Paul Dewar

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the critique that the member gave from the Liberal Party, but my question is about holding the government to account as well as about improving what I would argue is an ill-conceived budget.

It is one thing for the government to say it would provide stimulus. It is another thing to see a slush fund being created, with no real oversight beyond a request to just trust the government.

I am wondering why the member's party is not supporting our party in taking out facets of this budget. This is not about confidence. This is about improving a really bad budget as much as we can. Why will the member not join us in taking out those parts and facets of the budget? That is what we are debating here today. Why will the member not join us in trying to improve something that is really ill-conceived and not put together very well?

[Human Pathogens and Toxins Act, February 23rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to turn the member's attention to the whole notion of how government regulates on the one hand and on the other hand provides the coordination of regulation, which arguably it is trying to do with this legislation. When it comes to imposing, embedding and sensible follow-up, it makes me think of the whole crisis with the BSE. The government's own veterinary scientists said that there was a problem. They said that when cows were fed rendered materials, they would get BSE. Instead of listening to them, the government fired them. I think of Shiv Chopra who is now in front of a disciplinary committee. We are spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a guy who has blown the whistle for human health.

Even though we have legislation like this, what needs to be done to protect Canadians against human pathogens and toxins? If we do not have the right people in government, if we do not have the right people hired in the health protection agencies in government, how can this help in the long run?

[Portrait Gallery, February 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, we have just learned that the government wasted another $7.5 million in its ill-conceived mismanagement of the portrait gallery. The portrait gallery file is another example of the financial incompetence of the government. This partisan approach to culture has wasted millions of taxpayers' dollars with no portrait gallery to show for it.

When will the government get back on track, create jobs and help tourism, by building a portrait gallery right here in Ottawa?

[Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, February 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have one other question for my colleague from the north. I just want his take on the privacy issue and his concerns around how this bill would affect privacy.

When it came to changes in the Elections Act for photo ID, one of the problems around the government's legislation when it came to privacy was that we did not have the Privacy Commissioner at the table. I wrote to her. There were concerns about birthdates on election lists that would be shared with political parties. That is in the amendments that some of the parties wanted. I was against that.

On this bill, does the member think it would be a wise idea to ensure that the Privacy Commissioner is actually consulted and that, when the bill comes to committee, we ask Ms. Stoddart to appear before the committee to hear her concerns and essentially give us the principles of and the criteria for privacy when it comes to this bill?

[Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, February 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think my colleague from the Conservative Party will have any concerns from this side about security and supporting security. After all, it was our party that supported the hiring of more RCMP officers and the government did not get the job done. We asked that the government not claw back the RCMP wage increase, which it is doing, not us. We support keeping a fair wage for the RCMP. We have no lessons to be learned from that side.

However, I want to ask my colleague from the north about his concerns about consultation and the importance of having real consultation. Is he satisfied? Some good work has been done, and we support the idea of the legislation, which the member has made clear, but when it comes to consultations, does he think we have met the test of sufficient consultations and should there be more consultations when it comes to this bill to ensure we get it right?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for the question, because this is extremely important.

Right now, as we speak, the federal government is looking around this region for extra office space. It is projecting ahead. It is a good idea to plan ahead--very smart.

At the same time, it is looking to sell off assets. It has already done this little ruse when it sold off government buildings, buildings that we need, meaning that taxpayers have to lease the assets and have to pay. The simplest way to put this is to ask whether we would rather own or rent. What the government is doing, has done and is contemplating doing right now is similar to selling off our homes and then having to rent them back. It looks good in the short run because we have some money in our pockets. In the long run, it makes no sense at all.

The problem with the government is that it only looks at the short term to gain advantage. In this case it means putting an asset on the books to make things look good. In five or ten years, unless we do away with government entirely and no longer need buildings anyway, which is maybe the real plan, we need to have a place for our public service to work. I would rather have a government asset that we own than one that we have to sell and then rent back. It makes no sense. It is not good economics. It is not good management.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, that is why I was stating in my comments on the budget that every Canadian should be concerned. The government has an $8.7 billion hole in its assumptions in the budget. It was $10.1 billion before; now it is $8.7 billion.

My concern, and many of my colleagues share it, as should the official opposition, is that things like the CBC are in danger right now, because the budget document itself says that the government will be reviewing public sector assets that are in competition with the private sector. I am sorry, but that is where CBC is.

We also look at assets such as AECL, which needs some money. I am afraid the Conservatives will pump in taxpayers' dollars, turn around and sell it to their friends, and leave us holding the bill for it all.

This should be of concern. The government does not care. It wants to use the assets to make its books look better. It already did that in the last Parliament, when it sold off a bunch of buildings so that we could rent them back.

I implore my friends from the Liberal Party to actually understand what the Conservatives are doing. When we are aware of what they are doing, it demands action. No one will believe them when they say they did not know that was going to happen. They are fully aware of what is wrong with the budget. I ask the Liberals to wake up and oppose the budget.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for standing up in opposition in a constructive and critical way. It is important for us as members of Parliament to understand our role, and our role is to be critical when necessary. We are not always critical. We have been constructive in our criticism and have put ideas forward. It is important to make that statement to begin with.

Before I get into the substance of my comments on the budget bill, I want to take a moment to pass on condolences from the Ottawa community and my caucus to the family of Madame Michèle Demers on her sudden and tragic death. Madame Demers was the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. She was a leader not only of her union and for the people she worked for, but also for the Ottawa community. We are saddened today for her family and quite frankly for the labour movement. I had the opportunity to meet with Ms. Demers on many occasions. She was always clear in her convictions about what she was doing and served her members well. We will all miss her greatly.

If we look at the trajectory of the budget, we have to look at the fiscal update, of course. Three components in the fiscal update were obviously not satisfactory to all members of Parliament, save the government. Included in the fiscal update was the well-known political financing issue. My colleague spoke of poison pills. The political financing issue was a large dose of poison.

However, that was not the focus for us in the NDP. We focused on the fact that the government wanted to ban the right to strike by public servants the day after it had just negotiated a contract with one of the public service unions.

In both the economic statement and Bill C-10 the government wants to take away the right of women to have pay equity. It also wants to take away the right to challenge if they do not receive equal pay for work of equal value.

In the fiscal update there was also a $10 billion assumption. It was a whopper. It was that the government was going to find savings in government operations by selling off enough assets to gain $10 billion.

In his own comments, the finance minister admitted that his numbers were a bit rosy. We will have to give him the new nickname of “Rosy”. Actually, I think “Rosy” is being polite.

Every single economist who looked at that $10 billion assumption, and this is especially for our friends who used to be reformers, thought it had no credibility. The finance minister was also criticized by the government's own parliamentary budget officer. The Conservative government pretends that it knows how to manage a lemonade stand, but it has a $10 billion assumption that was laughed at from every corner.

The government grabbed onto power and prorogued the House. Then it did a Hail Mary pass, which is the budget. The Hail Mary pass is sadly being caught by the official opposition, as those members like to call themselves.

The rosy $10 billion number from our rosy Minister of Finance came back in the budget in front of us as $8.7 billion. The government has managed to figure out some of the math. However, the government forgot to tell us where the money is going to come from.

This year in the budget--and I say this to all those who purport to be fiscal conservatives, be they in the official opposition or be they on the government benches--the government is going to get $4 billion from the sale of government assets and from finding government savings.

We all know what the game is. The game is that the Conservatives are going to have to do one of three things: increase the deficit, not spend the stimulus or have a fire sale of government assets in a buyer's market. Does anyone find that credible? I certainly do not. That is what bothers me most about this budget.

My colleagues have underlined the importance of looking at what this does for people, and I applaud that. It does not do much for people. What gets me more than anything are the assumptions made and the rhetoric put forward by a government that pretends it actually knows what it is doing when it comes to managing the nation's finances.

I will give another example. A couple of years ago the government said, and I go back to its assumptions in this budget, that it was going to find $2 billion through savings in government operations and through selling off assets. It was going to find $2 billion that was booked by the previous government, I might add, in government operations.

What it did was a real whopper. It hired a consulting company by the name of A.T. Kearney out of Chicago. The company has a branch office in Toronto. The consultant racked up a bill, and I know my friends know this one well, of not $1 million, not $2 million, not $10 million, not $15 million, not $20 million, but $24 million. Does anyone know what the government got for it? It got zero.

Public works had the blessing of the cabinet. The former minister of foreign affairs is nodding and smiling. He knows it well. The government got shaken down for $24 million by A.T. Kearney. The problem is that we were shaken down.

One member looks as if he does not know what this is about. He should look it up. I am going to send it to him, actually, because he is a minister now in cabinet. He is walking away now, and he should. He is hanging his head in shame, I hope. A sum of $24 million was spent, and we received zero value for the money.

These are the people who are now responsible for bringing us out of the recession. God help us all. What we need right now are people who understand how finances work. That is why I will not only be opposing this budget, but doing so vigorously and with clarity.

The government wants us to believe it has the best interests of the country in mind. When a government signs on for a $24 million contract with a consulting company from Chicago and gets zero value for the money, I am sorry, but I do not trust it, my constituents do not trust it and neither should anyone in the House, including its own members.

In the time I have remaining, I want to talk about some solutions.

It is interesting to note that south of the border there is an entirely different situation. There are people who actually listen to those who want to pull us out of the recession by investing in people and communities. One of the most exciting things happening south of the border is the green collar momentum. It is a move toward taking us from this economic recession and transforming our economy to one that is not only environmentally sound but also sustainable.

One of the alliances is different from the alliance we see in the House. It is called the Blue Green Alliance, an alliance in which labour and those pushing for environmental change have come together. They have said they need to come together to provide stimuli and solutions for the economy. We see this being applauded, lauded and supported by the federal government in the states.

My final comment is that instead of paying $24 million for bogus reports, we should be investing in blue-green alliance solutions similar to those we see south of the border. That is what this party will be doing, it is what we will be advancing and it is why we will not be supporting this budget.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Timmins—James Bay for his intervention. One of the things he pointed out was the record of the government, not just in this budget but in previous budgets, saying that it is going to do one thing and ending up doing another.

My question is specifically on how it has treated those who are most vulnerable, those who are right now suffering job losses, particularly in his area but also right across this country. Does the member believe that this budget can really actually help people who need the help right now? Are the changes that are contemplated in this budget going to make matters worse in the long run or better?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, one of the points which I think is missed by the official opposition is that there is an $8 billion hole in the budget. I know the Liberals are going to ask for reports three or four times a year. The document we have in front of us says that the government will sell off $2 billion in assets, that is, the government will sell buildings in a buyer's market, and it is somehow going to find $2 billion in government savings through cuts. Does the member think that is a sensible thing? Does she think that the official opposition actually read the document earnestly, or did the Liberals just want to pass over that $8 billion hole in the budget?