House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2019, with 60% of the vote.
Equalization Payments May 12th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, during the election campaign the Prime Minister promised that he would honour the agreement signed by the provinces and the previous government to transfer $7 billion to the province of Ontario. Once again, it seems it is promises made, promises broken, for the government. The finance minister sent a letter last week to Ontario pledging to shortchange the province by $3 billion.
Will the Prime Minister guarantee Ontario that it will receive the full $7 billion that was promised?
Mr. Speaker, in spite of what the hon. member has to say, the fact remains that budget 2006 represents nothing more than a lame attempt to firmly affix the hands of the Conservatives in the back pockets of working Canadians. For example, increasing the income tax from 15% to 15.5% is a difference of $178. To get the same benefit, a person would have to spend $17,800.
Economist Dale Orr points out that the Conservatives have miscalculated the benefits or understated the cost of the 1% GST by $700 million per annum.
The Conference Board of Canada, paid to provide and review the campaign of the Conservative government, has called the employment tax credit “in practice almost identical to an increase in the basic personal amount”. So why are people who are self-employed excluded from this tax benefit? Self-employed people work as hard as employees.
Canadians are left wondering why the Conservatives have their hands in the pockets--
Mr. Speaker, while I do not see anyone who can give small businesses any response, I think small businesses and indeed Canadians deserve better.
After reviewing budget 2006 in detail, most economists agree that it sharply departs from sound fiscal and tax policies and descends into nothing more than a convoluted and confused fiscal mess.
Let me give the House an example.
The Conference Board of Canada, the very same organization that the Conservative Party paid to back its campaign platform, recently published its own analysis of budget 2006. The Conference Board concluded that the government “has not put forth the optimal plan for boosting Canada's long-term prosperity”.
Rather than draft a solid budget, the Minister of Finance has instead come up with a bunch of gimmicks that Conservatives hope will catch Canadians off guard.
Let us start with the so-called employment tax credit. This is not a new idea. In fact, it is the tax credit that was eliminated in 1988 by the former Conservative minister of finance, Michael Wilson, the father of the GST. Coincidentally, this former minister recently received a plumb patronage appointment from the Prime Minister without any consultation with Parliament.
So why was the employment tax credit eliminated by the Conservatives in 1988? Because it was a dumb tax measure. Why have a tax credit for employed Canadians and subsequently deny self-employed Canadians that same benefit? Do not self-employed Canadians work as hard as anyone else? It makes far more sense to give all working Canadians the same credit or, in other words, level the playing field through the basic personal amount that each person can earn before paying tax.
Today, however, the new Conservative finance minister has resorted to recycling phony tax categories in a lame attempt to fool Canadians. Canadians deserve better and they will not be fooled by old style politics.
Although budget 2006 is entitled “Turning A New Leaf”, this shoddy document is turning the stomachs of hard-working Canadians. The Conservatives say that parents would receive $1,200 for children under the age of six, but they do not say that this benefit would be taxable. This makes no sense. Why promise parents a certain amount of money only to claw it back at tax time? Budget 2006 will eliminate the Canada child tax benefit's child supplement.
In conclusion, budget 2006 has left Canadians wondering why the Conservatives are recreating fictional tax credits rather than adhering to the sound fiscal legacy and the healthy budget surplus left to them by their Liberal predecessors.
Mr. Speaker, on May 4, I rose in the House to ask the Minister of National Revenue a simple question regarding tax policy for small business owners. Rather than allow the revenue minister the opportunity to reply, the finance minister stood instead and provided a flippant response that had absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.
While I do not see anyone from finance here to apologize to small business, I must say that small businesses deserve--
The Budget May 11th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my constituents of Don Valley East, I would like to express my disappointment with the Conservatives' first federal budget.
Budget 2006 is full of phony tax gimmicks so that Conservatives can find new ways to put their hands into the back pockets of hard-working Canadians.
Take a look at the supposedly new employment tax credit. In the 1988 federal budget, former Conservative finance minister Michael Wilson eliminated the employment tax credit simply because it was a dumb tax measure. The former finance minister, who recently received a plum patronage appointment from the Prime Minister without any consultation with Parliament, finally realized that self-employed Canadians work as hard as employed people and deserve equitable treatment. Lo and behold, in budget 2006 we see the current finance minister has resurrected this phony tax gimmick once again.
Budget 2006 is nothing more than a lame attempt to keep the hands of the Conservative government firmly in the back pockets of hard-working Canadians.
Business of Supply May 4th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, I will not be ideologically bound. I do not believe in ideology. I believe in helping kids and in order to help kids a process has to be regulated.
When the early childhood strategy was adopted by the provinces, they agreed to help those parents who needed to go to work. The program had flexibility and that flexibility would have allowed parents to choose how to improve their parenting skills, how to have a healthy pregnancy, birth, infancy, learning strategies and strengthening the community support.
There is a whole way of looking at it and I am not ideologically bound.
Business of Supply May 4th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, as an accountant I need to make corrections. Her assumptions are totally false.
The Conservative government has increased the tax for middle income Canadians and those people will not be any better off within the Conservative plan. By giving $1,200, Canadians will get $1.20 a day. When it is calculated, they are not getting any benefit.
We are not being bound by ideology. The Conservatives are so stuck on that neo-conservative ideology that they cannot see that there are other solutions. The early learning strategy would have given children the ability to be intellectually available and engaged if a parent had to go to work. The member has no idea how many parents living in the urban area work outside the home. If they have to work, they should have an opportunity to participate in subsidized day care.
The mayor has announced that he is cancelling 6,000 spaces because of the Conservative plan. If the government is so keen on helping children I do not understand why it is so ideologically bound to that neo-conservative ideology.
Business of Supply May 4th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the constituents of Don Valley East, I am grateful for this opportunity to debate the future of child care in Canada. It is a future that is in jeopardy because of the plans of the government to tear up the early learning and child care agreements that the former Liberal government brought into fruition prior to the last election.
Before the Conservatives were elected, all 10 provinces and the territories had finally reached a comprehensive agreement with the federal government to enhance programs and services for children under six in four key areas: promoting healthy pregnancy, birth and infancy; improving parenting and family supports; strengthening early childhood development, learning and care; and strengthening community supports.
With these agreements in place the federal government started to transfer the first $5 billion worth of payments to the provinces and territories. In Ontario, with the cooperation of the municipalities, the plan created 14,000 newly licensed child care spaces and an additional 4,000 subsidized child care spaces in the 2004-05 fiscal year alone. By 2007 the Liberal plan would have created 25,000 new spaces for children and parents to access regardless of the individual's economic or social circumstances. Sadly, these future spaces will never be created because the Conservative government has terminated the early learning and child care strategy, a historical agreement that took so much time and effort to create.
Today the Government of Ontario has announced that as a result of the federal Conservative promise to terminate this agreement, the province will no longer be able to enhance child care programs. This is devastating news for children and parents living in my riding of Don Valley East and in fact all across Canada.
In place of the early learning and child care strategy, the Conservatives have rehashed the old family allowance that promises to give parents $1,200 a year for each child under the age of six. On the surface, the so-called universal care benefit sounds like a good deal, but scratch the surface only slightly and the benefits quickly fade away.
First of all, the child care allowance is a taxable benefit that will increase a family's federal and provincial annual tax bill. For low and modest income families this is disappointing news. The Tory plan is to hand out monthly cheques and then tax it back at the end of the year. How many licensed and subsidized child care spaces will this create? Not one single, solitary space.
The Caledon Institute of Social Policy recently released a study on the new child care allowance that states, “The allowance will do little to ease the often heavy financial burden of child care expense for the large majority of families with low or middle incomes that do not have access to subsidized child care, get little or nothing from the child care expense deduction and that often cannot find affordable, good quality care”.
The fact is most Canadian families need and use child care outside the home so that both parents can participate in the workforce. For single parents, especially women, that need is even greater.
We should view the so-called universal child care benefit for what it is. It is a form of income support, but in no way does it resemble a child care plan. There is no way of telling how much money will be spent. There is no means of measuring the actual quality of child care if no one knows where the money goes.
According to recent polls, 90% of Canadians believe high quality child care is important to help ensure Canada's social and economic well-being. Eighty-one per cent think governments should develop a plan to improve child care. Seventy-six per cent of Canadians believe child care should be available to all families with costs to be shared by government. In fact, 65% of Canadians are willing to pay more taxes to ensure that all children have access to quality child care facilities.
The Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care notes that there is growing evidence that investments into government subsidized child care programs return considerably more value than the original investment. It also notes that children who enter elementary school with ready to learn skills are far less at risk of having difficulties in school, leaving before high school graduation, becoming involved in criminal behaviour or becoming addicted to tobacco, alcohol or drugs.
In 1994 the National Forum on Crime reported that early childhood experience in literacy skills and completion of high school are major determinants in the prevention of youth crime and recommended that early childhood development programs be expanded.
It is also estimated that the cost to Canadian businesses due to absence for family reasons is estimated to be $2.7 billion annually. Furthermore, costs to the education system for remedial education due to poor early learning environments are estimated to be $2.5 billion annually.
It is a fact that 74% of mothers whose youngest child is between three and five years old is in fact a working mom. This means that most moms require child care in order to make ends meet.
Why are the Conservatives taking such a mean-spirited approach to low and middle income families? Why are they so hostile to single parents, especially working women? What do the Conservatives have against families where both parents work?
In order for Canadian families to prepare for the demands of the new economy, the federal Conservatives must admit their mistaken promises to eliminate the early child learning strategy because the future of our children is at stake. There is no need for ideology but there is need for creative solutions.
Taxation May 4th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business has warned the government that changing the GST will be an expensive proposition for them.
Could the Minister of National Revenue inform the House how much it will cost small businesses for these changes? Could she also assure small business owners that they will not bear the brunt of these costs?
Federal Accountability Act April 25th, 2006
Mr. Speaker, my comments are that the bill comes from a minister who himself was responsible for $500 million of boondoggle. He brings in an accountability act, which is very selective and does not have enough teeth. If it goes to committee and comes forth with definite changes in terms of third party advertising, without the hypocrisy of do as I say and not do as I do, we will be there to work with it.