so they can prosper in this global economy. We are delivering and helping Canadians in need.

While the NDP members like to propose uncosted, unaffordable solutions to the current economic crisis, our government is actually getting the job done. Yesterday in this place the reality was that the NDP members voted against helping 400,000 unemployed Canadians benefit from an additional five weeks of EI benefits. They voted against helping 50,000 unemployed Canadians who normally do not qualify for EI benefits get the training and skills they need to find a new job and provide for their families.

The NDP members voted against helping 100,000 people get additional funding and training to find new jobs and put food on the table for their families. They voted against helping 10,000 long-tenured auto, forestry and other workers get additional training and financial support they need to get back into the workforce.

That is a lot of voting against: no help for unemployed Canadians. If I were the NDP members I would look in the mirror hard before coming to this place and trying to tell Canadians that it is this government that is not helping Canadians. It is the NDP that is not helping Canadians today.

However, something good did happen yesterday. This government, with the help of other members of the House, voted yes to Canadians and passed the budget implementation bill at third reading. That is good news for Canadians. That means we are going to take a big step closer to implementing our economic action plan and providing support to Canadians who need it right now. The NDP members had nothing whatsoever to contribute to that vote in favour of Canadians.

With that context, I would like to end this debate and I thank the House for this opportunity.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, as a former municipal politician for 13 years in the city of Burlington, I am glad someone finally stood in the House today and said good things about municipalities and the fine work they do with the respect that the House should give to them.

In my community alone, 13 projects worth $40 million were proposed. Selection criteria has been checked off, including whether they have money already budgeted.

Does the parliamentary secretary have confidence in the municipalities of our country to deliver on their one-third and make a difference in terms of stimulus in a time of need?

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the NDP member for her intervention on this motion. It is interesting that the member called the motion meaningless, yet the NDP still intends to vote for it. That tells me something about the credibility of that party on this issue.

Just last week on February 17, the Prime Minister and the Premier of Ontario announced a $6 billion investment, shared between the province and the federal government, for improvements to the GO Transit system in the GTA, where the member who was speaking is from. Does she think that if the Liberal premier was not happy with the investment in transit that has happened currently, not considering what has happened in the past number of years, would he have shown up and supported a transit announcement worth $6 billion?

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to be clear. The NDP is not speaking out of both sides of its mouth, that it is in favour of this motion even though it does not like what the Liberals did when they supported the budget and that the Liberals should have moved this as an amendment to the budget.