Mr. Speaker, there are 750,000 children living in poverty, 1.5 million Canadians cannot find decent housing, and 130,000 were thrown out of work just in January alone. This is the worst financial collapse in history and the planet is in crisis. What does it take for this country to change direction?
We had hoped for a budget that would bring about a green economic recovery where no one is left behind, a budget where funding for those who dedicate their lives to educating and taking care of our children in early childhood education centres would finally be a priority, where working parents could rest assured that they would not have to add their names to a waiting list as soon as their children were conceived in order to secure a child care space.
There are parents like Susanne in my riding who said, “I'm currently on 25 child care wait lists. I have been on many since 2007 when I was only a couple of weeks pregnant. I have put down many deposits to get on the wait list. I have toured the child care centres. I follow up regularly and with only a couple of months left in my maternity leave, I still do not have day care. My husband and I are already planning to take time off work, which is not really affordable right now”. Susanne is desperate.
We had hoped that those who have diligently paid employment insurance through their entire working lives would be able to get back that money when they need it most without having to become destitute first.
Yes, the New Democrats have a vision of a country where our artists and cultural institutions that enrich our lives would at last receive the funding they deserve and the image of the starving artist would be a myth.
In these tough times we need green jobs that would promote wind, solar, geothermal energy that would offer us a unique opportunity to save our planet, create jobs, burn less and save money. Yet, we have nothing of the sort in the Conservative-Liberal alliance budget.
We thought that these dreams would at long last become a reality when the Liberals signed on to the requirements we placed in the coalition accord, but I guess the Liberals were just too afraid to take charge. My colleague is right. They backed out and instead they support a Conservative budget that they said is flawed. They refuse to change the direction of this country. They have given up hope. They would not want to take charge.
Perhaps there is a reason. I remember in 2000 the former Liberal government came to Toronto and said, “Here is all this money for Union Station”. Not a penny of it came to Toronto. The Liberals promised millions for the waterfront. Not a penny of it came. Perhaps that is why the Liberals are afraid to take charge. That is why they do not want any change. They have given up hope.
The New Democrats are not about to do the same. We are striving to push for more action. We are striving to push for a real budget that would not leave anyone behind.
We do not believe that the 325,000 unemployed workers, this year alone, are really too lazy to find jobs. In Toronto, seven out of ten unemployed workers do not qualify for employment insurance after having paid into it all their lives. Are they benefiting from a lucrative system, I ask?
We heard from the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development who said on January 30, “We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it”. It reminds me of a former government, the Mike Harris government. The same finance minister of that government said that these unemployed mothers are at home and just drink beer and watch TV. They are lazy and they do not want to find a job.
That is the same kind of ideology that is now saying that there will not be one extra unemployed worker who will get employment insurance in this country. These unemployed workers are being ripped off because they contributed. It is an insurance program. They put their money in and now they need it back. Instead, they will not get it
Members should remember that 65% of women are still ineligible for employment insurance. When we talk about the most vulnerable, the unemployed workers who are left out and left behind, they are by and large women.
That is why New Democrats believe there should be a standard 360 hours eligibility across the country, and the unemployed should get at least 60% of their earnings for up to $600 a week, for a much longer period of time than what we have now. Perhaps the minister needs to experience unemployment herself to truly understand what an increasing number of Canadians experience when they try to navigate the broken EI system.
Here are more reasons why the Conservative-Liberal budget deserves a failing grade.
There is no action to cap huge credit card interest rates and transaction fees. Working Canadians are struggling to pay their mortgages and put food on the table. Canadian consumers paid over $4.5 billion in hidden credit card fees last year alone. We all pay at the check-out counter to cover the cost of these corporate credit card benefits, even if we do not have one. It is totally unfair.
New Democrats want the banks to be required to prove, through independent audits, that their credit card and other interest rates and fees do not amount to gouging, with a public report issued by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.
If we look at the environment, Canada lags behind dramatically when it comes to spending on the environment. The budget plan includes funds for clean energy; however, the Conservative-Liberal definition of clean energy includes nuclear and even coal-burning energy, and untested carbon capture technology.
What this budget bill does do is eliminate proper environmental controls for new infrastructure programs and projects. Degrading our environment is fine as long as maybe private companies can make money because right now the private sector is supposed to be building these public infrastructures, or else there would not be any matching funds.
Speaking about greed, this budget continues to reward big companies such as Imperial Oil, which had a 22% profit increase last year. All these companies will receive $60 billion in corporate tax cuts, so for every $60 going to companies, $1 goes to the unemployed. Those are completely wrong priorities and this is what our country does not need right now.
Green industry will get a cut in funding. The funding to advance science research also has been cut. Much of the infrastructure funds that have been talked about at length in this House would not flow to cash-strapped cities because they cannot afford to cost share it. The city of Toronto, for example, needs at least $7 billion to purchase new street cars and implement its plan called transit city, but it just does not have those kinds of funds to match the federal funds.
We talked about the most vulnerable. The most vulnerable are the kids who go to bed hungry. Many of their parents right now earn less than $20,000. In this 500-page budget, not one single penny will go to these families that earn less than $20,000. They will not qualify for the increase in the national child benefit supplement or the Canada child tax benefit.
The poorest kids get absolutely nothing. What a shame. How could the Liberal Party say that it meets its test of protecting the most vulnerable? If the kids are in families that earn less than $20,000 are not the most vulnerable, who are the most vulnerable? I just do not understand the Liberals' logic.
Campaign 2000, a campaign to end child poverty said:
This is macho-economics that leaves women and children off the lifeboat in this recession!
With the lack of purpose for action in this budget, it's certain that rates of child and family poverty will increase and the federal government will be left with no capacity to respond. [The Minister of Finance] may have purchased new shoes for this budget but it's about time he found his soul.
This is a soulless budget because it does nothing for children. Taking care of children should be our first duty. There is not one single penny in this budget to support child care or early learning. Already both UNICEF and the OECD have said that Canada ranked last in our investment in early childhood education and we continue to do the same in this budget, even though investing in children is good for Canada, good for the economy.
The report by Dr. David Butler-Jones on the state of public health in Canada notes that for every dollar invested in children during their early years, government saves $3 to $9 in future spending on health, criminal justice and social assistance.
It is good for the economy. It is good for our children. It is good for our productivity. It is good for working parents. However, the budget has nothing in it for early learning and child care.
There is also no action to improve public pensions or shore up employers' pension plans. There is hardly anything for seniors.
The budget ignores the skyrocketing tuition and debt loads for post-secondary students. They cannot find a job. It is difficult and they do not have the money to pay their student loans right now. Why are we not looking at forgiving the interest and the principal for the time being? That means university graduates will still be saddled with thousands of dollars of debt as they enter a shrinking workforce.
What is in the budget is punishment. There is punishment for students, making it more difficult for obtaining student loans by putting an overwhelming onus on students to provide documentation, while making it easier for the minister to retroactively punish students. Imagine that. The government is punishing students in this time and as part of the budget implementation bill. I do not know how punishing students can stimulate our economy.
Working mothers are feeling the pinch with this Conservative-Liberal alliance budget. They are being left out in the cold with no options. One mother wrote to me:
I can't afford to pay for afterschool programs for my kids, plus put the 2 youngest in fulltime daycare while l work 9:00am-5:00pm, because I will be charged over $500 a week. I can't quit my job because that makes absolutely no sense...I moved in with my sister to help me get on my feet and if I don't work I can't save to get a place of my own. I can't afford to pay the regular rates for daycare because it takes my whole pay. What is a mother in my situation to do?
I was always proud to say Canada is a country of equal opportunity, the best place to live. However, it seems like I have to swallow my words because it has become so hard to live in Canada. Rent is too much, pay is too low, childcare expenses too high, tuition too high, not enough assistance for honest working people and disappointment every way you look at it.
This budget does nothing to help that working mother.
Shame on those members who are standing idly by and voting in support of this sadly inadequate budget. As they watch thousands and thousands of families fall into a cycle of desperation, despair, unemployment and poverty, I hope they remember the words of single parents, working families and unemployed workers who cannot get ahead because this budget offers absolutely nothing for them.
