Jean comments on the 2010 Federal Budget - March 8, 2010

Ms. Jean Crowder (Nanaimo—Cowichan, NDP): Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the budget. I will be splitting my time with the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam.

I want to spend my brief 10 minutes talking about two different aspects of the budget. I want to talk about how it affects people who live in my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan, but in my role as the aboriginal affairs critic for the NDP, I also want to talk about how it affects first nations, Métis and Inuit throughout the country.

What we know about the recession which the country has been suffering is it hits the most vulnerable. The recession has certainly impacted on seniors, on pensioners, on middle class families who are struggling to make ends meet. The budget provided an opportunity to tackle head-on some of the challenges that are facing these struggling families and to create a Canada where we are creating those jobs and providing that income security so that people can go to bed at night and not worry about whether they are going to lose their homes or whether or not they can feed their children.

What we have seen are failed policies that are simply not addressing the fundamental needs of many Canadians throughout this country.

Let me start first with employment insurance. Employment insurance is one way to provide fiscal stimulus that directly impacts on people living in Nanaimo—Cowichan and the other 307 ridings across the country. According to a Canadian Labour Congress analysis, unemployment is on average 8.5%. It is projected to be 7.9% in 2011. The real rate of unemployment is much higher. It is probably already at 12% and climbing. Oftentimes we count people who have part time, low wage jobs and there are people who have simply dropped out of the labour force. The unemployment rate is going to stay too high and we are actually not counting many people.

For people who think we in the NDP are only in opposition, we actually have proposals that would address some of these matters. The NDP has a number of bills before the House that talk about reducing the number of hours required to qualify for EI, waiving the two-week waiting period and raising benefits so that people have some security.

In my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan there are many forestry workers who have either run out of employment insurance or are in the process of exhausting it. The work-sharing measures proposed in the budget simply will not impact a lot of those workers.

The second issue I want to address is pensions. At the beginning of January we were getting many calls from seniors on fixed incomes relying on their CPP, GIS or old age security who said that they simply do not have enough money to make ends meet. Once again, this budget failed to address some of the very serious problems facing seniors, not only the seniors who are on our public pension system, the CPP, OAS and GIS, but also the pensioners with pensions from private sector companies which have gone bankrupt. Once again, New Democrats have proposed solutions. We have a piece of legislation called the Nortel bill that talks about fixing some of those very serious problems in our pension system.

Regarding job creation, one of the easiest and safest ways to lift people out of poverty is to provide good paying jobs. The New Democrats and some of our partners across the country, including the Canadian Labour Congress, have talked about the need for sector renewal strategies to save jobs and promote successful restructuring in many of our troubled sectors such as forestry. We would propose to look at building the green sector or the green job economy.

In my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan many people are concerned about the impacts of climate change. They are concerned about some of the job losses in our resource sector, such as in forestry and fishing. They would like to see initiatives to actually create stable jobs in our economy so that they do not have to worry. Many workers are having to leave the area. They are having to leave Nanaimo—Cowichan and go elsewhere to find employment, leaving their families behind. There is certainly room for improvement in job creation.

I would like to briefly touch on food security which falls in the line of climate change as well.

I want to quote the Cowichan Food Charter. These are the kinds of supports we would have liked to have seen in the budget. The Cowichan Food Charter's vision is the following:

We have a collective obligation to ensure that everyone has access to sufficient high quality food;

For Cowichan to thrive, local farmers and food producers must earn a good and fair living;

Food security requires co-operation and communication between the community, farmers and all levels of local government.

Although there were some supports to the agricultural sector for many of the small farms on Vancouver Island, there simply was no help at all. What I hear consistently from farmers is that we need ways to, for example, protect our watershed and ensure that resource is available. We need ways to ensure that local slaughterhouse capacity is available, which currently is not. We need ways to ensure we have ongoing protection for farmland and the farmers who produce the food on the island.

I want to shift gears. In my role as the aboriginal affairs critic for New Democrats, I want to touch on a couple of aspects of this budget.

I want to acknowledge that hearing the government talk about taking next steps to endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was a positive step. New Democrats have been calling for this for a number of years and see the government making a positive move.

However, there is a caveat. It talks about taking next steps. I would encourage the government to move forward quickly on this. As the Assembly of First Nations national chief says, it can use the declaration's principles of partnership, respect and inclusion. Those would be good underpinnings in all legislative proposals that will come before the House if those elements of partnership, respect and inclusion are included in all aspects of developing legislation. That is a positive step in the budget.

I want to turn to the issue of children in foster care. Although there was a mention in the budget about money being available for provinces that would be willing to enter into these enhanced protection agreements, we also know there is currently a human rights case before the tribunal about underfunding in the system.

Currently, the government is continuing at all turns to try to quash that case. A press release that came out from the Quebec Native Women's Association states:

While federal government uses legal loopholes to keep flawed policies for First Nations children in place, documents obtained under access to information say that inequitable child welfare funding contributes to the fact that there are more First Nations children in child welfare care today than at the height of residential schools.

The article goes on to talk about some of the actions the government is taking in trying to prevent that case from being heard.

In light of the move on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it would seem that this would be a good time for the government to drop its opposition at the tribunal, allow that case to proceed and ensure equitable funding is in place from coast to coast to coast so we do not have this legacy of children receiving different levels of service if they are on reserve than if they are off reserve.

I want to briefly touch on the pledge for $10 million to address missing and murdered aboriginal women. We know this is a national tragedy. There are well over 500 murdered and missing aboriginal women in the country. There were $10 million announced. What is not clear in the budget is how that money will unfold. We do not know how that money will contribute toward what the Native Women's Association of Canada, Amnesty International and other women's organizations have called for, which is implementation of a national action plan. That is what we need to address this very serious crisis for murdered and missing aboriginal women.

In first nations, Métis and Inuit communities there are many serious issues, including housing, education and infrastructure. Although there was some move on infrastructure in the budget regarding water, we need a national action plan with the input of first nations communities across the country.

The New Democrats have proposed a number of solutions to the problems that the country is facing. In that light, the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain proposed a subamendment to the budget, which addressed some of those aspects. It included that members would see some increases for CPP and QPP, look at the cases of corporate insolvency, examine the harmonized sales tax, which I know impacts on B.C. and Ontario, and we would take a look at the proposed tax cuts for corporations, which could actually fund some of the programs the NDP spoke about for seniors, pensioners, middle-class families and first nations.

Hon. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): Madam Speaker, is it true that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is no longer being funded and has basically been cancelled because of the budget? The reason I ask is that obviously one is dreaming in Technicolor if one thinks a few years of help will heal a lifetime of having one's language and parents taken away, which can lead to substance abuse. A lot of healing still needs to go on in the country and the program is very important.

In Yukon, LAWS, the Liard Aboriginal Women's Society, has done some great work over the years. It sent in another application, but it has not heard back. If this program is suspended, it will be a tragedy. Just because there is money in the budget for the money that is owed to survivors, that is a statutory requirement, that is not generosity.

Is the healing fund cancelled? Would the hon. member agree with me that it should be continued?

Ms. Jean Crowder: Madam Speaker, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation funding was part of a negotiated agreement that will sunset this year. It does not prevent the government from assigning additional funds to carry out the good work that is happening from coast to coast to coast.

The government itself recognizes that the residential school legacy is continuing because it put some additional money in the budget around residential school payouts. People are still applying for that money, whether it is common experience payments or some of the awards for other abuses outside of the common experience payments.

I would argue that because the government recognizes the ongoing need to pay out for residential schools, there should also be a recognition that there needs to be ongoing funding to support the healing process happening in communities.

We know the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is getting its work under way, but there needs to be funding for local organizations that are working within their communities to provide an intergenerational legacy of healing.

Mr. Scott Simms (Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, Lib.): Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's comments in light of the pension situation. Without a doubt, I have said before in the House and will say it again that it will be an emerging issue. It is an overarching issue that will take up a lot of our conversations within the House in the next 10 to 20 years.

That being said, she mentioned the private sector and pension issues. AbitibiBowater and Nortel are two situations that involve what the NDP feels need some regulatory changes. There are two bills on the order paper from the NDP.

Could the hon. member perhaps provide more comment to the House on those bills? They do require changes, one in the bankruptcy act and also around the status of an unsecured creditor at time of bankruptcy. I hope my colleague can provide her thoughts on that issue and on those two particular—

The Acting Speaker (Ms. Denise Savoie): The hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan.

Ms. Jean Crowder: Madam Speaker, I agree we have an emerging crisis in pensions across the country. There are two aspects. One is the publicly funded pension, CPP, old age security, GIS. We know that many Canadians do not have access to private sector pensions and have not worked at jobs that have allowed them to invest money in RRSPs. We need improvements to those, and the bills and the motion the NDP presented earlier address what we are proposing as increases to public pensions, CPP, GIS, and OAS.

On the other side of the coin are private sector pensions. The member mentioned AbitibiBowater and Nortel. There are many other companies in the country that, although they have not gone bankrupt, their financial futures are uncertain.

The NDP has proposed that in those cases those workers would move to the top of the list when we speak about payouts. The NDP has also proposed that there be a fund put in place, a pension insurance protection scheme that would protect those workers' pensions when, through no fault of their own, their company goes under and their pensions, all the money they paid in all their working lives, are lost.

Mr. Claude Gravelle (Nickel Belt, NDP): Madam Speaker, in light of the fact that Liberal after Liberal have stood up today and spoken against the budget, yet they will sit on their hands when it comes time to vote or they will not show up, will the hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan vote for a budget that does nothing for Canadian women, children, seniors, and first nations?

Ms. Jean Crowder: Madam Speaker, New Democrats have been very clear that we cannot support the budget as it is written. We simply feel there are far too many Canadians who have been left behind, whether they are seniors, women, first nations, Métis, Inuit, or middle-class families that are looking at their jobs and savings go down the drain.

It is very difficult to support a budget, as written, that leaves so many Canadians out of the picture.