Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to budget 2012 on behalf of the residents in my riding of Palliser in southern Saskatchewan.
Our government has developed a positive, responsible plan to help keep Canada's economy growing, fuel job creation and secure the long-term prosperity for Canadians. It is a solid plan that will help businesses and individuals within my riding, within Saskatchewan and, indeed, within the boundary called Canada.
In the international financial community, there is admiration for Canada's stable position. These accolades include the World Economic Forum stating that our banks are the soundest the world, and Forbes magazine ranking Canada as the best place in the world to do business, to grow business and to create jobs.
In fact, since July 2009, our economy has created more than 700,000 net new jobs.
I will talk about four parts of budget 2012 that would support businesses, families and communities in my riding: First, creating a more efficient immigration system; second, managing our resources better; third, expanding our trade opportunities; and fourth, creating a sustainable old age security program for future generations.
There are Canadians who are out of work or underemployed. At the same time, there is a labour shortage in Saskatchewan, as well as other parts of the country, for some jobs. This budget contains measures to create new, high quality jobs for Canadians while providing measures to fill vacancies through improving the temporary foreign worker program if, and that is a big if, there are no Canadians to fill these positions.
Since 2006, the government has pursued much needed reforms to focus Canada's immigration system on increasing economic prosperity for Canadians. We need to move to an increasingly fast and flexible immigration system that responds to the needs of the labour market in order to sustain Canada's economic growth.
During the pre-budget consultations, a business owner within my riding mentioned that the processing time for skilled workers needed to be reduced. He also mentioned that there was too much red tape during this process. I heard that from a number of constituents. I am proud to say that the government listened and committed to lessen the processing time for temporary foreign workers who made applications, while reducing the paper burden on all employers.
We propose further improvements to recognize foreign professionals, such as physicians, nurses and engineers, among other much needed roles within the Canadian economy.
Looking at the second pillar, I will talk about how budget 2012 will help to manage our resources.
My home province of Saskatchewan is blessed with many resources that drive the economy and there is demand for these resources worldwide. If we are to compete with other resource rich countries, which would create some of those high quality jobs that I mentioned, we need to put in place an effective, efficient regulatory system to review major projects.
We propose to streamline the review process to encourage responsible resource development. The proposed review process will include fixed timelines and a one project, one review process, while introducing stronger penalties for those who violate our environmental laws.
Turning to number three, I will talk about how our plan will help expand trade. I am supportive of the focus on international trade, as it create jobs for residents in my riding and in Canada. Since 2006, we have finalized nine free trade agreements with other nations and we continue to deepen trade agreements with other nations, including those with fast growing economies. In fact, a Canada-European Union free trade agreement would bring a 20% boost in bilateral trade, which would create approximately 80,000 new jobs.
Agriculture contributes enormously to our country's economy, with nearly $35.5 billion in exports, which makes Canada the world's fifth largest exporter of agriculture and food products.
Our plan includes measures to help our farmers and ranchers succeed, which is good news for my riding where agriculture is the number one industry. They are succeeding partially thanks to efforts in opening markets for our Canadian beef, pork, canola, pulse crops, wheat and more.
We will continue to work on behalf of farmers and ranchers to ensure that people in other countries have access to our high quality Canadian food.
Our efforts and successes have been well recognized by the agricultural sector. Additionally, exporters within my riding would benefit through extending the provision of domestic financing by Export Development Canada.
I would like to take a minute to talk about the old age security program.
Budget 2012 proposes changes to the OAS program to ensure that it will be sustainable for future generations. Our plan outlines that changes will not be introduced until 2023, which means that seniors or those who are nearing retirement will not be affected. Our government is providing many years of lead time to allow individuals to make adjustments to their savings plan as necessary to meet their own goals and aspirations.
I will provide a comment from a constituent who stated, when we were talking about pensions, “The pension reforms are acceptable, seeing that the age change will only take place after 2023 or 2029, allowing the next generation to prepare, and thus manage their economies of scale accordingly”.
Our seniors are realists.
We are also eliminating the application process for OAS and GIS, which has been warmly received by many constituents who contacted my office.
I support changes for the sustainability of the OAS program on behalf of residents in my riding who may need the OAS in future years.
I would ask all hon. colleagues to support Bill C-38, a positive, reasonable plan that encourages job creation and growth within sound fiscal principles and without reducing transfer to persons. It is the right plan for Palliser, for Saskatchewan and for Canada.
Thanks to our elected majority government, I am excited for the opportunities facing Saskatchewan and Canada as our government works to allow businessed to flourish and families and communities to grow and strengthen.