Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the budget today. As a former parliamentary secretary to two ministers of finance, I know that the most daunting task of any government is balancing its books. In 1993, when we came to power, we inherited a $42.5 billion deficit, of which 33¢ of every dollar spent was borrowed money.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, I was intrigued by and interested in the member's comments regarding satellite telecommunications. which is a serious issue for us to be looking at. The government's approach to the economy and its whole direction is to reduce the barriers and allow for more foreign ownership of the whole economy, let alone the satellite area.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, this could have a significant or even catastrophic economic effect. We know very well the kind of impact this could have on telecommunications. In the beginning, the legislation favoured competition within the Canadian and Quebec system, that is, between Canadian-owned companies, excluding foreign ones.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify something. Perhaps I heard wrong, and I will double-check Hansard afterwards. I heard the member say that our government was using the EI fund for things other than what it was set up for. I might be mistaken because I have not looked at the blues but I want to clarify whether that is what was said in this House.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  The House resumed from April 1 consideration of the motion that Bill C-9, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 4, 2010 and other measures be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois opposes Bill C-9, which would implement the Conservative government's budget, because we do not believe that it has identified the true values and needs of Quebeckers and Canadians. And the government's ineptness is equalled only by the ineffective measures it has employed to respond to these needs that it cannot identify.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-9 on the implementation of the 2010 budget. I will share my time with my colleague, the member for Sherbrooke. In the 2010 budget, the demands of our constituents have been completely ignored or perhaps deliberately undervalued.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, I said that it was a good sign that one of the big major banks in the last month had its annual shareholders' meeting and it invited the shareholders. That is a good sign to at least take a look at, not necessarily vet and approve, the salary of the chief executive officer, but at least they presented the information to the shareholders.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for a really excellent presentation today. I am really enjoying hearing his point of view on this, but I want to go back to the corporate tax cuts. In looking at this issue, I looked at many of the countries that have higher corporate tax rates and some of the rationale behind it.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, the members of the government do not like hearing about it and obviously the Liberal members are very nervous about it too. The Liberals had their big expensive think-tank last week in Montreal and ended up coming up with an NDP position, basically that corporate taxes should not be lowered in a race to the bottom, that there is a role for reasonable corporate taxation.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, I take exception to the member using the bank salaries and then criticizing the shareholders for having a say. They are the owners. By the way, the rules on the bank system in this country need to be widely held, including the member's CPP account, which has a tremendous amount of bank stock.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, we certainly had a very interesting speech from the hon. member across the way. He loves to talk about taxes. I have to say that our Conservative government has the record to prove that it does reduce taxes. Since coming to office in 2006, we have cut over 100 taxes.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, the government is pretending that somehow it is a big tax cutter. It is a big tax cutter for corporations but it has increased taxes. A 50% security fee will be paid for air flights. This will make airline passengers even happier with the government when they start paying their 50% security fee.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act  Mr. Speaker, with respect to the bank executives earning money, we should leave that up to the shareholders. Does the member agree, given that this bill we are debating today is a jobs and economic growth bill, that the banks, even though there has been no move from the central bank, have the right to start jacking up interest rates?