Tom Lukiwski

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, if Questions Nos. 166 and 167 could be made orders for returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.

[The Budget, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your indulgence. All I can say to my friend, the hon. member, is that each province has its own ability to create its own set of circumstances, which allows its fiscal capacity to rise. We have seen that in Saskatchewan. I wish him all the luck in hoping that his territory does the same.

[The Budget, March 26th, 2007]

We have a lot of shots from the cheap seats, the peanut gallery over there. It just goes to show that we touched a nerve, that the hon. member knows he was wrong in what he did, yet he does not have the jam to stand up and admit he was wrong.

With the respect to the member's questions on equalization and why we now say we want to see the equalization formulas revamped in an honest and fair way, and that is all we have ever said, there has to be rules of fairness and equity. That is exactly what this equalization formula does. In particular, it is reflective of the relative fiscal capacity of each province, and situations change from year to year. This is something that clearly the member does not understand.

Three years ago, if the current rules were place, Saskatchewan would have received probably up to three times as much money as this year. The fact is this. Over the last number of years, the Saskatchewan economy has taken off, far beyond anyone's expectations, and the equalization payments are reflective of that.

[The Budget, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting that the hon. colleague from Halton stands in this place and says that he is amazed that someone would go to Ottawa and then start speaking on issues other than on what he was elected.

I believe the member for Halton has a lot of explaining to do to his constituents. He said that he believed anybody who crossed the floor should immediately resign and run in a byelection. Yet the hon. member for Halton has done exactly the opposite. It is a bit hypocritical to hear the member stand in this place and criticize any member at any time or any issue.

[The Budget, March 26th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, at the outset, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Lévis—Bellechasse.

I am very pleased to stand in this place today to speak in favour of budget 2007, which works well on behalf of all Canadians. In addition, I want to speak specifically about how it impacts my home province of Saskatchewan and, more particular, dispel some of the myths that we have heard from assorted local politicians and media members about the equalization program.

This is a good budget for a number of different reasons and on a number of different levels.

First, it talks about fixing the fiscal imbalance. We had a situation with members of the Liberal Party who refused to admit that there was something known as a fiscal imbalance. We admitted it freely prior to the last budget and we took steps to make reparations, to fix what was known as the fiscal imbalance and turn it into a fiscal balance, where all provinces would receive increased benefits through transfer payments. More important, a set of rules would established so that all provinces, on a go forward basis, could see exactly how these transfer payments would be structured and the formulas used to enact payments to the provinces on a yearly basis.

This has troubled provinces for the last 20 or 30 years. Finally we can say that we have put those fears to rest and the fiscal balance has been established.

However, it goes beyond dealing with the provinces. We also see in budget 2007 great advances and moneys made to different sectors of our economy.

Agriculture, as an example, is benefiting greatly. Over $1 billion of new money are going to agricultural producers, some of it in the form of a new safety net program, similar to the old NISA program, in which $400 million of the $1 billion would go as cost of production moneys to producers and $1.5 billion would go toward increasing and promoting our fledgling biofuels industry.

I have said in and outside this place on many occasions that while I do not think the biofuels industry itself will be the absolute panacea for all our agricultural concerns, it will certainly go a long way to ensure that agricultural producers will have another market for their product. I think we will find in years to come that commodity prices will increase and we will see the ancillary benefits of the biofuels industry, allowing producers to engage in and invest in the industry in a meaningful way. Therefore, they will finally be part of an industry that will use some raw products and produce a product that will be in great demand across the province. It is a great day for Saskatchewan agricultural producers.

We have also seen increased money for seniors, the environment and a lot more money for infrastructure, which I totally applaud. There will be over $33 billion over the next seven years for infrastructure. I know how that will impact my riding. I have been working with some of the municipalities within my riding of Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre on projects that require infrastructure money, and we finally have it. We have a secure, predictable pot of money for infrastructure projects that will assist all municipalities and combat the infrastructure deficit, which they have talked about for the last number of years. It is a great day for Saskatchewan's towns, villages and large cities.

I will turn my attention for a moment to the one aspect of the budget that seems to be generating the most controversy, at least the most discussion, in my province of Saskatchewan, and that is equalization.

In the campaigns of 2004 and 2006 Conservatives said that they wanted to revamp the equalization formula. We said that we would switch from a five province standard to a 10 province standard, and we did that in budget 2007. We said that we would allow provinces to exclude 100% of non-renewable natural resources, and we did that in budget 2007.

The point of controversy is the fiscal cap that we have also introduced. I want to spend a few moments on explaining why this is an absolutely fair and right thing to do in terms of equalization throughout the country.

As most people know, equalization is a constitutionally entrenched program, which was established in 1957 in an effort to allow all provinces within Confederation to deliver services at relatively the same level of taxation as their neighbours. To do that, a formula was established to try to determine the fiscal capacity or relative wealth of each province. The provinces that were not quite as well off, that had a lower than average fiscal capacity, would receive equalization payments. That program had gone through numerous changes in the last 50 years, but there was never really a concrete set of rules that would allow provinces to forecast into the future what their equalization payments would be. Nor was there a set of firm or fair rules that would establish the payment to have not provinces from the equalization formula. That is what we have done.

However, many local politicians and some federal politicians have joined in the debate over the controversy in Saskatchewan. They have said that Saskatchewan is being penalized because even though there is 100% removal of non-renewable natural resources, it will not be receiving the full amount of that because the cap.

The cap is put on to ensure that no equalization receiving province will end up with a fiscal capacity higher than a non-receiving equalization province. In other words, no province that receives money from the equalization program should be then in a position of greater wealth than a province that does not receive equalization moneys. That just stands to reason.

An analogy that I like to use, and I have used on a number of occasions, is a situation when I was much younger. I had a group of friends, who were probably eight, nine or ten years old at the time. We would hang out together, go to movies, parties and that kind of thing. I can recall that one of our friends never seemed to have as much money as the rest of us.

When we had a plan to go to the movies, for example, this young fell would go around to the rest of us and ask if we could lend him a 25¢ or 50¢ to help him get in to the movie. The odd time when we got into the movies lo and behold we found the guy who had borrowed the money ended up with more money than the rest of us. What would really tick me off was he would buy more candy than we would and he would not share it. I did not think it was fair at that time and I do not think the concept is fair today.

That is what we are talking about today. The cap ensures that no equalization receiving province would have a higher fiscal capacity than a non-receiving province. We put Ontario as the benchmark.

Members like the member for Wascana, Premier Calvert and Mr. Brad Wall, the leader of the Saskatchewan official opposition have decried this. They say that it is unfair to Saskatchewan. However, they are missing the concept of equalization. Equalization and the spirit of equalization is intended to equalize the revenues and the fiscal capacity among provinces. It is not meant for one province to take money and then end up in a higher fiscal capacity situation than the provinces that give the money. That is just not fair and it does not make sense.

Therefore, in my opinion, the criticism from some of those politicians is nothing more than cheap political partisan politics made for political gain on a short term basis. What the equalization program also does is protect Saskatchewan.

God forbid my home province every gets back into a have not category, but should it happen, this equalization formula, because it eliminates 100% of non-renewable natural resources, will allow Saskatchewan then to participate in the equalization program and receive much more money than it has ever done in the past.

The other point I want to make is this. Some of the critics of the equalization formula are pointing to next year's projections and saying that Saskatchewan is projected to receive no money from equalization because of the equalization formula being revamped and because of the fiscal cap. I wish to dispel that myth.

Should Saskatchewan receive no money from equalization next year, it is because it does not qualify for equalization. Its wealth is such that it does not qualify. Similarly Ontario, which has never received one penny from equalization in the 50 years since the program was established, and Alberta, which is the wealthiest province in Confederation these days, do not receive equalization payments.

If Saskatchewan gets to the point where it does not receive equalization, it is in that position because of its wealth. It has now the third hottest economy in Canada. That is something we should be celebrating. We should be standing up and saying that finally Saskatchewans can stand on their own two feet.

Yet we have our critics. We have the member for Wascana, Premier Calvert and others saying this is a bad thing. They want to continue to be on the government dole and receive money from every other provinces, regardless of their situation economically. It is just not fair. We put rules in place to ensure that all provinces will be treated equally. That is why Saskatchewan is a big winner in this budget. That is why Canadians are big winners in this budget.

[Questions on the Order Paper, March 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[March 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, once again, my hon. colleague is completely off the mark. When we made the announcement January 9 of a citizens' consultation process, it was not awarded to friends of the minister, as she suggested. If she does suggest that, I would invite her to take that outside and make that accusation. There was a request for a proposal. It was an open tendered process.

However again, the second part of her supplemental question suggested that we came to the committee with a recommendation that was rejected. That is the farthest thing from the truth.

At committee, we entertained a separate motion that would allow members of the committee to travel across Canada to engage in a parallel citizens' consultation process. This was not staged. There would be representation from the New Democratic Party, as well as the Bloc, the Liberals and the Conservatives. That consultation process would have been there to engage all citizens, but her members, members of the Liberal Party and the Bloc voted against it.

[March 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I reject entirely the premise that the member makes that the process we are engaging in is not open and transparent.

In fact, I find it amazing that a member of the New Democratic Party would actually bring this forward because in the procedure and House affairs committee, it was the government that presented a motion that in effect would have members of the procedure and House affairs committee travel across Canada in a parallel consultation exercise to the one that we have already announced.

Yet, do members know what happened when we put that motion? The NDP voted against it. The NDP, the Bloc and four out of the five Liberals voted against it. The only member who voted with us was the Liberal member for Vancouver Quadra.

We wanted to ensure that the committee members who represent the procedure and House affairs committee in this House had an opportunity to travel across Canada and engage Canadians in the very process that the member is suggesting, or at least she had suggested in her bill. Yet, her own party voted against that motion.

I find it, frankly, more than a little hypocritical to suggest now that the consultation process that we have started and announced on January 9 is not open and transparent.

Let us reflect again exactly what is going to happen in that consultation process. There will be meetings across Canada. There will be 12 meetings, one in each of the 10 provinces, one for the territories and a separate consultation process for what we call a youth meeting. At each one of these meetings, there will be 40 members who are selected to represent the broad demographic, cultural and other ranges of the clientele or the population within that region.

These individuals will be able to extensively study the material beforehand. Then they will be able to have a wide open dialogue and consultation, expressing their views on a range of issues on democratic reform. This is going to be as open and transparent a process as probably we have ever seen.

However, to add to that process, once again I say that we wanted to have parliamentarians engaged in the same process in a parallel stream. Yet, what happened? The member's own party voted against that.

I can only stand here in amazement and suggest to the member that perhaps if she was truly serious about engaging this consultation process, she should have a discussion with her own members who sat on that committee and question them as to why they voted against our motion.

[Business of Supply, March 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I am amazed at the rhetoric I am hearing from members opposite today. Consistently we have heard the members from Atlantic Canada try to demonstrate or prove that there is a fiscal cap on the Atlantic accord. There is no cap.

Let me be clear for all members in this place and all Canadians watching this debate. The terms and provisions, the benefits that Atlantic Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia received from signing the Atlantic accord in 2004 have not changed. There is no fiscal cap placed on the Atlantic accord. There is no change to the provisions. There is no change to the wording.

Therefore, the recipients, those being the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, received exactly the same deal that they received when they signed the deal. Yet although the budget absolutely refutes the fact, they are trying to say in the House that there is a cap on the accord. There is no cap.

I am not sure if the member opposite is absolutely clueless about the wording of the budget and the impact he has on the accord, or if he is purposely trying to deceive people with his rhetoric. Would he not agree that contained in budget 2007 are words that state, unequivocally, that the Atlantic accord will not be changed, that it will be honoured and respected as written in the original state?

[Business of Supply, March 22nd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I take issue with one point the hon. member for Wascana said and that is his implication that next year Saskatchewan will receive no money as a result of changes to the equalization formula. Frankly, that is absolutely and categorically false. Should Saskatchewan receive no money next year, it would be because it has become a province with a fiscal capacity high enough that it does not qualify for equalization. I know the member for Wascana understands that, although he will not admit that.

Does the member for Wascana not agree that the Saskatchewan economy, by everyone's standards in Canada, is one of the hottest economies in Canada and, frankly, have provinces do not receive equalization payments?