Ralph Goodale

[Ethics, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister is truly as perturbed as he claims to be about the Wright-Duffy scandal, he must explain why it took him nearly a week to come to grips with his chief of staff's wrongful behaviour.

With knowledge of a $90,000 secret deal that perverted the course of a forensic audit and caused a Senate report to be doctored, the Prime Minister still expressed total confidence in Mr. Wright for more than five days. Why that long delay? Did the Prime Minister think he could bluff Canadians about this stunning lack of ethics in his inner circle?

[Ethics, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, this is about unethical, possibly illegal, behaviour in the Prime Minister's inner circle.

All of last week and again today the Prime Minister showed nothing but contempt for ordinary Canadians: no answers, no accountability, no apology.

Ordinary Canadians do not have a sugar daddy in the Prime Minister's office. Ordinary Canadians pay their debts. Ordinary Canadians do not get to blockade an audit, whitewash a Senate report and pocket $90,000.

Who gave the orders for this Conservative corruption? Table the emails.

[Ethics, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, ordinary Canadians do not have access to rich Conservative friends to pay their debts. A week ago the government was calling Mike Duffy an “honourable man”, showing “leadership” and doing “the right thing”. The Prime Minister knows that a secret payment of $90,000 was made by his most senior official to shut down a forensic audit of Duffy's illegal expenses, to pervert the Senate's official report on those expenses and to block any further investigation.

With whom and when did this corruption begin, and will the government table all emails pertaining to this insidious scheme?

[Questions on the Order Paper, May 10th, 2013]

With regard to government communications: (a) for each news release containing the phrase “Harper government” issued by the Economic Development Agency of Canada for Quebec Regions since February 6, 2006, what is the (i) headline or subject line, (ii) date, (iii) file or code number, (iv) subject matter; (b) for each news release mentioned in (a), was it distributed (i) on the website of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for Quebec Regions, (ii) on Marketwire, (iii) on Canada Newswire, (iv) on any other commercial wire or distribution service, specifying which service; and (c) for each news release distributed by a commercial wire or distribution service mentioned in (b)(ii) through (b)(iv), what was the cost of that service?

[Statistics Canada, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the government is wasting $32,000 tax dollars every day to spy on the media and its own backbench. It wastes another $95,000 in tax dollars on every government ad during hockey games. It vandalized the census and it now costs $25 million more to get less data. In 43% of Saskatchewan, it is a total failure. They have lost the town of Davin altogether and so Davin loses its municipal funding. Will the government compensate Davin for this Conservative ideological stupidity?

[Employment, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the U.S., Japan, Australia, Sweden and other countries are all expecting economic growth better than Canada. Young Canadians especially are falling behind. There are 212,000 fewer of them who are working today than before the recession, 404,000 are looking for jobs, and this paranoid isolated government wastes $23 million, $32,000 every day, to spy on the media and its own backbench. For that spy money, the government could have triggered 7,600 summer jobs. Why did it not do that?

[Taxation, May 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian economy has doubled in size over the past 30 years but median household income has grown only by 13%. Middle-class Canada is falling behind and Conservatives are making it harder by imposing more and more middle-class taxes, small business taxes, payroll taxes, new tariff taxes on everything from cancer wigs to the kitchen sink. We cannot blame the Chinese. They do not impose these taxes and they do not pay them. This is a made-in-Canada Conservative attack on the middle class and all those trying to get there. Why?

[Taxation, May 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in budget 2013 the government increases taxes on middle-class Canadians by close to $2 billion every year. For example, on page 335, the Conservatives take $550 million more every year from the profits of small business owners. On page 289, there is a recurring payroll tax hike of another $600 million every year, an escalating, job-killing Conservative tax on every job in this country.

Why does Conservative tax policy attack the middle class and all those who are working so hard to join the middle class?

[Taxation, May 3rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in budget 2013, on page 384, the Conservative government imposes $333 million per year in new Conservative taxes on consumer goods. On page 335, we see $550 million per year in new Conservative taxes on small businesses. On page 289, there is another $600 million per year in payroll taxes. That is not to mention taxes on credit unions, safety deposit boxes and more.

There is close to $2 billion in new Conservative taxes on middle-class Canadians every year. Why?

[Taxation, May 3rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in their last four budgets Conservatives have increased taxes on middle-class Canadians by billions and billions of dollars.

Conservative tax increases on small businesses hurt the middle class. Conservative tax increases on payrolls hurt the middle class. Conservative tax increases on consumer goods hurt the middle class.

Specifically, why does budget 2013 increase Conservative taxes on middle-class Canadians by nearly $2 billion every year?