Olivia Chow

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are losing their jobs by the thousands but the minister wants to bring in tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers, workers with no rights. According to his own department, these workers are often exploited and drive down Canadian wages. It takes up to eight years to bring someone's mother from overseas, but temporary workers are fast-tracked in one month.

Will the minister finally get his priorities straight, speed up family reunification and limit the intake of temporary foreign workers?

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely true. The sad part is that it is precisely the smaller communities that are demonstrating the fastest growth of transit riders. If we read the reports and the studies, people in small municipalities want to have public transit because it is a viable option for them.

Canada faces an aging population. More and more seniors feel it is not in their interest to continue to drive. They prefer to take the bus. Yet, they have to wait for a long time, the bus is just not available or not going to the places they want to go. Small municipalities do not have the property tax base. They cannot run a big debt. That is why they will not be able to access the federal dollars that are being offered to them.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member will know that GO Transit is, by and large, funded by the province. The province can get into debt or into deficit. Municipalities across Canada cannot run a deficit budget. They have to balance their budgets.

The province of Ontario can go into a deficit situation, fund GO Transit, and cost share with the federal government, but that is not available to most municipalities. As I said earlier, a lot of the funding for operating public transit is done by the local municipalities. They can run a debt but not a deficit.

It is really cruel to dangle money in front of mayors all across Canada and say to them that this is our offer, even though they are drowning in property tax increases. They cannot take any of the money, but we dangle it in front of them. That is a really cruel way to go.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the transit system across Canada carries 1.76 billion passengers per year. Any investment in public transit dramatically affects the quality of life for millions of Canadians. Any investment impacts on their cost of living and it greatly impacts on the environment.

According to many sources, including CUTA, there are 167 transit infrastructure projects across Canada that would stimulate the local economy of various Canadian communities while improving local transit networks. They are shovel ready. They are ready to go. For many years, different transit commissions and different mayors have been saying that we need the investment now.

What is cruel about this budget and cruel about this motion in front of the House today is that the municipalities or the commissions have no money to match the federal dollars that are being dangled in front of them. Why? Well, let us look at some facts. Of all the G8 countries or even G20 countries, Canada is the only country that contributes nothing to the operation of public transit.

Last year the total operating costs of public transit was $44.5 billion of which 60% was generated from fare revenue, 29% from municipal governments, and only 6% came from provincial contributions. What kind of money does the federal government contribute? Nothing. Zero. Not one penny.

When we look at transit capital costs, in 2006 it was $1.68 billion, and 37% came from the federal and provincial governments. Actually, to be precise, most of it, the majority of it comes from provincial contributions. In the city of Toronto, for example, what was the total federal grants to municipalities? It was 2% of Toronto's $8.7 billion budget. So there is nothing there to be applauded. Twenty-three percent came from municipal governments.

Municipal governments are trapped in high property taxes and high debt because they, alone mostly, are carrying the operation of the transit system. In Toronto, for example, a budget that I am very familiar with, it already has a $1.6 billion capital budget. This year the property tax increase is 4%, and 2% of that 4% is actually a direct result of the Conservative government not being able to change the employment insurance program so that not one extra unemployed worker is going to get employment insurance. They are going to go on the welfare system, therefore increasing the welfare roll in Toronto by 20,000 people. That will cost $38 million, and guess where that money comes from? Property taxes. There is not a chance that many of the municipalities have the funds to cost share this budget proposal, the money that is in front of us.

What is happening across Canada is that there is real ridership growth. Canadians want to take public transit. They want to help Canada decrease its greenhouse gas emissions. They want to reduce their carbon footprint. If we look at transit systems across Canada, there has been a 15% increase in a five year period.

Interestingly enough, the biggest growth in ridership comes from Canada's smallest municipalities, such as Middleton, Charlottetown, Welland and Yellowknife. The greater Vancouver transit link saw an increase of 7 million new trips in the last year or two. Canadians want to take public transit. They want to do something for the environment. For municipalities, more riders means more costs. When a transit system has no funding and not a penny of operating costs from the federal government, municipalities have no choices.

If there are more riders, they either increase property taxes or transit fares. Neither of those are good things to do to stimulate the economy. Municipalities are stuck. In the meantime, there have been reports, including a groundbreaking economic study conducted by HDR Decision Economics, that said that Canada needs a 74% increase in more transit services to unclog roads, save on commuter time and increase productivity. In total, CUTA identified $40 billion of investment needed for the period of 2008-12. This includes the expansion of subways, streetcars and buses, and the maintenance and upkeep of the current system to accommodate more riders.

Unfortunately, the motion in front of the House of Commons is meaningless. The Liberals have the opportunity to amend the budget that is being debated in Parliament right now, whether it is in committee or at report stage tomorrow, by inserting two small clauses. We should allow the funding to flow without cost sharing and have it come through using the gas tax formula so that it is not tied up with red tape, so it is block funding, and so that municipalities and provinces will know in a very assured way that the funding will flow. This instead of the building Canada formula of project-by-project approach, which ties it all up with different legal agreements and various project negotiations that are totally unnecessary.

It reminds me of a short story. A young man, let us call him Mike, walked by and saw a boat sinking. There were 77 people drowning. He could have thrown some rope or helped out, but because he was wearing new shoes he refused to do anything. He refused to help the people who were drowning out there. He went on his laptop and wrote out a perfect plan of how to rescue the 77 drowning people, but he would not do anything. That is what we are facing today. There will be a budget debate tomorrow. The House is debating this right now and we have this motion in front of us. Why should it not be inserted into the budget debate tomorrow?

I move the following motion: That the Liberal opposition motion be inserted into the report stage of the budget implementation bill, Bill C-10, being debated currently in Parliament, and inserted as an amendment.

I hope the House will consider this amendment.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 11th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, seniors tell me they do not go out because they cannot afford the bus fares. They are cutting off their cable TV because they cannot afford it. They are even thinking of cutting off their phone service because they cannot afford it. Some are on waiting lists for affordable housing that they will never get because in Toronto there is a 6 to 10 year wait list for affordable housing. These seniors are not getting any help because in the budget there is no increase to the guaranteed income supplement, no new money for the Canada pension plan, or old age security. There is nothing in it for them.

Instead, some seniors are facing property tax increases caused by unemployed workers who are unable to get employment insurance and have to go on welfare. Guess who picks up the welfare tab? Between 10% and 20% comes from municipalities which have to get it from their municipal property tax. Many of the seniors cannot afford it.

My question is for the seniors critic in the New Democratic Party. In his experience what is happening in Hamilton to seniors? What is happening to their lives because the budget does nothing for them?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 11th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, 28,000 Canadians aged 15 to 24 lost their jobs in January. The unemployment rate has gone up to 12.7% and in the last three months alone that rate has gone up by 2.9%, which is roughly about 75,000 jobs. Many of these people do not qualify for employment insurance.

It is scandalous that the Conservative and Liberal budget has zero dollars to help cities, young people and keep child care spaces open. The budget has zero dollars to help the unemployed in Toronto. The budget is a direct cause of the painful municipal property tax increases our families are experiencing.

I know the member has had municipal experience. Could he tells us what kind of impact the budget is having on the city of Hamilton?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 11th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, in the budget there is really no long-term funding for a national housing policy. It is a missed opportunity.

Thousands and thousands of people are waiting for affordable housing. In Toronto alone, people have to wait at least 6 to 10 years to get affordable housing and many of them are seniors. They are waiting and they say to me that by the time they get affordable housing, they probably will not be alive. They are very worried about where they are going to live. They cannot afford to rent because the costs are going up, but their pensions are not going up.

What does the hon. member think about this so-called one-time provision of money which will not build any affordable housing in the long term? There is a complete lack of a national housing policy in this budget.

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the government made changes to the citizenship law that would discriminate against the children of adopted Canadians. It would strip their children's right to Canadian citizenship and also penalize those who work overseas.

Starting on April 17, the minister is legislating a system of second-class citizens, and that is wrong.

Would the minister tell us how he can justify withholding Canadian citizenship from children born to Canadian parents?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, there is no reason that unemployed workers should go on welfare in the first place. A lot of them have a little savings. They should not have to use up all their savings, sell their trucks or cars, spend all their retirement savings or cash it out in order to qualify for employment insurance.

They should not have to go on welfare, speaking of the welfare wall. There is very little funding for welfare. It was cut so severely throughout the 1990s by the former Liberal government that there is hardly any funding left. Yes, of course, making sure that people can keep more of their funds when they work so they will not be deducted from welfare is a good idea.

A lot of unemployed workers cannot find jobs right now. By the time they go on welfare, they are trapped in a cycle of poverty because they spend so much time trying to fill in their welfare forms, justifying it, continuously finding ways to prove it and they get into a cycle of despair.

The way to go is to reform employment insurance so that unemployed workers will have their dignity. Many of them do not want to go on welfare even though they are desperate.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely true that it was the former Liberal government that changed employment insurance so that a person now has to work 900 hours. It used to be only 180 to 300 hours. Remember back in the 1980s? People who qualified for employment insurance would get 75% of their earnings, not 55%, which is what it is right now. People could get three-quarters of their earnings. That amounts to more than $600 a week, not $447, which is the maximum amount now. There were dramatic cutbacks. At that time I was helping people fill out their application forms, the five questions with “yes” or “no” answers. It was much easier to qualify. They actually got it for a longer period of time. It was not demeaning. It was simpler. They received much more money than they put in. That system worked a lot better.

The member is absolutely right. It was under the former Liberal government that all of that changed and $54 billion of employment insurance funding was pocketed by the federal government. Workers' money was taken away and given as corporate tax cuts to big companies like Imperial Oil. We are not surprised because, after all, we are dealing with a Conservative-Liberal alliance and, ultimately, in many ways those parties work the same way, which is really unfortunate for this country.