Mr. Speaker, before I start, I would like to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the excellent member for Montcalm.

When I first looked at the budget, I did so from a local and regional perspective. The first thing I noticed was that there was nothing for the Quebec City region or my riding of Louis-Hébert in the budget. None of the federal government's sectors of activity had anything for the Quebec Bridge, the episodes of red dust in Limoilou or the Davie shipyard or anything to reassure our city's seniors, who should continue having door-to-door postal delivery instead of having to go out in winter. There was nothing for pension plans, even though our society has a growing population of seniors.

My riding has a university and two other post-secondary institutions. There was nothing for post-secondary education in the way of provincial transfers. There was nothing about that. There was nothing for basic research. There was mention of applied research and industrial research. However, basic research is the basis for the wealth of our future society. I saw nothing about that.

I would like to talk a little about the Quebec Bridge, which is in my riding. Over the past nine years, this government has spent more than $400,000 on legal expenses. However, I did not see anything in the budget about that. In 2005, the Prime Minister gave a speech to the Quebec City chamber of commerce. He promised to take the paint brush away from the Liberals in order to get the bridge painted. Nine years and four ministers later, they are still looking for the brush.

The Conservatives have cloned the Liberals' incompetence. One might say that the older the government gets, the more it likes to copy the Liberals. That is how it goes.

I would remind members that, during the last election, the government's slogan was “Our region in power”. What have the Conservative members from the greater Quebec City area done for the area in the budget? The answer is nothing.

Let us get back to the budget. We were told that the deficit is $2.9 billion. That is a false deficit because there is a $3 billion provision on the books. We are seeing once again the ploy used by Paul Martin when he was the finance minister. By underestimating the ability to have a budget surplus, all of a sudden, at the end of the year, they look like good managers. It is going to happen.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has said in a television interview that we already had a virtual balanced budget. It is in fact quite real. I hope the Minister of Finance will not needlessly borrow that $3 billion from the reserve fund to make taxpayers needlessly pay interest. I hope he does not do that.

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness said something else that was interesting. He said that a government should serve only to create wealth. I am sorry, but it should serve its citizens, first and foremost. Creating wealth is part of serving the people.

As a final point, I would like to draw the attention of the House to another aspect of this budget. As my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles said, many people are paying so that this government can achieve a balanced budget. Retired public servants are one example. Taking $1.5 billion away from people who are no longer working is rather meanspirited. It is petty and it is shameful. There are no words strong enough, not even unparliamentary ones, to describe how meanspirited that is. When you have reached the point of stealing from people on a fixed income, whose incomes are actually going down, when you achieve a surplus on the backs of people like that, that is petty.

In my riding alone, there are 679 retired public servants.

In the greater Quebec City area, 7,200 retirees will get a taste of this shameful plan; in Quebec, the total is 34,000 and, in Canada, 186,000.

Is this how the government treats those who have made our federal public service an international model? When you work and you have a pension plan, a portion of your salary is deferred for your pension, meaning that you will get the money later. Is the government's idea to have an agreement with workers and then turn around and say that the agreement no longer applies? What is this way of thinking?

The government's attitude toward job training is equally shameful. The government made an announcement on this matter in last year's budget, but it did not follow through with it. In fact, the provinces are opposed to it. The government has needlessly spent $2.5 million of taxpayers' money on a program that does not exist. Now it says that it will have constructive discussions for six weeks and that it will still move forward with the program on April 1st.

Actually, this is what the Minister of Finance had to say about it:

Job training in Canada is not provincial tax money; it's federal tax money. And it's not for a provincial government to tell the federal government how to spend federal tax money.

However, this is an area of provincial jurisdiction. This government has always boasted about respecting jurisdictions, but now it jumps in with both feet for the sake of its ideology. That is completely unacceptable.

That is why the NDP stated, in the Sherbrooke declaration, that any province can opt out of a program with full compensation in those types of situations. I therefore urge this government to uphold the principles set out in the Sherbrooke declaration. It is important for us and for everyone.

For the Liberals, a budget writes itself. For the Conservatives, it is an accounting exercise in which figures that must balance are compared. This cold-blooded accounting exercise could not care less about the consequences for Canadians.

While it is true that they are balancing the budget, people are going to have to pay. This is not being done properly. A budget should benefit ordinary people. It should help people, help companies grow, help create jobs and help young people study and achieve their full potential. It should support seniors and help farmers.

Is there anything like that in this budget? Not at all. It is nothing more than an unfeeling accounting exercise. No one studied the consequences or thought about the people who will pay the price or the purpose of the budget.

The parliamentary secretary spoke about history just now, and I would like to do the same. As part of the cuts made to the various departments, 300 food inspection jobs were eliminated. What is more, we witnesses the largest food recall in Canada's history.

Today, the government solves problems by simply making announcements. It makes cuts randomly and haphazardly without looking at the consequences and then transforms that into a budget announcement. This is unacceptable.

A budget should give hope to Canadians. We should be able to live a healthy life, teach our young people, think about the future and invest in research so that our companies can innovate and prosper. A government is not a publicly traded corporation that has to balance the books at the end of the fiscal year.

A government should take a sustainable development approach to society in all its aspects and have an employment strategy, rather than simply an exercise to fill vacant positions. That is why I deplore the fact that this government has chosen the path of confrontation and come up with a budget that is just laying the groundwork for the next election.

On behalf of the people of Louis-Hébert, I deplore the fact that in this budget no mention is made of the landmark that is the Quebec Bridge.

Denis Blanchette

Transcript

Government Orders

Discussions (0)