Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the economic statement, because—as we have seen in Quebec in particular, but also in Canada—this statement has been unanimously condemned by political and economic commentators and the general public.
Everyone, except perhaps the Conservatives and the Prime Minister, expected that the Minister of Finance's economic statement would contain measures to deal with the financial and economic crisis and help the victims of this crisis. Instead, the statement is a series of financial measures that either are obvious or have no major impact on what people in the regions or in hard-hit sectors of the economy are going through. That was our first disappointment. I will come back to this, because the Bloc Québécois had made proposals to the government last week and even earlier, yet the government unfortunately ignored them, preferring to take an ideological, laissez-faire approach. Obviously, this was a major disappointment.
But what shocked us the most was that the economic statement not only included no measures to support the economy and help businesses, hard-hit sectors or victims of the economic and financial crisis, but it contained purely ideological attacks that had absolutely nothing to do with the economic situation we are going through. Obviously, I am referring to political party financing.
Why challenge rules on which we all agreed, including in 2006, when the Conservative government amended the political party financing legislation? It eliminated corporate contributions—a measure we supported—capped individual contributions at $1,100 and kept the provision whereby political parties received federal funding pro-rated to the number of votes they received.
Why call all that into question now, when the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons were talking about cooperation and conciliation in the House? Why did they bring in such a measure, which was nothing more than a way of provoking the opposition?
As for suspending the right to strike of federal public servants, why was it important to introduce such a measure? First, they deny a basic right recognized internationally by an organization such as the International Labour Organization. Furthermore, just a few days earlier, it had been announced that an agreement in principle had been reached with the largest public service union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
Did they not only want to bring this union to its knees but also to crush it completely? That is exactly what they did and it was unacceptable to us and to the opposition parties, as well as to all unions across Canada.
In addition, and it is important to say it, that brings into question agreements already signed. It was announced in the economic statement that wage increases would be limited to 2.3% the first year, 1.5% the second and 1.5% the third. Yet, some unions negotiated in good faith with this government and secured increases greater than these.
Once again, this government has demonstrated that not only does it have an ideological agenda that it will use the crisis to advance but, furthermore, that it has nothing but contempt for the right to negotiate, the right to strike and finally, for the work that thousands of public servants do here, in Ottawa, and across Canada and Quebec.
One last item was extremely surprising and shocking, and once again provoked the opposition and Canadian and Quebec civil society: why take away the right of women to go before a court to redress wage discrimination under the right to pay equity? And why make this wholly subject to negotiation when we are talking about a right? Once again not only did they provoke the opposition but they violated the right of women to pay equity.
Unfortunately, it must be said that there is some method to these three provocations, particularly with respect to the opposition parties. The legislation on political party funding is an extremely important component of the democratic process. Were it not for that legislation, some parties would be unable to conduct a campaign or put their platform forward, as the Green Party did in the last election, for example. Certainly we are not Green Party supporters, but we in the Bloc Québécois are supporters of democratic discourse. Theirs is a vision that is entitled to expression in a democratic society and a vision that the Conservative government wants to stifle and prevent from being expressed in the public arena.
And so this is an attack on democracy. The same is true of the elimination of the right to strike, a right that is also a fundamental component of a democracy. It is also true in the case of pay equity: prohibiting women from going to court, for reasons that I am unable to discern, is also an attack on democratic processes, and in particular the opportunity to apply to the courts in order to exercise one's rights.
Plainly the government has stubbornly persisted in its approach of provoking the opposition, of provoking significant segments of civil society in Canada and Quebec. This is completely unacceptable to the opposition.
As I said earlier: fundamentally, there are several measures that should have been included in this economic statement. I would note that we presented a complete plan representing $23 billion over two years. I will now explain the details. In that plan, we explained how these resources could be freed up by cutting bureaucratic spending in various areas. We do not object to rationalizing some spending that does not directly serve the public. However, that calls for a vision of what is useful to taxpayers, to our fellow citizens, and of what is in fact no more than a kind of self-perpetuating loop of spending by the Conservative government, by the federal government.
We therefore prepared a study with Jacques Léonard, the former chair of Quebec's treasury board. Considering all budget items, we identified places where there had in fact been an explosion in bureaucratic spending and where it would be possible to save about $6 billion over two years, by our calculation. As well, there are some financial assets that the government is not currently using. For example, there is about $42 billion in foreign exchange accounts, if I recall correctly. A portion of that money could be used.
We made a series of proposals to the government for freeing up the resources that are needed so that the federal government's debt would not increase. That is what we are proposing in this regard. Certainly there will be a deficit, in technical terms, because there will be more expenditures than revenue, but financial assets will be put to use. There is no need for that increased spending to cause any increase in the federal public debt.
We proposed three types of measures. First, we talked about measures that would not cost the federal government much, if anything at all. For example, eliminating the employment insurance two-week waiting period. The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development—not the minister of Natural Resources, although last week she responded as though she were—told us that every kind of insurance requires a waiting period or deductible. But we are talking about employment insurance. We are not talking about private insurance, but social insurance. In this context, not only is it wrong to say that all private insurances require either a waiting period or a deductible, but they are not even talking about the same thing; it is like comparing apples and oranges. In this context, social insurance should help people who are fired, laid off or otherwise lose their jobs. It should guarantee them a certain level of income as soon as they have lost their job. That is the principle we were defending, and it is completely reasonable. It does not mean increasing the number of weeks of benefits. Thus, eliminating the waiting period would not cost a cent.
As we have said many times, we want to see employment insurance improved, which might require a longer legislative process. However, it could have been announced during the economic update that the waiting period was eliminated, effective immediately.
Another element that could have been announced is a moratorium on the obligation for retirees to withdraw a certain percentage of their RRIFs. That would give them the chance to get through this period of crisis, during which the market has dropped by 40%, and they could hope that, when they do have to withdraw their savings, those savings would be intact.
The government would not be out much money. There is a short-term cost, of course, but if the government just waits for our retired citizens to replenish the savings in their RRIFs and see the shares they have in them go back up, the taxes that these retirees will pay to the federal government when the money is withdrawn will be greater. Ultimately, there will not be any net cost to the federal government. We proposed a series of measures in this regard that cost the federal government nothing or virtually nothing.
We also suggested a number of measures to help companies that are experiencing difficulties. I remember that there was a graph on page 28 of the finance minister’s economic statement of October 2007 showing that almost all industrial sectors—with the exception of petroleum and coal and chemicals—had been declining since 2005. Regardless of the financial crisis, therefore, the Conservative government should have been intervening for at least a year or a year and a half now to help our manufacturing and forestry sectors. It was urgent a year ago and it is even more urgent to do so now. Not only were these industries in difficulty at a time when the economy as a whole was growing but they are in even greater difficulty today when our principal market—the United States—is partly closed to us.
We expected to see some of the measures that we proposed included in the economic statement. For example, we suggested a modernization fund, we called the Fonds corvée modernisation. If the Conservative government wanted to give it another name, that would have been all right with us. It is similar to the old Corvée-Habitation in the early 1980s in Quebec, when there was another major recession. The Government of Quebec, the unions and the construction employers’ organizations agreed to create a fund to support residential and commercial renovation and construction. Corvée-Habitation proved very successful at a time when the construction industry needed stimulating in Quebec.
We could have the same kind of program, that is to say, a program for companies in the manufacturing and forestry sectors that want to modernize their machinery to be more productive and better equipped when the recession ends—in around 18 months or two years, we hope. We suggested that for every dollar a company invests, the federal government would cover 20¢ of it through this modernization fund. We calculated overall that a $4 billion fund would make it possible for as much as $24 billion to be invested in modernizing our equipment and our companies in the manufacturing sector.
We also proposed, once again, a refundable tax credit for research and development. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology has already unanimously adopted that proposal, and the Standing Committee on Finance also adopted it last spring. This kind of measure would provide support for businesses and sectors that are struggling, allowing them to modernize so they can remain competitive and improve their productivity in order to benefit from the growth that will result from the opening up of new markets.
Businesses would profit from such refundable tax credits. Consider, for example, Tembec, a company that invested another $80 million in research and development. That might not be the case this year, but it was able to do so last year. Since it is not making any profits, it could have benefited from an injection of $80 million to support its research and development efforts. Of course, if it had made $40 million in profits, the tax credit would have been $40 million. This tax credit aims to ensure that even businesses that are not turning a profit could benefit from the support of the federal government and all governments. I think it was an extremely important measure.
How do the Conservatives respond to all our suggestions concerning the economy, businesses and the struggling sectors such as manufacturing and forestry? They say they have reduced taxes on profits. I think it should be easy to understand that lowering taxes on profits does absolutely nothing to help a business that is not making a profit. Basically, all the Conservatives did was allow oil and gas companies and a few other big businesses that are not in trouble, but rather are growing, to benefit from tax cuts, to the detriment of our society as a whole and the sectors in difficulty.
We think it is extremely important to immediately announce very practical measures to help the struggling businesses and sectors, and of course, to support our entire economy.
Now, let us talk about the victims of the crisis. It seems as though the government does not care about them at all. People will be losing their jobs. Older workers will be losing their jobs.
Time and time again, we have asked for a new program like the former program for older worker adjustment. My colleague from Chambly—Borduas has led the charge on this issue. The Liberals abolished the program in 1998, and it was supposed to have been replaced by another program, but that never happened.
Of course, the Conservatives will say that they launched a pilot project or a program to retrain workers over 55. That is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is a program that would enable older workers subject to massive layoffs to obtain financial support to bridge the gap between employment insurance and their pensions.
Here is an example from my riding. Two plants in Saint-Michel-des-Saints closed their doors simultaneously. They were the largest employers in the area—virtually the only employers, in fact. Both plants belonged to Louisiana-Pacific, and when they shut down, people had to turn to employment insurance.
An Ontario investor wants to buy the two plants, but would only partially restore operations. That means that not all of the former employees would find work. The workers are unionized, and they have a good collective agreement with the CSN, so the most senior workers would get priority. But maybe some of the 58- or 59-year-old workers would be prepared to give younger people a chance at the jobs if they were given a way to reach retirement with dignity.
What are the consequences of the lack of such a program? Younger people, who will not get jobs when the plants reopen, will leave the Saint-Michel-des-Saints region and go to Repentigny, Mascouche or Montreal. That means fewer children in the schools and fewer people shopping at local stores.
The Bloc Québécois has calculated that this kind of measure would not cost much—some $45 million per year—and would support communities affected by closures and mass layoffs by providing people with a decent income after they have been laid off, spurring ongoing economic activity and ensuring a reasonable quality of life for everyone in the community.
As I mentioned, this measure would cost very little and would have allowed the government to give tangible assistance to individuals who have fallen victim to the crisis.
I am also thinking of another proposal made with regard to the guaranteed income supplement. At present, our seniors are concerned about their evaporating savings. Some are even more disadvantaged and are entitled to receive the guaranteed income supplement. The problem is that, from the time when the Liberals were in power, the federal government—and that is still the case with the Conservatives—has done everything in its power to hide this program. Consequently, in Quebec, there are about 60,000 individuals who are entitled to but do not receive the supplement. What we want is quite logical and a simple question of justice.
People who, at some point, realize that they have been entitled to the guaranteed income supplement should receive retroactive payments. Naturally, we should also ensure that the guaranteed income supplement provides them with an acceptable level of income. Formerly we referred to the poverty line, but now we use a more politically correct expression—the low-income cutoff. Let us not deceive ourselves: it means being poor. The guaranteed income supplement should be increased by $110 per month.
Therefore I would like to move an amendment, seconded by the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert.
I move that the motion before us be amended by replacing the words “take note of” with the word “condemn”.
I propose this amendment to the House. I thank the member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert for his support. This amendment will surely revolutionize Canadian parliamentary history.
