Speech in the House of Commons
March 8, 2010
The 2010 Budget
Mr. Rick Norlock (Northumberland-Quinte West, CPC): Madam Speaker, I rise today with a great amount of pride and pleasure to speak on the budget and what it means for the province of Ontario. In particular, on this day we recognize the tremendous contribution that women have made and continue to make to our country and the improvements we have seen throughout the years.
Because of our new budget, Ontario will continue to receive support through major federal transfers in 2010-11. Federal support for provinces is at an all time high and will continue to grow. For Ontario, this totals $18.8 billion in 2010-11, an increase of over $800 million from last year and a $6.9 billion increase since 2005-06. This type of long-term support helps ensure that Ontario has the resources required to provide essential public services.
Some examples are $972 million through the equalization program and $9.1 billion through the Canada health transfer, an increase of $243 million from last year. My riding has seen hospital upon hospital being challenged with managing their budgets and really having to look at how they care for patients. People have asked me what the federal government is doing in order to help hospitals meet their budgets. Of course, the $243 million will go a long way to doing just that.
There will be $4.3 billion through the Canada social transfer, which represents an increase of $1.2 billion since 2005-06, $151 million as Ontario's share of the Community Development Trust and the Police Officers Recruitment Fund, and $196 million for labour market training.
Budget 2010 also benefits businesses and communities in Ontario by providing $11 million per year in ongoing funding for the 61 community futures organizations; innovative small and medium-sized businesses in Ontario will benefit from the new small and medium-sized enterprise innovation commercialization program.
Budget 2010 provides $8 million per year to clean up the Great Lakes, which is a key objective of our government's action plan on clean water. Businesses in Ontario will benefit from $497 million to be invested in the Canadian Space Agency over the next five years.
Ontario will benefit from the economic action plan which continues to provide support to create and protect jobs, as well as assist those who are in need. Over $4 billion will go to help unemployed Canadians find new and better jobs, including five extra weeks of regular employment insurance benefits and greater access to regular EI benefits for long tenured workers. The temporary extension of our work sharing agreements for a maximum 78 weeks will go a long way to help those looking for work, as well as struggling businesses.
We have also frozen employment insurance premiums at $1.73 per $100 of insured earnings; $1 billion is dedicated to enhancing employment insurance training programs; $500 million is dedicated to the strategic training and transfer fund; $6.6 million is dedicated to enhance the federal victims of crime strategy, including access to EI sick benefits for those who have lost a family member due to a crime; and $95 million over the next two years allocated as additional support for the Registered Disability Savings Plan to allow it more flexibility when making contributions.
Ontario will also benefit from new resources provided to encourage innovation and commercialization. This includes: $32 million per year for the federal research granting councils to support advanced research and improved commercialization; $8 million per year to support the indirect costs of federally-sponsored research at post-secondary institutions; and $15 million per year for the college and community innovation program, which doubles the support from last year's levels.
A new Canadian post-doctoral fellowship program will also be created, aimed to attract the best young researchers to Canada. Ontario will also benefit from $135 million over two years to sustain the National Research Council's regional innovation clusters. Ontario will also benefit from the $135 million over two years to sustain the National Research Council's regional innovation clusters.
Mr. Speaker, farmers and the agricultural industry will continue to be able to rely on this Government.
Our Government continues to receive and evaluate proposals to the Agriculture Flexibility Fund. To date, $219 million has been committed to multi-year initiatives. A total of $10 million is expected to be spent in 2009-2010, and $52 million has been committed for 2010-2011.
Since 2009, 1,683 loans totaling $84 million have been granted under the new Canadian Agricultural Loans Act.
Mr. Speaker, Canada wide budget 2010 will invest $19 billion of new stimulus funding to create jobs and secure our economic recovery through:
Mr. Speaker I am proud of Budget 2010, our Jobs and Growth Budget. I believe it takes the right steps for Ontario, and the rest of Canada, to ensure a steady economic recovery, job growth and support for those in need.
Thank you.
Mr. Claude Gravelle (Nickel Belt, NDP): Madam Speaker, on page 84 and 85, the budget refers to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. On page 85, it refers to Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions and Western Economic Diversification Canada. On page 120 and 121, it lists $38 million for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, $29 million for the Quebec regions and $29 million for western Canada.
Given the fact that these regions were all given money and that FedNor has always been part of the budget, I would like to know from the hon. member what his government's plans are for FedNor.
Mr. Rick Norlock: Madam Speaker, FedNor continues to be a regional economic development agency that will be fully funded by this government. We now have the creation of the southern Ontario development fund, which allocated in the last budget was somewhere in the vicinity of $200 million per year.
As the member knows, this government is committed to maintaining funding in those job-creating federal development areas. In my riding, we have seen many small- and medium-sized businesses helped by the Community Futures Development Corporations, which are in fact part and parcel of FedDev and FedNor. The hon. member is correct in pointing those things out.
I can tell him what else the government will not do. It will not cut back on social transfer payments to the provinces and on health care in particular. I have worked in Hearst, South Porcupine, Timmins and various areas such as Cochrane. I know that hospitals in many of those northern Ontario communities have come under tremendous pressure in meeting their budgets.
I am very aware that there are tremendous pressures on the communities due to some great disadvantages in the forest industry. However, I can tell the member that we continue to work on that. There is much good news in this budget with regard to retraining and other environmental assistance.
Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Madam Speaker, it is a very narrow budget which simply seeks to continue a program that is failing to get stimulus money out. We notice there is a reference in the throne speech that some 90% of the projects for the current year have been committed. They are weasel words. The cheques are not out.
The other part of this is that this budget does not address the realities that during these difficult times, there are problems with an aging society. There are problems with social programs. There are problems dealing with the basic needs.
This is my concern and the basis of my question. If we simply focus on reducing the expenditures of government departments that deliver services that Canadians need at this difficult time, will it not in fact result in lower service levels to Canadians at a time of most need?
Mr. Rick Norlock: Madam Speaker, I do not live in his riding, but I live in mine and I call tell him that almost 70% of the projects announced under the stimulus action plan have either been completed or have just been completed. There are few that are just getting started. Shovels are in the ground and blueprints are up and ready to go.
I just listened to the member's compatriot speak, the member for Markham-Unionville. We hear words from him such as "weasel". That gets this country nowhere, however what is disingenuous is that he talks about having to know what department to cut back, and then the suggestion was that they were picking and choosing which departments to cut back. I would say there is a lot of credibility lacking in those statements.
We just had a 25% cutback in social transfer payments to the province. What does that mean? When they were in government, mothers had to find food for their children because the provinces had to raid their budgets, because they cut back 25%. Hospitals were closed because provinces could no longer afford the health care, because they cut back 25%.
When he talks about weasel words, he should have a---
Ms. Nicole Demers (Laval, BQ): Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Terrebonne-Blainville.
Today, March 8, is International Women's Day. For once, we are discussing the budget on this date. That certainly comes as somewhat of a surprise. More surprising and astonishing yet, but much less edifying, is the fact that, once again, this government has failed to pay attention to women, who represent 51% of the population in Quebec and Canada. Once again, there is nothing for women in the budget. There is so little for them in here that, as usual, they are barely mentioned. Reference is made to Canadians and Canadian workers, but with hardly any specific references to women, one can only assume that they are part of the population.
Does the government believe that women have no reason to complain because they are working and hardly manage to earn as much as their male counterparts? To this day, women are continuing to earn 21% less than men, even for the same number of hours and weeks of work. It is true, however, that most women do not work as many hours as men. Because they do not have access to adequate child care, most of them are forced to work part time. These women who are not working 35 hours a week do not qualify for employment insurance.
In this budget, the government overlooked EI; it did not make any change to EI to allow more workers to be eligible to benefits. I find that very distressing, especially since women are contributing to the EI fund and making it grow.
I also find very distressing the gall displayed by the Prime Minister in stating in this budget that he will get rid of the gun registry. Down with the mask and the secrecy. He has asked one of his members of Parliament, a woman, to introduce a bill to eliminate the part of the legislation dealing with long guns. We can see now that, all this time, his true intention was to get rid of the gun registry. This registry was established at the request of women, women whose children had fallen victim to a crazed gunman in 1989.
The fact that they had the nerve to do this, and include it in a budget, I believe, is an insult to women. I find it very insulting and I would even say I find it very distressing, because it means that this government just does not get it. Ever since it came to power, so for four years now, unfortunately, this government has failed to understand that women have something to say, that women have rights and that they have the right to exercise them. The Conservatives are trying every way they can-every subtle, twisted way-to divest women of their rights. They are trying to take away everything that we have fought so hard for over the years.
Today we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the declaration of International Women's Day. Yet here we are discussing a budget that contains nothing for women. It is so serious that Kathleen Lahey, an analyst and economist at a university in Toronto, has studied the budget and the economic stimulus plan that was supposed to be just as good for women as it is for men. She found some serious problems with this economic plan, especially in terms of investments.
Consider the following example. Only 0.00006% of approximately $9 billion, that is, about $572,000, was spent on improving women's shelters in Inuit and first nations communities. Only $572,000 is being spent to improve all women's shelters, while triple that amount is being spent on improving three animal shelters in Canada.
Does this mean that animals are more important to the government than women? This is not such an unfair comparison, because it is clear that the government has done absolutely nothing.
For years now, it has been making cuts to Status of Women Canada and to programs that would have given women the opportunity to conduct fundamental research. Women no longer have that opportunity because funds have been cut. Cuts have also been made or will be soon to organizations that offer family planning services and ensure that women and men who choose to have children have all the tools they need to make informed choices. Although this is happening here, the government is also pushing its agenda on developing countries. Claiming that it wants to help women and children, it is cutting funding for a number of organizations that were providing very important services to women and children in developing countries.
By cutting this funding, the government is showing yet again that it does not care at all about the health of women and children. It is wrong to claim that it cares about the health of women and children when it does not give them the chance to have all the tools they need to determine whether they want to bring a child into this world, whether they have the necessary resources to raise the children, or whether they have the right to terminate their pregnancy if necessary.
When a government like this slashes funding to women's organizations, to family planning organizations, to a firearms registry that was very functional-because police officers told us so, the RCMP told us so and women's groups told us so-and the registry is used many times every day by the police forces across Canada and Quebec, that same government has the audacity to send our Minister of State for Status of Women to the United Nations to have her say that Canada has made great strides in helping women and that women in Canada are moving forward. That is not true.
Over the past four years, Canadian women have taken several big steps back. We have taken so many hits that it will probably take us 20 years to get back to where we were four years ago. Once things start going south, it is very difficult to turn them around, to get those rights and that funding back. Once things are cut, they are cut for good. After that, it is very hard to find new money to support organizations that are critical to protecting women's rights and to fund important research and vital programs like the court challenges program. I understand why the government cut the program: it does not want anyone to say that the government is not doing its job. It does not want anyone to challenge it. It does not want any of us, as human beings, as citizens, to speak out against its decisions. That much is clear. A program that cost Canadians just 18 cents apiece was cut. Not because it was expensive, but because it made the government uncomfortable. It allowed people to stand up for their rights, allowed victims to stand up for their rights, allowed victims of crime to stand up for their rights, and allowed victims of discrimination to stand up for their rights.
Such actions make it perfectly clear that this government does not really care about women and children. Some people lie and make up all kinds of stories about how they care for the safety of children and others do not, but the Bloc Québécois really does care about children's safety. Keeping children safe means making sure that parents have enough money to shelter and feed their children and send them to daycare. It means knowing that families will not end up with less money because they send their children to daycare. Unlike other Canadians, Quebeckers get less money because they have adequate daycare services.
Unfortunately, my time has run out, but that is fine, because my colleague from Terrebonne-Blainville has more to say.
Mr. Rick Norlock (Northumberland-Quinte West, CPC): Madam Speaker, I listened with great attentiveness to what the member had to say and I know she cares very much about women's issues. The facts she brings out from her perspective do not actually reflect the true facts. The true facts are that over the last five years to the last decade women have begun to increase their earning potential in this country and continue to do so exponentially. I was reading very recently how there are certain job sectors where women are not only at the same level but are actually increasing. In order words, in certain professions women are earning more than men and that is a good thing because certain professions are predominantly male and some are predominantly female.
I look at my own riding and ask where have we lacked in funding for women? I look at almost $500,000 to the Northumberland services for women so that we an expand, actually double the size of assistance to people and their children who are being abused by their partners, and provide them with social links throughout the community.
I look at the Status of Women and the increase in funding for that. The member reflects on one area but the truth is people who actually provide the services for women, teaching literacy and so on, their funding has increased in order to deliver those services.
One million Canadians no longer pay federal income tax, many of whom are single mothers and single senior women like my mother. So we have taken them off the tax rolls. We have done a lot for women.
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