Ralph Goodale

[The Economy, February 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, a thriving middle class drives our whole economy, but today middle-class Canadians are just as likely to move down the income scale as move up. Their earnings are flat. Household debt is 166%. Three-quarters do not have a pension. Two-thirds worry that their kids will not do as well as they did.

Cutting excessive EI payroll taxes would help. Filling a $3 billion hole in the build Canada infrastructure fund would help. Clearing barriers to higher education would help.

Will the government do these sensible things to drive more economic growth for middle-class Canadians?

[The Budget, February 12th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I do not mean to delay the debate here at all, but just for my own edification would the Chair confirm that we are now at the point in the debate of considering the subamendment proposed by the member for Kings—Hants?

[Employment, February 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, middle-class Canadians are worried about jobs and financial uncertainty. Their incomes are stagnant but household debt is away up. Most do not have retirement security. Most do not think they can afford post-secondary education for their kids. Their children may not have the opportunity to do as well as they did.

To relieve some of the pressure, will the Conservatives eliminate the tariff taxes it imposed last year on consumer goods, tariffs not paid by foreigners but by middle-class Canadians? Will they reduce their job-killing burden of higher EI payroll taxes?

[Intergovernmental Relations, February 10th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Conservative job creation last year was the worst since the recession. There are nearly a quarter of a million more jobless Canadians today than when the recession began. Young Canadians have 262,000 fewer jobs. In the face of that crisis, will the government accept provincial offers to fix the nonexistent jobs grant? Will it improve access to all categories of post-secondary education and training? And will it fill the $3-billion hole it created in the build Canada fund for municipal infrastructure?

[The Budget, February 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, if job creation is the government's priority, why is its job record the worst since the recession? If economic growth is the priority, why does it have the worst growth record since R.B. Bennett? Why are Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Mexico, the United States, and 132 other countries doing better? If prosperity is the priority, why do middle-class families have $1.64 in debt for every $1 of disposable income? Why are middle-class parents worried that their kids will not do as well as they did?

Will the budget fix any of that?

[The Budget, February 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, here are the facts. To concoct the false illusion of a new build Canada fund for infrastructure, last year's budget bundled together a 10-year period. The program is spent over 10 years, but the money is not. Most of it is back-end loaded, postponed for nearly a decade.

The fund does not recover to even last year's levels until 2019. In the meantime, over $3 billion is taken from municipalities. Will budget 2014 fill in that multibillion dollar Conservative hole in municipal infrastructure?

[Grain Transport, February 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, at the end of four and a half hours of debate, I wonder if we could agree that one thing we need to do is amend the level of service legislation to provide for liquidated damages payable directly to farmers when railways fail to deliver on their service level commitments.

Second, the government needs to assist the railways to ensure they have adequate locomotive power and railway rolling stock and trained personnel to move the maximum value.

Third, could we agree that we need full transparency for the total volumes of grain booked to be shipped through west coast ports, transparency about the timeframes for those shipments, and the number of marine vessels that have been ordered to take delivery?

Could we agree that we need to provide some sensible, business-like coordination throughout the system to replace the kind of chaos we have seen over the last six to eight months?

Could we agree that the government should table a plan to maximize throughput through Vancouver, Prince Rupert, and especially Churchill, while the permafrost is in place, and also south, through U.S. facilities, if that is necessary?

Could we agree at the end of this discussion that those are very simple, practical, and reasonable steps that need to be taken to alleviate the pressure in the system at the earliest possible moment? We have to act as a Parliament, long before any five-year study that would put this solution off into never-never land. The problem is now. The crisis is now. The government needs to move now, not five years from now.

[Grain Transport, February 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, not long ago, one of our colleagues in this House resigned to take up a new challenge. That was Merv Tweed, the former member for Brandon, who went off to become the new CEO of OmniTRAX, which has responsibility for the Port of Churchill.

The government has indicated that there are a million or so dollars to be of assistance to Churchill. It would seem to me that somebody should be looking right now at the question while the permafrost in northern Manitoba is still frozen.

Is there the possibility of moving any kind of significant volume of grain by rail to Churchill, to have it in position for the spring shipping season to take some of the pressure off the current situation? Is that one small practical example of some things that might be done, and has anybody spoken to Mr. Tweed?

[Grain Transport, February 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there seems to be some consensus in the House tonight, even from some of the members on the government side, including the member for Prince Albert, that perhaps the rail level of service legislation that was passed at the behest of the government last year is not quite up to the standard it ought to be.

There were two principal deficiencies identified in that legislation. Number one was that the definition of service was far too vague to be meaningful or enforceable, and the second was that the method of enforcement was a fine to be paid by the railways to the government, not liquidated damages to be paid by the railways to the farmers when the railways failed to deliver the farmers' product.

If we could arrive, in the next day or two, at an agreement on how to fix those two deficiencies in that particular piece of legislation—and we have drafts for how to do it, word for word, already prepared by the shippers and grain companies, the legislation already prepared—would the New Democrats in the House give us unanimous consent to allow those amendments to that piece of legislation be adopted in no more than 24 hours?

[Grain Transport, February 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman took us through an interesting excursion on grain policy and politics, and for the most part I found many things in his remarks to agree with.

I am curious about his reference to the Estey report back in 2002, and particularly Judge Estey's recommendations about open access, which I found to be quite an intriguing idea. The member will remember that the Estey report was an integrated set of recommendations that included removing the Canadian Wheat Board from the logistics of grain handling and transportation.

I wonder if my colleague embraces the second of those recommendations as enthusiastically as he embraced the first, because that would seem to be a bit contradictory.

My second point is this. To what extent practically, in dealing with this current crisis now rather than six months or five years from now, would it be possible to take some of the pressure off the Canadian system and put some money in the pockets of farmers by making use of some aspects of the American grain handling and transportation system as an alternative if the Canadian system just cannot cope?