Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to respond to the NDP leader's motion this morning, because I do not actually entirely disagree with its premise. Indeed it is true that the Canadian economy is facing unprecedented risk. I simply take issue with where that risk is coming from, because I and most Canadians know that the real unprecedented risk here to the Canadian economy is the NDP leader himself.
The NDP leader and his risky economic schemes would ruin the Canadian economy and threaten the jobs of thousands of Canadians. He admitted it only moments ago, as he was encouraging us to highlight measures like his carbon tax in his platform 2011. I took his advice. I highlighted it as he encouraged, revenues by year. It is a $21 billion carbon tax on our Canadian families, and that would be an absurd thing to do. It is a regressive carbon tax plan that means a $21 billion increase in absolutely everything including gas, groceries and electricity.
I also highlighted the NDP leader's massive $33 billion corporate tax increase in platform 2011. Again, he is the one who encouraged it. He is the one who has admitted it. Canadians need to know the truth. His destructive plan to hike taxes on job-creating business by nearly $10 billion a year would mean that Canadians and their employers would be crippled as they try to cope with the ongoing economic turbulence.
However, what about his unprovoked attack on the natural resource sector, which we just observed? He labelled this a disease, which if successful, would bring one of the key economic drivers of the Canadian economy to a halt. Even worse, his embrace of dangerous economic protectionism and his rejection of expanding Canada's trading relationships would close the door on Canadian exporters looking to grow in the global marketplace.
No matter what plank of the NDP leader's economic platform we examine, the objective is the same: take more money out of the pockets of hard-working Canadians through higher taxes, grow bloated bureaucracies through uncontrolled government spending and watch Canada's deficit spiral absolutely out of control. The NDP leader's economic policies would return Canada to the failed and tired big government experiments of the 1960s and 1970s that nearly bankrupted western governments and sent unemployment skyrocketing. Canada cannot afford such risky and costly economic experiments from the high tax and big government NDP, especially during today's global economic turbulence. Indeed, global economic challenges and uncertainties remain.
Outside our borders, the global economy remains fragile, and any potential setbacks would clearly have an impact on Canada.
Canadian businesses must also face ever-increasing competition from emerging fast-growth countries, as well as challenges associated with the aging population and demographic changes.
Fortunately Canada is facing these challenges from a well-established position of strength and with a comprehensive and forward-looking agenda that will deliver high quality jobs, economic growth and sound public finances. Economic action plan 2012 will allow Canada to meet these challenges and emerge from them in a stronger position than ever.
This action plan will further improve our record of achievement by helping even more Canadian workers, businesses and entrepreneurs unleash their potential to innovate and thrive in the modern economy, benefiting all Canadians for generations to come.
Because they are focused on the drivers of growth and job creation—in other words innovation, investment, education, skills and communities—the new measures in economic action plan 2012 will strengthen and catalyze the talents of Canadian workers, entrepreneurs and job creators, who will be the engine of our economy.
In today's motion, the NDP leader claims he is urgently concerned about the state of the economy and Canada must have an economic summit to talk about it. However, the NDP leader goes on to suggest, in his motion, that the talk does not have to be held for a few months. Is that what we call urgent?
As an aside, I hate to break it to the NDP leader, but the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance interact quite regularly with their provincial counterparts to discuss major economic issues. The NDP leader himself acknowledged in his speech moments ago that meetings have been planned. I am here to tell him that they have also taken place. In fact, the finance minister, as he does every year, will convene an in-person meeting in December with all provincial and territorial finance ministers to talk about the state of the Canadian economy and other related issues.
On the other hand, apparently the issue of the economy and jobs only recently dawned on the NDP leader. He is a bit late to the game and needs a few months to draft yet more ways to help the economy, to go along with his carbon tax and his plan to hike taxes on job-creating businesses by $10 billion a year. What other ideas will the NDP come up with? A GST hike? A new tax on everyday financial transactions? A new personal income tax hike? Maybe it will be all of them and maybe even more. When it comes to the NDP and its high tax agenda, the sky is the limit and the pockets of Canadian families are the target.
However, do not worry. We will be spared all these tax hikes and all these ideas for a few months, until we have that economic summit to talk about the urgent economic issue. That is just ridiculous. Imagine if we were to wait for months to hold a summit on an urgent issue. Imagine a family faced with an emergency like a sudden and unexpected need to fix its roof. Instead of dealing with it right away, would the family wait for a couple of months and schedule a meeting to talk about what it might or might not do to fix it? Of course not. It is clear the NDP leader does not understand how busy Canadian families deal with their problems. They do not sit around. They role up their sleeves and they get the job done.
That is exactly what our Conservative government has been doing in response to the ongoing global economic turbulence with economic action plan 2012. Economic action plan 2012 is a positive, forward-looking plan to help build a stronger economy and a better life for all Canadians, their families and their communities. Unfortunately, it is also a plan that the NDP leader rejected mere seconds after its release, for no other reason than ideological partisanship.
First, our economic action plan includes a new approach to supporting entrepreneurs, innovators and world-class research.
As a world leader in post-secondary research with a highly skilled workforce, Canada has strong fundamentals for innovation.
In order to take advantage of these fundamentals, we set up an expert panel led by Tom Jenkins of Open Text in Waterloo. We asked this panel to determine the reasons why Canada is lagging behind in terms of innovation. And now, we are responding to the panel's recommendations in order to create high-quality jobs through investments in the following areas: education and training; basic and applied research; funding opportunities for businesses with the potential to become globally competitive; and better linkages between public research and market needs.
Among other things, this includes doubling the industrial research assistance program to better assist research and development by small and medium-sized companies. It will support innovation through procurement by connecting small and medium-sized companies with federal departments and agencies to build their capacity to compete in the marketplace. It will help high-growth firms access risk capital by committing significant funds to leverage increased private sector investments in early-stage risk capital, including by making available $400 million to help increase private sector investment in early-stage risk capital and support the creation of large-scale venture capital funds led by the private sector. It will also support private and public research collaboration through internships for graduate students and funding for business-led research and development networks.
Unbelievably, these and many more positive job-creating measures were summarily rejected and opposed by the NDP leader within mere minutes of their announcement.
However, there is more that the NDP leader has shockingly opposed.
To compete effectively and succeed globally, Canadian job creators need more than bright ideas. They must be supported by a modern regulatory environment that promotes competition, business investment and economic growth.
That means a competitive and effective tax regime, a financial system that works well and access to global markets. That is why economic action plan 2012 includes key commitments in all these areas that will make it possible to improve conditions for business investments and fuel the next wave of job creation.
This means we are transforming not only how we innovate but also how we regulate. We are supporting responsible resource development that creates jobs and improving the review process for major economic projects to make it more timely and transparent, while protecting the environment and introducing legislation to modernize the regulatory system to realize our objective of one project, one review in a clearly defined time period. These actions are all fundamental to our prosperity.
Ultimately, our success as a nation also rests upon maximizing the power of our greatest asset, our people, and unleashing their full productive potential. With that in mind, economic action plan 2012 invests significantly in training, including job creation by small businesses and opportunities for underrepresented groups in the workforce.
For instance, we are extending the temporary EI hiring credit for small business for one year to reduce the cost of hiring new workers. This will benefit approximately 536,000 employers whose total EI premiums were at or below $10,000 in 2011, reducing their 2012 payroll costs by about $205 million.
To target the labour market more directly, we are also investing $50 million through the youth employment strategy to assist more young people in gaining tangible skills and experience and connect them with jobs in fields that are in high demand.
At the other end of the demographic scale, we are also funding the extension and expansion of the successful third quarter project. That is a product of my home province of Manitoba, which helps employers find workers over 50 who have the skills they are seeking.
Plus, we are investing an additional $30 million to enable more Canadians with disabilities to obtain valuable work experience and ensure employers are aware of the invaluable contribution persons with disabilities can make to their business and to the Canadian economy.
Economic action plan 2012 also recognizes the contribution that aboriginal people can make to the labour market as the youngest and fastest growing segment of the nation's population. To help first nations participate more fully in Canada's economy and benefit from its growth, economic action plan 2012 announces that the government will work with partners to introduce a first nation education act. It also proposes $100 million to support first nations education as well as $175 million to build and renovate schools on reserve.
The action plan includes commitments to help first nations fisheries and to improve incentives for people living on reserves who benefit from the income assistance program in order to encourage those who are employable to take advantage of training opportunities. It also includes $27 million to renew the urban aboriginal strategy in order to improve economic advancement opportunities for aboriginal people living in major urban centres by supporting projects that respond to local priorities and promote local activities, such as job training and initiatives related to skills development and entrepreneurship.
All these pro-growth efforts will be supported by the responsible and sustainable fiscal management that our government has embraced from the outset. It is a prudent approach that will see a return to budgetary balance in the medium term.
In keeping with this fiscal discipline, we will implement moderate restraint in government spending by refocusing government programs, making it easier for Canadians and businesses to deal with their government and modernize and reduce the back office. These actions will yield real dividends for Canadian taxpayers and have already helped make Canada the envy of the world when it comes to government finances with the best fiscal position in the G7.
As noted by Moody's Investors Service when it renewed Canada's leading AAA credit rating, Canada's:
...economic performance and government financial position have held up better than most other top-rated sovereigns to the effects of the global recession.
Listen to the words of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
We’ve got a strong example of the positive effects of good policies even closer to home—Canada. Why has our northern neighbor recovered faster and more robustly from the global recession than nearly all other major economies? [It is] due to a series of smart policy decisions.
Canada has transformed its economy while other nations continue to struggle.... [I]t is growing faster than many of its competitors. It has recovered all the jobs lost in the recession....
Let’s take a lesson from the north and tackle these priorities now.
Our government is proud to state that our economic action plan 2012 and our Conservative government's economic leadership have delivered real, positive results for Canadians. Despite what the NDP leader would have us believe with his constant talking down of the Canadian economy, the facts are clear. Since July 2009, almost 770,000 net new jobs have been created. More than 90% of those jobs have been in full-time positions. This is the best performance on job growth among all G7 countries.
As noted by RBC senior economist Dawn Desjardins:
Canada has experienced quite a good recovery in the labour market compared to almost every other area of the globe.
Even better, both the International Monetary Fund and the OECD expect Canada to be among the fastest growing G7 economies over the near term.
These are impressive achievements, especially during a time when the global economy remains fragile. However, our government is not relying on its past accomplishments. We are forging ahead with a responsible and prudent plan to bolster our economic growth and create jobs.
The NDP leader on the other hand is pushing ahead with a dangerous scheme of carbon taxes and a massive business tax hike that would destroy the Canadian economy and kill jobs. The NDP leader is a risk that the Canadian economy cannot afford, especially now. That is why I encourage all members of this House to vote against today's motion and the NDP leader's high tax, deficit spending economic policies.
