Mr. Speaker, once again, I must rise today to object to this terrible and completely undemocratic habit of the Conservative government. This is the fourth omnibus bill it has introduced. Another mammoth is wandering the halls of the House of Commons. The bill is over 300 pages long. Even the President of the Treasury Board admits that you would have to talk to half the people in cabinet to understand everything that is in this bill.
In such an unwieldy document, it is easy to make mistakes without realizing it, for example, increasing the tax rate of credit unions from 15% to 28%. This forced the Minister of Finance to quietly correct his bad policy in the bill that is before us today.
The NDP is disappointed that the Conservatives refuse to learn from their mistakes and insist on presenting Canadians with a fourth omnibus bill.
The government is voluntarily preventing Parliament from engaging in a point-by-point debate of these reforms that are harmful to Canadians. As we saw with the Duffygate scandal, here is another 300 pages of proof that the Conservatives prefer camouflage to transparency.
I cannot talk about this bill without mentioning the changes that will affect Canadians' right to a healthy and safe working environment. This bill removes the powers granted to health and safety officers by the Canada Labour Code and gives those powers to the minister. It significantly weakens employees' ability to refuse to work in hazardous conditions and places nearly all powers related to health and safety in the hands of the minister. It seems to me that the three changes I just mentioned do not respect workers' rights.
The NDP firmly believes that no worker should ever be forced to work in hazardous conditions.
Another aspect of this bill that concerns me is the attacks on the public service. This is another case of interference. The minister can now arbitrarily designate which services are essential without basing that decision on an objective analysis. These powers could be used to completely take away the right of some workers to collective bargaining. That is unacceptable and it violates the fundamental rights of workers.
This reminds me of a story that was published in Le Devoir last week. A public servant who works for employment insurance's integrity services was formally dismissed for revealing to Le Devoir that quotas were being imposed on EI investigators. Today, this courageous woman voiced her concerns about the way whistleblowers are treated. She said:
I acted in the public interest and I am paying a very high price because of it. It is a dreadful experience to go through and to live with, especially because no one wants to hire a whistleblower. It has ruined my career, and my life.
I sincerely hope that this woman will be able to find a decent job, because she acted in the public interest and that is very commendable.
The government is doing everything in its power to hide the truth from taxpayers, and it is exercising a disturbing amount of control. How can we have confidence in a government that is contradicting itself day after day and preventing parliamentarians from doing a good job by hiding all vital information and introducing such colossal bills?
Bill C-4 contains a wide range of complex measures, many of which are not related to the budget and deserve further consideration.
Because the government pushed through omnibus Bill C-60 last year, a number of errors slipped by unnoticed, including the tax hike for credit unions. As I mentioned earlier, the result of this mistake was that credit unions were facing a tax hike of 28% rather than 15%. Bill C-4 will fix this error.
The NDP is opposed to the tax hike for credit unions and is disappointed that the Conservatives have not learned from their mistakes and are imposing an omnibus bill once again.
I am also very disappointed with the part of the bill that eliminates the tax credit for labour-sponsored venture capital funds.
Labour-sponsored funds are an important economic development tool for small and medium-sized businesses. I want to point out that last Friday was Small Business Day. Abolishing the tax credit for this fund does not help our country's small businesses.
In the past 10 years alone, 2,239 businesses in Quebec and Canada have benefited from this tax credit, and 80% of them have fewer than 100 employees. It is estimated that the Fonds de solidarité FTQ has helped create or maintain 171,000 jobs in Quebec. So much for all the government's talk of job creation. Moreover, I do not see a single measure in this budget that will create real jobs in our communities.
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of visiting a business in my riding. The first-ever saffron farm in North America just opened in Saint-Élie-de-Caxton. I was truly impressed by this business. This is the kind of business that we need to encourage and support through tax credits for young workers, research and development and risk management programs that work. These are the things we have suggested.
I would also like to talk about the cuts being made to scientific research institutes. In Bill C-4, the Conservatives are going after the National Research Council of Canada, cutting nearly half of the jobs there and giving more powers to the president they chose. I find that extremely disheartening. In my role as deputy agriculture critic I often hear about the needs in agricultural research. I know that there are similar needs in other areas. Stakeholders have told me that independent research allows agricultural businesses to grow and set themselves apart from the competition on international markets. Innovation is a priority in the agricultural industry, and it is sad that the Conservatives are not interested in this important issue.
I see nothing in this bill that can help the people in my riding. In the spring, my office was inundated with email and mail criticizing the employment insurance reform. Now the Conservatives are dissolving the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board. The board ensured independent management of EI financing. Now the Minister of Finance has the power to manipulate the rates.
The government wants to bring Canada back to a time where the successive Liberal and Conservative governments could dip into the EI fund. Employment insurance comes from money contributed by workers and is to be used by workers. We cannot trust the Conservatives to manage EI financing. They have shown us time and again that they are not responsible. I am very concerned about this measure.
We are opposed to Bill C-4 both for its content and this process. The Conservatives forced Canadians to wait an extra month for Parliament to resume in order to come up with a new political agenda. Congratulations. Now the Conservatives are forcing us to work at lightning speed to approve their bill. The government wants to quietly slip all manner of things through, which inevitably includes unpleasant surprises.
In the meantime, the economy is stagnating, families keep getting further in debt and their priorities are being ignored. We will oppose budget 2013 and its implementation bills, unless they are redrafted to take into account the real priorities of Canadian families: the creation of good jobs, the assurance of a decent retirement, the creation of job opportunities for young people and a more affordable life for families. That is what people want. It takes more than just saying a few words here and there, like in the Speech from the Throne, to look good. People need action and commitment.
Canadians will have a real government in 2015.
