Mike Wallace

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this is why the prudent steady hand of a Conservative government is needed. You are going to have three different kingdoms on the other side trying to spend taxpayers' money under the idea that it is stimulus. It is not their money. Of course it is not their money; it is taxpayers' money. Well, we know what that is.

The New Democratic Party thinks that it knows best for everybody. We know that for sure. That is the way the New Democrats have talked in every election, and everything in this House has been all about that. That is how the New Democrats talk about things.

We do not know where the Liberals stand. Whether it is $30 billion or whatever it takes, they will spend it here or there. We know they do not have a plan.

What really irks me is that the wish list for the Bloc will be all about Quebec. It will have nothing to do with what is good for Canada, and it is--

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad my speech did not get the member from the opposite side excited.

The member is right. We got 37.6% of the vote. We have 143 seats in the House.

The election happened on October 14. I think they should remember that October 14 was three or four weeks ago. If they were really concerned that we were not the government for which the people had voted, why did they allow our throne speech to pass?

In the throne speech just last week, we laid out what we were going to do. The opposition passed it on division, allowing us to continue to govern. They had to give us a chance to do it, but they did not. Over the weekend, they decided to have a coalition. They worked out some backroom deals. They worked something out on a piece of napkin upstairs, toasted it in the parliamentary restaurant, and then announced it today.

It is unbelievable. It is undemocratic, and it is not Canadian.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have a tremendous respect for the member opposite who asked me the question. I have been on trips with him, and I have said to the member many times that the one thing about the New Democrats is that they at least have principles. At least they believe in something. We do not necessarily agree on things, but at least we have principles, and they stand.

What happened to those today? What happened to those principles over the weekend? They have gone away so that their leader, who will never have any influence in this place the way it is set up, gets six members of a coalition cabinet.

I am disappointed in a few things here today, of course, but I am disappointed most in the New Democrats. They have lost my respect in the sense that they had principles for which they stood. One knew what a New Democrat stood for. With Liberals, one can never tell, but one could with New Democrats. One knew they wanted to go in a direction different from what we think is right in terms of our perspective on economic leadership, but at least one knew. Today, one does not know, because they have made a coalition with the Liberals, supported by the Bloc. Who knows where they stand? It is very sad for this country.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this is exactly it. President-elect Obama engaged the public during the election. He got elected. We engaged the public during the election, and on October 14 we got elected.

I am way back here, but I want to make sure you hear me. It is obvious from the question that you are not hearing me.

What have we heard from the Liberals just now? They are saying that constitutionally, it is a minority government. They checked with the Constitution.

The people of Canada voted for the Conservatives. We have 143 seats in the House. You have 76, and you want to have your leader as prime minister. You have 76 seats. You had the worst election that your party has had in many decades.

Why do you not understand that the public is not going to be happy with what you are doing? We are trying to accomplish things in a very tough economic environment, but you do not want to accomplish things. You want to--

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, if we look further at the New Democratic Party, it received 18% of the vote across the country and it is making a deal with a party that received 26% of the vote. If I am adding correctly, that is 113 seats or so and those parties are going to install the prime minister.

However, that is not the bad part about it. That is not the part that bothers me. They can make deals among themselves. I can quote from days where the opposition leader poured cold water on suggestions about a coalition government as he attacked the fourth party leader's plan on the economy. On September 23, 2008, he said, “[The leader of the fourth party] does not understand the economy. I cannot think that Canadians will give their support to a man who will kill jobs everywhere in the country in raising the corporate tax. There are four additional quotes from October where the opposition leader said he would not form a coalition with the New Democratic Party.

What really irks me and the hundreds of people who have called or emailed me is that these two parties have made a deal with a party in the House that wants to break up Canada. They have made a deal so they can cross the aisle and put a prime ministerial crown on someone who is leaving. We all realize nobody in Canada wanted him or they would have voted for him four weeks ago, but that is not the case.

They have made a deal with a separatist party, the Bloc Québécois. How is that good for Canada? How do I explain to my daughters that the political scheme they have come up with is good for Canada? There is no explanation for it. Actually, there is one explanation. It is political power. The NDP is in fourth place and always will be in fourth place as long as the Bloc is here. Maybe it will move up to third if we can get rid of the Bloc. It supported the Bloc today. If we could get rid of the Bloc and have the NDP move up to third place, then it will never form government in this country, thank goodness.

I understand from what I am hearing that there will be six cabinet positions in this new coalition. The only way it can have any influence is to make a deal with separatists, people who want to break up Canada, who do not really want to be here but are happy to have the income and take our money. I can say from sitting on committee that when there is something it wants, it does not mind taxpayers in the rest of the country paying for it, absolutely not. Only when it is affected will it give support.

Here is the deal. I am hearing the deal is this. The other minority parties, the Liberal Party and NDP, will stick together for about two and a half years. They will throw each other out after two and a half years. The Bloc's deal, the tail that is wagging the dog, is 18 months. They are accepting little deals with each other. Is that good for Canada? Is that the direction this country needs? Nobody around here is denying that we are in tough economic times, but does anyone think that the public in this country wants the politicians to be making little deals?

Let us be honest. The finance department asked the opposition members for suggestions on this update. We did receive suggestions. We received suggestions from the Bloc but not from the NDP and not from the Liberals because we know from information that is now available that they had been working on this coalition scheme long before, as soon as the Liberals knew they had lost.

The leader of the fourth party put himself up as a potential prime minister in the last election. He declared it everywhere he went, “Vote for me. I will be your next prime minister”. He came fourth. The public in this country does not want him as the leader. The public does not want NDP members in cabinet. If the Liberals and the NDP had the audacity to do this, they should take it to the people. Let us ask Canadians how they feel about that. No, no, they say, they are going to ask the Governor General to form a government. We will see how long it lasts. I do not think it will last more than a few weeks.

The NDP made a deal with a party that has a lame-duck leader. He admitted today that he is leaving. He knows he is leaving. I believe he would be the second leader of the Liberal Party never to have become prime minister. Now he is going to correct that history book by being prime minister for, in his view, a few months, until their leader is picked.

The NDP made a deal with a party that does not have a leader. It is unbelievable. It is undemocratic. It treats the people who voted in the last election with contempt. I do not believe that it will last. I do not think it is good for this country.

The previous speaker, who was not in the House before, had a question about plans. That is absolutely right. What did he think we were doing here? We were expecting plans from the automotive sector and from other sectors. The Liberals got up and made a big speech to the effect that they were going to have plans, that they were going to talk to those industries and see what their plans were and make sure they were viable.

Mr. Speaker, I want you and everyone in this House to check the record on the economic update from last year and the previous year. We had complaints from the opposite side that it was too much like a budget, that we were doing too much in those economic updates.

This update was much narrower. We were waiting for ideas and plans from the industries that were looking for a stimulus package. We were going to consult with the provinces and continue consulting with the G20 people we have been dealing with.

The U.S. plan does not even come into effect until after president-elect Obama assumes office on January 20, 2009. They had an $80 billion plan. What has it done for them? Nothing.

We need plans. That is what the government will do, and that is what the government will continue to do.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is honour for me to be here today. This is the first opportunity I have had to congratulate on being appointed to the chair.

This is also my first opportunity to deliver a speech in the House of Commons since being re-elected on October 14, and I want to take a few moments to thank the voters of the riding of Burlington.

It is an honour and a privilege to represent the people of Burlington in the House of Commons. I appreciate the trust and the faith they have placed in me once again. I am committed to work on the issues that affect them directly. This includes improving the quality of freshwater that they use every day and working on infrastructure improvements, including transit issues. I also want to continue to work on issues facing seniors, particularly single seniors in my riding.

I also want to thank the over 500 volunteers who worked on my campaign during the fall election. Their efforts at the door, on the telephone, delivering information and working on election day all made a difference. I thank them for all their efforts.

Finally, I want to thank my family. My wife and two daughters are very supportive, not only at election time but every day as I try to make a difference in the quality of life of the people of Burlington and of Canada. I love them very much and I appreciate the sacrifice they are making in our family life for a better Canada.

It is an honour to speak in the House today regarding our economic and fiscal statement presented last week by the finance minister. We all understand that the Canadian economy and economies around the world are facing very difficult times.

I have heard about the economic difficulties first-hand in my riding. I have heard from owners of small businesses. For example, this past weekend I talked to the owner of an automotive parts manufacturing company in my home town. She told me about the struggles her industry was facing due to the downturn in automotive sales south of the border. I also spoke to one of the owners of Canada's largest demolition companies with offices in Burlington. He has seen first-hand the cyclical nature of business over the past 30 years. He too articulated how the current economic environment was affecting his business.

We spoke about what our government had done for the business community over the last couple of years in anticipation of any future economic slowdown. They agreed with our approach of injecting substantial stimulus into the economy already in advance of the economic slowdown, long before other countries around the world, including the United States, as it has just begun to act.

Here are just a few examples. Next year Canadians will pay $31 billion less in taxes, or almost 2% of GDP, as a result of the tax reductions we have made since taking office in 2006. Our Conservative government has reduced the federal debt by $37 billion. We have reduced the tax rate on new business investment to the lowest level in the G7 by 2010.

Our Conservative government has made historic investments in job creating infrastructure. We have also invested in science and technology, in education and in training. Our approach to the economy has been and continues to be steady and prudent. The economic and fiscal update continues this process.

We will continue to consult all Canadians, including businesses, families and seniors on our future stimulus package. We will continue to be careful stewards of taxpayer money. We will not frivolously spend money without a careful and thoughtful review of a coordinated approach with our provincial and G20 partners. We will not produce a stimulus package that will not be effective. We will not produce a stimulus package that will spend taxpayer money for the sake of spending money. We will not spend good hard-earned public dollars to prop up bad public sector investments.

Canadians want serious solutions from a serious government, the government they elected on October 14, a Conservative government.

The economic and fiscal update deals with the savings of seniors. I have heard from many seniors in my riding ask me to speak on their behalf. They asked our government to take action to help them with their retirement savings, and we did. I am very happy to say our government was listening. Our seniors built this country. They deserve to live with dignity and respect. Our Conservative government is committed to the needs of seniors and we have a government dedicated to seniors' issues.

The seniors in my riding have been calling me, concerned about the value of their registered retirement income funds, or RRIFs. Their legitimate concern is in the lost value of their RRIF portfolio this year and the withdrawal requirements based on the value of their savings at the beginning of this year.

Our Conservative government has recognized this problem and has taken action in the economic and fiscal update. To help seniors, like the seniors in my riding of Burlington, we have proposed a one-time change that would allow RRIF holders to reduce their required minimum withdrawal by 25% for the tax year 2008. For seniors who have already withdrawn more than 75% of the moneys required for 2008, they will be able to repay these funds without penalty. This measure would mean that seniors are under less pressure to withdraw assets at a time when their retirement savings are at a low point in their market value. Although most RRIF holders have only a portion of their assets in equities, this change recognized the impact of recent declines in those assets.

I have listened to the concerns of my local seniors and have regard for their savings and the effect that the stock market is having on them. I have received a tremendous number of phone calls from seniors in my riding and email, and a number of them have taken the time to come to see me. It is a real concern that at the beginning of the year, for those who are not familiar with the system, their RRIFs are evaluated and a certain percentage, the average in my riding is about 8.5% to 9%, of what the RRIFs are worth has to be withdrawn in that calendar year. The purpose is to make sure that seniors have enough money to survive on based on their retirement savings.

The way the system works is that the RRIFs are used up based on a system where by the time a person reaches the age of 90 the RRIFs will be virtually completed, but we want to spread out the payments so people in their early senior years are not taking all their money out, spending it all at once and then having nothing left for the next couple of decades that we hope they are with us. But in this case, and the system has worked really well over the last number of years, our party has increased the age requirement to start taking out a RRIF from 69 to 71 years, which allows people to save money a little longer without having to start to withdraw from the RRIFs.

What I have been hearing from my seniors is that this requirement works well when the market is where they think it should be, where they understand how much savings they are going to have, and they can plan for their retirement and for their retirement expenses based on a reasonable return for the RRIFs and they understand the payment process that would last. However, the way the system works, the RRIFs are evaluated at the beginning of the year and seniors are told how much money they will have to withdraw over this calendar year based on the value of the RRIF at that particular time.

As members know, the marketplace, in terms of the stock market, has been very volatile this year, to say the least. If somebody has $100,000 in a RRIF, just to use round figures as an example, and he or she is supposed to take out 10%, which is $10,000, $10,000 of $100,000 is something that he or she was planning for and is able to deal with. However, because the marketplace went down, now the RRIF is only worth $50,000, he or she is still required to take the $10,000 out.

In this economic and fiscal update, we are going to allow seniors to take only 75% of what they would normally be required to take out. If they have already taken some money out, they would be able to pay that back without penalty. If they have not taken money out, they would only be required to take out 75%, which would leave them with 25% room to help overcome the difference in what the marketplace had evaluated their RRIF at, at the beginning of the year, and what it may be worth now.

As a result of the agreement, or the coalition, or the cartel, or whatever they are calling it on the other side, the marketplace is reacting today. It was coming back and things were going well, but based on the shenanigans of the coalition across the way, the marketplace has fallen again today, hurting every senior in this country.

With respect to the RRIFs, I made a commitment to my local seniors that I would talk to both the finance minister and the Prime Minister on this particular item. When I came back to caucus, I was able to speak to both of those individuals.

I was proud and happy to see that in actual fact our government has taken action for seniors in the economic update and in the fiscal plan. I appreciate the fact that they were able to put that forward, and I want to thank them for listening to the issues that I brought forward.

I was going to talk mostly about the economic update today, but for me this is a bad day for democracy in Canada. I cannot go any further without talking a bit about the coalition that has happened here today. It is a sad day for democracy.

The opposition said that some 60% of Canadians did not vote for our party. That is not true. I received 48.5% of the vote in my riding. People voted for my party not against it.

The Elections Canada report that I have here indicates that the Liberal Party received 26% of the popular vote. That means only 26% of the people in this country voted for the Liberal Party. Now we hear that party is going to install its leader, who in the Hill Times today is--

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, November 26th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite should know that this government made the gas tax permanent for municipalities. As well, we have the $7 billion building Canada fund.

However, what I want to talk about is transit. We have developed the public transit fund. There is also the public transit capital trust, the FLOW assistance in the GTA, a transit-secure program that we funded, and a GO trip program to work with GO train.

If she wants to use Ms. McCallion, the mayor of Mississauga, as an example, this government paid down debt, debt left to us by the Liberal government. She likes to use the mayor of Mississauga as an example. We have taken that example. We have said debt is a bad thing for this country. It is a bad thing for our future generations, and we have spent money bringing down debt. That is why we think we are doing the right thing, and we will continue to do the right thing. That is what the voters thought on October 14.

[Finance, November 20th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, in a time of economic uncertainty, in a time when Canadians are having to watch their pocketbooks closely and to manage their own household spending carefully, would the President of the Treasury Board tell the House what this Conservative government is doing to demonstrate leadership with respect to responsible spending practices and fiscal restraint?

[The Environment, June 16th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, our government is serious about cleaning up the air we breathe and improving the health of Canadians.

We brought forward tough new emission standards to reduce air pollution from cars, launched a national vehicle scrappage program to get smog producing cars off the road and put limits on smog producing chemicals in every day products.

Could the Minister of the Environment tell the House what other clean air initiatives the government has taken?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, June 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP is threatening to play political games to stop Parliament from passing before the summer recess in June important legislation affecting all Canadians.

The budget 2008 implementation bill includes provisions such as a new tax-free savings account and new support for Canadian students, along with nearly $1.4 billion in key federal support that will be lost if the legislation is not passed prior to the summer recess.

Can the minister confirm this, and that the votes with respect to amendments to the bill are a matter of confidence?