Mr. Robert Oliphant (Don Valley West, Lib.)

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege and an honour to be here tonight. I come with a heavy heart. I am very aware of the gallery being filled tonight. I am aware that people have come here with hopes and dreams, with pain and with challenges, and I am very pleased to see them.

I am also very keenly aware there are members from my riding of Don Valley West. I thank them for their fierce patience and their persistence and the honour that they have brought to this place today.

They have brought their stories with them as well, stories of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, relatives who have become displaced, become lost or have been killed. They are asking for us, as parliamentarians in Canada, to do the right thing, to tell their stories again and again so they may be heard so the world may change.

This conflict has gone on for over three decades and over 70,000 people, mostly Tamils, have been killed. And so we take this time in remembrance of them and also with the commitment to do something different about life.

As Canadians, we pride ourselves on standing for justice in the world. We pride ourselves on speaking when others stay silent. Most of all, we pride ourselves for fighting for the ability to right the wrongs that we see in the worldwide community.

We have a noble tradition, as the member for Etobicoke North said, in our world to bring about peace and to talk about peace. That reputation is sorely at risk if the Conservative government fails to stand up for our sisters and brothers half a globe away.

The Canadian government has an obligation to the global community, to the Tamil citizens, to all citizens of Sri Lanka and to Tamils living in Canada. They number over 200,000 and they have the right to speak up and be heard in our country, as they fully participate as Canadian citizens here.

While it is thousands of kilometres away from where we gather tonight, a genocide is occurring and the global community must take action. Most important, our Conservative government, which has been silent far too long, has to take further steps than even those announced today.

Up until today, there have been no calls for mediation, no calls for humanitarian assistance and, most important, no calls for a cease fire or a way out of this conflict. Every day the toll of this conflict is rising and its effect on future generations is flying out of control. Tens of thousands are dead, towns and villages have been destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people have been made homeless in this long conflict. Despite these ongoing tragedies, the crisis remains largely invisible to the western world. The press gallery is not full tonight. We will have an ongoing responsibility to take this message to the world and we on this side of the House are committed to doing that, not only tonight, not only yesterday but tomorrow and the day after and the day after.

All sides of this conflict have used violence and have experienced suffering. I will never condone the use of child soldiers or suicide bombings and I know that both forces have used these instruments. It is inexcusable, and we do not support them nor condone them. However, this growing crisis has disproportionately affected the minority Tamil population in the northern and northeastern parts of the island. Constant shelling of civilian areas, disappearance of community leaders, journalists killed and lost, long-term detentions without trials, incidents of torture and the increased deprivation of the country to the government's hindrance of food aid, water and medicine delivery happen day after day.

Our Canadian government has announced $3 million in aid and it is simply not enough. Nor is there any possibility that we can have a guarantee that it will be delivered. The agencies listed by the ministers tonight simply are not in the area. They are not, as the ministers say, on the ground. They are not able to deliver the aid.

The government needs to call for a UN envoy to be a witness for peace, a witness for justice and a witness for ongoing settlement to the solution. It is a half measure at best that the government has done. We are glad that it is acting. It needs to act further. We on this side of the House will have a concerted effort, we will stand with our friends, we will continually remind them of our responsibility and we will continue to keep them in our prayers.

Mr. Robert Oliphant

Those are that member's words, Mr. Speaker. I would say that my job as the member of Parliament for Don Valley West is watching where the government spends this money, how it creates jobs and what gets done. The hon. member will see me at Union Station, downtown Toronto, making sure that commuters have a way to get on the train safely and to get into and out of the city safely. I will be watching for those projects. I will be watching for the money to flow. We are putting the government on probation. We are watching. We will see what happens.

Mr. Robert Oliphant

Mr. Speaker, I think the member, in referring to that economist in his statement, was thinking of the Prime Minister .

Absolutely, the answer is yes. Employment insurance was never meant to be a static plan for all regions, for all times, for all places and for all people. It is meant to be a plan that is flexible and that moves and changes as the times change. Absolutely I believe that employment insurance is a valid and very important instrument to be used to spur on economic development.

We have to keep money flowing. We know that when people are unemployed they are often one cheque away from paying the rent, from feeding their family, from getting the work done that needs to get done. That money is not socked away. That is not money that is stuffed into a mattress. It is money that is spent. Absolutely, that money should be increased.

Mr. Robert Oliphant

Mr. Speaker, it is totally interesting to be on this side of the House. This is not a Liberal budget. In every way the budget shines as not being a Liberal budget, so of course we are critical of it. Once we had read it, once we had a look at it, once we examined it, we saw both its flaws and also areas where the government had learned something, unlike the New Democrats, who refused to even read it before they decided to vote against it. This is part of parliamentary democracy, part of making this country work. I pledged to my constituents that when I came here, I would find a way to make this work. We are trying to make this work. We will hold the government accountable. We will hold it responsible.

Mr. Robert Oliphant (Don Valley West, Lib.)

Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Guelph.

It is a great privilege to rise again in this House to offer my thoughts, opinions and some of my concerns on the government's so-called economic action plan. Call it old-fashioned, but I would much prefer to simply call it a budget. Naming the document an economic action plan suggests that it is far more grandiose than it may possibly be and I think it stretches the imagination just a bit. For me, an economic action plan would have more imagination, coherence and compassion, so it is a budget.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will not remember, but the first time I rose to speak was on November 27, just minutes before the Minister of Finance presented his now infamous economic and fiscal statement. The minister's fiscal update was as audacious as it was inaccurate, as presumptuous as it was pompous, and as fatuous as it was fictitious. It sadly underestimated the serious nature of the economic downturn in Canada and gravely underestimated the tenacity and the persistence of the opposition parties to stand up for Canadians, particularly the most vulnerable among us. In a word, it did not wash.

However, it did get this House and indeed the whole country talking about the true state of Canada's economy and the uncertainty that grips many households in our country this day. For this we strangely thank the minister and give him a vote of confidence at least to that degree. Canadians have been in conversation about these serious matters in coffee shops, at dinner tables and on the Internet, largely spurred on by their perception that the finance minister and the government had its collective head in the sand. Thanks to that, a great conversation has been going on from coast to coast to coast.

Many on this side of the House would like to take credit for all the significant changes the Minister of Finance included in the budget speech that were not indicated in the fiscal update. I think, however, that sells Canadians short. Of course we had a role to play in the minister's about-face, but the larger role was played by the citizens of this country who simply knew that they had to make their concerns heard. They had to tell their stories.

Over the holiday break, I suspect that members on the government side heard much of what we heard as well. Seniors are worried about depleted savings and precarious pensions. Workers are worried about reduced hours and layoff notices. Employers are worried about shrinking foreign and domestic orders. Store owners are worried about inventory growing as people become increasingly cautious about spending their money. Food bank volunteers are worried about shrinking donations and growing lineups. Small business owners are struggling to find financial institutions willing to lend them the money they need to keep going. Newcomers to Canada and young people are pounding the pavement hoping to find their first job, yet they are finding the pavement pounding right back at them. On the upside, one credit counsellor and trustee in bankruptcy told me that business had never been better. Times are tough and are getting tougher out there and we have been hearing about it.

In presenting his budget last week, the Minister of Finance has shown at least some capacity to listen and to learn from this great conversation that he, and humbly I would add, perhaps something from this side of the House as well, provoked. For that, I commend him. I would have to say it appears that having listened, he added just a touch of red dye to what would otherwise have been a deeply blue budget. At best, it has taken on a purplish hue, which is probably the best we can ask for from the minister.

I am not suggesting it would be easy for any government or finance minister to chart a course through this global economic mess, but this budget could have been so much better. What has stunned me about it is its utter lack of imagination, its lack of coherency and its lack of compassion for the most vulnerable. It portrays a government that does not really believe that government can and must be a force for good. At best, it is a grudging nod to the public sector's role in helping our economy through rough waters while ensuring that Canadians survive the turbulence. At worst, it suggests a sheep in wolf's clothing. Think about what some imagination, coherence and compassion could do in this budget. Here are just a few examples.

On imagination, the Conservatives offer $1 billion for development of green technology, mostly directed at unproven methods to capture and store carbon. Where is the support for alternative energy sources? What of conservation? We live in a time when global warming threatens to destroy our planet. At the same time, contractors need work. Trained and skilled workers are available. Why has the government missed the opportunity for a nationwide program to retrofit houses and green the apartment, condo and business towers of this country?

On coherence, we see $2 billion thrown at affordable housing as a one time use it or lose it effort while the minister responsible proudly states that no one should infer that the government actually has a national housing strategy. Perish the thought that the government would take seriously its role in ensuring that every Canadian has a roof over his or her head while creating jobs at the same time.

On compassion, if the government were serious about helping the hardest hit in this time of economic upheaval, less focus would be put on rewarding people for building a new deck or installing a new jacuzzi, which they are probably going to do anyway, and more thought would have been given to opening access to employment insurance and extending benefits to those already covered. Only 42% of those currently jobless qualify for EI and the payments start too late, are too small and end too soon. This is not a new problem, nor is the lack of compassion shown by the government.

I will be supporting this budget. Perhaps I am as grudging in my support as the government is in its spending plan, but even in my support, I will be watching for the money to flow, watching for jobs to be created, watching for the vulnerable to be cared for, and watching for some sense of imagination, some coherence and some compassion to flow from the government as well.