Bill C-28 (Historical)

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006

Part 1 implements the following income tax measures proposed or referenced in Budget 2006:
–       the new Canada Employment Credit;
–       the new Textbook Tax Credit;
–       the new tax credit for public transit passes;
–       the new deduction for tradespeople’s tool expenses;
–       a complete exemption for scholarship income received in connection with enrolment at an institution which qualifies the student for the education tax credit;
–       the new Children’s Fitness Tax Credit;
–       a doubling, to $2,000 from $1,000, of the amount on which the pension income credit is calculated;
–       an extension of the $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption, and various intergenerational rollovers, to fishers;
–       the new Apprenticeship Job Creation Tax Credit;
–       a reduction of the current 12 per cent small business tax rate to 11.5 per cent for 2008 and to 11 per cent thereafter;
–       an increase, to $400,000 from $300,000, of the amount that a small business can earn at the small business tax rate, effective January 1, 2007; and
–       a reduction of the minimum tax on financial institutions.
Part 2 implements the proposal in Budget 2006 to lower the income tax rate on large corporation dividends received by Canadians.
Part 3 implements the proposal in Budget 2006 to reduce excise duties for Canadian vintners and brewers.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

[Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I will comment on those points because they are important. I did explain it briefly before but I will elaborate.

The member is quite correct. Many small communities right across Canada with populations of 1,000 or 1,200 do have small museums. They are often small museums that perhaps talk about the history and the artifacts of the given communities. These communities do not need big budgets to operate the museums. They are operated on a shoe string budget, basically by a volunteer board and volunteer members, but they were able, fortunately, to leverage some federal financing.

I am aware of seven museums in Prince Edward Island that received around $20,000 in total, which is not big dollars. Many of them accessed the youth employment strategy where they could hire a student for the summer months. In some cases the museum was only open during the summer months. The student was paid $7.50 an hour and everything worked. It was not a lucrative job but it was a good job. The students met visitors and the community had pride in the museum.

The limited funding was accessed but, as the member pointed out, the assistance program has been slashed and the youth employment strategy has been slashed by 60%. It will be very difficult for the small museums to operate in the future, which is very unfortunate.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

With the fiscal capacity that the government has, the budget was an opportunity to invest. It was also a time to invest because, of course, for 13 years we experienced the rather penurious actions of the previous Liberal government toward the people of Canada. While it reduced the fiscal deficit, it increased the human deficit in Canada.

Toward the end of their time, the Liberals softened, but not completely. I know that in 2005 the New Democratic Party had to fight very hard in that budget to ensure the Liberals did not get away with another tax cut for corporations and that they invested that money in people. That was very good and that is working.

Even within this budget and within Parliament today, the two parties of the right, because that is what they really are, are living off the good avails of the New Democratic Party and the work that it did in 2005. They are dining out on it. We do not want to forsake them of a good meal but they should remember who the cooks were.

In this budget, instead of investing more in the needs of Canadians, the Conservative government decided to squander another $7 billion in corporate tax cuts and to keep the subsidies to oil and gas companies. Even with that, it is currently running a bigger budget surplus than the Liberals did.

Just into this fiscal year, it is $2 billion ahead of its estimates. What did it turn around and do? It announced a billion dollars in cuts to programs that were in place all over the country, this little bit of money that was handed out under the Liberals in a variety of very serious areas, such as literacy, women, museums and health. The Conservatives must have sat in their caucuses and decided on how many programs they could cut a few dollars from and make them work even less than the Liberals did.

I want to talk about the tobacco control program that was cut for aboriginal people. In the Northwest Territories, prior to 2000 we had a smoking rate of 45% in our population. Over the last four years we have managed to bring that down to less 35%. That is a direct and positive result of our Government of the Northwest Territories putting money into it. The federal government also put money into the program because, of course, half our population is aboriginal.

We had the very successful butthead program in the schools which discouraged every child from taking up cigarette smoking. That is gone now. There was no consultation and no recognition of the importance of these programs. I am sure the territorial government will try to do something to replace it, but that is a loss.

The sale of tobacco in Canada contributes $8.8 billion in taxes to federal, provincial and territorial governments. It is very important that we reinvest in the opportunities to reduce tobacco use. Just because we are on the dole with tobacco taxes does not mean that we should ignore our responsibility.

I now want to talk about the corporate tax cuts that the Conservatives have proposed.

Across the country, corporate taxes in provincial hands have been spiralling downward. Provinces have to compete with each other for corporations to establish offices in their jurisdictions and pay their corporate taxes in those jurisdictions. The provinces are in a race to provide the lowest corporate tax rate to attract the companies to do this. Private individuals, of course, cannot afford to relocate just simply to get a lower personal income tax rate, but corporations can manage this quite well.

The responsibility for an across the board corporate tax rate lies with the federal government. In reality the federal government is the best agency to collect corporate taxes and should be the agency to collect those taxes, but over the time of the Liberals and the Conservatives, we have seen this denigrated to such a great degree.

We see the Conservative budget as crafted to meet the needs of the oil patch, not working Canadians. There are a few crumbs for working Canadians and everyone appreciates those. However, it is only a sleight of hand to take attention away from the billions in tax giveaways to big corporations, particularly oil companies, making obscene profits on the backs of hard-working Canadians and on the backs of our grandchildren as well, who will not have the share of the non-renewable resources that we are giving up now.

In the natural resources committee meeting earlier this week, we had presentations from CERI, the Canadian Energy Research Institute, which indicated that by 2020, if the expansion of the oil sands has taken place as outlined and if the cost of oil is $40 U.S. a barrel, which is $62 today, oil companies will make approximately $1 trillion by 2020 from the oil sands, on an investment of $100 billion.

The government's share of this will be less than 15%. We will see the escape of enormous amounts of resources and dollars out of our country and out of the hands of Canadians who need them so much. We need a government and a budget that speaks to the future of our natural resources, and that is quite clearly the case.

Another study was done recently in my territory by an independent group on the Mackenzie gas project, a project that Imperial Oil has indicated is marginally economic. Its study shows, and this was verified by economists and was done by an economist at Pacific Analytics out of Victoria, B.C., that the after-tax rate of return on this project will exceed 25%, and the oil companies are calling this a marginal project in Canada.

The project will deal in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with rates of return of this magnitude, yet they will be subjected to the lowest royalties and corporate taxes. All of this comes down very favourably for them. What does it do for Canadians, for our children and our grandchildren as we move along and require dollars for infrastructure and other things? It does nothing; it is squandered. This is why it is so important that we understand how our tax system works and that we stand up for Canadians.

We did not see this in the budget here and that is a shame. It is a crying shame that we do not see a move to ensure that the resources of our country serve the people of our country.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, would the member comment on the question of the ideological bend toward the tax and budget cuts, especially when we look at the $1 billion supposed savings that the federal government put forward?

Let us look at where and how the government made these cuts. Let us look at something like the court challenges fund, which permitted communities, collectives, individuals, church groups to go to court with funding assistance from the federal government, if they had a valid case, to ensure that their rights were respected. Does he see it as I do, as a back door approach to stymie the Charter of Rights?

Does he agree that ideologically the Conservative government does not agree with the charter, does not believe that the charter should limit the powers of government, that it should be able to do anything it wants, even as a minority government, and that Canadians should not have access to assistance to defend or promote their rights in test cases before the courts?

I have a similar question with regard to the Status of Women. Its budget was reduced and with what remains it is limited in its activities. It cannot grant money to organizations that do research or advocacy. It cannot do advocacy work for women. I do not see that it leaves much more than the exchanging of brownie recipes.

Could the member comment on those points?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, as someone from the Western Arctic, I am very pleased to comment on those.

The fundamentals of the $1 billion in cuts to these programs were not so much ideological as emotional. We have an emotional reaction to things that really make no sense to any Canadians. I cannot say how the inner workings of the Conservative caucus managed to come up with these cuts. I do not understand it. To me it was emotional, “I don't like this, I don't like that, let's grab some here, we don't like those people so we are going to do this”.

As to ideology, there is a mirror to what the Liberal Party did through the 1990s with the budgets, such as reducing corporate taxes, passing the burden on to Canadians in different ways, selling out on resources. I do not see much difference, ideologically, between the Conservatives and the Liberals on this.

This is a question that is open to all Canadians. Is there a difference on the broad brush ideology between the Liberals and the Conservatives? I do not see it. Although, on the other hand, emotionally, the Conservatives were frustrated in many ways with some of the minor things the Liberals did and took out various programs. The court challenges program was an emotional reaction, much like we see on some of the crime bills coming up. People will use this as retail politics. They play on the emotions of people rather than speaking to the needs of Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. There is one minute for both the question and the answer.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, could my colleague speak a little more about something I learned from his speech? That is the government seems hell-bent and determined to get oil and gas resources out of the ground as fast as humanly possible and give it away to foreign ownership for which we will only reap a minor benefit while we are giving away a legacy, our children's natural resources. Their birthright is flying out of our country at record speed and we are barely getting any royalties or revenues from it. Is that good business?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has left his colleague with 20 seconds.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Speaker, 20 seconds is not nearly enough time to touch on the damage being done by over-exploiting resources, whether it is to the service industries in Alberta that cannot hire anyone any more, whether it is to the--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak to Bill C-28 and express many of the concerns raised in the Hamilton community around the budget.

This spring's budget saw the Conservative government essentially continue the Liberal income tax cut. The government added cuts to the GST and business taxes. It simply left what I would argue would be the most important social responsibilities to the province.

On the spending side, the government has all but turned its back on the Kelowna accord with aboriginal people, with only modest funding for housing. The government's decision to go beyond the GST cut and to proceed with further personal and corporate tax cuts is troubling. This will cause a significant shrinkage in government's fiscal capacity to invest in the aspirations of ordinary Canadians. It betrays their hopes in many ways.

The Prime Minister has talked at length about being inclusive. He has all but ignored the call by the provinces for substantially increased federal funding for post-secondary education. Post-secondary education in Canada has been subjected to public cuts in funding for over 20 years. This has led to higher tuition fees and higher student debt.

The government has substituted tax incentives and individual credit measures and has taken away funding for direct programs. This is unconscionable when the government is sitting on a budget surplus of $13 billion. Much of that $13 billion was hijacked from the EI fund as far as I am concerned. It has chosen instead to throw away a chance to give real relief to our post-secondary students and to their parents.

On May 2 of this year, George Soule, national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, responded to the spring's budget announcement and said:

Tinkering around the edges of the tax system is not going to increase access to college and university. This government should be restoring the billions of dollars that were cut from post-secondary education transfers during the past decade so that tuition fees can be reduced.

In my opinion the budget bills of 2006 very much follow the failed Liberal legacy of building on ineffectual patchworks of short term band-aid solutions, with no long term plan to enhance access to quality, lifelong training and learning opportunities. A lifelong learning strategy would finally reinvest in our colleges and universities and it would increase accessibility. I said earlier that there is a student debt crisis in our country which is unconscionable.

Tax credits are no substitute for restoring core funding to post-secondary education. Tuition has almost tripled since 1992. It is becoming increasingly out of reach for even middle class Canadian families, much less ordinary hard-working Canadians. The student debt crisis averages over $21,000 per student. In some cases it reaches $50,000. Imagine trying to enter the workforce carrying that burden. Instead of reinvesting in core funding and tackling the student debt crisis, as the NDP did in Bill C-48 in 2005, the Conservatives simply tinker with taxes.

Tax credits in budget 2006 will cost $185 million a year to help those students who already have $3,000 a year in scholarships. That money could have been used to pay the full tuition for 38,000 students, those students in greatest need. Budget 2006 will increase the amount of debt by allowing more students to borrow more money. That only helps the banks. It is absolutely terrible.

Another area of concern in the budget is housing and homelessness. Day in and day out in the House we hear question after question on SCPI and they are deflected by the minister. What is in the budget? The Conservative money in the budget was money that was already committed to be spent in the NDP budget, Bill C-48 from last spring. The Conservative money actually falls $200 million short of Bill C-48.

Accountability? There is no mention in the budget of who will oversee the funding and ensure the money is spent by the provinces on much needed affordable housing.

Previous Liberal governments allocated a substantial amount of money to the provinces and territories, around $474 million, but this money was not spent. It was not spent because of the failure of the Liberal government to gain a consensus with the provinces on how to do that. That is one of the major failures of the last 15 years in regard to social housing in this country. There is no mention in the budget of a national housing plan that would ensure that affordable housing is available in the long term.

Speaking more to my riding, in particular the city of Hamilton, there was a study done called “On Any Given Night”. On any given night, 399 men, women and children stay in emergency shelters in Hamilton. There are over 4,200 active applications for social housing in our community. Over 2,400 women and children stayed in a violence against women shelter during 2004 and 2005. Twenty-one point nine per cent of renter households spend more than 50% of their income on housing. It is only thanks to SCPI, which we fear is in jeopardy, that the infusion of funding for shelter beds in Hamilton was meeting the needs of single men for the very first time.

I would like to refer to a report from the social services committee of the city of Hamilton. Again, speaking to the committee's concerns around SCPI, it said:

Whereas, having a safe, secure home is a basic human right; and

Whereas, children and families are the fastest growing segment of Canada's homeless population eroding efforts by municipalities and others to nurture healthy, stable communities; and

Whereas the City of Saint John's, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and other organizations across the nation have recognized that homelessness and the lack of affordable housing is a national concern requiring long term solutions; and

Whereas, the National Homelessness Initiative was established by the federal government in 1999, investing $1.2 billion over the past six years in local solutions that address homelessness; and

Whereas, the National Homelessness Initiative is strongly supported by local organizations and the Government of Ontario and is recognized as an international best practice by the United Nations; and

Whereas, the National Homelessness Initiative will expire on March 31, 2007 unless the new federal government acts soon to renew the program;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of Hamilton urges the Government of Canada to renew and expand the National Homelessness Initiative, and calls upon municipalities and provincial and territorial governments across Canada to add their voices in support of this important program.

The concern for SCPI, the concern for our homeless, our families in jeopardy is at the forefront of the concerns of municipalities and municipal governments across this country. It is the concern of representatives in this House, but it does not seem to me to be the concern of the federal government. I cannot understand for the life of my how it can turn its back on homeless Canadians.

In closing, these are concerns that have been expressed to me by the constituents of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek and I am pleased to put them before the House this day.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened attentively to the member from the New Democratic Party and I believe he is genuine in what he is suggesting.

I would have to excuse people who would suggest that the NDP is less than genuine on these questions, because they would remember in a past parliament when the NDP had some negotiating position. When the Liberals were in power in a minority situation that party negotiated the advancement of Liberal priorities on education, on housing, on homelessness. A $4 billion package was put together, but prior to its implementation, the NDP voted to remove the government. The New Democrats voted in favour of a motion of non-confidence. The motion was not on any budget measure. The NDP voted favourably on the budget measures. They did not vote the government out on the budget, but they supported a specific motion of non-confidence. When they had the power in that they had negotiated a deal to assist students, to assist on the homelessness issue, when there was a historic child care agreement with all the provinces, which the NDP members have always said they favour, they chose to go to an election.

Throughout the election the member's leader said, “Lend us your vote”. Perhaps the member is fearful that those who lent the NDP their vote will now recognize the cost of that vote: losing Kyoto, losing child care, losing assistance to students, losing assistance to homelessness and housing. Is the member fearful that come the next election, people may want to exercise their votes properly to advance what all Canadians believe in?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting that day in and day out in this House we hear that somehow the NDP cost the Liberal government its place. I would suggest that the judgment of the Canadian people during the election campaign was that they were tired of the arrogance from that party, and we are hearing more of it here today. That group of people while in government had five surplus budgets and crassly promised day care in each election to get votes, and never delivered on that promise. I repeat what I said to other members when this was raised before. It is time for that member to speak to the rest of his caucus about the fact that it was not the NDP who booted the Liberals out of office; it was the Canadian people. Canadians spoke very clearly.

Do I agree with how the new government is functioning? Absolutely not. We stand here day in and day out as the loyal opposition and raise the issues of Canadians with respect to the new government. But I will say one thing. I believe that the Conservative government is not as arrogant or as fundamentally corrupt as the last government.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton for pointing out these things. In his introduction the member said that people who study these things will recognize the fact that the previous Liberal government was the most right-wing government in Canadian history. The most notable thing about the Liberals was their cutting, hacking and slashing, even during periods of record budgetary surpluses, to the point where it was not just irresponsible, it was cruel. The Liberals caused a sum total of misery around this country the likes of which should go down in the history books and never be forgotten. We must remind ourselves to be vigilant because people like that will come along from time to time and do such damage to our social safety nets that it will take years to even get back to where we started.

My colleague from West Nova is too good an MP to really believe the speaking notes he was handed when he walked in here today which told him to attack the NDP because an election is coming.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the member for Winnipeg Centre, I recall that in 1995 the Canada health and social transfer was cut. That took billions of dollars out of education and health care across this country. I also remember being a labour activist in the community of Hamilton that was devastated by the free trade agreement that happened as a result of the previous Conservative government. We lost some 500,000 jobs in Ontario because of that free trade agreement.

I recall that in 1995, 85% of the people who applied for employment insurance were funded. It dropped to 27%. That is disgusting.

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be discussing this bill. It is very important, because it shows the government's budget measures and the impact they can have on the daily lives of all Canadians, from sea to sea to sea.

We can support a number of these budget measures, because some are good. I especially like the measures designed to help fishers transition from one generation to the next, take retirement and sell their fishing gear and licence.

These are good measures, even though we would have liked the government to go further. During the election campaign, we had talked about measures that would have provided slightly more money and assistance for fishers. Still, the Conservatives have put forward good measures.

On the question of the fisheries, we would have gone further. Rather than half a million dollars of capital gains exemption, we suggested that there be $750,000 and unlimited intergenerationally, but I have to admit it is a great improvement what is proposed in this budget at half a million dollars intergenerational and half a million dollars outside of the family. It must come in concert with other measures in the fisheries, in resource sectors, in all areas of the economy. When we look at this budget measure, it is not just what we see in it that we have problems with; it is what we do not see. We look at the opportunity that has been missed.

When the Conservatives came into power they inherited the best financial position of any government in the history of this country. In 1993 when the Liberals came into power, there was a $42 billion operating deficit. There was a mounting national debt that was sucking the lifeblood out of this country. Interest was being paid internationally to foreign countries and foreign investors from the taxes of Canadians in increasing amounts every year, meaning that we could provide less and less service to Canadians. Tackling the deficit was not easy. It meant some very difficult measures.

Reasonable people can argue on whether those measures that were taken were the correct ones and whether the priorities were right. We can come up with various answers. What we cannot argue, what we have to agree on if we are honest, are the results. The deficit was brought under control. Surpluses were established. The national debt was reduced. Investments were made for ordinary Canadians and communities in working with the provinces. We improved and increased the competitiveness of Canadian industry. We continue to benefit from that.

The NDP would scream because tax measures assisted industry and corporations. I am pleased with those measures because the Canadians I know work for businesses, they own businesses, or they want to develop some. In order to compete internationally, which is what Canadian businesses do, they have to be competitive.

The previous government did more than that. It reduced taxation by $100 billion. The vast majority of that $100 billion was to the benefit of lower and middle income Canadians, average Canadians, all our friends on main street saw their earning power go up.

We removed what is called bracket creep, where if a person's salary went up a little bit, he or she might be in an adverse financial position. We reached historic agreements to advance society within this country. Look at the Kelowna agreement where provincial governments, the federal government and the native communities would work hand in hand knowing they had the financial resources and knowing they could apply the solutions to the problems community by community and not with just one cookie-cutter approach. That was quite historic.

The child care agreement was very historic. We had to negotiate over a long period of time with 10 provinces and three territories to find a way to improve early childhood education and child care in the communities, while respecting provincial jurisdictions, respecting the desires of Canadians, respecting the needs of parents and respecting the potential of the children. It was only the start and there is a lot more to do. And to think that the Conservative government with the current financial situation would start by cutting that. Why did the Conservatives do it? Complete ideology. We heard over and over in this House the baseless rhetoric, the complete ideological nature behind this cut. That was very unfortunate.

I come back to the fishery. Small craft harbours was an area where funding was reduced when we made those deficit tackling measures. That was very difficult for the communities and we continue to live with some of those difficulties. But when the financial situation of the country improved, the Liberal government added $20 million a year for five years, $100 million toward small craft harbours.

The member for Halifax West as fisheries minister and I as fisheries minister were able to assist the communities in upgrading their stock, but the job is not done. There is still a lot of work to do.

What do we see now with the new government, which has the best ever financial position of this country, having inherited that from the Liberal government? It eliminates that funding. It make cuts to fisheries and oceans at the time when it is the most senseless, at the time when there should be great investments within that portfolio, within that program of that department.

Also, let us look at it in terms of ideology. Why do the Conservatives do this? I do not know. Maybe their base of support does not think that fishermen should get assistance. I would like them to explain it. I have not yet heard from the minister.

Then I look at the other ideologies they have, and I look at my part of the world, where in agriculture the most stable part of agriculture in my community is the supply managed part. The producers are very nervous, because everywhere around them they see hog producers having trouble and they see vegetable producers having trouble. Then they look out west and see a sudden concerted attack on the Wheat Board, not improvements to the Wheat Board.

The fix is in on the Wheat Board. For ideological reasons, the government has decided that the Wheat Board is to disappear, and it does not ask farmers in a plebiscite, as it should under the Canadian Wheat Board Act, section 47.1, to see where farmers stand on this.

The Conservatives attacked it very strategically: create a task force and stack the task force such that only people who are opposed to the Wheat Board need apply. Only people who are opposed to the Wheat Board can make submissions to the task force.

For the first time ever, of the five federal appointees on the Wheat Board itself, the Conservatives appointed a farmer-producer who is opposed to the Wheat Board. Rather than having him challenge for one of the 10 spots that are there for producers, they put him in one of the spots reserved for expertise on the Wheat Board.

Then, because there are elections for the Wheat Board, they eliminate and disenfranchise 16,000 producers. Sixteen thousand grain producers who have historically sold grain to the Wheat Board are not allowed to vote. I believe it is something like 30%. I do not know the exact figures. It is true that some of them did not sell wheat to the Wheat Board last year or the year before because of drought, because of conditions, and in some cases because of floods. Maybe some of them are out of the market, but 16,000 certainly are not. The fix is in on the Wheat Board.

I want to come back to how that affects my community. I have supply managed farmers in my community. I have dairy. I have poultry. They are doing quite well. They are able to have a good family income. Their families can look forward to taking over their operations. But they wonder, will the Prime Minister, the person who in 1998 said that supply management was a “government sponsored price fixing cartel”, come back to his true beliefs, as he is doing with the Wheat Board, and accept the views next year or the year after of the people who are opposed to supply management? Will that be addressed? Sure, they are worried about that. They look at all the cuts being done and see the ideological bent within.

As for wind energy and removing the initiative for wind energy, in my community of West Pubnico local business people, with other investors, have put up 17 wind turbines. They are producing energy that is relatively equivalent to what is consumed in the businesses and residences in that community. It is expensive, so it needs assistance from the federal government, but there is no carbon problem. There is no carbon dioxide. There is no smoke coming from these turbines. It is completely green energy.

Rather than investing in that, the government comes out with eradicating Kyoto. It comes out with a false green plan, with a plan that will take away the targets and take the base year forward to an easier year when we are at all time high levels of polluting. The government says it will consult for four years and have targets that we should meet in 40 years. Canadians are concerned about that, and when they see the removal of those incentives, they should be worried.

What worries me more, and what should worry them, is that when we look at the billion dollar cuts that were made this year, a.k.a. savings, the government promises to do another billion dollars' worth of cuts. What did the Conservatives do with these savings? I will try to run through a few of them.

They went to areas where they had ideological difficulties. They said to the very basis of their base support, look at what we did quickly with a minority government, so imagine what can be expected if we get a majority. Then we will get really right-wing, they said, and we will go far to the right and there will be social program cuts and people will see what they have been asking for.

For example, there is the court challenges fund.

As a member of a minority language community, I have to say that the court challenges program was very important to us. This program allowed minority language communities and other communities, people of different religions and so on, to launch court challenges to determine whether the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms would protect their rights in certain instances.

The communities in my riding benefited from the program when a French-language school system was put in place for the first time in the history of Canada.

My grandfather was a politician, When he was first elected in Nova Scotia, around 1907, French schooling was against the law. Whenever the school board inspector arrived, the teachers would hide the unsigned French textbook, which had been written by the parish priest, Mr. Daignault, to teach the students French.

A hundred years later, it is the law of the land. We have a provincial Acadian school board, and children throughout Nova Scotia have the right to education in both languages. However, that is not due to provincial goodwill, although I can say that Nova Scotia was proactive; it is due to the court challenges program.

I see here that there is an ideological bent, that the supporters of the Prime Minister do not believe in the charter of rights. They do not like what it has led to in certain instances, so the best way to do this is to take the oxygen away from the charter, to take away the possibility for citizens--or the provinces or others under the charter--to contest any laws of the nation.

Let us look at questions like that of the status of women. I mentioned this in the House in an earlier question. We have less than 50% representation of women in the House. We have less than 50% representation of women in senior positions in industry, corporations, the banking sector, the financial sector and so on. They are underrepresented. We have a way to go. We have made improvements since the persons case, but we have a way to go in this country.

One of the tools, not the solution to everything but one of the tools, is the status of women organization. What did the federal government do? It bent to the appeal of REAL Women. It cut the funding to status of women. Not only that, it said that people can no longer use that money to do research and that it cannot grant that money to anybody who does advocacy. If we cannot do advocacy and if we cannot do research, there is not much left. It is a backdoor attack.

Let us look at ACOA, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. There is a small program within ACOA, worth $6 million over three years, to work on the social economy, whereby the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency would be able to interact with the not for profit sector in the same way that it can with the commercial sector, the for profit sector, and where it would be able to make loans. For example, a sheltered workshop could have a loan to do an expansion or buy a new piece of machinery and go into a new commercial venture, a loan that it would repay. That has been removed. I cannot understand why.

Why reduce student employment grants and at the same time announce cuts to the museum assistance program funding, a double whammy for that sector, when the Prime Minister had promised increase funding for museums in this country? The student employment programs helped the volunteer sector such as the museums to operate efficiently and gave very good experience to the students. But they were reduced and they are getting reduced further.

As for job training, three months into this year, just three months, there was no more money in western Nova Scotia for adults needing retraining because they needed to change industries and get new skills. That is unacceptable. It is a rural part of the country. A lot of the areas are based on resources and, at one point or another, there are changes in industry. We have had mill closures. The softwood lumber agreement has not saved that. As well, there are changes in the fisheries. Some people have to retrain and get into new areas, but we do not assist them. Rather than the money being increased, it is reduced, and that is unacceptable.

On literacy training, how can the Government of Canada justify that reduction when it had a surplus of $13.5 billion and is looking at an equivalent if not larger surplus in this fiscal year? How can it justify that money be reduced for literacy training, whereby adults are trying to improve their literacy skills so they can seek training, seek employment, assist their children and have pride in themselves and confidence going into the job market? Under what conditions can we justify reducing that funding? I implore the government to review that situation, to yield to the will of the House, and to restore funding.

As for CAP sites, in rural Canada we do not have the broadband Internet access that people in urban communities have learned to live with. We do not have it in all households. We do not have it in all businesses. One of the very important ways in which rural residents can access the information they need is going to those community access sites. Because most of us, let us face it, need broadband in today's world.

This program has developed very well. In my riding, there are good numbers in the English language and in the French language, working with schools, community centres and libraries. These are all great partnerships, but now what do they find? Not only will they not be able to do any programming, but they probably will not be able to operate. We should restore that funding. We should continue that funding. There is no excuse for why the government would not do it.

Further, the Conservatives should steal our promise, and steal our platform to deliver broadband Internet access to all communities in the country over a very short period. It is a great investment in competitiveness in the nation, the education of our young and the continued education of adults. I would hope that would happen.

We still have communities in my riding that do not have cell phone service. We need investments in those areas. It has become a tool of safety. The ambulance drivers depend on it. The 911 system depends on those tools being available. We have communities that are shut out of that local market. The private sector cannot do it alone. There is a possibility for the federal government to participate, but we do not see it investing. We see it with large surpluses while refusing to make those investments, and it makes politically correct budget cuts, the GST. That helps the very rich but does not help the average Canadian.

Average Canadians, the lower income people in my riding, have seen their taxes increase because the level of taxation at the lower amount went up by half a point and they do not recover it on the GST. I think the government should review that.

There should be some investments within the communities to help them help themselves. We were able to do it in the last government by working with ACOA, the municipalities and infrastructure development. We were able to assist communities with water, sewers and fire halls. The town of Bridgetown in my community was ready and applied for funding to build a new fire hall. The town needs it. It is a volunteer fire department and people give of their time. The town is not asking for 100% of the money from the federal government. It is asking for a commitment, a contribution.

I ask the government to reconsider the billion dollars of cuts and the ideological bent as to how it is using Canadian taxpayers' money.