Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, since my hon. colleague on the government side specifically brought up Jim Flaherty and referred to him as the world's greatest finance minister, I would like to ask him what he makes of the fact that a few months ago Mr. Flaherty expressed some serious reservations about the income splitting plan that had been promised by the Conservatives in 2011.

Business of Supply  The motion was moved and we very much hope that the Conservative government will reconsider, just as the late Jim Flaherty wanted to in caucus. Unfortunately, we know what happened. All members of Parliament are mourning the passing of Mr. Flaherty. The question is simple. Let us reject this income splitting approach because it does nothing to help the middle class.

Business of Supply  As we have discussed, and we have heard some very good data cited today, income splitting has been supported and advocated by the Prime Minister, although it was opposed by the late minister of finance, Jim Flaherty. It is something that we oppose precisely because we believe, as the C.D. Howe Institute has argued, as most reputable economists have argued, that it would increase income inequality.

Business of Supply  Speaker, I think there is no dishonour in agreeing, sometimes, with my hon. colleagues in the NDP or in citing someone I think we all respected very much, the late Jim Flaherty. As I tried to argue in my comments, this is a phenomenon that has been going on for 30 years. The IMF found income inequality increasing over 30 years in 24 of 26 countries it studied.

Business of Supply  To conclude, it is quite natural for this measure to be controversial, even among the Conservatives. I would like to quote the late Jim Flaherty: It benefits some parts of the Canadian population a lot. And other parts of the Canadian population virtually not at all. And I like to think I'm analytical as finance minister, so I will, when we discuss it eventually in cabinet, in caucus, I will present my analysis to my colleagues.

Business of Supply  Speaker, I did not misspeak. It is the position of our party that we believe, like the late minister Jim Flaherty, that income splitting would increase income inequality and we are not in favour of it.

Business of Supply  Most households would get absolutely nothing, including households run by a single parent, a person who is struggling to make ends meet, who has no one else to rely on, and who cannot access good-quality child care and early learning. Former finance minister Jim Flaherty understood the shortcomings of this plan when he said in February that income splitting needed a long, hard analytical look to see who it affects and to what degree, because he was not sure that overall it would benefit our society.

Natural Resources committee  Renewable fuels currently are a small percentage of the total motor fuels we consume. It seems to me that if we eliminated that tax—perhaps in order to keep Jim Flaherty off our back—we could make it revenue neutral, and it wouldn't take too much. We could increase the excise tax on regular fuels a bit, because if you look at the percentage of renewable fuels versus conventional fuels....

International Trade committee  I want to put on the record again that we are at risk of losing a $1 billion market for beef and pork. I would suggest that somebody please talk to Jim Flaherty. I think that's where the opposition is coming from. In any event, it's just to make that point. On the pork situation mainly, to start, Barry, I have been in the Brandon plant and I will say that if there's anything above world class, that operation is it.

Government Operations committee  Chair, and thank you to the minister and to all her colleagues for being with us this morning. Last week, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty made a trip to the United States. He gave a speech in New York in which he explicitly endorsed the views of Paul Ryan, who's the Republican chair of the budget committee of the House of Representatives.

Transport committee  I think it's pretty shocking that it's taken us so many years to get this thing done. But I'm not going to agree with you on everything. I remember Jim Flaherty in his budget saying that to be effective, infrastructure had to be out the door within 100 days. If we look back at last year, for which we now have data, last year was the peak of the recession, the peak of the unemployment and the financial crisis, when money was needed most, yet the figures indicate that only 25% of the money allocated for the infrastructure stimulus fund was actually spent, and a pathetic 3% of the green infrastructure fund.

Industry committee  Without accurate, reliable information, or with information that's skewed 19% to 20%, how difficult will it be for the minister, Jim Flaherty, when he makes his next budget decisions or future budget decisions, should he still be minister, in terms of reliability of information? Clearly, one in five not reporting is going to create a significant skew.

Finance committee  I'd like to ask Mr. Sproule a question. Just today in the House of Commons, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was asked about amendments to the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, and he said the following: ...as was stated in the Speech from the Throne, work is being done on that issue. It is an important issue for Canadians and we have to try to move forward on that issue.

Economic and Fiscal Statement  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....

Agriculture committee  Who do you think was in the cabinet when those incidents happened? One was John Baird, two was Jim Flaherty, and three was Tony Clement. I believe those three are in the current cabinet, a cabinet and a government that operates in secret. We're fortunate that a scientist managed to find it.