Stella Ambler

[Business of Supply, April 15th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for that speech, and especially for addressing the misinformation and some of the accusations that are coming from the other side, which are just a little bit over the top. I am glad she gave us some more information about the fact that we are still keeping our promise to balance the budget, and we are doing this without raising taxes.

With regard to the general preferential tariff the NDP is talking about, why was there this need to modernize and review it? I understand that, but could the parliamentary secretary tell me how that will impact what we have done to close these tax loopholes, how that will impact the people of Mississauga South, the people of Saint Boniface, and the average Canadian? Why did we do this and why was it a good thing?

[Aboriginal Women's Rights, March 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, for more than 25 years, aboriginal women on reserves have been without legal protections that all other women in Canada take for granted, protections they especially need in situations of family violence. When a relationship breaks down, a spouse can ban a woman from her home without her consent.

Aboriginal peoples, international organizations and even the Manitoba NDP have called for this to change. We have introduced matrimonial property rights legislation to protect aboriginal women and give them the same rights as all other women in Canada. This bill would allow judges to enforce emergency protection orders for the safety of the woman and child.

Yet shockingly, the New Democrats and the Liberals are opposing it. This is shameful. First nations women need these rights.

I am proud to say that our Conservative government continues to stand up for aboriginal women.

[The Budget, March 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great point. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has wanted us to index that gas tax for a long time, and we have decided that is a great idea. It will now be indexed. We are talking about the community improvement fund of over $53 billion over 10 years. This is the longest and largest infrastructure program in Canadian history. I am glad we are going to be able to repair those bridges and highways and use the money for public transit.

[The Budget, March 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure about the cutbacks that the member for Guelph is referring to.

Under this Conservative government, transfer payments have never been cut to the provinces. In fact, under the Liberal government, in Ontario transfer payments were cut by $25 billion. The previous Liberal government balanced the books on the backs of the provinces. We are not going to do that. I do think that the member for Guelph has a bit of a short memory.

We have not even begun the negotiations with the provinces. We are absolutely willing to work with the provinces. The Minister of Finance is getting every indication from the provinces that they too believe apprenticeship training is a very important issue. That is what we are hearing from everyone, that there is this misalignment of the types of jobs that are available and the skills needed to fill them.

We are working to address the problem.

[The Budget, March 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, we are in very turbulent times globally. Canada has performed very well on the world stage. In fact, our net debt to GDP ratio is 35.8%, the lowest among the G7 countries, with Germany being the second lowest at 58.4%.

We are doing well, and we are doing well relative to the rest of the world in a very difficult time. I am quite pleased that without raising taxes we will be able to eliminate the deficit by 2015.

[The Budget, March 25th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to have this opportunity to speak about economic action plan 2013, which was put forward by the Minister of Finance last week.

As we all know, we are on track and continue to focus on economic growth, job creation and long-term prosperity while keeping our promise to balance the budget by 2015. We are quite proud of that.

I want to note that many Canadians may have heard of the 950,000 new jobs created since the economic downturn of 2009, but they may not be aware that most of those jobs are full-time, well-paying jobs with almost 80% of them in the private sector. I want to note that as a bit of a success story.

We have heard about the innovative initiative put forward in economic action plan 2013 for skills training. This initiative would address the demand for skilled labour, something I have heard about many times in Mississauga South. I heard about it when we were holding pre-budget consultation meetings and local economic round table meetings. I heard about it when I met with the Port Credit BIA and small business owners, who told me that they had skilled labour shortage issues in their businesses. I heard it again when the Minister of State for Finance spoke with Mississauga Board of Trade businesses, and the minister heard it as well. The hon. members for Mississauga—Streetsville, Mississauga—Erindale and Mississauga East—Cooksville held a town hall meeting where we heard the same thing. We in Mississauga are especially pleased to hear about the Canada jobs grant because it will help Canadians to become apprentices. It will help both the unemployed and the underemployed. We are talking about 130,000 people who will be helped through community colleges and other training institutions. This is good news.

What I want to talk about today are the initiatives in the budget that would affect certain people who have been contacting my office, people in Mississauga South in particular. I went through the budget in search of these types of examples and found my favourite page numbers from budget 2013. I would like to tell the House what they are.

I am going to start with tax relief for home care services. Lucie Shaw in Mississauga South runs Nurse Next Door. These individuals drive around in little pink Volkswagen Beetles and help people who live in their homes. We see on page 222 that the Minister of Finance has decided to expand tax relief for home care services by extending the GST and HST exemption for homemaker services to include personal care services to individuals who, due to age, infirmity or disability, require this kind of assistance at home. This change was effective last week. I am particularly pleased about that.

I also want to tell the House about page 243, which is a good page for two reasons. The first reason is this government will continue to support the Nature Conservancy of Canada with $20 million in 2013-14 to allow it to continue to serve ecologically sensitive land under the natural areas conservation program. Each federal dollar will be matched by $2 in new funding from other sources, leveraging additional funds for the conservation of Canada's natural environment.

The government is also working on the development of a national conservation plan, and I was a proud member of the environment committee when we studied the recommendations for the minister for the national conservation plan. It included a very strong component on urban conservation. To me and to my constituents in Mississauga South, which sits on Lake Ontario and has the beautiful Credit River running through it as well, these kinds of initiatives to protect and conserve our environment are very important.

On the same page and in the same line of thought is also a new initiative for improving the conservation of fisheries through community partnerships. Budget 2013 proposes $10 million over two years to improve the conservation of fisheries by supporting partnerships with local groups. In Mississauga South these local groups would be groups such as the Credit River Anglers Association and the Port Credit Salmon and Trout Association, which do great work in my riding. One would not think of this, because Mississauga South is obviously an urban riding and is right next to Toronto, but the constituents of my riding care very much about our lake, our river and our environment. This is a great way for this government to show what a high priority we put on conserving our natural environment.

I would like to draw attention to page 226, where the topic is financial literacy for seniors. In particular, this budget will support efforts to make public awareness a priority to improve financial literacy, because sometimes older Canadians can be vulnerable to financial abuse. It will help them make more informed decisions about protecting their financial interests in the future.

I sat on the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, which studied, voted on and tabled a report on elder abuse. This was one of the topics that we did not expect to come up, but financial abuse of seniors is actually quite a serious problem. In addition to improving awareness and improving financial literacy, we have also adopted Bill C-12, which helps to combat financial abuse of seniors by allowing banks to report suspected fraud to the police and other social service agencies.

The Protecting Canada's Seniors Act, which received royal assent in December 2012, protects seniors better by considering age and other personal circumstances as aggravating factors in applying tougher sentences for those who take advantage of the elderly. I am proud that we are supporting our most vulnerable in society through this budget.

With regard to innovation, in particular there is mention on page 201 of a business by the name of Electrovaya, which is located in Mississauga South. It was able to take advantage of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, which the government is going to continue supporting with $325 million over eight years for the development and demonstration of new clean technologies that create efficiencies for businesses and contribute to sustainable economic development. Clean technology and efficient practices can save businesses money, create high-paying jobs, drive innovation and improve the productivity of Canada's natural resources. Electrovaya, which produces batteries for cars, energy storage and smart grid power is a great example.

I thank the Speaker for allowing me to tell the House about my favourite pages in budget 2013.

[The Economy, March 21st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today our government releases economic action plan 2013. Our economic action plan would create jobs, economic growth and long-term prosperity. There are no more sleeps. The wait is over, and I cannot wait to hear from the world's greatest finance minister and my former boss, Canada's Minister of Finance.

However, I already do know that one thing our economic action plan would not do is hit Canadian families with an NDP job-killing $20 billion carbon tax that would increase the cost of gas, groceries, electricity and everything else.

Unlike the New Democrats, who would hit Canadians with increased taxes, our Conservative government has cut taxes 140 times, putting an average of $3,000 back in the pockets of Canadian families. The NDP leader can try to run from his job-killing carbon tax, but he cannot hide. Canadians know that from our Conservative government they would get a low-tax plan for jobs and growth, and from the NDP leader they would get a job-killing $20 billion carbon tax.

[Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act, February 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to point out, before I ask the member opposite a question, that Ian McPhail of the independent RCMP complaints commission did appear before the status of women committee last week. He specifically said that the commission found, through surveys and investigation, that the problem of harassment and sexual harassment is not in fact systemic.

However, that is not to say that there are not very important issues that need to be addressed, and I want the member opposite to know that they are being addressed. In fact, today at committee, E division deputy commissioner Callens appeared to talk about the work it is doing.

I would like to ask the member opposite specifically if he agrees that establishing a civilian complaints body under Bill C-42 would help the problem. Why does he think that harassment and sexual harassment need to be detailed specifically, when Bill C-42 addresses the entire problem of all of these issues?

[The New Democratic Party of Canada, February 14th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, love is in the air. Today thousands of Canadian couples will celebrate their love. They will take the time to tell one another how special the love they share truly is.

Sadly, Canadians must be made aware that the proposed $20-billion job-killing carbon tax the NDP wants to impose on Canadians would increase the price of dining at a restaurant. It would increase the price of cards, flowers and chocolates. It would even increase the price of a flight to Paris, the city of love. The NDP's dangerous and reckless $20-billion carbon tax would tax love.

We understand that the Leader of the Opposition loves the idea of imposing a job-killing carbon tax on Canadians. However, we think that Canadians will end up breaking his heart.

[Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal, February 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in the beautiful riding of Mississauga South stands an unassuming red brick building, all that is left of Small Arms Ltd., a crown company that produced close to two million rifles, pistols and machine guns during the Second World War. At its peak, it produced 1,250 of the famous Lee-Enfield rifles per day and employed 5,500 people, most of whom were women.

These women stand as examples of all those Canadians who sacrificed and contributed to the war effort here at home during those difficult times. Today they are known affectionately as the “bomb girls”. One of these women is Patricia Brookes, who worked at the Small Arms building and to whom I recently had the privilege of awarding the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for her service.

In 2009, the Small Arms building was officially designated a heritage building. The plan is for it to be developed as a centre for arts, culture, heritage and environmental science. I thank the Mississauga South bomb girls for their contribution to the war effort and to Canada.