Ralph Goodale

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to defer to my colleague, the minister responsible for cities and communities.

We have in the last two budgets taken some very bold initiatives. We have provided a 100% rebate of the GST to all municipalities on all their purchases. That is worth $700 million per year to the municipalities of this country.

Second, we have taken the existing infrastructure programs and we have condensed them, particularly the municipal and rural program, from what used to be 10 years, down to 5 years so the money will flow more quickly.

When the budget gets passed, we will be begin to share the gas tax. That will amount to a huge new flow of long term predictable revenue to municipalities.

Let me just make two quick points. All of this is in addition to our existing infrastructure programs. Our intention is that funding will be ongoing permanently and it will be there for the municipalities of this country to rely on.

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the budget that we presented on February 23 was intended to do a number of things. It was intended to reflect largely the advice of the finance committee, which it did. It was intended to reflect the consultation that I held with literally hundreds of Canadians across the country and all of the provincial governments. It was intended to reflect the priorities of Canadians as they had stated them directly to me.

Canadians have said very clearly that they want to see improvements in the support systems for senior citizens. That is why in the election last summer we made our commitment to increase the GIS to bring back the new horizons program and to establish a national seniors secretariat. All of those investments will cost $2.7 billion. It is important for those investments to be approved by this House so that program can go forward.

It is absolutely clear that our country will not have an adequate child care program unless the provisions contained in this budget are allowed to proceed. That is not just my view. I would quote ministers of social services and family services across the country, including the Hon. Joanne Crofford, from my own province of Saskatchewan, who has said the social measures in this budget are among the most progressive that she has ever seen.

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard this argument from not only other members of the opposition but other Canadians, and indeed, I have listened to that argument very carefully.

We want a system, in terms of supporting families and children, that is equitable to all concerned. That is why, when we implemented our tax cuts over the last six or seven years, we have focused on families with children. I will do the calculation between questions and come back with the exact arithmetic, but the largest portion of the benefit of those tax reductions up to now has flowed to families with children, particularly low income families.

We recognize that need to bring down that tax burden and thereby leave more flexibility in the hands of those families to make their child care decisions. However, at the same time, the national system of child care is clearly underdeveloped. We need more spaces. We need more skilled workers who are properly positioned to provide the kind of duties that they are called upon to perform.

We want a system that is high quality, universal, affordable, accessible and developmental. That is what this $5 billion is for, and it is not instead of tax reductions but in addition to tax reductions.

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the provisions that he refers to are just part of the tax relief measures that are included in the budget, but even the ones that he referred to will add up, over the five year implementation period, to tax relief for ordinary Canadians of $7.1 billion. That is not insignificant. When they are fully implemented, those tax measures will take 860,000 of the lowest income taxpayers off the tax rolls all together.

Included among those who will receive this benefit, there are 240,000 senior citizens. Those senior citizens are largely single, elderly women living alone. Therefore, there are benefits that flow from the tax measures. All of these too come on top of $100 billion in tax reductions that we have implemented over the last five years.

I am very proud to say that since we balanced the books in 1997, in every budget we have reduced the tax burden on Canadians and we intend to continue to move in that direction.

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Yes, indeed this year if the people across the way have the capacity to pass the budget bill.

We have heard from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We have heard from Saskatchewan municipalities. We have heard from British Columbia municipalities. We have heard from Quebec municipalities. They say that they want the budget passed. They want the new deal for cities and communities and they want it now. We have signed one agreement with British Columbia. British Columbia wants that program, nearly $700 million, if my memory serves me correctly.

This Parliament will have lots of time to debate the hot political points that flow back and forth across the floor, but now is the time to deal with the budget, now is the time to ensure that money flows to the cities and communities across this country.

There is more in the budget. There is child care, establishing a $5 billion program to ensure that there is early learning and quality child care across this country, child care that is high quality, that is universal, that is affordable and accessible and that is developmental, not just a form of babysitting or storage, but that brings education and life skills development to the youngest of our citizens.

I would encourage members of the House to listen to the child care advocates, to listen to the social service groups across the country, to listen to provincial governments. The Hon. Joanne Crofford, who is the minister of social services in the province of Saskatchewan, has said that the child care initiative is bold, innovative, and exactly what Saskatchewan needs, and she wants to see it passed.

Then there are provisions for senior citizens. These are extremely important. We have undertaken to increase the guaranteed income supplement. That will be worth $2.7 billion to senior citizens over this next five year period, as we implement it in the next two years and then the flow of funding over the following three years, to the oldest and the poorest people in the country.

We also have provisions in the budget for the disabled to try to improve the credits and the benefits that flow to those who want to be more self-sufficient, to find their way into the workplace, to have a more comfortable and high quality of life. That is one of the things in the budget that ought to be passed.

There is also a provision to double the credits available to the caregivers of seniors and disabled Canadians. We want to give those caregivers some recognition of the benefit and the value of the huge supports that they provide to those in their families who need that kind of assistance.

There is also $1.4 billion in the budget for measures dealing with aboriginal Canadians. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has pursued an ambitious program over the course of the last number of months and it has some further months to run. The minister will be consulting with aboriginal Canadians, with all ministers of the cabinet and with the provinces.

There will be a retreat toward the end of May, where a number of bold new ideas will come together about how to rebuild and re-establish a better relationship between aboriginal Canadians, the Government of Canada and all Canadians.

There will be a first ministers meeting in the fall of this year, where governments can specifically lay their plans to move this important file forward. In the meantime, the budget provided $1.4 billion to begin on issues such as housing, the care of children and education to move the files forward. That too should be passed at the earliest possible date.

Then there is what we had to say about the environment. I was rather pleased when the Coalition for Clean Air and Renewable Energy made the comment that it thought the only thing wrong with the budget was the date. It was in February. They said that it should have been on March 17, on St. Patrick's Day, because it was the greenest budget in Canadian history.

All together there is about $7.5 billion in the budget directed toward environmental issues. It is very important that those proceed, not necessarily to satisfy the technical requirements of some international treaty, as important as that is, but to ensure that Canadians have clean air and clean water and a high quality of life for them, their children and their grandchildren.

The budget also dealt with foreign affairs and with foreign aid. The budget dealt with the Canadian Forces. It contained the biggest investment in the Canadian Forces in 20 years, $13 billion to rebuild and refurbish the Canadian Forces.

Then we have the measures on productivity, workforce training, immigrant settlement, training and skills and literacy. We have the innovation agenda, $1 billion for science and technology and to ensure that Canada stays in the forefront of the knowledge based technology driven and highly skilled world of the 21st century.

The budget brings forward tax reductions to try to ensure that Canadians are fully competitive with the forces of competition that they have to face from around the world.

There were reductions in personal taxes. Especially there, the government will take 860,000 of the lowest income Canadians off the tax rolls all together, a quarter of them, 250,000, are senior citizens and most of them are women. That is a very progressive measure and it needs to be implemented.

For all of these reasons, as well as the importance of the Gomery commission, there is no need in the House for a rush to judgment. It is time to do serious work on behalf of serious Canadians who do not particularly appreciate the heckling and the hullabaloo that comes across the way. They want to see respect, they want to see civility and they want to see a Parliament that works. We are dedicated to that.

[Committees of the House, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in the amendment that the hon. leader has just moved. I have not seen it and I am sure I will in due course, but I believe the gist of it is to say that there were some recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance having to do with the budget that the government did not implement, and the Leader of the Opposition takes exception to that.

In fact in the preparation of the budget, I went through one by one all of the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Finance. I found, given the rather raucous nature of the committee, that sometimes the recommendations made by the NDP were not consistent with the recommendations made by the Conservatives. Some of the recommendations made by the Conservatives did not match the recommendations made by the Bloc Québécois. Sometimes the government and opposition parties agreed. Sometimes they disagreed. There was quite a potpourri of recommendations from the finance committee. Quite frankly, it would be absolutely impossible for this government or any government to implement all of the recommendations of the finance committee without totally contradicting themselves.

I would say that the work of the finance committee was very helpful. Indeed the majority of the recommendations made by the committee, at least where there was a consensus among the political parties, were in fact implemented in the budget. Therefore the factual basis for the hon. gentleman's motion is simply not in existence.

Let me take a moment or two to address the broader context in which this motion is made and the context that was described by the Leader of the Opposition and by the House leader for the opposition in putting this motion on the floor. It has to do with the current political environment and the issues that preoccupied us in question period a few moments ago and indeed for much of the last several weeks.

Nothing in political life is more important than the public's trust. To me, and I am sure to the Prime Minister, to all members of the cabinet and to all members of the government, earning and keeping that trust is now and always has been our first and most basic principle. I share completely the concerns of the vast majority of decent Canadians upon hearing the various descriptions of events, some of them contradictory, all of them, to date at least, uncorroborated, coming from the various witnesses appearing before the Gomery commission.

The commission, as all Canadians know, is conducting a transparent and comprehensive judicial investigation into certain publicity activities of the previous government prior to the year 2002. Where such activities crossed legal or ethical boundaries, they must be exposed, condemned and punished to the fullest extent of the law. There can be no defence of the indefensible.

The trail does have to be followed wherever it may lead. Any and all wrongdoers must suffer the full consequences of their misconduct, whoever they may be. That is why Judge Gomery must finish his entire inquiry and reach his final conclusions about exactly what happened and who carries the responsibility. A partial story is not good enough. The judge's mandate is to get to the whole unvarnished truth. Nothing less will do.

While this work is ongoing, it is significant to note that the Gomery commission was launched by the Prime Minister himself, voluntarily and very quickly upon coming into office. That in itself is a strong indication of two key points.

First of all, the Prime Minister has nothing to fear and nothing to hide from this inquiry. The issues under investigation are not ones that he created.

The Prime Minister is a man of principle and conscience who is determined, and his actions prove this, to root out these problems regardless of the political consequences. The Prime Minister is also the one who cancelled the impugned sponsorship program and eliminated the agency that ran it.

In an unprecedented move to help investigators, he ordered the release of more than 12 million pages of normally confidential internal documentation from within the Privy Council. He launched 19 legal actions to recover any public money that was improperly spent.

The Prime Minister also ordered the independent forensic examinations of the financial records of the Liberal Party, the results of which are now available to the public on the Internet. He strengthened the rules on the ethical standards expected of cabinet ministers and public officials. He provided the independent ethics commissioner with more clout. He restored the office of the Comptroller General of Canada. He bolstered government-wide internal audits. He provided automatic public disclosure of government contracts.

I hear the deputy leader of the opposition once again interrupting rather than participating constructively in the debate. I would point out that in his last intervention he said that it was the Liberal Party that took away the office of the Comptroller General. I would remind him that the initiative to eliminate the office of the Comptroller General was introduced by the previous Kim Campbell government.

It was the Prime Minister and the government that terminated a number of crown corporation CEOs and implemented tough new standards of governance. All of that is a clear reflection of the Prime Minister's respect for the public trust and his absolute determination to safeguard the public interest ahead of all personal or partisan considerations.

Last evening in his address to the country, I believe the Prime Minister made a very compelling argument. He spoke directly and honestly to Canadians about the crucial work of the Gomery Commission which he himself created. He spoke about political responsibility and political accountability. He spoke about calling a national election quickly upon the publication of Judge Gomery's report.

I think Canadians will find the Prime Minister's case to be both reasonable and convincing, based upon the complete and unvarnished truth.

In sampling public opinion, I know that political parties like to revel in the outcomes of public opinion polls, which vary. They go up, they go down and they change from time to time. I have had a sampling of the opinion of prominent Canadian journalists over the course of the last couple of weeks while these issues have been very prominent in the media. Let me just put a few of those views of people who watch the political process on a daily basis and who have some background and knowledge in these matters, on the record.

There was an article not long ago by Mr. James McNulty in the Vancouver Province. The headline on that article was “Early election call will snub public opinion; opposition should heed public support for Gomery inquiry to finish”. About the same time there was an article in the Calgary Herald that said “Canadians may well get to the bottom of the scandal, just as Martin promised”. Third, from the

Regina Leader Post:

There was an election only last year and we detect no public appetite for another so soon. We believe that in the real world, a majority of Canadians want the government to get on with running the country, the opposition parties to hold them to account on their policies and Justice Gomery to complete his work and report his findings.

Then there was this commentary from University Dean William Neville appearing in the Winnipeg Free Press. He said:

--it would not be entirely unprecedented to have a verdict first and a trial afterwards. It happened, after all, in Alice in Wonderland.

Then there was a comment from CanWest Global in the National Post not long ago where this was said:

At the time the Prime Minister created the Gomery inquiry, he knew a feeding frenzy like this might result. And so you have to give him a good deal of credit for ignoring the politics and doing the right thing.

Then we have an editorial today in the Globe and Mail that makes the case for hearing everything that Judge Gomery has to say when his report is finalized.

Even earlier the Globe and Mail said this:

Whoever pulls the plug has to have a good reason to put the country to the expense and disruption of another election only one year after the last. If the most compelling reason is political opportunism, and if the voters sense they are being summoned to the polls prematurely, they may not reward the perpetrator.

Let me also refer to the Ottawa Citizen and an article that was written not long ago by Susan Riley. She noted she was no particular friend of the government or the Prime Minister, but this is what she had to say:

What is going on is hysteria, a lynch-mob mentality, a potent mixture of genuine public outrage and political opportunism that threatens to derail the disinterested pursuit of justice and the whole truth.

Then there is the Montreal Gazette which not long ago had this to say:

The election buzz is largely a media invention, rather than a measure of reality. The public has no interest in a quick election; we had one just 10 months ago.

Let me refer to the Halifax Chronicle Herald . The Halifax newspaper had this to say:

The case [the Prime Minister] laid out in his own defence is stronger than any case mounted against him. He is the one who cancelled the sponsorship program on Day 1 of his tenure. He is the one who set up the Gomery inquiry...

Right across the country there is consistent editorial opinion that simply says as a matter of fairness and justice, as a matter of letting the whole truth be known, that the proper course of action here is to allow Judge Gomery to finish his inquiry, to find the facts, to make his recommendations and on the basis of those recommendations, then all of us will have both the information and the obligation to act and to act appropriately. That is essentially what the Prime Minister said last evening.

There is another reason why it would be appropriate, I believe, for this Parliament to take a more considered course, as we approach the days and weeks immediately ahead, rather than some blind and irrational rush to judgment, and that is because the House has before it some very important business. I know various ministers want to sponsor and promote their portfolios of activities.

I would simply refer to the budget. It is a budget that provides $5 billion for cities and communities to build the healthy infrastructures that they need for the future. It is a budget that puts in $5 billion--

[Sponsorship Program, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is making an extreme allegation. The facts of the matter are, from what is on the record and indeed what has been said in the House from time to time, that all of the appropriate competitive procedures were applied and there were no rules violated.

[Sponsorship Program, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this issue was discussed in the House many months ago. The evidence is very clear, from the written material that was before the public accounts committee and otherwise, that the facts are just not as described by the hon. gentleman. In fact, all of the evidence on the written record would demonstrate that competitive processes were followed and that the normal practices of the Department of Public Works were honoured.

[Sponsorship Program, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the issues with respect to public opinion research have been examined on many occasions already. They were examined in an audit report in 1996 done independently by the firm of Ernst & Young. They were examined most recently by the Auditor General in her report in 2003 and she said this:

For the most part, we found that the federal government was managing public opinion research in a transparent manner and with adequate controls. The activities were centrally co-ordinated, as required by policies. Selection of suppliers for standing offers followed the competitive process.

[The Prime Minister, April 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, the Prime Minister has been aggressively pursuing this matter. He cancelled the sponsorship program on his first day in office. He launched the Gomery inquiry. Instantly upon receiving the Auditor General's report he terminated the agency that administered the program. He released an unprecedented amount of internal confidences of the Privy Council in order to assist all of the investigators. He has launched lawsuits to recover any money that may have been misspent. He has ordered an independent forensic examination of the financial records of the Liberal Party. On and on the list goes.