Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time in this debate with the member for Brandon—Souris.
Traditionally a budget sets forth the goals of a society and the economic measures that are necessary to achieve them. To use a phrase which the Prime Minister's pollsters have told him to adopt, it is about values not just taxes.
Yesterday's statement does reflect the government's values. It offers no help to the poorest of our taxpayers. It shortchanges our health system by billions of dollars. It offers only token assistance to students who are driven away from the education they need by its high costs. The cynical symbol of this statement is its promise to help with winter heating costs. Help for how long? For one winter, an election winter. This statement is about elections, not about economics. Even the tax cuts are driven by polling. Tragically, typically, the statement sets no goals for Canada.
At a time when we are drifting behind a world we should lead, there is nothing here that will make Canada a leader again. The government has been in office for seven years. During this time extraordinary growth in the United States economy has propelled Canada forward. The singular Canadian initiative which had the greatest impact on our own growth was the negotiation of the free trade agreement which the Liberal Party opposed when it was introduced.
In a time when other countries were becoming more competitive, changing their tax systems, training their people to prevail in the new economy, the government let Canada fall steadily behind. Ireland, Germany and a growing list of other countries have tax systems which attract more investment and more innovation than Canada.
Other countries adapt much more quickly than we do to the new e-economy. Canada is suffering a real and severe brain drain of the best, brightest people upon whom we have to build our future. Even in health care where Canada should lead the world, we are ranked 30th by a report of the World Health Organization.
This cannot be called a budget. It is an election platform. It is political shortsightedness. The best proof of that is the promise to reduce the cost of heating for one winter only. It just so happens that it is the winter when an election is to be held.
There is no help for agriculture, no money for infrastructures such as highways, and not much for students. In our modern society, young people need to get the best possible education. It is the key to their future. But education costs are prohibitive. This budget provides some relief to students who are currently enrolled, but it does nothing for all the graduates who have a huge debt to repay. We can do a lot more to help our young people prepare their future.
This budget also ignores people who are in dire straits. The government could have changed the basic personal credit and have completely exempted low income Canadians from having to pay taxes. But it did not. We can do a lot more to help low income Canadians.
There is no long term commitment on debt reduction. The $10 billion debt reduction the government talks about is a one time payment. It is an accident because the government revenue forecasts were wrong. If the government was serious about debt reduction, it would have outlined a long term strategy.
There is nothing in this economic strategy on agriculture, infrastructure, equalization or regional development. There is very little help here for students. Nothing to address the issue of high student debt. Even doubling the education credit which students can claim will not help the average student today whose graduation present is on average a $25,000 debt.
Speaking of Canadian values, nothing was done to reduce the basic personal exemption. It is appalling that someone earning just over $7,000 has to pay federal income tax. A staged increase of the basic exemption to $12,000 would take two and a half million Canadians off the tax rolls entirely and provide an across the board cut of $800 to every taxpayer. That is what should have been done in this statement.
The government devastated the health care system and it crippled education with its unilateral cuts to transfer payments. Finally last month it was forced by the provinces to restore transfers for health and social transfers to 1993 levels. That full transfer will not occur until April of the year 2002. This is not an honest restoration of funding. It is at best a post-dated cheque.
The government proposes a very modest step on capital gains. By contrast, my party proposes the complete elimination of the personal capital gains tax.
Capital gains tax contributes greatly to the brain drain, because Canadians, particularly in the high tech sector, are increasingly being given stock purchase options.
The capital gains tax is a tax on savings accumulated once income tax has been paid. Capital gains are in a way subject to double taxation, because the same income is taxed twice.
In the new economy, businesses give stock purchase options to all of their employees: receptionists, designers, software engineers or technicians.
Taxing capital is bad for investment. It prevents investors from obtaining a better yield by changing their type of investments. No other form of taxation is worse for the economy than the capital gains tax.
Today the government is proposing to bring the Canadian system in line with that of the United States. Yet what Canada needs is a better system than the American one. Our economies are not of comparable size. The capital gains tax on individuals must be done away with.
Some of the measures announced yesterday will take effect immediately. Others may never see the light of day, because they require action by parliament and the Prime Minister is closing parliament down.
This government was elected in 1997 with a 60 month term. It is now in its 40th month with a long list of urgent public business awaiting action. Instead of the government doing its job, the Prime Minister wants to call an election.
The Prime Minister has taken election positions on economic issues before. He opposed free trade and he broke his word. He promised to kill the GST and he broke his word. On the cold, hard record, this is not a government Canadians can trust.
What we have here is an election platform, not an economic plan. Its tax measures will be debated in the weeks to come. The real message is that this is a short term, get through the day government. It has no sense of purpose, no sense of compassion and certainly no plan to respect and assert Canadian values.