Thomas Mulcair

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I think that some of the people who have been listening to this debate might have a little bit of trouble following so I will try to put things in perspective.

The member who just spoke did back a bill on registered education savings plans. We in the NDP did indeed vote for it but it would not have been our first choice of a way of proceeding because we think it is important to help all families. I come from a family of 10 children. An education savings plan would not have helped a lot because there was nothing to put aside. There was no tax deduction to be had. Thanks to Quebec's excellent loans and bursaries program, I and almost all my brothers and sisters went through university.

However, the member is right. The Conservatives are undoing a bill adopted in the House. However, if the member really wants this bill to go through, he must vote with us against the Conservatives. The Liberals are the official opposition. It is very simple.

He said before that he was imploring the government. I would just say to my good friends in the Liberal Party that for the sake of their role as the official opposition, they must get off their knees. They do not need to implore anybody. They are here to vote and represent the people in their riding. They should have the guts to do it.

Your colleague just spoke before about--

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, does that mean you are going to vote against the bill because all these issues are that important? We are proposing an amendment that would take all of that out, so are you going to vote with us and against the government's bill? Is that what the Liberals are going to do?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that Louis-Gilles Francoeur of Le Devoir summarized it best with an article entitled “La déviance canadienne”, or in English, “The Canadian deviance”. The environment minister's picture went with the article. Mr. Francoeur explained exactly what is wrong with the Conservative approach. There is no way we are going to meet our international obligations.

When I asked the minister what he was going to do about the billions of dollars this could cost Canada, he said he was going to send the bill to the Liberals. That is a cute quip in question period, but it does not answer a very serious question.

No, the Conservatives have shown that they do not understand the basic principles of sustainable development. If they did, they would be internalizing the costs.

For example, in Quebec the $3 it costs to recycle a tire in Quebec is added to the price of the tire. It is not fair for someone who takes the metro or the bus to work to pay for somebody else to recycle their tires, right? That is a basic principle: user pay, polluter pay, internalize the cost, and do the life cycle analysis of the product. The Conservatives do not do that.

For future generations, the greenhouse gas costs are going to be in the billions of dollars. It has to be internalized. If we do not do that, we are going to wind up doing what the Conservatives are doing, which is giving out cheques to private companies. That does not work. The cost has to be internalized and passed along to the people who are using it. Polluter pay and user pay are basic principles of sustainable development.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I can inform my colleague that of the examples he gave us, the Kelowna accord, for example, was an idea that was 13 years late. The Liberals were there for 13 years. They did nothing. On the eve of an election, they said they were going to do something.

Let us look at what they did on climate change. The Liberals had the worst record in the world, with a 35% increase in greenhouse gas production in Canada for 13 years. As one of their five leaders said, they “didn't get the job done”.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, some of our colleagues have said they would indeed like to hear from her, and rightfully so, because the budget implementation bill before us today contains very important provisions that would drastically change Canada's immigration system. And my colleague, the opposition critic for immigration, will have some very important things to say on this.

Let us look at the budget situation. The budget is a rather complex document that includes all kinds of explanations, tables and graphs, and the same is true of the budget implementation bill. But if people really want to understand at a glance, through just one example, exactly where the Conservatives are going with this budget, I invite them to look at table 5.4 in the budget, and this can be consulted on-line.

We are currently at the beginning of April, which corresponds to the beginning of what we here in the House call a fiscal year or financial year. The government's budget ends on March 31, so we just began a new year, in budget terms.

For the current fiscal year, 2008-09, as well as for 2009-10, that is, over a two year period, the Conservatives plan to reduce corporate contributions by 14%. In other words, corporate taxes will drop by 14%. That same table shows that, at the same time, during the same two year period, the Conservatives plan to increase personal taxes by 12%. Thus, there will be a 14% reduction for businesses and a 12% increase for each of my colleagues, myself and everyone at home listening to this debate.

This is part of the budget package that the public has the right to know about and understand. As my colleague just said, this is an ideological choice the Conservatives made. But what makes me sad is to see the so-called official opposition stand up to ask questions and make comments, creating the illusion for Quebeckers and Canadians that they are against the budget, when in fact they are not. They are supporting the budget because they are voting for it. They are supporting the Conservatives' budget choices.

That is what happens when you have no convictions and you do not believe in anything. The public can really see the Liberals for who they are, based on one of the things they said recently. They said that their own well-being as a political party was the only reason for their behaviour. They are not thinking about the economy, the segments of society that need help, the fate of social programs or the crisis in Canada's manufacturing and forestry industries. The only thing that matters to the Liberal Party of Canada is the Liberal Party of Canada.

We in the NDP at least have a vision we uphold. We are not afraid of facing voters in an election. We are convinced that by meeting people and explaining the choices we are making and the actions we are taking to create a more just society and eliminate inequalities, we will win more public support for the New Democratic Party. That is what is happening in Quebec, as people realize the benefits of our platform and what we stand for.

Although I do not agree with the Conservative government and I do not approve of its budget choices or its vision of society, at least the Conservative position exists and is clear. I can quote the Conservatives' proposal to reduce corporate taxes by 14% and increase personal income tax by 12%. The public can make up their own minds.

However, it cannot be said that the Liberal Party of Canada has a clear position, because the sad fact is that it does not believe in anything.

I was listening to a question earlier. It was interesting to note the Conservatives' attitude. As you know, Canada is a very big country and, since World War II, the second largest in terms of land mass. Many generations worked very hard to build a balanced economy and they succeeded. We had a primary sector based primarily on natural resources—mining and forestry. And we had a processing sector—the plants and factories—for the most part concentrated in Ontario and Quebec, but also found across Canada, as they should be in a modern economy and within such a vast country as ours.

Naturally, in the past generation, the financial services sector has emerged. These services represent an increasingly important component of our economy. That makes for a balanced economy. We had a little bit of everything, including one of the highest levels of prosperity in the world.

The Conservatives are now in their third year in power. And what is happening under this Conservative government? Despite claiming to be a good manager, it is making some serious mistakes in managing our economy, a little like our neighbours to the south. It is interesting because they are both right-wing governments and they both claim to be competent administrators and to understand the realities. Earlier, we heard the insults. It is interesting that the Americans are in a recession—as their own government has admitted—and very soon we may be headed in that direction. Has the government made plans? Not at all. Does the budget do anything but exacerbate the problems? Unfortunately, it does not.

The Minister of Finance is talking about last fall's tax cuts as proof that he is doing something for business. However, a forestry or manufacturing company that did not make any profits certainly can not benefit from tax cuts: no profits, no tax. Where did that $14 billion go? It went to sectors that are overheating right now, including the oil sector in western Canada.

This is pushing our loonie to unprecedented heights. A high Canadian dollar makes it increasingly difficult to export what we manufacture here in Canada. A vicious circle is starting to take hold. Rather than act like prudent administrators and consider the possible outcome, they are doing the opposite. They are taking money from individuals and giving it to the richest companies. The NDP does not accept that. Our vision is entirely different.

I will share the rest of my time with the hon. member for Trinity—Spadina. Earlier, and yesterday and the day before yesterday during question period, I heard the Liberals lamenting the misdeed the Conservatives are about to commit in immigration, in other words, throw out a fair system where the rules are clear for everyone and replace it with a purely random and discriminatory system that focuses strictly on the arbitrary. It is true that the Liberals' chronic mismanagement has put 900,000 people on the waiting list. It is a tragedy resulting from scandalously bad management, but that is the Liberal trademark. However, it is no excuse for the Conservatives to replace the existing system with a system based on ideological choices that can result in the exclusion of some people because of their country of origin.

I will now leave the rest of my time to my colleague from Trinity—Spadina.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by asking for the consent of this House to share my time with the member for Trinity—Spadina.

[Business of Supply, April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to say to my colleague for Toronto Centre that he obviously had difficulty understanding the quote he read earlier, and therefore I will explain it. I was speaking against subsidies to corporations. In his day, they were called corporate welfare bums. There was nothing inconsistent about it.

For the record, he stated earlier that Canada is a federal country. He is right. If he takes a look at the OECD data, he will realize that Canada, as a federal country, already had a combined tax rate lower than that of other comparable federal countries, notably the United States and Germany. And that was before the proposed 6% reduction.

Contrary to what his colleague, the former Minister of Revenue, stated earlier, my figures are correct. If we do a nation-to-nation comparison, Canada is already well under the tax rate of other countries.

My question for the new member for Toronto Centre is simply as follows. He talked about personal attacks, but he is the only one engaging in them. I will stick to the facts. Does he support, yes or no, the decision to increase personal income tax by 12% and to lower corporate income taxes by 14% as proposed by the Conservatives? Yes or no?

[Business of Supply, April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I imagine the hon. member will be quite pleased to tell all the employees at Trenton Car Works that he agrees with the Conservatives' budgetary choices.

There are a number of companies in his province that are suffering in exactly the same way other companies in Quebec and Ontario are. That is why it is scandalous to have a political party like the Liberal Party of Canada, that has the constitutional right to call itself the official opposition party, but which in fact has become the official abstention party. Soon it will become officially abolished.

[Business of Supply, April 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will give me as much time to answer the hon. member's question as you gave him to ask it.

I will answer in English for my colleague from Edmonton—Sherwood Park.

If he were a Liberal and not a Conservative, I guess the member would say that he is from Sherwood forest, because the Liberals love branding themselves as Robin Hood trying to help the poor, but the actual fact is that the Liberals do not believe in anything. They talk a good game when it comes to social programs and social justice, but they actually do not believe in anything.

Although I do disagree with the budgetary choices of the Conservative government, they exist, they are there, and the Conservatives themselves hold out for the fact that they are going to reduce by 14% the proportion. It is not a question of the global mass. The 800,000 workers do not change anything in the proportion.

The proportion of what is coming in from taxpayers individually is going to go up by 12%. The proportion of what is coming in from corporations is going to go down by 14%. Those are the numbers. It is in the Conservative budget in table 5.4. The member can look up the numbers. They are irrefutable.

However, what is even more important is what was done as a budgetary choice in the fall, with $14 billion in tax cuts for the most profitable corporations. In Ontario or Quebec, where the soaring Canadian dollar is making it more and more difficult to export, manufacturing jobs have been lost by the hundreds of thousands and we are suffering terribly in the forestry sector.

The Minister of Finance stands up in the House all the time and says that he gave all those tax breaks and that is how he is helping corporations. The problem is that if a company did not make a profit last year it did not pay any taxes, so it is not getting any of those tax breaks. If the company is called EnCana, if it is based in Alberta, and if it is making a small fortune in profits, it just got a cheque for several tens of millions of dollars from the Canadian taxpayer. That is the problem.

[Business of Supply, April 2nd, 2008]

That is what those birdbrains in the Liberal Party of Canada want to support. They want to support the Conservatives. They are against families. They are against social programs. They are against social justice. They have no vision. They have no convictions. They do not believe in anything.

More and more, the truth is coming out. Canadians are starting to decode the Liberals. I am just waiting to hear the new star from Toronto Centre, someone who once had the guts to come into this House and claim to represent social justice and progressive thought and who has now sold himself out to the bosses.

I can hardly wait to have him stand up and talk against families, against workers, in favour of tax increases for individuals, and against the average working family. That guy wants to give tax breaks to corporations.

Let him have it, I say, and let him know what really is going on out there in Canada. We can hardly wait because we are going to deal with him.