Paul Calandra

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it has been quite funny listening to the debate today. We have the Liberals claiming one thing, but when they were in government they brought in similar legislation. Now it is all different.

Then we have the New Democrats who have the nerve to get up in the House and say that somehow they are the great defenders of the public service and of the union.

What about the workers in Ontario who had to suffer the Bob Rae years when he was the NDP premier of Ontario—

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we have been hearing a lot about the workers and, of course, the opposition seems to forget the 34 million Canadians who rely on the postal service. The opposition does not want to talk about that. In my hometown of Stouffville, the workers have a sign that says that all they want to do is get back to work. We know what the NDP is doing. It is supporting the union. It is not actually supporting the workers of Canada Post because it has never actually had the interest of the workers in mind. If the NDP did, it would be encouraging its union friends to allow the workers to vote on the contract that they wanted to accept so they could get back to work delivering the mail.

Could the hon. member comment on why he thinks the NDP is so focused on supporting the union bosses over the people who actually want to deliver the mail in this country?

[Royal Canadian Legion Branch 459, June 15th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, last month, my home town of Stouffville celebrated the opening of a brand new Royal Canadian Legion Branch 459.

The original Legion was built in 1947 by veterans from World War II who came together with veterans from World War I in a common goal to build a place of their own; a place to relive memories, embrace the camaraderie built in their history together and to commemorate the friends they lost.

Building on the past, the new Legion's home contains the cornerstone of the original home embedded in the front entrance to continue the legacy built in 1947.

In the words of Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

The new home for Legion Branch 459 is no disservice to the joy and pain endured by our veterans. We will not forget history and we will not forget the bonds our veterans built. We will continue to build them into our future.

I congratulate Branch 459, its president, Murray Pattendon, and thank my entire hometown for its efforts in recognizing so many people who have sacrificed so much to help make this country the best place to live and work.

[The Budget, June 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask a clarification question.

The member said that the provinces were awash in cash in the nineties when there were unilateral cuts. I just want to remind the hon. member that the current leader of the Liberal Party was the departing NDP premier of the province of Ontario when it was awash in a $11 billion deficit. The province was spending about $1 million more an hour than it was taking in.

I am wondering if that is the type of leadership that we can expect over the next four and a half years from the Liberal Party. Is that what those members mean when they talk about the provinces being awash in revenue and that is why the Liberals unilaterally cut $25 billion from health care?

[The Budget, June 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, as was mentioned earlier, we know that the Liberals always have great intentions. They always make a lot of promises but when they are in government they actually never accomplish anything. What they do is live off all of the hard work that has been done before them.

In the nineties they hoisted all their cuts on the provinces and they did all the heavy lifting. Thanks to the provinces we were able to balance the budget. It was also because of the hard work of a Conservative government in the eighties, which brought in the GST and free trade, that the Liberals were able to accomplish many of the balanced budgets that they like to talk about.

I want to ask the member about settlement funding. I come from a part of the country where thousands of immigrants are settling. We have moved immigration settlement funding to where immigrants are settling and we have actually increased settlement funding.

I am wondering if the hon. member is trying to suggest to the new immigrants who are coming to my riding that they are not as valuable as immigrants in other parts of the country and that they should receive less funding for settlement as they would in Toronto.

[The Budget, June 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my friend, who does an extraordinary job in representing his communities, somebody who was a mentor to me when I was first elected.

Small, medium and large job creators across the country understand they have a government that is prepared to invest in helping them create jobs. It is prepared to invest to ensure that the economy meets the needs of Canadians. It is helping to ensure that our businesses, no matter how big or how small they are, can compete not only locally but globally.

One of the things we learned during the global recession is that Canadian businesses not only can compete, but they can compete and win when a government gets out of the way when possible, when a government supports them, when a government reduces their taxes, when a government allows them to invest in themselves and in their businesses. When we do that, we succeed.

The heads of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and all the business organizations, including the president of Seneca College, understand that this government will always put the needs of the communities first.

[The Budget, June 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, here is the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House. We are offering Canadians hope. We are offering them a better path than the opposition could ever offer them.

We have invested in seniors. We are increasing the GIS. It is not just about that. We have the new horizons for seniors program, which has been an effective program across my riding. I look at the Markham seniors. I look at the Sanatan Mandir Cultural Centre in my riding, which received a $25,000 grant so it could educate seniors on how to use the Internet and computers so they could take care of their own banking and become more educated on the new technology. I look across my riding at investments we are making in recreational facilities that seniors use.

Seniors have come to me over the last two and a half years and have said that it is not just about support payments. They enjoy the tax cuts. They approve of the tax cuts for their families that we have made. We listened to seniors with respect to the increase in the GIS. We have done that in co-operation with all sides of the House.

I hope the opposition will join with us in looking forward and work with us in helping to truly unleash the potential of the country. I hope it will look at all the positive things we have accomplished over the last two and a half years and work with us to improve not only the lives of seniors but the lives of all Canadians even more than we have done over the last six years that we have been in office.

[The Budget, June 7th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, as this is my first time rising in the House following the election, I will take a moment to thank the people of Oak Ridges—Markham for returning me here. As I said during the campaign, there is not a day that goes by that I am not honoured to serve them in the House and not a day that goes by that I do not thank them for giving me this opportunity to serve our community.

I also want to thank the members of my campaign team for all of the hard work they did to help me get re-elected. I thank my campaign manager, Mathew Ellis, who came back to help me win my second election, and the over 200 volunteers who each and every day knocked on doors and set up signs, not just during the election but in the lead up to the election.

I must say that when I was first elected to this place two and a half years ago, I won by a small plurality of 542 votes. This last time I increased that a bit with a margin of 22,000 votes. While I would like to think that it was my own hard work, I know that it was due to a lot of hard work by the team that surrounds me in both my constituency office and in my Parliament Hill office.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank my constituency team led by Natalie James, Rena Sassano and Owen Macri and, on the Hill, Alli Filleul and my volunteer student Michael Seccareccia. They have done a tremendous amount of work to help me reach the people in my community. My riding is the largest riding in Canada in terms of population. It is twice the size of a normal riding. They have worked very hard to help me secure my re-election.

Of course it goes without saying that I thank my family, my beautiful wife Melanie and my beautiful daughters Natalie and Olivia for their understanding and the sacrifices they make to allow me to be here. They are my best supporters and some of my best advisors. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank them because without them I would not be able to be here in Ottawa living out my dream each and every day.

When I first came here in 2008, the world was changing. We were in the midst of what is now being called the great recession. It was, of course, a recession that did not start here in Canada but, with a global economy, we felt the effects quickly.

Before I was elected, the government, the Prime Minister and the award-winning Minister of Finance made some changes. They knew something was coming and, as the world economy was heading toward choppy waters, they decided that the best way to keep our economy going was to reinvest in Canadians. They did that by paying down almost $40 billion worth of debt. They did that by reducing taxes for families and for businesses. We reduced the GST from 7% to 6% to 5% so that Canadians and businesses would have more money in their pockets to invest in themselves, their families and their communities.

We invested in families. As I said, I have two small children, a five-year-old and a three-year-old and, thanks to some changes that we introduced, my family receives $100 per child, as do all Canadians with children under six. It has been a big help to Canadians in meeting the everyday needs of their families.

We also invested in infrastructure. In phase one of Canada's economic action plan, we did what Canadians asked us to do. We sat down with our counterparts at the municipal and provincial levels. Canadians were telling us that they wanted us to work together to get us through the economic downturn and that is what we did. The results in communities like mine and the York region were some $300 million worth of investments in roads, bridges, public transportation and community centres.

We invested in areas that would help us create jobs and also improve infrastructure so that as we emerged from the global economic downturn our small businesses, our communities and our job creators, small, medium and large, could seize on the benefits of the first phase of the economic action plan. The results have been spectacular. We have seen some 540,000 jobs created, as was mentioned by the parliamentary secretary.

In my community, the results are evident across the riding, and it is because of the hard work of this government. It is also because of the hard work of Canadian taxpayers and the fact that we were able to work with our counterparts at the municipal and provincial levels to get the job done for Canadians.

The minister reintroduced his budget, which is the second phase of Canada's economic action plan. I am just as excited about the next phase as I was about the first phase of the economic action plan because the minister has made out a path to a balance budget. Not only that, we will be doing this a year ahead of time.

As I was out on the campaign trail, Canadians told me that they wanted to see the government back into a balanced budget. They understood the investments that we needed to make in the economy during a recession. They approved of it, but they wanted to see us move toward a balanced budget, and we will do that.

As I said earlier, we will continue to invest in job creation for our small, medium and large job creators. In the last Parliament we introduced the Red Tape Reduction Commission. It is criss-crossing the country, working with small businesses to find out where government is getting in the way and impeding them so we can reduce the red tape and regulation to allow them to meet their potential.

As well, we are introducing a small business hiring tax credit so small businesses in main streets such as in Stouffville, where I live, can hire students, hire individuals and unleash their potential to create jobs.

We are extending the accelerated capital cost allowance for manufacturers.

I represent a portion of Markham that is known as one of the high tech capitals of Canada, but the manufacturing industry in Markham was hard hit by the recession and the lead up to the recession. Some of the changes we made to reduce taxation will allow them to invest in new machinery to upgrade facilities and compete, not based on a low dollar but based on productivity. This allows manufacturers to create jobs, expand and compete. They are not only competing with other Canadians; they are competing around the world.

In Markham they are succeeding and it is because of the hard work of this award-winning Minister of Finance and this entire government. We understand that we need to unleash the potential of our economy and our communities.

We are doing more and are again focusing on families.

In this budget we introduced some increases to the GIS for our seniors. On this side of the House, we understand it was our seniors who helped make this the best country in the world in which to live, invest and raise a family. We are going to support our seniors.

We are introducing a children's art tax credit to make it a little easier for families that want their children to participate in their communities.

We are introducing a family caregiver tax credit. As the population ages, we know it will sometimes fall upon the rest of the family to take care of the parents or grandparents. We want to support them as they do that.

We are also introducing the volunteer firefighter tax credit.

I represent four communities: Markham, Stouffville, King City and Richmond Hill. In two of those communities, King City and Stouffville, it is volunteer fire fighters who put their lives on the line each and every day in responding to hundreds of calls for help. I know our communities would not be as successful as they are if it were not for the hard work of these brave community volunteers.

I had an opportunity to meet with some volunteer firefighters before and during the election. They were very excited that a government had finally recognized the hard work and sacrifices they made. I am very pleased this budget will continue those investments.

As I said earlier, I am extraordinarily proud to have the opportunity to represent my community in the House. Over the last two years in government we have helped guide the country through the worst global recession in history. We have done that while providing more money to Canadians. We have done that by providing support for small, medium and large job creators. We are unleashing the potential of our communities across the country so they can compete not only locally but globally with anybody, any time.

I am so excited about the future of our country because of everything that this government has done to help unleash Canada's potential. We should all be proud of what we have done and thank Canadians for the hard work they have done to allow us this success.

I congratulate you, Madam Speaker, on being appointed Deputy Speaker and I congratulate all the members for being elected as well.

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of talk today. It is funny to hear the NDP members talk about ethics because when they had an opportunity in 2004 to throw out one of the most corrupt governments in Canadian history, they went and signed a deal with it.

We have a Liberal Party that, of course, campaigns constantly on things. It campaigned for child care. Did it do it? No. It said it would cut the GST. Did it do it? No. It said it would kill free trade. Did it do it? No.

It said that it would not cut health care and social spending. Did it? Yes. It cut $25 billion from the provinces in health care and social services. That is the legacy of the Liberal Party--

[The Economy, March 21st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, since 2006 this Conservative government has focused on low taxes for Canadians.

In the first phase of Canada's economic action plan, the government delivered a strategic injection of temporary, timely, targeted stimulus into the economy through programs like work sharing, which helped Canadian families like the Nelsons and the Peters from my riding maintain financial security.

Could the Minister of State for Finance tell the House what time tomorrow the government will be letting the House and all Canadians know about the latest steps in our plan to create jobs, continue the recovery and improve financial security for Canadian families?