House of Commons Hansard #36 of the 35th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was budget.

Topics

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3:20 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

That is an excellent question from the hon. member. The procedural expert advises me that if the minister who made the statement is not here, a member who wishes to reply may not do so.

Another time perhaps the hon. member would persuade the minister to come back. However, that was a very good procedural effort.

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3:20 p.m.

Reform

Diane Ablonczy Reform Calgary North, AB

Mr. Speaker, I believe there are two related fundamental questions which must be considered when considering the motion before the House today. First, can Canadians continue to live on borrowed money? Second, should Canadians continue to live on borrowed money?

We ought to acknowledge that it is very pleasant to live on borrowed money. Certainly Canada has enjoyed that position for over 20 years now and it is even desirable if only immediate benefits are the consideration.

However, I believe that living on borrowed money for our country amounts to short term gain and a lot of long term paying. Addressing the question of whether Canada can continue to live on borrowed money, the answer obviously has to be no, not in the long term.

We are already starting to drain away money that would otherwise have been available to fund our health care education and pension programs by the interest obligation that we have built up on the half trillion dollars plus that we have managed to borrow in the last 20 years.

Our interest obligation is this year $41 billion. We are borrowing only $39.7 billion. Therefore we are not even borrowing enough this year to cover our interest payment. We are going to have to take away tax dollars that could have gone to fund social programs if we had not built up in the last 20 years this interest obligation.

This means also that for 21 years plus our creditors have funded an artificially high standard of living for our country. I would submit that anyone who lives on an artificially high standard of living for very long is going to have to face reality one day. That includes our country.

Unfortunately the government says that it intends to put us even further in the hole over the next three years by borrowing another $100 billion more than we earn. Even if interest rates were so fortunate as to stay at around 5 per cent, on the $100 billion the government is going to borrow we will have to pay each and every year forever $5 billion.

That is a lot of money. The interest today that we are paying amounts to $1,200 per second and that is money that could be helping a lot of Canadians if it were not going down the drain in interest on high living for the last 20 years.

Anyone who has ever run a business or managed a household budget or even the allowance in their piggy bank knows that if one keeps spending more money than is coming in soon one will find oneself in trouble. That is a simple fact of life.

Unfortunately our leaders seem to be the only ones who act as though real life truths need not apply to their decisions. As more and more of our income is spent each year on interest, we are going to have less to spend on health care, education and pensions, let alone on the new programs that governments keep introducing, 18 in this particular budget.

Every dollar that has to go to government in taxes to pay this interest and to pay for government programs is one less dollar that can be invested to build and create business and job producing activity.

This is not a healthy state of affairs. Sir Roger Douglas, a former finance minister of New Zealand, stated: "The only justification for the government taxing people and then spending the money for them is if the government can demonstrate some special skill or knowledge that the average person does not have in how to spend the money". He then said: "I simply do not believe that".

I think a lot of Canadians would agree that governments in the past and present have not demonstrated any special skill in spending our money for us as Canadians.

Saddest and most disturbing, however, are the consequences of governments setting this great country on a course of living on borrowed money. It makes future taxpayers the ones who get stuck with the bill. Sometimes driving down the road one will see a bumper sticker, quite often on a nice motor home, saying: "We are spending our children's inheritance". This is true: in Canada today we are spending our children's inheritance. We are spending their future earnings.

This reprehensible behaviour amounts to taxation without representation. Instead of paying our own way, enfranchised Canadians today through their elected leaders are literally spending money that will have to be paid back with interest obligation by our children and our grandchildren. We have heavily mortgaged their future so that today we can have expensive and comfortable programs.

We are not justified in spending the birthright of future generations of Canadians. I would further submit that we have a duty to protect the interests of those who have no say in the burdens that are being placed upon them. They are the ones who are going to have to live with our mistakes. In 20 short years we are already worse off than if we had not borrowed a nickel.

The money that we bring in today is now not entirely going to fund the help that we want to give disadvantaged people of our society. Some of it is already starting to go to pay interest. As that increases more and more of our income and our tax dollars are going to have to go to interest. We will have fewer and fewer dollars to fund important programs like health care and education and pensions. Pretty soon those programs are going to be squeezed out of existence. They are already being eroded right across the country.

We in the House ought to join together and make the sometimes tough choices needed to secure our children's future. The motion before us today makes four modest proposals to take us in that direction. First, the motion urges us to say no new programs and, second, to put spending caps on the discretion of government. The Reform Party has proposed a very modest spending cap of only 6 per cent. There is barely a household or business in the entire country that has not cut its spending by at least 6 per cent and, I would venture to say, a good deal more than that in the majority of cases. Yet members of the House in both the Official Opposition and the government parties would not even support such a minuscule spending cap by the House. I say that is to our shame.

The third proposal we have put forward is to require progress reports on deficit reduction by those responsible for handling our finances and our fiscal affairs. That is an accountability measure which is only prudent in any company or enterprise.

Last, as leaders, as people who have been entrusted not only with today's affairs but with the well-being of future Canadians, we have to put together a plan for corrective action where we should not be moving further in the direction of living on borrowed money.

For the sake of young and unborn Canadians, I appeal to members of the House today to show the courage and the leadership to support the motion before us.

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3:30 p.m.

Parkdale—High Park Ontario

Liberal

Jesse Flis LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Foreign Affairs

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her arguments which were presented very clearly. I am a little shocked that she and her party would want to cut and not invest in the youth service corps, something which they threw into their motion.

My question for the hon. member is: Which is going to cost the taxpayers of Canada more? Is it the young people between 18 and 25 who are not in school or not working? Their self-esteem goes down. They will probably get hooked on drugs and steal to pay for the drug habit. The girls will probably hit the streets as prostitutes.

Does the hon. member feel that she will save the taxpayers more money by driving our young Canadians in that direction, or will we save Canadians more money by putting these 18 to 25 year old Canadian students who are probably dropouts, not in school, cannot get jobs, by involving them nine months in a youth corps program where they will work on community projects, where they will learn skills which will build up their self-confidence, their self-esteem and hopefully at the end of the youth corps program be able to find a job?

Which will cost the taxpayers more, her idiotic program of cutting the youth corps or what we are presenting in the youth corps?

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3:30 p.m.

Reform

Diane Ablonczy Reform Calgary North, AB

Mr. Speaker, the doom and gloom parade by the member opposite in his comment would do the Reform Party proud, I would think.

I must say I do not think words like idiotic really add a great deal to the debate. As leaders of this country we have an obligation to discover and consider serious issues in a serious and thoughtful way. I would appeal to the member opposite, through you Mr. Speaker, to do that for the sake of Canadians who are looking to us for leadership.

In the past 20 years, with a great deal of borrowed money from our youth, we have put into place, and the government opposite was responsible for much of this especially in the early days, program after program after program that was supposed to help Canadians, young Canadians, increase employment and do all of the things the government says it is going to do. All it has done is add to the burden placed on our young folks.

I would challenge not only the hon. member who just spoke but all members of the government to think about what is going to happen in 20 years. Are the young people of the country who are going to be our taxpayers, business people and the people responsible for our affairs going to stand and say: Good for you guys, spending this money on a youth corps in 1994? Are they going to say boy, did you ever turn our country around, or are they going to say look where you guys put us, look at the hole we are in, look at the tax burden that is on us, look at the irresponsible way you handled our future? I ask the member to ask himself that question.

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3:35 p.m.

Liberal

Sarkis Assadourian Liberal Don Valley North, ON

Mr. Speaker, when reading the opposition motion I came across two sections which say"with all parties". This party has a plan and we want to get it through with the co-operation of the other parties. I hope hon. members on the other side will support our plan.

I also mention that statements made today in the House sound very similar to the statement of the former Prime Minister who said that there would be jobs for Canadians by the year 2000. The government does not have the time to wait for the year 2000 to put Canadians back to work. We have to put Canadians back to work now.

This morning in my constituency office I met two young people who used to be in a position of giving jobs to others. Now they are looking for a job. These people cannot wait until the year 2000 to get a job. We all know what happened to the previous Prime Minister.

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3:35 p.m.

Reform

Diane Ablonczy Reform Calgary North, AB

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the first comment of the hon. member about developing a contingency plan in consultation with all parties, I would emphasize that this is a contingency plan for corrective action, if we read the words in the motion. We do not consider the present plan put forward by the government to be the proper plan for Canada for reasons that I have just expounded on at some length. However the plan we need to put together is a corrective plan.

I would say again that yes, we can spend whatever money is necessary to put a few people back to work. Yes, we can do that and it would be nice for them. What I would appeal to the House to do is look at the long term and look at what is best over all.

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3:35 p.m.

Reform

Dave Chatters Reform Athabasca, AB

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak in support of this motion. I and my party believe that if we do not drastically alter our economic policies Canadians will be facing an economic crisis in this country equal to or worse than what was experienced in the 1930s. Many senior Canadians today still remember the famine, financial hardship and personal despair of those years.

Today, because of government overspending, ballooning deficits and accumulated debts of the last 25 years, we could soon be facing a similar disaster. Clearly, when one cuts through the rhetoric, misguided optimism and smoke and mirrors of this recent budget, it does nothing to set a new direction or chart a new course for economic healing that we must see if we are to avoid this looming crisis.

Therefore we in the Reform Party are presenting some constructive actions and offering co-operation to the government in seizing the window of opportunity before it is lost for another four or five years.

In the business and non-political community there is general acceptance that we cannot continue to spend huge sums of money over and above our income. Why is it then that the government accepts with many accolades that we should spend in the next fiscal year $3 billion more than last year, accept another deficit of $40 billion and accept $100 billion more debt in the next three years on top of the outrageous $500 billion we now carry?

In modern history where are the examples of countries where governments with debt loads of 100 per cent of GDP were able to stimulate economic growth without becoming involved in another world war? I submit there are many examples of the consequences of government overspending and mismanagement which have brought once prosperous countries to their economic knees. Sweden and New Zealand are but two of the most recent examples.

Speakers and writers from these countries do not like to talk much about the real devastation and hardship that the economic restructuring of these economies caused. However, if one probes behind the stories of rebirth and of economic health there are also stories of despair, bankruptcy and real hardship when there is a major withdrawal of the social safety net, a devaluation of the currency and a downsizing of the bureaucracy.

In spite of these examples, as I have listened to the debate since budget day, I have heard one government member after another praise the Minister of Finance for presenting a budget that will solve the economic ills we face today. They accuse us of being uncaring, racist and without compassion because they say our proposals are Draconian and meanspirited.

The best example of this rhetoric was this morning when we were accused of abandoning the interests of Canadian youth.

The best example of the abandonment of the interests of our Canadian youth has to be the mortgage that we have placed upon the youth of today, offering as an alternative nine months of community service cutting grass and cleaning up the highways for students who worked hard and struggled long hours to achieve university degrees and high school diplomas. It is a disgrace.

I suggest members opposite pull their heads out from the sand and stop misleading and deceiving Canadians by telling them that we can solve our current problems with no hardship or sacrifice. This might have been true at least to some degree when Mr. Trudeau defeated Mr. Joe Clark, or even when Mr. Mulroney defeated Mr. John Turner. However, today with the debt growing faster and faster and with debt servicing combined with social spending consuming 90 per cent of government spending, there is simply no miracle cure and no easy way out.

Therefore let us be honest and, in the best interest of all Canadians, let us work together to inform Canadians about the seriousness of this problem and then present to them a credible, rational, well thought out plan to deal with the crisis.

It is also clear from the debate on the budget that the members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition have no grasp of the problem or any rational solution when they suggest that social spending is untouchable and if we cut the fat from government operations we can return to economic health. Surely they must realize that the entire cost of government operations amounts to only half of the current year's deficit.

I believe that an examination of political history here and elsewhere would show that it would be in the best interest of this government to demonstrate some honesty and leadership in dealing with the deficit. Clearly if a government is dedicated to improving Canada's economic health and moving it out of these tough economic times it will have to make those moves in the first year of its mandate, if it is to reap the benefits of those measures at the polls in the next election.

If those members opposite continue to mislead Canadians with statements like "we don't really have a spending problem, we have an income problem", they surely will only incur the wrath of the electorate when they realize the utter incompetence of such statements.

I know without a doubt what the consequences would be if I or any of the members opposite were to go out and purchase with borrowed money an expensive car, a luxurious home or an opulent boat and then when the banker presses for payment tell him: "I don't have a spending problem; I have an income problem". The consequences of such an action would be the same as the consequences for Canada: bankruptcy and financial collapse.

In conclusion, I urge these members opposite to remove their partisan blinkers and for the preservation of our wonderful country please examine carefully and honestly where we are heading in this country. With the same care and honesty, I urge members to examine this motion and our offer of co-operation before they cast their votes in the traditional partisan political fashion.

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3:40 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Adams Liberal Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with interest to speeches from the other side of the House today, attacking our efforts to assist the young people of Canada, giving derogatory descriptions of the youth corps before it has been possible to put the youth corps in place and see what can actually be done. From what I hear people think it is a make work project, moving sand and gravel from one place to another; whereas in fact it is a program designed to help communities and young people to gain experience which will bridge the difficult transition between school of various sorts and the workplace.

The member just said that the youth corps program was our only alternative for these young people. I wonder where the member has been in the last 10 years, the years in which the deficit has grown to these astronomical levels.

We think in the United States of Mr. Reagan, in Britain of Mrs. Thatcher and in Canada of Mr. Mulroney with their slash and burn policies which not only created these huge debts and deficits but created in each of the jurisdictions serious unemployment problems, particularly among the youth who are being attacked by this motion of the Reform Party today.

What suggestions does the member have other than slash and burn for helping young people today, next week and the week after?

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3:45 p.m.

Reform

Dave Chatters Reform Athabasca, AB

Because we on this side of the House have yet to receive any details about the youth corps program we can only judge the merits of the program from similar programs presented by previous governments. In my opinion those programs were dismal in providing meaningful employment to students of our universities and high schools. Certainly that has been the experience.

Further to the hon. member's comments, the best thing we could do for our young people is to cut the tax burden and allow private enterprise to create jobs and get the economic engine of this country rolling. Stop trying to do what governments have been trying to do since time immemorial, that is create employment through government spending and borrowing money.

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3:45 p.m.

Liberal

Paul Szabo Liberal Mississauga South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker gave some numbers in the House about the Liberal Party adding another $100 million to the debt over the next three years. Other speakers from the Reform have indicated the same thing as if their financial plan during the campaign would not have added to the debt. I wonder why there is this double standard.

In his closing statement the hon. member said we have to stop spending on these kinds of programs for the benefit of all Canadians. I wonder if the member might want to consider whether he is talking on behalf of Canadians who have rather than on behalf of Canadians who have not.

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3:45 p.m.

Reform

Dave Chatters Reform Athabasca, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am a Canadian who considers himself to be a have not. I am very much a grass roots Canadian. I speak for those of my social and economic level.

It would appear to me from what I have heard from the members opposite that perhaps the government wants us all to be have not people in our society. We are not saying that many of the programs proposed in the budget are not good programs, are not worthwhile programs, our problem comes when we borrow money and we increase debt to support those programs.

If we can afford these programs we should provide them for Canadians. At a time when we can no longer afford them we have to cut back on programs provided for Canadians.

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3:45 p.m.

Ottawa West Ontario

Liberal

Marlene Catterall LiberalParliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board

Mr. Speaker, may I indicate to the Chair and to the House that government members speaking on this motion will be dividing their time for the remainder of the debate.

I am pleased to have this opportunity to rise in the House and address this motion. On February 22 the Minister of Finance tabled the government's first budget. It was a budget based on, as the minister said at that time, an unprecedented process of consultation with Canadians.

What we as a government have put before the House and before the Canadian people in our first budget is only a first step. It will not solve everything overnight but it will provide a basis that we can build on. This is not a simplistic unidimensional step. It is the first step to economic recovery, to the well-being of individual Canadians and to the elimination of the deficit.

We have listened to Canadians. We are pursuing our game plan and it includes jobs and growth. During the election campaign we made very clear the solutions we were proposing and we are following through on these commitments.

Members opposite would have you believe that they somehow hold some kind of secret solution. Yet their only solution is to cut. This is a scorched earth policy and we feel, frankly, that what Canadians said on October 25, 1993 was that they were burned enough by that approach.

One of the best examples of what can be expected from the government is a positive, constructive program, the infrastructure program. Infrastructure Works is a shared cost initiative which brings all levels of government together working on opportunities for Canadians, working on job creation, working on investing in the very foundation of our economic prosperity for the future.

Each level of government, federal, provincial and territorial, and municipal will contribute $2 billion for a total of $6 billion over the next two years. This is what Canadians want to see, governments co-operating to solve our problems, not governments at each other's throats, competing with each other. The program is also open to private sector investment in these public purpose initiatives, if such investment is useful and can assist local governments.

A federal share has been allocated to each province and territory based on a formula melding population and unemployment shares, a formula I might add that was agreed to by all first ministers in December. Each province and territory will match the federal allocation as will local governments.

Infrastructure Works is intended to speed the economic recovery while meeting the well documented needs of renewing and upgrading Canada's infrastructure. The program should help municipalities and communities use new, efficient and environmentally sound technologies as well as improve our competitiveness and productivity.

There has been a dramatic decline in what we have invested in infrastructure over the last few decades. In the 1960s the three levels of government invested 4.3 per cent of gross domestic product in infrastructure. This declined in the 1980s to 2.5 per cent.

Many members in the House and I have substantial municipal experience. We know from experience that a road not repaired and maintained today means one spends 10 times as much when that road falls apart. We know that allowing bridges to rust and collapse means a much bigger burden for the next generation than the cost of repairing that infrastructure today. We know that unhealthy water systems in our communities are neither in the best interests of this generation or the next, nor is it responsible of us to leave that burden to the next generation.

We have just started to renew the Great Lakes clean-up agreement with the province of Ontario. The province has stressed to us and the International Joint Commission has stressed the important contribution that this program can make to cleaning up our lakes and rivers by having sound water and sewage systems. These are not inconsequential projects now or for the future. These are a protection of our future.

There are communities right in this region that cannot develop their industrial parks because they still have old wooden sewers from the last century. Those are the kinds of investments that are going to be made under the infrastructure program. They will allow the communities of Canada to prosper and grow and provide employment to this generation and provide a sure economic future for the next generation.

This program is going to create jobs immediately. Directly up to 65,000 jobs will be created in the municipal infrastructure program and with indirect jobs many more than that. That is what the desperate people out there wanting employment, wanting a better future for themselves and their children, wanting to see the government doing, and that is what we are doing.

This is a program municipalities have wanted for 10 years. I was sitting on the national board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in 1983. We were gathering information to demonstrate the deteriorating nature of the infrastructure of Canada and the negative impact it was having on our potential for economic growth and jobs and a better future for our citizens. Ten years ago the municipalities and the provinces agreed that this program was what was needed across our country. The government is implementing it and will make it a success for every community across the country. Yet that is the program endorsed by every municipality the members on the opposite side by this motion want to cancel.

They also want to pretend that this is new money we are spending. Liberals are responsible in government. We know that if we want to implement a new program, and Infrastructure Works is a new program, then we have to reorder our priorities and that is what we have done.

We have not increased spending, no matter what the members on the other side want to pretend, to create this program. We have changed other priorities. We have cut other spending programs because we know that this program is important.

There could be no more ideal time for this kind of investment. National unemployment is at an unacceptable level. This is a terrible waste of human talent, a constant stress on hundreds of thousands of households across Canada. Infrastructure Works will have a significant impact on unemployment.

The government believes it should keep its promises. We should put Canadians back to work. We should allow our communities to use the new and innovative technologies in the upgrading of water and sewage treatments that are going to provide new opportunities for Canada in the future.

This program is an investment in the future; in the future of individual Canadians, in the future of our communities and in the future of our nation.

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3:55 p.m.

Reform

Dave Chatters Reform Athabasca, AB

Mr. Speaker, I would just ask the hon. member a question. Our concern is not whether it is new money or old money but whether it is borrowed money. Does she not agree that we are dumping the burden on the next generation?

Also does the member not realize that amortizing $6 billion over the next 10 or 20 or 30 years that we would also pay many times the original cost of these projects?

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3:55 p.m.

Liberal

Marlene Catterall Liberal Ottawa West, ON

Mr. Speaker, the House and Canadians have had 10 years of promises that would have slashed, burned, cut and destroyed programs that would bring the debt and the deficit down. Has that happened? No, it has not.

We have presented a three-year program toward the first real reduction in the deficit that this nation has seen in many years. We are going to do it by cutting spending and we have done that dramatically in this budget. But we are also going to do it by increasing the prosperity of the country. That is what Canadians want us to do.

If the hon. member's roof was leaking, would he leave it until it collapsed and he had to replace the whole roof? If his foundation was leaking, would he allow it to fall to pieces before he replaced it? If there was poison in his water supply, would he allow his children to drink it? Of course not.

If necessary, would he borrow the money to fix those problems? Of course he would because he knows it costs far more to replace a broken roof, to replace a basement, or to heal a sick child than it does to fix the cracks.

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4 p.m.

Bloc

Louis Plamondon Bloc Richelieu, QC

Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to hear the last speaker talk about the quasi rebirth of Canada under the infrastructure program. Of course new infrastructures will create some temporary jobs, but the public, the people of Canada were expecting much more than that in terms of governmental economic policy. In that respect, the red book gave the impression something concrete could be achieved.

When the hon. member talks about spending, why does she claim to support this budget if it failed completely, except for promising committees would be set up, to address the tax havens enjoyed by certain multinational corporations, in particular, and certain billionaires?

Over $16 billion are reported to be stashed away in tax havens every year, which could otherwise bring in hundreds of millions in tax revenue for the government. Why has it not been suggested that the infrastructure program, this program she speaks so highly of, be paid for with the money saved by passing a bill on tax havens and another on family trusts, instead of making mere gestures, such as the Liberals are making, while they ranted and raved against family trusts when they were the opposition?

Why not also collect these hundreds of millions? Why not accept to review each departmental budget item? We could easily save, not just hundreds of millions, but a few billion dollars which could pay for the infrastructure program without increasing the deficit?

I am surprised that the hon. member only mentions the costs and benefits of the infrastructure program. She is not looking for ways, however easy, to get money from those who have it, namely the rich, the multinational corporations in particular, who benefit from an overly permissive policy.

One last point. Canada's foreign policy should be reviewed. Take the Canadian embassy in Tokyo for example. We all know that the market value of the lot across from it, which is vacant, is $2 billion and that there are potential buyers prepared to pay $2 billion for a piece of land next to our embassy. Why not?

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4 p.m.

Liberal

Marlene Catterall Liberal Ottawa West, ON

Mr. Speaker, I find it the hon. member's comments rather mean. He knows full well that these things are not included in the government's budget. It is very nasty of him to say things like that to Canadians, when he knows the truth. For example, the infrastructure program is but one phase of our economic strategy, which also includes investments in science and technology, as well as measures to help small businesses create employment.

The hon. member also knows that we have launched a project to review, as he mentioned, each government budget item, in order to identify what needs to be done to implement effective programs.

He knows as well that our budget includes many measures to eliminate the tax shelters he complained about. I do not object to hearing dissenting opinions in this House but, for the sake of our fellow Canadians, we must be honest.

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4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Simmons Liberal Burin—St. George's, NL

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to say a few words on what is at the very least a fairly interesting motion. The motion says in part that the budget plan of the government is not the solution to Canada's debt and deficit problem.

I will come back to that in a few moments but I would like to go to some other parts of the motion. I would have thought the gentleman from Lethbridge with his long experience would have known better than to incorporate things in a motion which are already in effect or have been done.

The member for North Vancouver can laugh. Let me refer him to section (c) of the resolution and let us see if he will laugh. I mention him for the very particular reason that his constituents will know he is identifying with the blatant falsehood contained in section (c).

The falsehood is it calls on the House and the government to produce quarterly reports on the progress being made on deficit reduction. I ask the laughing, much amused member for North Vancouver: As a member of this House and as a Canadian who, if we listen to his rhetoric, is very concerned about the deficit, does he not know there is a document produced regularly? It is "The Fiscal Monitor" put out by the Department of Finance. It reports not just quarterly as called for by the motion, but monthly.

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4:05 p.m.

Reform

Ted White Reform North Vancouver, BC

The finance minister said the people of Canada cannot understand it.

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4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Simmons Liberal Burin—St. George's, NL

Mr. Speaker, I am sure in time you will have the charity to allow my friend from North Vancouver to say his few words. When he does rise I hope he will realize that something which is blatantly false cannot be be embodied in a resolution. It is blatantly false.

He changes his tune now. He says, yes it is there but they cannot understand it. Well, that is a different issue. Had his friend from Lethbridge said to produce something that is understandable, but that is not what he said. By implication he gave the impression to the people of Canada and particularly to this House that the progress report is not happening. I say to him it is happening on a regular basis in a document called "The Fiscal Monitor".

I am glad for this resolution and glad for this opportunity. It puts into focus two fundamentally differing views on the role of government.

On the one hand there is this punitive philosophy underlying the opposition motion. It says that government has little to offer the economy, that government by its very nature cannot help the jobless. That is not a perspective I subscribe to. It is a perspective I can understand. I do not endorse it but I can respect it. I can respect the gentleman from Lethbridge for having that point of view. That perspective mixes the worst aspects of do nothing corporatism with the slash and trash public posturing of which my friend from Ottawa West talked about a few moments ago.

More to the point, the philosophy which underlies this resolution is the very philosophy the people of Canada rejected outright last fall. It is the philosophy the Tories paraded in this Chamber for a decade and you know what happened to them. If you are not sure, have you heard about the Dodo bird? They both went the same way and for the same reason: They were out of tune with the times. This slash and burn philosophy has been rejected outright by Canadians.

The member for North Vancouver is seized with the importance of having a fiscal monitor that is understood by people who do not have doctorate degrees in economics. I must say, somewhat sheepishly, that several of my constituents do not have doctorate degrees in economics but they know what it is to buy groceries. Let me put it very explicitly for the member for North Vancouver in terms of buying the groceries.

This is what the resolution of the gentleman from Lethbridge says in effect in its simplest terms. I will use a little parable.

A family of four has to buy some groceries. I did some checking and found that a family of four on an income of about $30,000 a year spends about $7,000 a year on groceries. If they are a fairly typical Canadian family they spend maybe $600 to $700 on a mortgage and about $200 to $300 on a car.

One day the breadwinner in that family has a bright idea. The light goes on and he calls the family together. He or she, whoever the breadwinner is, calls in the spouse and the two children and says: "I have a bright idea. Do you know what is killing us and why we can never get ahead? We are paying $600 a month on our mortgage and another couple of hundred dollars on the car loan. But do you know what is really killing us? We are spending $7,000 a year on groceries. I have a bright idea. We will pay twice as much on the mortgage and not buy any groceries for a whole year. No groceries for a whole year".

We all agree that would bring down the mortgage a lot faster. It certainly would. Just buy no groceries for a whole year and there is an extra $7,000 to put toward the mortgage or to pay the car loan off.

I see some of the brighter members of the Chamber have twigged to the problem. They are actually asking: "What are those people going to eat for a year?" There is the rub. That is what my friend from North Vancouver had not thought about, what they are going to eat for a year.

As Marie Antoinette said, let them eat cake, but even cake costs money these days. What are they going to eat for that whole year while they are rushing madly to pay down their deficit, their accumulated debt, their mortgage? I think I have made my point that whether it is a family or a nation these things have to be done in balance. Those people who say that all we have to be preoccupied with is deficit elimination to the exclusion of everything else are not just preaching a very naive doctrine, they are misleading a lot of people.

Let us go back to section (a) of the resolution of the gentleman from Lethbridge. Here is his solution. It is the grocery analogy I mentioned a moment ago. It is the same idea under different terms: cut out the groceries, do not buy any groceries for a year.

The hon. member says to place a moratorium on all new spending programs, such as youth service corps which represents 17,500 new jobs. The infrastructure program represents 65,000 new jobs. Residential rehabilitation assistance program represents several thousands of more new jobs.

Let the word go out. At least one member of the Reform Party, the gentleman from Lethbridge says in writing so we have to take the man at his word, would immediately move to aggravate the job situation in this country by another 100,000 jobs.

This budget is about several things.

Yes, it is about deficit reduction but it can never be about that alone. Yes, it is about job creation. The gentleman in his motion has identified three or four particular programs but he identifies them for the purpose of asking us as a House to wipe them out, to wipe out those 100 jobs, and to drive up the unemployment rate another point or two.

As I said before, I respect the other point of view. I have difficulty understanding why it is being advanced. It makes no sense. It is a one-track mind approach. We all know about the mother whose son enlisted in the military. Being a proud mother, she went down to the parade square to watch him on parade the first day. Being an insightful mother, she noticed something in particular. She noticed that when the drums started and the drummer beat out the left, right, left, right, left, right and the several hundreds of men and women went down the parade square, Johnny was the only one in step. Johnny was the only one in step.

We see in editorials across this country such as in Calgary "Martin is headed in the right direction" and in Edmonton "It is solemn and thoughtful and full of well worked out details. There are real spending cuts in this budget". This is what the editorialist says in the Edmonton Journal.

From the Canadian Chamber of Commerce we have this: "I think it is a doable budget". I could go to other parts but I have run out of time. I appeal to my friend from Lethbridge not to be Johnny on this one. Get in step with what the people said last fall. Get in step with what the editorialists are saying. Get in step with what the people are saying.

The people are saying that we should bring down the deficit but we should give them some jobs.

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4:15 p.m.

Reform

Ted White Reform North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, I did enjoy the hon. member's speech, as I always do.

He mentioned the fiscal monitor but the Minister of Finance said in this House that the people of Canada cannot understand the fiscal monitor. We would like to see it put in a form once a quarter so that the people of Canada can actually understand whether the deficit is being addressed or not.

The problem is that people cannot buy the groceries that the hon. member was talking about. To buy $7,000 worth of groceries, they need to have $14,000 earned because of the level of taxation from each level of government.

Taxes are the problem. Will the member admit that it is government overspending and government overborrowing that is the problem? That is what creates the high taxes. Will he admit that the budget is a fraud, should be scrapped and replaced with a real plan to get control of spending, to reduce taxes and to create jobs?

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4:15 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Simmons Liberal Burin—St. George's, NL

Mr. Speaker, on the member's suggestion about the fiscal monitor, if he wants to bring in a motion that will call for a simplified fiscal monitor, I will second the resolution for him. I am with him on that issue.

However, listening to the last bit of juicy stuff toward the end, he lunched too long today. The subsidized food is getting to him. He talks about a fraud and this kind of thing. Does he not understand or have enough charity to accept that even if people on this side of the House did not do exactly what he would want us to do at least we have the goodwill to do our best?

To suggest it is fraudulent is an insult to well intended members of this House. I do not think he meant that for a second. It was one of those throw away phrases in the heat of debate which he regrets already. I can tell by the remorse on his face.

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4:15 p.m.

Bloc

Louis Plamondon Bloc Richelieu, QC

Mr. Speaker, I was not surprised that the Liberal member who just spoke ignored the concerns of the opposition parties regarding the deficit, because to the Liberals, deficits are part of their culture. In fact, they invented them. Our big deficits started with Mr. Turner in 1972, 1974 and 1975, and in 1981, when the Liberals forecast a $16 billion deficit, they waited for 16 months before bringing down a budget and then produced a deficit of $38 billion by the end of 1983. So it is perfectly normal for the Liberal member who is part of this Liberal culture and who has been sitting as a Liberal for a long time to be unconcerned about deficits. To them, deficits were never something to worry about. It was just too much trouble.

I also wish to tell him that in my riding, after the budget was brought down, a budget that attacked the unemployed instead of employment, the unemployed in my riding were asking: What is the difference between a Liberal member and the unemployed? And the answer was: the unemployed used to work.

And we could also say, when we hear the Minister of Finance bring down a budget like this, that in my riding-and you come from a nice part of Eastern Canada where there are wonderful oysters, well, we found a new way to open them, and I was talking to people from Eastern Canada who came down to demonstrate in front of Saint-Jean-just a minute Mr. Speaker, I am finishing my sentence-against the closing of the military college, and they said this-Mr. Speaker, I would like to finish so that my colleague will have a chance to respond.

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4:20 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Order. I believe he has clearly understood the question. The hon. member for Burin-St. George's.

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4:20 p.m.

Liberal

Roger Simmons Liberal Burin—St. George's, NL

Mr. Speaker, as always I thank my friend from Richelieu for his spirited participation in the debate. I am in English for two reasons. My French is lousy and I want to reach for a metaphor that I cannot translate yet.

We in Newfoundland talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I seem to remember that there used to be a person with the same surname representing the same riding of Richelieu who sat in this House for the Tory Party between 1984 and 1990. As a matter of fact he had somewhat the same features as the gentleman who just spoke. If I may just-

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4:20 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

The time has expired. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.