Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-306, put forward by the member for Rivière-du-Nord of the Bloc.
First of all, members will know that this member is a very long-standing member of this place. I think she has been here for over 20 years.
My experience in working with this member on a number of occasions is that when she brings things up, they are usually fairly well thought out and provocative in terms of promoting debate. If I look at the member's speech, she is asking the House to give her an opportunity to debate the bill in committee.
We have had this on so many occasions, particularly for employment insurance bills where there have been many attempts to try to bring to the attention of Canadians the need for reform in terms of EI. We know that there needs to be a royal recommendation. We know that at the end of the day, there will never be a final vote but the debate is very important.
It is important so that Canadians understand the implications, so that within this place we look at the areas that we have difficulty with, to get the answers to certain specific questions because members usually do not have the personal expertise or the access within a short timeframe to the expertise that will give us the answers to those questions. Those questions include such things as what latitude we have within the WTO to give some preferential treatment to buy Canadian for government procurement.
It is a pretty good question. I know that our experience in this place has been that dealing with matters to do with the WTO creates a lot of acrimony. It could be the softwood lumber deal. We know that the dispute resolution mechanisms have been very problematic. We have had many debates in this place about why Canada is always on the short end of the stick when it comes to disputes. Why do we get dragged through the courts for years and years?
It is because the WTO and NAFTA do not provide the precision that we need to understand how much latitude we have to put the best interests of Canadians first, and that is what the member is asking for. Therefore I congratulate the member on bringing the bill forward.
In her speech the member also talked about the context that we have to put this conversation into. It has to do with the economic challenges we are facing now. It has to do with the fact that we have a government that said it was going to balance the budget. It had a $13 billion surplus. We now find out that as the last fiscal year ended, it turned out there was a $5 billion deficit.
Therefore the starting point was wrong. It squandered a $13 billion annual surplus and turned it into a $5 billion deficit. Then what happened? We had a budget come forward saying that we were going to have four years of surplus. We now know that at last report there was a $30 billion deficit. Now it is up to a $50 billion deficit and we have job losses that were over 9%. I think it dropped slightly, which I think is an aberration. All the experts seem to think we are going to have unemployment in the 10% range in Canada.
That means there are half a million families out there who are now forced to live on EI, and there are many families out there whose EI benefits have run out.
Therefore the member raises in her bill, Bill C-306 that the “purpose of this enactment is to promote economic development in Canada by ensuring that, in the procurement of its goods and services, the Government of Canada gives preference to Canadian products while complying with its international obligations”.
It is not saying that we should break the law but that we should do what we can within the rules of the game that we have, and that way we should be able to stimulate the Canadian economy and we should be able to stimulate job growth. That as a premise makes a lot of sense.
It also specifies that the buy Canadian approach would not exceed, I think, 7.5% in terms of giving preference to Canadian products.
I have a problem with 7.5%. I would like to debate that. However, the 7.5% is not the issue in this debate. The issue is whether we need another stimulus effort within Canada to assist Canadian business and industry to deal with the economic situation that we are faced with, to deal with the unemployment situation that we have.
The bill may not see the light of day, in terms of a final disposition. I do not know. It is hard to say these days. However, the debate is a relevant debate. We are not going to resolve it here by having a half-dozen speakers when there are probably 50 people in this place who would like to talk about it. We can only talk about it within the context of what we know now.
However, things are happening very quickly today. In the United States, President Obama has the issue of American protectionism facing him, and the U.S. is going through the process. Our provinces have been talking about opening up to the Americans provincial procurement and bidding on contracts, on an equal basis. They are trying to make it work. However, we have to remember our history in these things. Canada always seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes down to trade issues.
I can fully understand the United States saying that Americans should support American business. There is nothing wrong with that.
As well, there is nothing wrong with Canada, the Canadian government and Canadian members of Parliament encouraging Canadians to look at the labels and buy Canadian, because when we buy Canadian, we help Canadian business and Canadian jobs.
Today we are also going to be debating the issue of forestry, which is a beautiful example of where we have opportunities, but we need to take some action, and I am pretty sure that is going to get the support of the House.
I look at private members' business as a proxy for debate, and that debate cannot fully happen here at second reading. The bill needs to go to committee. It needs to have winesses and people with expertise so that we can ask questions and get answers. We have hon. members on these committees who work on this stuff time and time again. The knowledge, the approach, and the quality of the debate of the kinds of issues that will come up at committee are certainly more substantive than they are in this place right now. That is not to say that members are not capable of doing this. However, they do not have the time and they cannot ask questions or make comments. I could not ask questions of the member and nobody can ask questions of me.
Second reading is to ask whether we have an issue here that is worthy of more debate. In my humble opinion, I believe there is. I believe that the bill merits support to go to committee to have relevant debate, and I will be supporting this particular bill.
The other thing I wanted to talk about is whether or not matters like a home renovation tax credit or the stimulus program that we have, through which we are encouraging infrastructure, though not exclusively--as we know, there is a lot of stimulus money going to things that are not infrastructure--are promoting Canadians jobs, promoting Canadian business, promoting some assistance in the difficult circumstances we find in this economic climate. Those actions are not inconsistent, and this bill is not inconsistent with those actions with regard to the intent.
The intent here is to address our financial situation, the job situation and, to some extent, WTO, NAFTA and other trade agreement provisions that we have, as well as what the rules of the game are, what latitude we have and how we can have all Canadian businesses do better in this economic climate.