CANADA House of Commons Debates VOLUME 142 Ï NUMBER 047 Ï 2nd SESSION Ï 39th PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Friday, February 8, 2008 Speaker: The Honourable Peter Milliken CONTENTS (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) Also available on the Parliament of Canada Web Site at the following address: http://www.parl.gc.ca 2815 HOUSE OF COMMONS Friday, February 8, 2008 The House met at 10 a.m. Maybe it is referring to the thousands of women over the age of 65 in this country who live below the poverty line. What does the government have against these seniors who have contributed to Canada and its well-being? Prayers It does not make sense for the Conservative government to go after the most vulnerable in our society. GOVERNMENT ORDERS Let us look at budget 2007, with its rather strange heading, Ï (1005) “Aspire”, which won the finance minister a place in Canadian [English] history for the highest spending budget ever. Gone was the Conservative mantra of less government and lower taxes. In 2007, PREBUDGET CONSULTATIONS the Conservatives “aspired” to blow as much of the surplus as they The House resumed from February 7 consideration of the motion. possibly could in the shortest possible time. The Speaker: When this matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Don Valley East had the floor. There remain 17 What did they get out of it? Zero. The money went down the minutes in the time allotted to her for her remarks. I therefore call drain without any investment in the Canadian economy and without upon the hon. member for Don Valley East. boosting the Canadian economy. That leads us to the Prime Minister's current dilemma. Now that the United States has entered Ms. Yasmin Ratansi (Don Valley East, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I a recession, the Conservatives are faced with the stark possibility of would like to make a small correction. I have seven minutes left as I running a deficit when the economic fallout hits Canada. The am splitting my time with the member for Saint Boniface. Conservative solution, of course, is to force an election before the To continue from where I left off, I was talking about budget 2006 storm hits here. and how the Conservative government saw fit to make cuts despite the fact that it had a $17 billion surplus. One has to pose the Although the Prime Minister is renowned for keeping secrets well question: why cuts, especially social spending cuts? within the dark confines of the PMO, I will let members into his current strategy: first, play politics with our troops currently serving What does the government have against the vulnerable, the poor in Afghanistan and then try to blame the government's indecision on and women, people who are really in need of assistance? The only opposition parties; and second, create an artificial crisis in the logic there is that the government has a neo-conservative agenda. Senate, which is currently examining far-reaching justice bills that Those members are not thinking about the people of Canada. They cover everything from conditional sentencing to the age of sexual are thinking about those who match their mindset of every person for consent, and then draw a line in the sand because the bill is being themselves. given second sober thought in the Senate. A statement released by the Treasury Board on September 25, Or else what? Will the Prime Minister call an election? Does the 2006 said, “We have found savings in...Programs that weren't Prime Minister think Canadians are foolish? They know that providing good value for money for Canadians”. Which Canadians procedures are in place in Parliament which allow the government is the government talking about? to get over the logjam. The government does not have to go into an Could the government be referring to people who suffer from the election. lack of basic literacy skills? Could it be talking about students looking for a summer job so they can afford to pay tuition? Could it However, the Prime Minister, in his deceitful manner, is trying to be referring to our first nations and Inuit people? fudge issues and convince Canadians that somehow his desire for an election can be blamed on the opposition. Or could it be that the Perhaps it is referring to our troubled forestry sector and single budget is on the horizon in the next three weeks? industry communities that benefit from regional economic develop- ment funding. Or what about ordinary Canadians who face Canadians do not see a pressing reason for an election. The Prime discrimination on a daily basis yet lack the necessary resources to Minister knows that he will face the wrath of Canadians if he is launch a challenge in the courts? perceived to be engineering his own government's defeat. 2816 COMMONS DEBATES February 8, 2008 Government Orders What would be in the next budget? We can only guess, because should get up and rejoice. We have tax freedom. Canadians are better the Conservatives have utilized all the surplus. They cannot give out off. The government is doing a great job. I would love to hear the any more goodies. What are they planning to do? They will make member stand up and congratulate the government. empty promises with no intention of delivering them, because the cupboard is bare. The cupboard is bare because of our finance Ms. Yasmin Ratansi: Mr. Speaker, I am saddened by the minister, who was the architect of the deficit in Ontario and is economic incompetence of that member. We have seen $15 billion bringing those very skills here to the federal Parliament. go down the drain. This is typical of what happened in the United States. A government starts on a spending spree and has nothing to The fiscal incompetency of the government has come home to show for it. If that is the way economic incompetence goes, roost. The cupboard is depleted. The government cannot show Canadians have to be careful. Canadians know that it was Brian anything, zip, zero, for all the money it wasted. The previous budget Mulroney who put them into deficit. was an inflationary budget. It has done nothing for Canadians. Let us look at history. Who was responsible for the largest federal Of course, that member is either asleep at the wheel or totally deficit in history? Brian Mulroney was. Of course there also was deceitful, because it was the Mike Harris regime, and the minister Mike Harris in Ontario. The current Minister of Finance was his was a member of that regime, that left Ontario with a $5.6 billion finance minister. deficit. History does repeat itself. If the Conservatives are going to have their blinkers on, then Canadians need to boot them out for In 1993 the federal Liberals inherited a bankrupt country. It took their moral bankruptcy, because they keep on fibbing, they are intelligence, commitment and vision to get the country back on incompetent and they have no vision. track. The IMF once called Canada a economic basket case, but by 1997, thanks to the discipline and the leadership of the Liberals, we Hon. Navdeep Bains (Mississauga—Brampton South, Lib.): saw balanced budgets and Canada was back on track. Now Canada Mr. Speaker, I will take this opportunity to congratulate my is the envy of the G-7 countries. colleague on a remarkable speech. It was very well thought out. She clearly articulated some legitimate concerns around the current If history is repeating itself, where the Liberals come back to clean government's fiscal management and its inability to manage its up a Conservative mess, we are probably right when we say that the affairs, specifically when it comes to delivering sound policy for government is way out of its depth, without vision, morally bankrupt Canadians, policy that creates jobs, wealth and opportunities. and intellectually dishonest. Ï (1010) Could the member again highlight for us and comment on the Mr. Dean Del Mastro (Peterborough, CPC): Mr. Speaker, there situation inherited by the Liberals in the 1990s and what they did? were an awful lot of items in that speech that I would love to correct, Could she then comment on the situation today with this government but unfortunately I am not going to get to all of them. as to what it has done with the surplus and the current state of the fiscal framework in terms of the government's ability to help Of course the member probably is aware that the current Minister Canadians through these difficult and challenging times, specifically of Finance never ran a deficit when he was finance minister of in the manufacturing and forestry sectors? Ontario. In fact, he took Bob Rae's economy, which was the worst economy in Canada, and turned the Ontario economy into the hottest Ï (1015) economy in the G-8. I thought she might like to know that. He is doing that for Canada as well. The finance minister of Ms. Yasmin Ratansi: Mr. Speaker, that is a very valuable Canada is creating more jobs and Canadians are making more question. When the Liberals inherited the government, there was a money. Record numbers of Canadians are working. I think that is $43 billion deficit and a debt of $500 billion. It took the Liberals four tremendous. years, until 1997, to clean up the incompetent government of the previous Conservatives. Those Conservatives had no idea. They kept Let us check the Conservative record. I would love to hear what on running up deficits because they were on a drunken spending she has to say about it.