House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2011, with 50% of the vote.
Taxation March 22nd, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the question. As everyone knows, I am thrilled to talk about the economy, finally, during question period.
I want to assure all members here that consultations were held across the country and with members of the House of the Commons and senators alike. The budget will be released by the finance minister at 4 p.m. today, and we will await his answer to any further questions in that regard.
Questions on the Order Paper March 21st, 2011
Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), for the February, 2010 G7 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting held in Nunavut, 40 Canadian-made parkas were purchased from Canadian manufacturer Canada Goose. Similarly, the Department of Finance previously provided jackets to participants when it hosted the G20 finance ministers meeting in October, 2000, as well as the western hemisphere finance ministers meeting in April, 2001.
In response to (b), parkas were provided to those involved in the event, including: officials from Canada, the Minister of Finance, Tiff Macklem, Associate Deputy Minister of Finance and G-7 Deputy for Canada, Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada; from France, Christine Lagarde, Minister of the Economy, Finance and Employment, Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France, Ramon Fernandez, Director of the Treasury; from Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble, Minister of Finance, Axel Weber, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Jörg Asmussen, State Secretary for the Ministry of Finance; from Italy, Giulio Tremonti, Minister of the Economy and Finance, Mario Draghi, Governor of the Bank of Italy, Vittorio Grilli, Director for International Financial Relations; from Japan, Naoto Kan, Minister of Finance, Masaaki Shirakawa, Governor of the Bank of Japan, Rintaro Tamaki, Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs, from the United Kingdom, the right hon. Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, Michael Ellam, Managing Director, International and Europe, International and Finance Directorate; from the United States of America, Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Lael Brainard, Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury; from the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank; from Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister; from the European Commission, Joaquin Almunia, Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Marco Buti, Director General of Economic and Financial Affairs; from the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director, John Lipsky, First Deputy Managing Director; from the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, President, Jeffrey Lewis, Senior Adviser and Head of the International Policy and Partnerships Group; from the Financial Stability Board, Rupert Thorne, Deputy to the Secretary General; and from the Government of Nunavut, John Quirk, Clerk, National Assembly, Karen Kabloona, Nunavut Territory Liaison. Surplus parkas were transferred to Crown Assets at Public Works and Government Services Canada.
In response to (c), $19,874.64. The total cost provided includes the cost of 40 Canada Goose parkas, as well as all taxes, shipping costs, and costs for ‘G-7 Finance Minister Meeting in Iqaluit’ logo patch and sewing of the logo patch.
Business of Supply March 10th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for that woman from the Bloc Québécois. She does her part to deliver speeches for women, vulnerable women in particular.
I wonder whether she could tell me how she sees us advancing as women here in this House. Two of her female colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, who are presently here in this House, are being quite vicious in their comments toward other women in this House. I will not stoop to their level, but nevertheless, I wonder how we can advance as women if we are unable to support one another here.
This motion to divide the government and our country aside, I am asking the hon. member from the Bloc Québécois whether she will rise today to say she will work with me and the other women in this House to prevent women from treating each other the way they did here 15 minutes ago.
Business of Supply March 10th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, we have laid out a plan to bring back balanced budgets. We are moving forward with the next phase of our economic action plan. The budget that is coming on March 22 is designed to do exactly that. It will focus on bringing us back into balance. It will focus on restraint. We will continue to create jobs and maintain those jobs that are so very important to our families.
I know what will not help. Raising taxes will not help. We cannot raise the GST by 2%, impose an iPod tax, or raise the corporate tax rate from 16.5% to 18% as the Liberals propose. We cannot afford a carbon tax, as proposed by the Liberal Party. This would damage our families and our economy.
I will stand up for families with this next phase of the economic action plan.
Business of Supply March 10th, 2011
This is just dishonourable behaviour. I would ask that the Speaker ask the member--
Business of Supply March 10th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, when a member of another party says that someone is lying in this House, I would expect that the member would be given an opportunity to correct what he or she said and that the member would apologize.
Business of Supply March 10th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, you can see she is speaking quite loudly. I hope she will keep quiet—
Business of Supply March 10th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc Québécois was not listening to my speech. I spoke a lot about the seniors we have helped with our economic action plan. I also wonder whether he is really up to date on what the Conservative government has done for Quebec.
I would like to take advantage of this opportunity, therefore, to tell him about some good things that have happened thanks to our commitment to Canadian and Quebec families. We gave Quebec a seat at UNESCO. We recognized that Quebeckers form a nation within a united Canada. We have been supportive of the infrastructure priorities of the towns and cities of Quebec and have celebrated its history and culture, including the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Quebec City.
Business of Supply March 10th, 2011
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
I am rising today to address the motion moved by the hon. member for Joliette. Given the wide-ranging and far-fetched scope of this ridiculous motion, let me begin by addressing the first item.
As the Prime Minister and his parliamentary secretary have recently said in the House regarding election spending, this is an administrative dispute with Elections Canada that has been going on for five years. The dispute is whether certain expenses should be counted as local or national. There is a difference of opinion on this.
The Conservative Party of Canada acted under the law as it understood it at the time. When it was clear that Elections Canada had changed its interpretation of the law, the Conservative Party had already adjusted its practices in the 2008 election campaign. These were Conservative-raised dollars used for Conservative ads by Conservative candidates.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister also read into the record an email from the Ottawa Citizen of July 18, 2008 and I would like to read it into the record again. It stated:
Hi Phyllis, We are told by communications folks in BC that these were radio ads with the Candidate's personal tag on the end—therefore a local expense to be reported under the Candidate's expense ceiling, regardless of who pays. For rebate purposes, we were asked to bill each campaign—in the case of VanEast, $2,612.00. The good news is that the Federal Party will transfer $2,600 to the Federal Riding Association as we agreed to pay for the ads. We hope that you are able to squeeze this in under the ceiling. Some expenses are not considered election expenses subject to spending limits, such as fundraising costs. Please have a look at the totals and get back to us if you think we have a problem.
That was signed by the federal party bookkeeper. That was not an email from the Conservative Party, but an internal email from the New Democratic Party. The Phyllis referred to in the email was Phyllis Loke, the official agent to the NDP MP for Vancouver East. They were both involved in a transfer of funds that mirrored the practice in question that the Conservative Party engaged in for advertising purposes.
The email I read is one from the NDP national party bookkeeper, one Lucy Ladouceur. She sent it. It meets all the same characteristics that the Conservative transactions did. It was in fact filed with Elections Canada and we obtained it from Elections Canada through the Access to Information Act.
As John Robson from the Ottawa Citizen said at the time:
The more I watch this stuff...the more convinced I am that if there's a scandal here, it doesn't involve the Tories. But nobody seems to care. The opposition want a scandal, the press want a scandal...let's not bore ourselves with details...
Let us also see what another supporter of the opposition said. Robin Sears, a long-time adviser to the Liberal MP for Toronto Centre, also a long-time New Democrat, had this to say on CTV News Channel on February 25:
It's a load of nonsense--the guys at Elections Canada have a few bricks short of a load. Every party plays games with moving money around, have always done, will always do. What's a national ad, what's a local ad? It's nonsense. It's time we got back to things Canadians care about.
I am surprised to find myself in agreement with a staunch NDPer like Robin Sears, but he has hit the nail on the head with his comments and it is proof that this motion by the Bloc Québécois is absolutely ridiculous. This government is prioritizing the interests of Canadians while the Bloc is playing partisan politics on the taxpayers' dime.
While the Bloc is using its precious time in the House to launch partisan attacks on the government, we remain focused on the priorities of Canadians.
Even though there are many encouraging signs that the global economy is recovering, that recovery remains very fragile. That is why our government continues to focus on employment and various other measures to ensure that our economy comes out of the recession stronger than ever. This is not the time to trigger a useless, opportunistic and expensive election.
Canadians expect and deserve to have us focus on their priorities, the economy. The economic upturn in Canada is driven by growth in consumer spending and residential investment which is primarily stimulated by fiscal and monetary policies as well as an improved labour market with a strong revival in consumer confidence. This means sound fiscal management and creating high-quality jobs.
As announced in budget 2010, which I note the Bloc Québécois did not support, our government has a three point strategy designed to return to a budgetary balance. First, we are committed to following through on the second year of the economic action plan. Second, we will build jobs and growth for tomorrow's economy through targeted measures. Finally, we will bring Canada's finances back to balance over the medium term.
This government is getting the job done for Canadians. We are creating jobs and encouraging growth by successfully completing the second year of our economic action plan. The 2010 budget offers more than $19 billion to stimulate the economy during the second year of our economic action plan. Of that amount, approximately $1.6 billion will improve benefits to unemployed Canadians, including long-tenured workers who are unemployed. We also invested $1 billion to increase training opportunities for all Canadian workers because we believe in creating highly skilled jobs.
We are making sure unemployed workers have benefits for them and their families until they find jobs again. We are investing time and money into creating jobs for these workers. We are helping them develop skills so they can latch onto future career opportunities.
We are not making up outrageous, misleading, partisan motions like the Bloc Québécois is, which wants to ignore the priority of Canadians and Quebeckers, which is, of course, the economy. The Bloc's goal is a costly, unnecessary and opportunistic election. We will not be sidetracked by its games.
This government understands the difficult economic times that Canadians are facing and we are standing by, ready to help. We are doing all this while those in the Liberal-led coalition are worrying about their own jobs and trying to force an election.
Let us not forget that early in the recession we provided an extra five weeks of EI regular benefits to all workers across the country and in regions with high unemployment we increased the maximum number of weeks of benefits from 45 to 50 weeks.
Our government also allows long-tenured workers who are unemployed to receive additional regular employment insurance benefits. Since these men and women often only held one type of employment for many years, they now need more time to transition to a new job during this period of economic recovery. The payment of regular employment insurance benefits to long-tenured workers has been extended from 5 to 20 weeks. This additional support gives long-tenured workers more time to find employment during this period of economic recovery.
Our government also put in place the Fairness for the Self-Employed Act, which extends special employment insurance benefits to the self-employed on a voluntary basis. In January 2011, 2.6 million self-employed Canadians became eligible for special employment insurance benefits. Increasing access to these benefits is a good sound family policy that shows our government's commitment to helping families and making their needs a priority.
The government is also helping older workers who have been laid off to transition to new jobs. We have allocated an additional $60 million to the targeted initiative for older workers, which is designed to help unemployed workers between the ages of 55 and 64.
With regard to young Canadians, we have invested $60 million for the year ahead to help them during this period of economic recovery.
While the Bloc Québécois wishes that we would just forget about all of these Quebec needs, it is wasting valuable time in this place putting forward this ridiculous motion.
The Bloc has used today as an opportunistic occasion to make reckless, irresponsible and unsubstantiated partisan attacks toward a government that has done nothing but successfully respond to the needs of everyday Canadians over the past five years.
Employment and economic growth remain this government's main priority and we want to stay on course. Our economic action plan is achieving positive results and providing support measures that are key to our economy. As we said before, the economic action plan has allowed us to create close to 460,000 new jobs since July 2009.
We are focused on jobs for Canadians while the opposition is focused on their own jobs and calling an unnecessary costly election.
Soccer March 3rd, 2011
Mr. Speaker, as a soccer mom, a soccer coach, a referee and an avid soccer player, I am thrilled to report that in Zurich this morning, FIFA awarded the hosting rights for the 2015 Women's World Cup to Canada.
In addition, Canada will host the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup 2014.
It is a tremendous honour to host the single largest women's sporting event in the world. We know that cities from coast to coast will provide outstanding venues for these exciting games.
Soccer continues to grow in popularity in Canada and the Women's World Cup will build on that enthusiasm.
Our senior women's team, the reigning regional champions, is off to Germany this summer for the 2011 World Cup.
Our government is proud to be a key supporter of these tournaments. They are certain to be highly successful and we look forward to watching Canada's teams play the beautiful game with the world's best right here at home.
I say “go Canada go”.