Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to engage in debate on today's Liberal supply day motion brought forward by the member for Parkdale—High Park.
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, who is an eminent expert on this debate because he has been tasked with this exact role of ensuring this money gets out. While it is not part of his official title, I dare say that he is one of the hardest working ministers of the Crown, and I say that out of total respect for the individual.
Before I continue with my remarks, I want to take a moment to thank the member for Parkdale—High Park. We greatly appreciate his continued support of our Conservative government's budget and, more important, Canada's economic action plan contained therein, a plan the member for Parkdale—High Park has judged positively and as “a really serious effort”.
He will be happy that it is an effort that has also gained the favour of many of his former colleagues in the provincial Liberal government in Ontario. Provincial Liberals, like the Ontario minister of finance, Dwight Duncan, who heralded our Conservative government's recent budget as “a step in the right direction“. He went on to say:
...the federal government has come to the table and has made the much-needed infrastructure investments Ontario has been calling for.
We appreciate that the federal government has moved to help Ontarians....
Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty, highly praised our budget as well, including the $1 billion southern Ontario development fund, an initiative, I note, that previous Liberal governments had steadfastly refused to support.
In Premier McGuinty's own words, he said:
I put that (idea) to all the parties.... This prime minister has actually delivered.
This is real, it's meaningful and it's coming here just in time. This is a time when we're taking a shellacking in the manufacturing sector in southern Ontario.
I want to commend [the] Prime Minister...and his government for listening to some of the very significant specific concerns Ontarians have expressed [for an extended period of time].
We have a Prime Minister who delivered for Ontario and we have a government that delivered for Ontario; a sea change from the previous Liberal government under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin that neglected, in fact, that mocked and ignored the demands of Ontario's elected representatives and the pleas of the people of Ontario only asking for fairness.
Under the Martin Liberal government, for instance, when Ontario raised concerns about the fairness of certain federal transfers in 2005, such as health transfers, it was met with verbal abuse of almost unparalleled vitriol. The McGuinty government was even compared to a separatist at one point by its federal Liberal cousins for even broaching the subject.
Reading from an account, as described in the April 30, 2005 edition of the Toronto Star, of a speech given by the current Liberal finance critic, my friend from Markham—Unionville, who was then a federal Liberal cabinet minister, it reads:
Clearly speaking with the backing of Prime Minister Paul Martin, [the member for Markham--Unionville] told a Bay Street audience McGuinty is eroding “Ontarians traditional Canada-first attitude” with his “analytically deficient” numbers showing Ontario is being shortchanged. By doing so, McGuinty is playing a “nationally dangerous” game....
In effect, [the member for Markham--Unionville] is suggesting McGuinty is threatening Canada's future by seeking fairer treatment for this province from Ottawa. [The member for Markham--Unionville] blames the premier for intensifying the self- inflicted damage the federal Liberals have done in Quebec with the sponsorship scandal.
Such comments, as one would expect, proved to be extremely offensive to all Ontarians.
At that time, Dwight Duncan, then the minister of energy in the McGuinty government, was so offended he asked for an apology. He said that to suggest that this campaign somehow helped the separatists was poppycock and that he took it as a personal insult.
Minister Duncan's cabinet colleague in the McGuinty government at the time, then minister of education, who is now the current member for Parkdale—High Park, shared the outrage publicly, remarking:
—what's dangerous for Canada is a country that doesn't show the capacity to solve problems....There's a billion dollars missing in transfers on health and post-secondary education from the federal government.
I am happy to report to the member for Parkdale—High Park that after the failure of the previous Liberal government to act, this Conservative government did act. We have acknowledged that problem relating to Ontario's transfers, while the Liberal government denied it.
Again quoting Dalton McGuinty's glowing commentary following budget 2009:
The federal government has...addressed an outstanding concern related to the Canada Health Transfer. We are now going to be treated the same as Canadians in the rest of the country when it comes to the funding that we receive for the Canada Health Transfer.
We recognize, more important an even larger problem related to a fiscal imbalance that existed between the federal government and the provinces. We took action to correct that imbalance, starting in budget 2007 and continuing in budget 2009. That is why federal support for provinces is now at an all-time high and will continue to grow. We acknowledged a problem existed. We took action and we delivered.
What does that mean for the provinces in cold, hard dollar amounts? Sticking with the Ontario example of consistency, in 2009-10 that province will receive $15.8 billion in federal support, a $4.3 billion increase over the last year of the former Liberal government, over $4 billion more in support for the people of that province to ensure the best health care, post-secondary education and much more.
Some may ask what the preceding has to do with today's motion. In a word, everything. If my colleagues could take a few moments to read today's motion and reflect, it states as its objective an increase in a particular mechanism that could increase support for municipalities.
However, what are municipalities? Who do they rely upon for their considerable financial support? We know the answer. It is obvious. It is their respective provincial governments.
Let us ask ourselves, knowing that, under what conditions can municipalities best be in a position to support investments in a particular activity like infrastructure? Would they be well served by a provincial government suffering under the weight of a growing fiscal imbalance, perpetuated by a federal government oblivious to its existence?
We all know what happened when the Liberals radically slashed transfer payments to the provinces and territories in the 1990s. We all know what impact it had on the ability of provinces and territories to provide basic health care, education and other services upon which they depended.
We saw the strain it had on the efforts of municipalities to support infrastructure. In the words of the longest serving premier in Canada, the NDP premier of Manitoba, Gary Doer:
Everybody understands that what happened in '95 is the deficit was moved from the federal government to the provinces and from the provinces to the municipalities. We still have potholes in our country from what happened in '95.
We understood what happened. We learned from a history of Liberal neglect, and we will not repeat those mistakes. That is why our Conservative government has ensured federal support for provinces is now at an all-time high. That is why our Conservative government is making the largest federal public infrastructure investment in Canadian history through our $33 billion building Canada plan. That is why our economic action plan provides an additional $12 billion in new infrastructure funding.
We took action and we delivered. We are making the necessary investments to help stabilize the economy for today, while laying the groundwork for the growth of tomorrow.
