Hi Folks,
Some rumblings in the House yesterday…
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House of Commons
Hansard
Friday, March 30, 2007.
GOVERNMENT ORDERS
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Budget Implementation Act, 2007
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Mr. Peter Stoffer (SackvilleEastern Shore, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, Conservatives are very good at telling us to read the budget. I did read the budget. I read it twice. There are so many things missing, but with the shortness of time I will concentrate on one issue.
When the hon. member for CalgaryNose Hill was in opposition, she was a terrific critic for her party, going after the Liberals, and rightfully so, on many faults they had. When she and her party were in opposition she was very well known for saying that when a motion passes this House of Commons, this should reflect the government's ideology and what it should be doing because the will of Parliament has spoken.
Not only did the Conservatives ignore the veterans' first motion in the budget, helping VIPs, widows and injured soldiers, for example, but they completely omitted autism. Autism did not even get a mention in the budget, even though it was passed with Conservative support in a motion by the hon. member for Fredericton.
I have a simple question. With a $14.2 billion surplus, could the Conservatives not find it in their hearts, one, to have included autism in the budget to help those families and children across the country; and two, why did the government ignore a motion passed by this House of Commons?
Ms. Diane Ablonczy:
Mr. Speaker, the member knows that the government does have a very strong advocate for autism. One of our own members has a young child who has this difficulty and the government is moving on this front.
I find it very interesting that we have a budget that provides $39 billion in new funding for health care, education and infrastructure, $4.5 billion to clean up Canada's air and water, a $2,000 tax credit for every child under 18, a working income tax benefit, a tax fairness plan to reduce taxes for seniors and on and on, and the only thing the member can find to criticize is that somehow there was not a specific announcement about a specific condition that the government is already addressing.
I think that is a ringing endorsement for the budget which is so good for Canada and all Canadians.
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Mr. Peter Stoffer (SackvilleEastern Shore, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Ottawa Centre.
It is with great pleasure that I rise on the budget debate this afternoon. I know that all governments have to make choices. Choices are made easier when there is access to finances that can be used. If we did not have access to finances, then we would have to make tough decisions in that regard.
This particular budget is severely lacking in what were considered as promises and indications made by the Conservatives when they were in opposition and now when they are in government.
We have seen various reversals of positions. Some people call them broken promises. Some call them deceptions, deliberately or indirectly, but the reality is that there have been major reversal decisions without much consultation with the public.
We can take the reversal on the income trusts as an example. Although we believe in the end that it had to happen, these trusts should never have been set up in the way that they were in the first place. Governments knew full well that these major tax concerns would be affecting the government in some way.
I personally believe that the government should not have made that promise before the campaign. People would then have been very careful with their tax dollars.
What I find most offensive about this particular budget is that the Conservatives have a $14.2 billion surplus, more than they anticipated. When they were in opposition, they repeatedly criticized the Liberal Party for excessive surplus budgets by saying it is coming from employers and employees in the country.
With that kind of money, $14.2 billion, regardless of how it was achieved, we would think the government would be able to help some of the most vulnerable people in our society, some of the most bravest in our society.
We moved in this House a veterans first motion. Elements of that motion were the veterans independence program for widows and widowers; raising the pension allowance from 50% to 66%; getting rid of what is called the gold digger clause, so regardless of when a person remarries there would not be any discrimination after age 60; and that a person's second spouse at the time of his or her death would be entitled to that person's pension benefit.
There was to be an end to the clawback at age 65 for those who have become disabled, the clawing back of the CPP pension and then the disability pension. There was also the SISIP program. Two DND ombudsmen said it was unfair and it needed to be rectified. The House of Commons moved a motion stating that.
Many people across the country had repeatedly asked the previous Liberal government to deal with this issue. It failed. Now the current Conservative government is failing on the issue of protecting our veterans and those who have become injured within our military service and their families.
For less than 2% of the total surplus of the budget, the government could have dealt with the SISIP issue once and for all. The $290 million estimated price tag would have once and for all fixed the financial situation, so that these thousands of injured soldiers and their families would have financial relief and be able to move on with their lives.
One would think that with a $14.2 billion surplus the Conservatives would somehow find $290 million to fix the problem once and for all. What was the answer? No. It was not even in the budget. What a shame.
On the VIP, the now Prime Minister gave assurances to a woman in Cape Breton named Joyce Carter that if his party formed the government the VIP would indeed be extended immediately to all widows and widowers, regardless of the time of death of the veteran. Sixteen months later what do we see in the budget? Nothing.
This House also moved a motion on autism which the Conservative Party supported. We have asked that the government immediately reconvene a meeting with the provinces and the stakeholders to discuss the best way to move this issue forward. We know it is going to take financial and human resources to assist the provinces and territories in the delivery of care and treatment for families with children dealing with autism.
We thought that after the motion passed in the House, even with the support from the Conservatives, that it would be mentioned in the budget. Not a word.
There were also aspects on the fishery concerns. When the Conservatives were in opposition, they wrote letters to Danny Williams saying they would immediately invoke custodial management on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. There is nothing.
We also had promises on equalization, promises that the offshore accords for Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia would not be touched. Again, there is a complete reversal of position.
Here is the reality with a surplus of $14.2 billion. People in our income bracket, those making well over $100,000, are doing quite well now. The reality is that I do not need a tax cut. Those people who need help with taxes are the low income earners and the pensioners, those in the lower middle class. MPs and senators do not need a tax cut.
The reality is that at the same time we need to reinvest to help those people who are disabled or widowed or who are struggling to get through their day to day lives with the excessive costs of health care, et cetera. They are being ignored by this budget.
What is most offensive is that these assurances were given by the Conservatives when they were in opposition. They said that if they ever formed a government, they would clean up 13 years of Liberal inaction and move forward on these issues.
We hear them time and time again saying to stand up and support the troops. I congratulate them for doing it. I am glad to see that everybody in this House does, but I question the Conservatives when it comes to supporting the troops when they have to take their uniforms off, when they become disabled and have to leave the military, or when they become old and aged veterans, or when they pass on and their families are left behind and their spouses are looking for help.
I have over 20 world war and Korean veterans in the area of the Halifax Regional Municipality, HRM. Every single one of them has one thing in common with the others: they were denied hearing aids.
They were denied hearing aids because of the fact that a lot of them did not have a hearing test when they left the war in 1946 or 1947. They were young and they got on with their lives, but now their hearing is really suffering. They have been told by audiologists that there is a connection between what happened in their wartime service and their loss of hearing now, but DVA says they did not have a test in the beginning so they do not qualify.
With a $14.2 billion surplus, one would think that DVA and the government would honour the words that the Minister of Veterans Affairs said in opposition and has said in government, which were that we should always give the benefit of the doubt to the veteran. He said that repeatedly.
I ask this government, the cabinet and the DVA to honour the commitment in those words of the Minister of Veterans Affairs and give the benefit of the doubt to these aged veterans so they can have some comfort in the remainder of their lives. With a $14.2 billion surplus, if they cannot do it now, when are they going to do it? These are not young men and women any more.
Our injured soldiers deserve better.
Children with autism deserve better.
These are just some of the elements, in a short 10 minute speech, that I am able to talk about a bit. There are so many more deficiencies with this budget.
Again, when we have the finances at our fingertips to really help people in this country from coast to coast to coast, why did the Conservatives ignore them? Why was the government so callously arrogant in its approach to this budget, thinking that these people would not notice?
These are people who served our country. They deserve better. We have the opportunity to do it. We should have done it, but they missed out. It is not good enough to stand in the House and say, We are working on it and we will get around to it. That is what was said when they were in opposition. That is what they are saying in government.
The government needs to move much, much faster on this issue, because if we do not, an awful lot of these brave men and women will pass on because of their ages, and they will not have received the help they required.
That is not how they should end the rest of their lives. They should know that the government and this House of Commons, regardless of political party, cares about what they have done. The reality is that it should have been in the budget and it was not.
It is not too late. The Conservatives can turn around right now, stand up in the House and say very clearly that they made a mistake, that it was an omission and they will put it back in.
For children with autism to be told by the government that there is no help for them because it is not in the budget is unacceptable. That is why, along with many other reasons, we in the NDP cannot and will not support the budget.
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Mr. Paul Dewar (Ottawa Centre, NDP):
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House to speak on a document that is as important as our budget. I want to start with some of what I think is actually positive about this budget and some of what we fought hard for in opposition, both with the previous government and with the present government.
Not to alarm anyone, I will have a critique on some of the things that I find puzzling and am concerned about in terms of this budget. Sadly, they outweigh the positive things I see in this budget.
Among the things I see as important and that we in the NDP fought for is that we are looking at money for reduced wait times. I think there is a consensus in this country that this needed to be done. There also was some budget money put toward e-health technologies.
We fought for the expansion of the transit pass credit to weekly passes. That is going to be addressed. As well, there is the incentive to buy green cars, which I will come back to in a minute.
Another positive thing is the move to conserve land like the Great Bear park and boreal forest.
That is about it. After that, we have negatives. Sadly, there is a long list.
There was no national housing strategy. There was no national transit strategy.
There was nothing on employment insurance reform. There was no establishment of the $10 minimum wage to deal with the prosperity gap. There was no poverty reduction strategy. There was no plan to end student debt. There was no cancellation in regard to the corporate taxes.
There was nothing for pharmacare, home care, long term care, or improved access to health care for aboriginal people. There was nothing for coordinated training for medical professionals. There was nothing about catastrophic drugs for the Atlantic region.
There was no significant new money for aboriginals.
There was only a quarter of the money we wanted and needed in child care and there was no real vision for child care. There was nothing on autism, as my colleague mentioned.
There was no ban on bulk water exports.
There was nothing new for the pine beetle.
There was nothing for seniors. There was no increase in OAS. There was no action on the veterans first motion.
There was nothing on forestry, nothing for ACOA, and nothing for western diversification.
That is quite a long list. I want to point to a couple of things in the budget. I did read it carefully. It is important to look at the budget from last year. I looked at page 33 of the budget, which talks about corporate profits. We see from the graph by Statistics Canada that corporate profits were at an historic high, with a 14.2% increase in corporate profits.
This year it is in a similar vein. We see an increase in corporate profits. Some would say that is a good thing because it shows a healthy economy. I do not disagree with that, but the problem we in the NDP have with it is where those corporate profits are going and where they are being spent.
They are not being spent in reinvestment. They are not being spent on retooling. Sadly, there is only a small smidgen of action in the budget about making sure there is some money for the manufacturing base so it can put money back into plants and into capital, but it is not directed enough.
In fact, what we have is more corporate tax cuts, because they were there before and they continue. Sadly, this budget does not address the prosperity gap. It does not address the kitchen table economics that we speak of. It does not address the need for more investment in people and the need to make sure that corporations invest in retooling, which is so desperately needed.
There is another thing I want to mention. On page 218 of this year's budget, the government talks about the initiatives around foreign credential recognition. It states:
This initiative, along with the improvements to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, will increase the number of individuals wanting to come to Canada. Budget 2007 provides $33.6 million over the next two years to ensure that those who come to Canada through these avenues have the valid documentation and meet Canada's health and security requirements.
I am not sure if the Conservatives have been talking to people who have come to this country recently, but this is not the problem.
If they are spending money on this initiative and not dealing with foreign credential recognition and real employment for people in the professions, then they have wasted time and taxpayers' money, because the issue is not about trying to get valid documentation to meet the health and security requirements. In fact, that is part of the problem.
I will give an example. I had three town halls before the Christmas holiday. They showed that for people from all walks of life who are foreign trained professionals, doctors, engineers, people in the medical profession, pharmacists, et cetera, the main problem for them is Canadian experience, foreign credential recognition and employment. Sadly, in this budget there is nothing to help them.
There is nothing in the budget that says there are opportunities right here in the public service or to coordinate job opportunities. The government promised to deal with the issue of foreign credential recognition in the budget but it did not. All there is now is a referral desk. That is not what anyone envisaged in terms of what needs to happen on foreign credential recognition and employment for those who so desperately need it.
I also wanted to touch on those who are falling behind, those who need child care, those who need housing and those who are disabled, who cannot take advantage of tax cuts. The budget is a little bit for everyone but in the end there is nothing for anyone in many respects. The budget contains little tax credit boutique programs, which the Conservatives readily critiqued when they were in opposition. The Conservatives are helping the people they think are their target voters, let us make no doubt about that.
In fact, before the budget was presented, the Prime Minister went on the road and made 21 announcements on new initiatives. He did it in campaign style. He is trying to win a majority but he is leaving people behind. The prosperity gap grows and the people who need the help are not being helped by the budget.
I will read some comments that I have received from constituents who have told me their stories and what is happening to them:
I am a disabled person; paying high rent. I can barely make ends meet. I have applied for subsidized housing in 2003, and was told I have to wait 8 yrs.
It will eight years before the application is considered. Try living on $979 a month, with a rent of $600 and phone bills for emergency purposes. This person is not going to be helped by the budget. These are the people we need to help. Another person who wrote to me recently is a little better off, but is looking at taking out a $60,000 loan to afford child care in downtown Ottawa:
I am securing middle class but cannot afford child care! Help!
There is nothing in the budget that will help that person. They are real people, ordinary Canadians, everyday people we are here to represent. They have been forgotten, the disabled, aboriginal people and those who are in the middle class who are trying to secure a middle class way of life and cannot and who are having to take out a loan for child care. It is a disgrace. It is wrong. That is why I will not be able to support the budget, why my party will not be able to support the budget.
If we had some vision in the country we would not be putting all of our eggs into one tax cut basket, or corporate tax cuts, which has happened in previous years. We would invest in Canadians.
During the Quebec election campaign we saw the handover of money from the federal government, no strings attached, to let the province spend where it will. It made our federal government look like an ATM machine where the provinces can take out money at their will, but where does it go? It does not go to services. In the case of Quebec. It will go to a tax cut.
Exactly what Quebeckers wanted was better services. I think the story of the Quebec election was that there was a population that demanded services and got nothing in return but another broken promise. They will see that the federal government will not take a leadership role and provide real investment, show real leadership and make sure that the dollars that are sent to provinces are spent on child care, housing, dealing with clean water and other issues.
It is an opportunity missed. Last year the title of the budget was Focusing on Priorities and this year it is Aspire. Sadly, what we have is a missed opportunity, little aspiration and definitely no vision.
Mrs. Lynne Yelich (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a correction to some of the mistruths the member is projecting.
Our new government recognizes autism spectrum disorder. It is an important concern and we are committed to working with our partners, provinces, territories and other stakeholders on this issue.
The federal government supports research on ASD through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. It has invested nearly $50 million since 2000. It is a sponsor of the ASD stakeholder symposium in 2007. These are just a few examples.
The institute is beginning to explore the establishment of a research chair focusing on effective treatment. It has launched a consultative process on the feasibility of developing an ASD surveillance program. It has a dedicated page on the Health Canada website. The Health Policy Branch of Health Canada has been designated as an ASD lead.
The member is quite concerned about what the provinces might do with the money and he specifically mentioned Quebec. He should look at the rest of Canada. His counterparts in Saskatchewan have no respect for any of these issues. We have lost children with autism to Alberta because Saskatchewan would not educate or help the parents and families.
I would suggest that the member maybe look a bit deeper. He will find out that it is Alberta specifically and Ontario that lead in helping parents with an autistic child. Saskatchewan has abandoned these children. Saskatchewan has an NDP government. That province will be one of the beneficiaries of the really good agreement that has just been promoted through budget 2007.
The provincial NDP government in Saskatchewan has just announced its budget and there is nothing in it for farmers and agriculture, which is the backbone of that province. Our health minister could not get Saskatchewan on board with respect to wait times. Our Indian affairs minister could not get the province on board with respect to education for aboriginals.
Why does the member think that I do not like to see some of this money going to Saskatchewan? I want what is fair and what is equitable. However, I want a premier too who will spend it where it is needed.
Mr. Paul Dewar:
Mr. Speaker, I think there was a question there somewhere.
I will address the autism issue. I heard the member mention websites, processes, and special projects being set up. I can take that member to communities where people are remortgaging their homes because they are trying to afford a way to deal with their children's future.
It is not good enough to talk about plans and websites. We know what we can do about autism. We can stand up and deliver. Sadly, this Conservative budget did not. It is plain and simple.
On the issue of provinces, let me be very clear. The government had a surplus of $14.2 billion. There was no debate in terms of what we should do with that surplus. Our party said we should have a debate so we know where the money is going and not just decide to fob it off on programs, or tax cuts in the case of Quebec, as I mentioned, without any strings attached.
We need to start talking about national standards. If I were raising an autistic child in Ontario and I go to Saskatchewan or Alberta, I should not have to worry about whether or not that province has the capability to deal with my autistic child. If I were to send my children to university in Quebec, I should not have to worry about whether or not they were born there so they can have an affordable education. That is the reality and that is the reality that the Conservative government does not understand.
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