22 June 2007
Ottawa, OntarioPLEASE CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
Good afternoon.
On January 4, I laid out the priorities of Canada’s New Government for the spring sitting of parliament.
We promised a budget that would continue to reduce taxes, keep spending focussed on results, and restore fiscal balance.
We said we would continue tackling crime to improve public safety;
Continue reforming our political institutions to make them more democratic and accountable;
Continue working to restore Canada’s role as a major contributor on the world stage;
And continue developing a comprehensive and realistic plan for controlling and reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
And today, at the end of the spring sitting, I’m pleased to say we have made progress on all those priorities.
We passed 26 bills into law this spring, including 13 that received royal assent today.
Largely as a result of our tax reductions in budget 2006, tax freedom day arrived Wednesday, four days earlier than last year.
With the passage of our second budget we’ve contributed to making tax freedom arrive even earlier next year.
Budget 2007 also includes the largest investment in our national infrastructure in half a century, and it delivered on our commitment to restore fiscal balance to the federation.
It increased equalization payments and brought fairness to the big social transfers by funding them on an equal, per capita cash basis.
Most of the provinces and territories responded positively to these new arrangements, but delivering on our budget commitments is only part of what we’ve done for Canadians.
We’ve advanced our environmental agenda aggressively and at the recent g-8 summit, we reached agreement that all the world’s major emitters need to be involved as we develop a new strategy to address global warming.
We’ve also made progress on criminal justice reform.
We have:
eliminated house arrest for people who commit serious, violent crimes;
created stiff sentences for street racers who hurt innocent bystanders;
made it harder for gangsters and terrorists to launder dirty money and finance their criminal operations; and finally,
moved to ratify the un convention against corruption.
The bad news is that four other important crime bills, passed at the House of Commons, are bogged down in the senate.
One would protect our children by raising the Age of Protection from 14 to 16.
Another would set mandatory prison sentences for gun crime.
And a third would end the revolving door of bail for gun crime.
Our bail reforms are backed by police, prosecutors, big city mayors, the NDP, and the Ontario Liberals.
But not by the Liberal majority in the Senate.
They have not merely defied the government; they have defied elected members of parliament, public opinion and all common sense, by delaying our crime bills and derailing our legislation to reduce senators’ terms from up to 45 years to a maximum of eight years.
Canadians want safe streets and accountable legislators, and they won’t stand for an institution that stands in their way.
As I said all winter long, Canadians don’t want another election.
They want this minority parliament to continue getting things done for Canadian taxpayers and for all our families.
Our country is more prosperous, stronger and more united than it’s been in 30 years.
Our job, and the job of all of us in parliament, is to keep building on this success.
Thank you.
