Wayne Easter

[Income Tax Act, December 1st, 2008]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-240, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (deduction for volunteer emergency service).

Mr. Speaker, I am most pleased to introduce an act to amend the income tax, a deduction for volunteer emergency service.

The bill was introduced in the last Parliament and was reported back from committee to the House. Sadly, the bill was lost because the Prime Minister broke the law and caused an election.

The act would allow for the changes to the income tax act and allow volunteer emergency workers to deduct from their taxable income the amount of $1,000 if they have performed at least 100 hours of volunteer service, and $2,000 if they have performed at least 200 hours of volunteer service.

This is an important bill because it recognizes volunteer emergency service workers for the good they do for society, giving them a wee bit of financial compensation.

I was wondering, seeing as the bill was so far along in the last House and reported back from committee, that there might even be unanimous consent to see it at its previous stage.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, there were a lot of strange things the member mentioned in his speech, especially the fiction of this economic statement.

He mentioned the vote on the Speech from the Throne and that we supported it. Yes, we did. Why? Because at that time we actually believed that the Prime Minister would co-operate and make this Parliament work. That is what he said to the premiers as well. What the Prime Minister did through this economic statement clearly violated that trust of co-operation with the opposition parties. He came in with what is clearly a document of fiction.

Let me move to the point on coalitions. Whether that side of the House believes it or not, the majority of Canadian votes happens to be on this side of the House. The government has 22% of eligible voters' support.

Let me quote what the Prime Minister said on coalitions some time ago. In a letter to the then governor general, Adrienne Clarkson, he said:

We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all of your options before exercising your constitutional authority.

That is a quote from a letter written by the current Prime Minister. The member tried to talk about that being fiction a minute ago. The Prime Minister wrote that letter in support of a coalition.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Your fiction.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will let the Moncton comment slide. To buy quality potatoes, all the member needs to do is go to Prince Edward Island and we will sell him a bag or two.

The fact of the matter is that the government is not fit to manage the economy. We have seen that with the economic statement. We have seen how the Conservatives have handled the finances of the nation over the last two years, taking what was the biggest surplus transferred to an incoming government in Canadian history, going with the biggest spending budget ever in Canadian history and squandering those finances away on ideological agendas of the Prime Minister.

Even during the good times we have seen cuts made to literacy and to the arts. We know the Conservatives are not fit to manage the economy in the good times. They are certainly not fit to manage the economy in the bad times.

The Prime Minister had an opportunity to come forward with a plan to show that he was not ideologically driven, to show that he was interested in the workers, the families, the communities and the businesses in this country, but he failed to do that in his economic statement. As a result, he broke his trust with the Canadian people and with this Parliament.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, the Minister of Finance is a stranger to the truth. We have seen a lot of this fiction from the government since it has taken power and indeed it is fiction. The government, in putting out its message, tends to talk about monies that it has spent. It may be monies it has booked but it certainly has not spent the monies. I think that is my hon. friend's point.

Even setting that aside, the problem now is that the Prime Minister has no plan. The Prime Minister at the earliest claims that he will begin to respond to the economic crisis in some as yet unclear manner, and not this year but next year. We have had two months of no action. For two months the economy has been without direction nor has there been the acknowledgement that the federal government will do the job it should and bring forward assistance. Those are the facts. That is the reality.

The Conservatives talk about spending. They announce spending. I have had that happen in my own riding. Everyone knows the beef and hog industry is in trouble. The Conservatives announced $6 million, and we appreciated that at the time, for assistance in terms of a plant in Prince Edward Island. However, 18 months later, only a dribble of that money came out.

That is not what it takes. Talking about it is not going to stimulate the economy. Government action and real dollars will stimulate the economy. That is what we need from the government, not rhetoric, not an ideological agenda, not an attack on pay equity and labour unions, not an attack on the political process. What we need is economic action and dollars going into the economy, whether it is in infrastructure, the automobile industry, the manufacturing industry, the fisheries industry, the forestry industry, or securing seniors' pensions.

That is what we need. We need some action and some real money. That will stimulate the economy and it will help. There will still be difficult times. We do not need to just talk about it. We need to see the plan. The government should lay it out and let us get with it.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that the political subsidy is beside the point. That is not the issue. If that were the Prime Minister's goal, he should have campaigned on that issue.

Yes, it is a new initiative and it is done in many countries around the world, but foregoing union and corporate funding was part of the package that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien brought in to ensure that other parties would have the ability to represent people's voices in Parliament or, indeed, be funded. I heard one individual on CBC this morning who was saying that he does not like any of the parties but felt his $2 should go toward the Green Party for its stand on its environmental views, so it could do its research and put forward its arguments, maybe not in this place but in the public arena, to foster that economic argument.

It is interesting how the Minister of International Trade tries to turn this around and say it is the coalition idea that is having an impact on the market. The fact of the matter is that the big issue that the markets were looking for was some credibility in terms of the economic statement. Let me quote what Jeffrey Simpson said in the Globe and Mail on Friday, November 28. He stated:

Instead of heeding the advice of economists everywhere that the economy needs stimulus, he [the Prime Minister] got his Minister of Finance to present a budget that offered cutbacks and tiny surpluses that absolutely no one believes will be realized.

Every credible economist and journalist in the country is saying that the economic statement means virtually nothing. If that side of the House would take responsibility for its actions and inactions, it would be a good start to making this place and this country work.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I can see, extensively, why the members opposite do not want that name mentioned, even if it is in a quote. I accept your point.

Through his economic statement, the finance minister shows that he is a stranger to the truth. In his economic statement, the Minister of Finance, as Don Martin said, fudged the numbers to a great extent.

I will now turn to James Bagnall who also wrote an article in The Ottawa Citizen on Friday. He stated:

Such is Canada's strength among the G7 nations that [the Minister of Finance] is forgoing a significant boost to spending on roads and other public works projects, thought necessary by some to offset the deterioration in economic growth.

He went on to say:

In view of the financial turmoil in other countries, it is a remarkable record. And it would be nice to see [the Minister of Finance] give credit where due. Canada's solvency owes a great deal to Jean Chrétien's Liberal government. Because Chrétien acted in the mid-1990s, [the Minister of Finance] has a range of options to combat a declining economy. [The current leader of the official opposition's] Liberals and the rest of the Opposition in Parliament are angry he is not taking advantage of them.

He is talking about the foundation that is due to a previous prime minister and his minister of finance.

Mr. Bagnall goes on to state:

By 2008, federal debt levels had tumbled more than $100 billion. The government is now paying about $30 billion per year on interest payments compared with $46 billion in 1995.

Canada's books are solid at the right time.

However, the Minister of Finance failed to recognize why that is so. Later in my remarks I will point out that not only did the government have a good financial foundation in the beginning, it undermined that financial foundation regardless of the propaganda that has been spun today by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister when he said that it was their good management of the economy that got them to this stage with decent fundamentals.

The fact is that the decent fundamentals were, as is stated in James Bagnall's article,:

Canada's solvency owes a great deal to Jean Chrétien's Liberal government. Because Chrétien acted in the mid-1990s, [The current finance minister] has a range of options to combat a declining economy.

That is what the Minister of Finance should have done. He had a solid foundation. He had a fiscal capacity turned over to him by the previous government. He failed to seize on that capacity and instead played the ideology game. He attacked public servants, pay equity and political dissent in the country, and failed to bring in an economic stimulus package when the ability to do it was in this country better than any other country in the world.

I want to be clear in terms of what the Minister of Finance did. In this particular economic statement, the finance minister is a stranger to the truth. In terms of the way this action unfolds, the Prime Minister, through his actions, has shown that he is a Prime Minister who cannot be trusted.

However, today, the Prime Minister tries to buy time and put his propaganda machine into full gear, attacking the idea of a coalition and worse, fabricating the history of how our financial position got to where it is, more stable than other countries in the world. Let me put it this way. Over the last two years, the Prime Minister and the Conservative government have managed to move Canada from being the financial envy of the industrialized world to being on the brink of deficit financing.

What concerns me about the economic statement is that when we go through it, we find that he is projecting small surpluses out into the future, but how is the Minister of Finance projecting that into the future? They are going to sell off some Canadian assets. When we ask officials what Canadians assets are going to be sold to get to that $2.6 billion, which happens to match the amount that they need to show a surplus, they cannot say.

Was the Prime Minister right during the election that this is a good time to buy? Is the Minister of Finance saying to the rest of the world, “Come to Canada. The auctioneer is the current Prime Minister and we will sell off the people's assets?” They are not the government's assets. They are the people's assets that the Prime Minister is saying he will sell to show a fictional surplus in the budget through his Minister of Finance's economic statement, at fire sale prices.

Now is the time for honesty. Now is the time for the government to be straightforward and lay out its fiscal position, admit to the fact that it has the biggest spending budget in Canadian history, and that taking about $12 billion annually through the GST cut did nothing to stimulate the economy. We are seeing the effects of that. What it sure did was take away the ability of the federal government to do what it ought to do for Canadians in a time of economic turmoil.

In two years, we have moved from being a strong, central government in this country, holding the financial resources to assist in troubled times, to a weakened centre with the cupboards bare.

Why did the Minister of Finance not, in his economic statement, admit to that fact? We could have accepted that. That is the reality. This is the time for government and leadership to be honest and straightforward with the fiscal position of the country. We have to assist Canadians in terms of economic stimulus and other programs, to assist our forestry, manufacturing, automotive and farming industries, and to assist our seniors in terms of their pensions. That is what needs to be done and the government has failed in the statement. Whether the direction came from the Prime Minister or straight from the Minister of Finance, I do not know, but what the government tried to do was misrepresent the numbers, play politics, and drive ideology over good economic common sense.

We know that this particular Minister of Finance has a record elsewhere, and the province of Ontario has suffered because of the minister’s record in that province. I as a parliamentarian and Canadian do not want to see this Minister of Finance do to Canada what he did to Ontario. That is why the opposition parties are challenging the government in terms of its lack of stimulus and co-operation. The government does not even seem to care if it breaks the law on that side of the House. I spoke on that point in a point of privilege on Thursday morning.

The member says I am looking pathetic. Is there just no law? Is there nothing the government on that side will not do? It cannot even allow democracy to work in terms of elections within farm organizations. It has to try to influence it using franking privileges of the House. Mr. Speaker, that question of privilege is before you. My point is, just like the financial statement in which it fudged the numbers, no law seems to matter in other areas as long as the Prime Minister gets his ideological point of view.

The fact of the matter is, with this economic statement, no longer do we have the prudent planning with financial reserves to partner with industry and provincial governments to fight issues and dilemmas as we did in the past, as we did with SARS, BSE and other issues. Now, we have a global economic crisis that is impacting Canada. It is strange how the Prime Minister finally seemed to realize that after the election, but would not admit it before. The difficulty is that the Government of Canada has been weakening our ability with our financial reserves to be able to take on those challenges all along. Now, when the government has an opportunity in its economic statement to come clean and give this place the right numbers, the honest numbers so that we know what we were dealing with, it fabricates them to a great extent.

In two short years, we have seen the government undermine our opportunities. As I indicated, we have seen a lot of propaganda coming out from the government this weekend, and that will be the kind of game I think it will play over the coming weeks.

Let me close by saying that the government has brought forward a fiscal update that has demonstrated that it clearly has no understanding of nor interest in the growing economic crisis which all other industrialized countries have been responding to and responding to aggressively.

The Minister of Finance claims that he can maintain a surplus in the face of this crisis and that, to put it mildly, is a deception. Conservatives ran up a $6 billion deficit and are using it as an excuse to make ideological cuts to essential government services, sell government assets, and cut the paycheques of public servants. It did not have to be this way.

The Minister of Finance could have been honest and clear, put forward an economic stimulus package, co-operate with leadership in the G20 as he claimed he would do and did not, co-operate with the premiers as he claimed he would do and did not, and co-operate with the parties in the House which in the throne speech the Prime Minister claimed he would do. It is a sad day when we have this kind of economic statement and ideological agenda put forward by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, when we know it could have been so different.

The bottom line is that the Prime Minister has clearly lost trust with us in the House over this measure and I believe he has lost trust with Canadians. It could have been so different.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I usually say that it is great to have the opportunity to speak to some issues but it is with a great deal of sadness that I speak to this take note debate which now states:

That the House take note of the Economic and Fiscal Statement tabled in the House on November 27, 2008.

It is with some sadness because it is what could have been. We could have had a stimulus package, the politics could have been cut out of it and the Prime Minister could have fostered co-operation but none of that happened at a time when the world is in a global economic crisis and Canada, although its foundations are relatively good, thanks to previous governments mainly, will certainly feel the impact of that.

We should have been debating a stimulus package. The PM should have been honest when he spoke of co-operation in the throne speech. We have seen none of that. Instead, we are having a take note debate because the Prime Minister, under his authority, moved back the ways and means motion a week and suspended, to a great extent, the opposition day where there might have been, not necessarily so, but might have been a confidence motion come forward.

We see what is happening here. We saw some of it over the weekend with the propaganda machine that the Prime Minister is so good at fostering. The propaganda machine has started to roll out and change the focus, which is that this is about gaining power when it is really about the economic situation, the stimulus that is needed and the dictatorial and ideological approach by the Prime Minister. I think we will see the propaganda machine big time, and the Prime Minister's initiative to see if he again can rechange the focus.

Under the cover of the economic crisis, the government tried to weaken political dissent in the country. The Prime Minister's ploy on political party funding, which really makes democracy work and allows the people of Canada a political voice on all sides, was just a ploy to divert attention from the other aspects of the downgrading of government and erosion of rights. Simply put, political funding inclusion in the statement was to provide cover for the other measures he was taking. He attacked collective bargaining by taking away the right to strike and eliminating pay equity was unconscionable but does fit with his personal ideology.

How could anyone even suggest that taking money out of working people's pockets would in any way improve the economy?

The issue is jobs, economic stimulus. It is and should be about the economy, not about taking money out of working people's pockets and taking fundamental Canadian rights away, which is what the economic statement suggested it would do.

Here are the facts on the economic statement. Having made pledges of co-operation at the G20, with the premiers and to the opposition parties, he then unilaterally introduced an economic statement inclusive of the ways and means motion that subverts democracy, attacks public servants, undermines fundamental rights, such as pay equity and collective bargaining, fabricates the financial numbers to show a fictional surplus, targets the sale of the people's assets and fails to provide a stimulus package. That is really what the economic statement did.

Let me turn to another voice on the farcical economic statement that has turned an economic crisis into almost a political crisis.

Don Martin, who is sometimes quite friendly with the Conservative Party of Canada, in a commentary in The Ottawa Citizen on Friday, had this to say:

The true horror wasn't in the let's-pretend numbers contained in the much-dreaded fiscal update from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Those were fluffed to give the delusion of deficit-free, rising-revenue fiscal stability, subject to so much imminent change as to be almost meaningless.

It's the nightmarish aftershock from a sneaky, ill-timed, irresponsible government move to eliminate the $1.95 annual per-vote public subsidy to political parties....

Prime Minister Stephen Harper put away his friendly sweater vest and, in an epic mistake that might only be resolved if his Conservative government does an uncharacteristic retreat, pulled on his brass knuckles in an ugly bid to inflict knockout blows on his political rivals.

He went on to say:

While not as politically egregious, the fiscal update was almost as pointless as Harper's move to use his economic update as stealth cover to sabotage his political opponents.

The fiscal update's numbers are mostly carved in cotton, a document of denial because it represents a snapshot of circumstances today without taking into account any downside developments to come.

It's not until you reach the very last page of the background material under the heading of "Risks to Fiscal Projections" where everything in the document is put to a harsh reality check.

[Points of Order, November 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, in earlier answers to questions from both the NDP and Liberals, the parliamentary secretary denied, as his office officials admitted, that he used the voters list as the source of mailings. Will he deny that his office confirmed that he used that information and did so illegally?

[Canadian Wheat Board, November 27th, 2008]

Is there no law that that party will not break, Mr. Speaker?

Obviously the words about democracy in the throne speech are not worth the paper they are written on. Fundamental to democracy are elections based on election rules and the law. The parliamentary secretary has violated election regulations. We believe other members have violated mailing privileges of this House. Further, the parliamentary secretary has violated his oath of office and has used lists privy only to him. Is there absolutely no respect for the law?

Will the Prime Minister finally put a stop to the lawbreakers in his party?