Mr. Speaker, I am honoured, as a member of Her Majesty's official opposition, to speak today on behalf of my constituents of Don Valley East in reply to the Speech from the Throne.
Now that I have had the opportunity to review the contents, I am astonished, not by what is actually contained in the speech, but more so by what the speech fails to mention.
As the chair of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, I am shocked by the fact that the throne speech makes absolutely no mention of women or women's programs in spite of the fact that women constitute 52% of the population. This is astonishing given the fact that Persons Day, the day in 1929 when the British privy council office declared that women were persons under the law, fell in the same week as the Speech from the Throne.
I suppose this apparent omission by the government is due to the fact that this past year the Conservatives made history through drastic cuts to the Status of Women, including the closure of regional offices, staff layoffs and the elimination of advocacy from the mandate of the organization.
Canadians are also surprised that the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was somehow overlooked in the throne speech as well.
Another glaring omission is any mention of relief for the estimated one million Canadian children who live in poverty and an estimated half million impoverished seniors, many of whom are women.
I can assure all members and my constituents that a plan to fight poverty will be at the heart of any future Liberal agenda, as it always has been in the past.
What of the aboriginal Canadians where poverty is rampant in communities across the country? The Speech from the Throne does contain a decision to finally offer an apology to the victims of the residential schools program but it in no way discharges the Conservative government from its obligation to implement the Kelowna accord.
By ignoring the aboriginal people, the Conservatives are refusing to provide desperately needed measures in health, education and infrastructure as promised in the accord. Instead, the Conservatives see it far more fit to make “the serious problem of auto theft” a national priority.
On the subject of crime bills, Canadians are wondering why the Conservatives are attempting to blame the opposition for holding up legislation when it was the Prime Minister who sabotaged his own agenda when he prorogued Parliament. The fact is that for more than a year now the Liberals have offered repeatedly to fast track as much as 70% of all the justice measures that the Prime Minister brought to Parliament.
Indeed, when the Prime Minister decided to prorogue Parliament and kill all five of the original justice bills, four of them had passed through the House of Commons and were awaiting approval by the Senate. In fact, those bills would have been law by now if it were not for the partisan games that we are currently witnessing.
This is just a lame attempt by the Conservatives to force an unwanted federal election on Canadians. Who pays the price as a result of this political brinkmanship? Ultimately, it is ordinary Canadians who will pay the price while the Prime Minister dithers and wastes another 18 months with no measurable results.
In order for Parliament to work, the Prime Minister must learn to work with parliamentarians.
On the subject of the economy, the throne speech mentions tax cuts but, after almost two years, the Conservatives new government has come up short on tax relief.
While there has been a 1% reduction in the GST, many leading economists have warned the Prime Minister that the reduction in consumption tax does little to stimulate the economy. Nor does it allow Canadians to keep their hard-earned cash. In fact, the first budget of Canada's new government introduced a tax increase for those who earned the least in our society. Low income Canadians saw their personal tax rate increase from 15% to 15.5% in budget 2006. It is unfair to low-income Canadians to pay for a reduction of the GST when it is far more efficient to reduce income taxes at source and give Canadians a real tax break.
Last week, the leader of the official opposition addressed the Economic Club of Toronto on the subject of how to generate more investment, improve living standards and ensure good jobs for ourselves and for our children. Part of the plan is to continue to reduce corporate income tax.
Under the previous Liberal government, the corporate tax rate was lowered from 28% to 19%. As a result of these tax reductions, companies have more capital to reinvest in the Canadian economy and ultimately offer high quality jobs to Canadians. Unfortunately, the Conservative government's tax record has been, to say the least, sadly lacking thus far.
The finance minister's first blunder was the income trust fiasco, when the Conservatives deliberately broke their promise to Canadian investors, many of them being seniors, who saw more than $25 billion in retirement savings go down the drain overnight.
The new government's next blunder, which was universally denounced as the worst tax policy announcement in 35 years, was to end interest deductibility and therefore deny Canadian companies a competitive edge in the global economy.
When the Conservatives were first elected, they promised to usher in a new era of accountability and transparency into government. Indeed, the throne speech declared that Canada's new government was clean, this despite the fact that the Conservative Party is under investigation by the Ontario Provincial Police, the Commissioner of Elections and the federal Privacy Commissioner.
The Privacy Commissioner has launched an inquiry into whether the Prime Minister violated the privacy of Canadians by compiling a mailing list based on the ethnic and religious background of Jewish communities and other so-called target groups.
The Commissioner of Elections is looking into an alleged multi-million dollar sham where the Conservative Party attempted to cleverly circumvent electoral laws by channelling funding for radio and television ads through at least 66 local candidates in the 2006 election.
The Ontario Provincial Police is investigating the Prime Minister's inner circle concerning allegations that an Ottawa candidate for mayor was asked to leave the race in exchange for a federal appoint.
What of transparency in government?
It has now been disclosed that the current Conservative government is far more secretive than any previous government. Not only are access to information requests taking longer to be released, they are far more likely to be censored and to have information withheld. Moreover, many requests have to be vetted by the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic office of the Prime Minister.
Canadians would like to know what this has to do with transparency and democratic government.
Certainly the people of Nova Scotia are questioning what is happening in the constituency of Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, where the entire Conservative riding association has been suspended for daring to oppose the Prime Minister. They democratically elected a candidate of their choice, a candidate who is currently a distinguished member of the House. He was kicked out of the caucus for simply defending his province in Confederation.
This turn of events is not surprising, considering the Prime Minister, after 18 months, has yet to call a first ministers meeting and address provincial grievances head on.
In closing, once again I thank my constituents of Don Valley East for electing me to be their representative. I intend to work hard on their behalf and I intend to do everything I can to make this Parliament work. That is, after all, what Canadians elected us to do.
