Ralph Goodale

[Oral Questions, May 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks by the hon. parliamentary secretary because in fact the sentence says, “What we are not going to do--

[Taxation, May 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, at exactly 2:23 p.m. in this House, earlier in question period, the Prime Minister said that he will not produce another budget “until we need to raise taxes”. That is what he said on the record of this House a half an hour ago.

It was this party that eliminated a Conservative deficit, that balanced the books, that brought down 10 surplus budgets, that cut taxes by $100 billion and left the best fiscal record in Canadian history.

When will the Prime Minister come clean to Canadians?

[Taxation, May 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have checked the record and earlier today in question period the Prime Minister said that he would not bring in a new budget “until we need to raise taxes”. That is a massive admission of a Conservative hidden agenda to increase taxes in this country.

When will he introduce that budget? What taxes will he increase? Who will pay and by how much?

[Automotive Industry, May 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, only the Conservatives talk about increasing payroll taxes; only them, no one else. Liberals cut those taxes 12 consecutive times.

Let us be clear. Improving access to employment insurance during the depths of a recession does not mean premiums go up. To assert the contrary is a malicious threat.

Why are Conservatives threatening the jobless? Why do they mock the victims of a Conservative recession, slandering them as rip-off artists who just want to bilk EI?

[Automotive Industry, May 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in the auto sector, a truck plant shut down yesterday in Oshawa and 2,600 more jobs are gone, and GM will obviously not keep 20% of its production in Canada.

In total, more than one-third of a million Canadians have lost their job under the Conservative government and thousands of them cannot get EI, even though they paid all their dues.

Are the Conservatives really saying to these people, “That's it, that's all. Shut up. Quit your complaining”? Is that all there is from the uncaring government?

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2009]

Madam Chair, I have one other issue unrelated to PFRA.

With regard to the crisis in the pork industry, is the government planning a $30 per head emergency payment to help Canadian pork producers, as they have requested?

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2009]

Madam Chair, I am happy to advise the minister that I do not and never have taken a holiday in Florida.

With all the minister's happy assurances tonight, will he assure the House that the full existing staff complement of the former PFRA will be maintained in Regina? Will all the regional and district offices of the former PFRA be maintained? Will all former PFRA community pastures remain intact, or are those federal pastures among the capital assets that the finance department is now proposing to sell?

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2009]

Madam Chair, typically with the government, and I have noticed this over the last three years, when it begins an answer with “nothing could be further from the truth”, it is exactly the truth.

I would advise the minister that the PFRA has been international and functioning internationally for years. It has been a lead agency for CIDA in implementing foreign aid projects, especially in Africa. It was also the agency called in by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers back when the Mississippi had the great flood back in the 1990s. So PFRA has been international for a long time.

As the attrition of PFRA continues, decision-making authority has essentially been removed from the headquarters operation in Regina and centralized in Ottawa. When PFRA people in Regina retire, their positions go vacant and they are not replaced. Attrition is indeed well underway. This is clearly the plan, to let it wither on the vine.

Will the minister specifically reverse this and run the department's environmental programs from Regina? Why not? There is no impediment to that. Why does the PFRA centre of excellence and expertise have to be the victim here?

[Business of Supply, May 14th, 2009]

Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time this evening with the members for Bourassa and St. Paul's.

I might just say to begin with, on the issue related to market access and market development, that the important effort on behalf of Canada in this regard did not just begin in the last year or two or three. The minister might want to look at the important history of his department and the work of veteran public servants, such as Michelle Comeau and Michael Gifford and a range of others, who have given Canada a great foundation upon which to build in terms of access to markets around the world.

Tonight I want to especially ask the minister about the PFRA, the Prairie Farmer Rehabilitation Administration. Established in 1935 and headquartered in Regina, PFRA became and remains the single most successful and most respected agency of the Government of Canada in the west. Its expertise was second to none in soil conservation, water supply systems, irrigation, flood protection, pasture management, shelter belts, ground cover, community development and much more. It was hands on and it was trusted.

Largely now, unfortunately, it is over. PFRA no longer exists as a stand-alone entity within the Government of Canada. Its name has been abolished and it is now folded into some other branch of the Department of Agriculture.

I would like to ask the minister, why was PFRA killed?

[Business of the House, May 14th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to May 28 for the meeting in committee of the whole to consider the estimates of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, I presume the government House leader, before that date, will be proposing the same procedural motion governing the rules that would apply during the course of that debate. I see he is nodding his head and I welcome that information.

My final point is simply to provide a bit of information that the government House leader may not have in respect of the hoist motion that was moved earlier today having to do with Bill C-8. He may be comforted to know that every major aboriginal organization in the country supports the hoist motion.