Scott Brison

[The Budget, February 3rd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure to speak today to the budget. I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg South Centre.

Three years ago, the Conservative government inherited the best fiscal situation of any incoming government in the history of Canada: a $12 billion surplus and the fastest growing economy in the G8. When we move forward about two and a half years we can see that the government, even before the economic downturn, had actually squandered that remarkable fiscal inheritance, not only spending through the $12 billion surplus but eliminating the $3 billion contingency reserve that was there to protect Canadians during the tough times and against unforeseen external shocks and circumstances.

Not only that, the growth of the Canadian economy had been reduced to the extent that we went from the fastest growing economy in the G8 to the slowest growing economy in the G8, all before the economic slowdown. On page 217 of the budget, table 4.3, one can see in black and white that the deficit for next year, even before one penny of stimulus investment, will be $15.7 billion.

That is important because on November 27, 2008, in the economic statement, the Minister of Finance told Canadians that there would be a $100 million surplus next year. On December 17, 2008, he updated his numbers to tell Canadians that there would be about an $8 billion deficit. On January 27, with the budget, we learned that the government was projecting a $15.7 billion deficit for next year. The numbers have changed from a $100 million surplus, to projecting an $8 billion deficit three weeks later, to projecting a $15.7 billion deficit less than two months later before any any new investments or stimulus to address the economic slowdown.

The challenge I have is in trusting a government for its projections three years or four years out, when it tells us that it will to get Canada out of deficit as the economy recovers, despite being so wrong so frequently over a period of just a few weeks. I have great concerns about this because over the last 10 years we have seen the Government of Canada, through the strong fiscal management of both the Chrétien and Martin governments, put Canada on track to not only pay down a $43 billion deficit that the Chrétien government inherited from the previous government, but to actually pay down $105 billion of debt over that period. Over the next four years, we will see Canada go further into debt by $85 billion based on the Conservative numbers, if we are lucky.

I am greatly concerned about this. Earlier today we saw Dale Orr, a prominent Canadian economist, predict that the stimulus measures in the budget may not have as great an effect on the growth of the economy as the Conservatives are projecting. Once again, they are basing their projections on numbers that economists are already questioning.

I was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland over the weekend. Leaders from around the world were openly questioning the degree to which the stimulus packages would affect growth. Everybody acknowledges and recognizes the need to invest and to try to address this global economic downturn together.

Governments from around the world are trying to work together to put together stimulus packages and other measures that will work. However, the fact is that we are not sure to what extent the growth will actually reflect the investment in these stimulus packages, which is why the investments made in this budget ought to have had a longer term focus, such that they would have made sense in good or bad times. This is why they should have invested in science. Instead of cutting funding to Genome Canada, they should have invested in science to make Canada a global leader in research and development and commercialization. They should have invested more in universities and reformed our tax system to attract capital to early-stage investment that could have created the kinds of technologies that could make Canada a global leader.

The government ought to have partnered with the venture capital community and with scientists who need that venture capital and now find they cannot get the investment they need to perform the early-stage research and development they have to do if we are going to have any developments or commercialization activity in 10 to 12 years.

Global venture capital has dried up. Smart governments are now forming funds to invest directly in venture capital, along with venture capitalists, to ensure that in 10 or 15 years we will see the scientific discoveries that we need to make if we are going to evolve positively as a planet.

The government did not make the investments in green research and development that are needed to address climate change.

The fact is that a couple of years ago most governments, with the exception of the Canadian Conservative government, were seized with the issue of climate change. Now we are talking about the global financial crisis and how we are going to address financial governance. We are talking about how we are going to address today's market failure, yet we are not even talking about the last market failure, which was climate change. Climate change evolved from a failure to put a price on carbon and from failing to bring economic and environmental arguments together.

The fact is that there is really no long-term vision in the budget. It is hard to attack its vision, because there really is no vision. It is hard to attack its direction, because it is about putting money in various pots and spreading that money across the country.

Yes, it will effect some growth, and yes, it will create some jobs, and yes, there are some measures in the budget that I support. I support some of the changes to EI, although the government did not go far enough in terms of eliminating the two-week waiting period and making EI equally accessible across the country.

I support some of the investments in infrastructure. Investments in infrastructure are tremendously important. However, I wish there had been a greater focus on green infrastructure, protecting the economy, and creating greener Canadian communities, both small and large.

The government had a remarkable opportunity to transform post-secondary education with the budget, and it failed. Today we are living in a period in which we face a global economic crisis. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are losing their jobs, and people need training and retraining. It is not just a matter of post-secondary education being there for people when they graduate from high school and go on to college or university; it is a matter of lifelong learning.

The budget provided the government with a remarkable opportunity to create programs that would enable Canadians to train and retrain throughout their careers. Those kinds of measures not only would have helped Canadians today during the tough times, but would also have built a fairer and more competitive and productive Canadian economy in the future.

A couple of months ago, at a time of economic crisis when the Conservatives had an opportunity with the economic statement to unite Canadians, to unite parliamentarians and to address the economy, they not only failed to provide any economic vision or stimulus or ideas, but also chose the opportunity as one to divide Parliament, to pit one group against another.

The budget is an improvement over the economic statement. We could not get much worse than a government that is capable of turning an economic crisis into a political crisis. However, the budget falls short in a number of areas.

I am concerned that there is not a real plan to get Canada back out of deficit once the economy recovers.

I am concerned that we could be saddling future generations of Canadians with higher debt levels and forcing them to pay higher taxes so that we can pay lower ones. That does not seem economically sound or morally correct.

I am concerned that we have not invested in the future of young Canadians by investing adequately in a visionary approach to post-secondary education.

I am concerned that we are not creating the kind of Canadian economy that can compete and succeed globally as science creates the opportunities of the future. I am concerned that the government has failed to invest in sound science.

I am concerned that we are not properly preparing Canada to be a global leader in what will be the fastest-growing area of the 21st century economy, that is, clean energy and environmental technologies.

The budget takes some baby steps in the right direction, and a few missteps. That is why the Liberal Party is supporting the budget with strong amendments that would ensure accountability to Parliament on a quarterly basis. We intend to be a responsible opposition. We intend to ensure that the government does better, that the infrastructure money does result in projects, that we do see a plan to eliminate the deficit as we move forward, and that we invest in a more caring Canada.

[Canada–EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, I think it goes beyond simply trade policy. We need to review the industrial strategy around our shipbuilding policy. We need to ensure that whether it is through procurement, a strengthened structured financing vehicle or accelerated capital cost allowance, there are measures we can take to strengthen the competitiveness of our shipbuilding industry. At committee we are going to be able to have that discussion. In fact, I believe a joint discussion with the industry committee on this issue may make a lot of sense as well.

[Canada–EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate my hon. colleague's question. Clearly, fears have been raised regarding the very negative effect this could have on our shipbuilding industry. As we all know, the Norwegian government substantially subsidized this sector in the past, and this had a very negative impact on our industry. At the same time, it is very important that this bill be discussed in committee. For example, the Minister of Industry should be there to respond to questions, specifically, to determine if an industrial strategy could be established—

[Canada–EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will understand that I am new to the trade critic responsibility and as such, I think it is particularly important that I be immersed in all of the facts. That is why it is important that this does get to committee such that as a responsible legislator I hear from some of the people he has spoken of, and others, some of whom will view this as being a positive step in terms of trade. However, there is a difference, I have to say, between the New Democratic Party's position on liberalizing trade and the Liberal Party's position when it comes to this.

I heard the other day in the House of Commons members of the New Democratic Party raise the issue that the protectionist measures in the U.S. Congress in President Obama's stimulus package aimed at other countries particularly could have a deleterious effect on Canada. They demanded that the government put in place its own protectionist measures to counter that. I have to disagree with that approach. I think that is exactly what happened in the early 1930s when the Smoot-Hawley bill in the U.S. led to other types of measures. We do not want to get into a protectionist war where we see countries around the world putting up protectionist measures in response to other countries' protectionist measures. We have to let calmer minds and good sense prevail.

[Canada–EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I was certain my colleague and friend would have had a question if you had just let him go a little longer.

I appreciate his comments. He and I both represent ridings in Nova Scotia, so we share an interest in what is good for our region, what is good for our country. It will be critically important that at the committee level we hear from those people who believe that this is in the interests of Canada and why, and which sectors benefit from EFTA.

The hon. member mentioned specifically our region and what would be the gains for our region, what would be the gains to Quebec, but we also have perhaps an even greater responsibility to hear from those who believe absolutely that this will not be good for their industries.

We have to understand what ameliorative steps we can take as government in terms of other areas of government procurement, industrial strategy and other areas, where we can address those concerns. Whether it is in Saint John, Halifax, British Columbia, parts of Quebec or Newfoundland, there are shipbuilding workers who are tremendously concerned about this agreement.

At committee it will be critically important that we work together, and we perform our due diligence to ensure that across Canada this, at the end of the day, is better on a macro level--

[Canada–EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for introducing this legislation in the House this morning.

I just returned, as did the minister, from the world economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, which is notable because it was a year ago at the world economic forum in Davos that the then minister of international trade signed the EFTA agreement.

I was at the world economic forum last year and this year, and what a difference a year makes. A year ago, everyone was talking about their optimism about continued global economic growth. Former U.S. treasury secretary John Snow was chiding Larry Summers, another former U.S. secretary, for his lack of optimism and faith in the U.S. economy to recover and to continue to grow. John Thain last year was the new CEO of Merrill Lynch, and he was the centre of very positive attention at last year's world economic forum. This year, he recently was subpoenaed.

The fact is that things have changed dramatically in terms of the global economic situation, which is one of the reasons why we as parliamentarians have a responsibility, at the committee level, to ensure due diligence as we are evaluating these types of agreements in terms of making sense for Canada.

We believe very strongly that particularly during a time of economic downturn, we have to avoid protectionist sentiment, particularly if we look at the degree to which we as a country rely and depend upon, disproportionately, the U.S. economy. During a global economic downturn, which is largely caused by the downturn in the U.S., it makes the case for diversifying our trading relationship.

We understand that. The Liberal Party is a party that believes very strongly in freer trade relationships and building freer trade. We are very concerned about what we heard at the Davos conference over the weekend. Last year it was all optimism, growth, excitement and trade liberalization. This year we heard about pessimism, recession, depression from some people, fear and protectionism.

Some of the comments I heard from U.S. legislators concerned me. There was a session on Saturday called the fight against protectionism. At that session I heard U.S. congressman Brian Baird defend the recent protectionist measures in President Obama's new stimulus package that is being debated and amended by Congress as it moves forward. He was defending those protectionist measures as making sense for the U.S. and in fact being fair and legitimate.

That raises a real concern for us. Not only do we need to diversify our trading relationship but we also have to ensure that we are making every representation we possibly can to the trade people within the Obama administration, as well as bilaterally between Canadian parliamentarians and our counterparts in the U.S., both at the congressional and senatorial levels, to ensure that we are making the case as to why protectionist measures from the U.S. against other countries can target Canada and in fact create an unintentional consequence of taking a global downturn and making it far worse.

This was of course the case back in the 1930s with the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, which took a downturn and created a long-term depression because the Americans brought in protectionist measures and other countries retaliated. At a time when we have to encourage more trade between our countries in this global hypercompetitive economy, we actually put up barriers in the 1930s that created a major depression.

We understand the need to move forward, to diversify our trading relationships, to ensure that Canadians can compete and succeed globally and that we have access to markets where we can sell our goods produced here by Canadians. It is going to be critically important in the coming weeks to make effective representations to the Obama administration and to the U.S. Congress as to why Canadian goods and services have to be exempted from U.S. protectionist measures, and perhaps even more importantly and more broadly, why these protectionist measures have a pernicious effect on global trade and as such probably do not make sense in any case. However, if the Americans will not move on some of those measures, we have to seek Canadian exemptions.

I am starting off by talking about trade issues on a macro level and I am going to zero in on EFTA in a moment, but there is real concern that on some of these trade issues the government has not successfully diversified Canada's trade relationship.

Clearly one of the greatest opportunities for Canada in the 21st century lies in tapping into the tremendous market in China. China's economy will continue to grow this year by 6% to 7%. It represents one of Canada's most exciting and dynamic trade opportunities. It represents an economy that will grow even during this global downturn.

India's economy is growing by 6% to 7%. I note with interest that the Minister of International Trade was in India recently. He obviously recognizes the importance of that trade relationship.

However, on the China issue, the reason why the government has said it has not pursued deeper relations with China, and in fact has actually hurt the China relationship by taking every possible opportunity to poke its fingers in the eyes of the Chinese government, is based on trade. My point is that this has not stopped the government from pursuing a free trade relationship with Colombia. Over the weekend at the Davos conference, I spoke with Kenneth Roth, head of Human Rights Watch, who gave me substantive, important and irrefutable evidence as to continued human rights abuses in Colombia. We know this. It is well known.

The government has to be consistent. It cannot pick favourites in terms of trade policy. If we are not going to pursue deeper relations with China, and if we in fact are going to destroy what was a very strong relationship with China on the trade and economic engagement side, then we have to be consistent. Our relationship with China goes back to Pierre Trudeau and Richard Nixon, who agreed on only one thing, engaging China, and they were right back then.

We have to be consistent and the fact is that the government has not been consistent. It has pursued an ideologically rigid perspective relative to China that has made no sense economically or on the basis of human rights. I would argue that our capacity to influence China on human rights is less now than it was three years ago when the Martin and Chrétien governments built a strong bilateral relationship with China, one that not only could augment our capacity to influence Chinese human rights but could also build tremendous prosperity and opportunity on the energy side.

That relationship could have given Canada the opportunity to become a global leader in clean energy and be China's clean energy partner. Today, not only have we destroyed that trading relationship, but it is at the point where we have also reduced and diminished our capacity to engage China on human rights issues.

Those are some of the issues. Trade policy has to be consistent. We have to be consistent in defending our national interests, our national economic interests, and our capacity to influence the world in terms of the kinds of values that we believe in as Canadians. Protecting our capacity to play a meaningful role in shaping a more peaceful and stable world where human rights are respected is critically important. Creating markets for Canadian goods and services, thereby enabling Canadians to compete and succeed globally, has to be part of our mandate in terms of the government's policies to build wealth and to shape a world where human rights are respected.

However, the government cannot pick favourites along ideological lines and achieve anything, because consistency is critical. The government has been inconsistent in terms of its approach to China and its approach to Colombia, which is absolutely opposite in terms of the approach to human rights. That is going to be an important debate to have in the coming days and weeks.

As we enter a time of significant economic turmoil, and as we see Canadian jobs being lost, we are going to have to be absolutely focused on ensuring that our industrial, trade and foreign policies are consistent and tenable. When we lose influence in the world in a place such as China, it can often mean that we will lose jobs here in Canada.

When I talk to Canadian business people who are doing business in places such as China, they say that they are seeing jobs, opportunities and deals lost because of the government's approach to China. That is going to be an important trade policy for Canada in the coming months. It is one in which we intend to engage Canadians.

Multiculturalism is viewed as a social policy in Canada. In fact, multiculturalism can be an economic policy. If we can successfully harness the tremendous entrepreneurial capacity and leadership in our multicultural communities, we can build natural bridges to the fastest growing economies in the world, such as those of China and India.

We in the Liberal Party of Canada, the party of multiculturalism, the official opposition, intend to deepen our relationships with the Chinese Canadian and Indo Canadian business communities. We intend to work with them to restore the kinds of relationships that will protect and create Canadian jobs and opportunity and strengthen our capacity to address real human rights issues outside our borders.

At the same time, we will look at issues such as the free trade agreement in Colombia. We intend on holding the government to account and want it to be as assiduous in its focus on human rights in Colombia as it seems to have tried to be in China. We want consistency on that.

Times have changed. The tone in the World Economic Forum over the weekend could not have been more different from what it was last year.

If this bill gets to the committee stage, we intend, and I am certain the government agrees, to ensure that Canadian interests are protected and to evaluate this bill, legislation and trade agreement in terms of what makes sense for the Canadian economy today.

There are some real concerns that have been raised by the shipbuilding industry. We take those concerns very seriously. The fact is that the Norwegians have subsidized their shipping industry for 30 years. During that time, they used protectionist mechanisms to avoid foreign competition against their shipbuilding industry. Those subsidies went to upgrading the Norwegian shipyards, giving the Norwegian industry a tremendous advantage.

The Canadian industry has benefited from a tariff system that has at least levelled the playing field for a period. We have to make sure that Canadian shipbuilding industry is not put at risk or imperilled unnecessarily by this legislation, this trade agreement.

We need a comprehensive shipbuilding policy in this country, one that actually helps build a world-class shipbuilding industry that can compete and succeed. We can do a number of things in terms of our industrial strategy and policy to help make this happen. As the government deals with the EFTA, I think it also has to ensure that some of these industrial policy issues are addressed, and we as the official opposition will hold the government to account on that.

For instance, the Liberal government introduced a structured financing facility program. This program helps buyers to purchase ships built in Canada by buying down the interest rate of the loan used to finance the purchase. The cost of the program was about $50 million a year and made a huge difference in terms of the capacity of buyers to buy Canadian ships. We need to ensure that this policy is meeting the needs of the Canadian shipbuilding industry today and potentially go further.

We need to ensure that our government procurement policy in terms of defence, coast guard and what we buy as a government does invest in Canadian industries and protect and create Canadian jobs. I think that is extremely important in these areas when one is talking about procurement around strategic industries such as defence, as well as on the aerospace side.

We believe very strongly in free trade and in respecting the principles of our trade agreements. Our trading partners often believe in the principles of freer trade as well, but the difference between the way our trading partners deal with their trade agreements and the way we deal with our trade agreements is that with government procurement and other approaches our trading partners go right up to the line and do everything they can to protect their domestic industry, stopping short of violating the agreements. Canada sometimes behaves a little bit like a boy scout on the trade scene by failing to actually have a procurement policy for our own departments and agencies, such as coast guard and defence, that actually helps protect and create Canadian jobs and opportunities.

We have to be consistent in that we do not let protectionism disable Canadian companies from achieving contracts internationally and hurting the whole principle of national treatment upon which our trade agreements are based. At the same time, I think it is absolutely fair to say that Canadian governments, and this Canadian government, are not doing enough to create industrial benefits here in Canada. We have heard from the aerospace industry and the defence industry that other countries, other governments, do a lot more.

In fact, that is a validator. If they are shipbuilders, defence industry players or aerospace industry players, part of the credibility they need to sell their goods internationally is to validate their goods based on whether or not their own governments are buying them. We have to ensure that our procurement policy is organized in such a way that it does not go so far as to violate the principles of our trade agreements, the letter or the law of our trade agreements, but also ensures we are not being naive.

We can sit in the House of Commons and pontificate about Adam Smith, but that does not do much to protect jobs if somebody from another country with which we have a trade agreement is eating our lunch. We have to be pragmatic as well as principled. It is a fine line, but it takes judgment and it takes a focus on Canada being a trading nation that has its eye on the world. As a small export-driven nation we need to sign trade agreements, but at the same time we need to ensure that we do not expose our domestic companies to unfair foreign competition.

That is why, when this bill gets to committee, we in the Liberal Party, the official opposition, intend to take our responsibility seriously, and I would hope legislators in the Conservative Party will as well, and ensure that we review this trade agreement in terms of ensuring that it meets the litmus test of defending Canadian jobs and at the same time is in the Canadian national interest at this time.

There are some other areas aside from procurement and the structured financing facility. There is the capital cost allowance issue and ensuring that we have the kind of writeoff of the cost to purchase Canadian vessels which will ensure that we are competitive with other countries. We have heard, for instance, that in the U.S. there are some advantages in terms of capital cost allowance and the writeoff or depreciation of vessels built there. We have to ensure that we are competitive and take every possible measure.

Another area is a procurement policy that makes sense for the Canadian shipbuilding industry and for protecting and creating Canadian jobs in shipbuilding. Also, there is the structured financing facility to ensure that this is effective. Furthermore, there are the capital cost allowance and depreciation issues. Those are the kinds of things we need to see as part of an industrial strategy around shipbuilding and will make it easier for us to say that this agreement is in fact in the interests of Canada.

There are certainly opportunities for Canada in terms of the EFTA agreement. In fact, we have a lot in common with these trading partners. We have the capacity to deepen our trade relationships and at the same time diversify our trading relationships. As I mentioned earlier, it is important that we become less dependent on purely U.S. trade, whether it is with Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland. These are countries with which we share a great deal in terms of our values and our economic and political systems. Clearly, there are opportunities for us.

We need to see some of the concerns addressed, particularly around shipbuilding and the offshore industry. I see the parliamentary secretary, who is a colleague of mine from Nova Scotia. He has worked in the offshore industry. He knows that jobs are created when the offshore industry progresses. We want to see those industries protected, whether they are in Halifax or other parts of Canada.

There are opportunities on the positive side in terms of this trade agreement. Clearly, the port of Halifax, as an example, is facing huge challenges now. Deepening our trading relationship with European countries can help create opportunities as we see more trade going through the port of Halifax and other Atlantic Canadian ports.

The Atlantic gateway is a project in which we believe in investing in the infrastructure and in the capacity for us to ship our goods and to receive goods from around the world. It is important for Atlantic Canada, for western Canada, for all the ports in Canada and also for intermodal ports. There are all kinds of opportunities. We need to see the concerns addressed.

[The Budget, January 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is obviously not listening to the words of his own minister who said it is not just wishful thinking, but he told the reporter:

You can do that if you have process in place to sell the assets, but there was no process in place. So I knew that, within a fiscal year, they couldn't get it done.

Why is the Minister of Finance booking $2 billion in revenue for the next fiscal year from these phoney asset sales when in fact the minister not only has no process in place, he does not even have a list of assets he wants to sell?

[The Budget, January 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, not only is it bad economics for the finance minister to sell assets in today's buyers' market, it is bad accounting to count revenues before a sale is made. Just a few weeks ago, the finance minister told a reporter that it was “wishful thinking” when the Ernie Eves government booked revenues before an asset sale occurred. Why is he now playing the same game here in Ottawa in padding Canada's books that he knew was the wrong thing to do when he was in Ontario's government?

[The Economy, December 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, that is just more politics and no economic plan.

Yesterday in Nova Scotia, 260 jobs were lost at the Magna plant in North Sydney, 46 jobs were lost at Fundy Gypsum in Windsor, there were major layoffs at both Bowater and Minas Basin Pulp and Power, and the lobster fishery is in trouble.

Canadians sent us here to Parliament to work hard and protect Canadian jobs.

Why is the Prime Minister shutting this Parliament down before the job is done? Why is he walking off his job, having done nothing to save the jobs of Canadians?

[The Economy, December 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised Canadians an economic plan this fall, he failed. He promised to make Parliament work, he failed. His exam is Monday night's vote.

Why is this petulant Prime Minister pulling the fire alarm just to avoid his leadership test? Why does he want to shut down this Parliament during an economic crisis? Why is he more interested in protecting his own job than saving Canadian jobs?