House of Commons Hansard #143 of the 38th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was surplus.

Topics

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

Joe Fontana Liberal London North Centre, ON

Where? Which one?

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

4:40 p.m.

Conservative

Ken Epp Conservative Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB

Look at the budget documents. The data is right there. All anyone has to do is look at the expenditures. Since 1999 until now, government expenditures are up 50%. Had there been some fiscal responsibility exercised, we could have had the debt reduced a whole bunch more.

The other thing that a lot of people do not realize is that under the Liberal watch the debt grew from $480 billion to over $550 billion. I think it was around $558 billion or thereabouts. Again, the numbers were conflicting when I was getting information from the Library this morning.

The fact is that the debt grew under the Liberals and now they have managed to bring it down to about the level that it was in 1993 when they were first in power. Now we are back, after 12 years of Liberal government, to where it was when it took over and yet it is saying that in nine years of Conservative government we should have tackled the deficit then. It was a huge debt that was foisted on us by the Liberals.

However let us look at this honestly. Debt reduction should be a high priority. It is for Canadians and it should be for the government. We should stop wasting taxpayer money without accountability, as the government is so prone to do. Canadians and taxpayers are outraged when they hear the reports of the various abuses of their money by the Liberals, their agents and their friends who are appointed to various patronage appointments, and the way they use it. That is an affront to them and I think it is shameful.

The next topic is with respect to tax reduction. I would like to point out that the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla gave a little speech and talked about the Laffer curve.

I was a math physics major and I did not know a great deal about economics until I was put on the finance committee. I was told that I was a numbers guy and that maybe I could do some good there. I really enjoyed my work on the finance committee. I did a little bit of reading on economics. I stand here, not as an expert in economics. I took one course at university but it had been so many years ago that I did not remember much but I do remember the Laffer curve. It is an absolutely fabulous concept and one I think we ought to use more, especially because inadvertently the finance minister in his speech this morning talked about it.

The finance minister indicated that although the tax rates for businesses had gone down, the revenue the government receives from business taxation has gone up. That is a very important point. We do not build the economy by overtaxing people. We receive a certain amount of revenue from a high tax rate but if the tax rate is lowered the economy flourishes. Businesses, entrepreneurs and investors can do so much better with the money than just send it to Ottawa and hope some bureaucratic process will send some of it back to some of the people, be they dead people or people in prison when it comes to a rebate, such as the one that is being planned now. We are very anxious to see how that will work out.

However if we were to leave that money in the hands of the taxpayers, the entrepreneurs, the businesses, the investors, private individuals and families, it would be used much more efficiently and would have a much more positive impact on the economy. We could actually reduce the tax rates and increase tax revenue and thereby have more money available for the government programs Canadians would like to have or demand in some cases.

It is very important that there be good solid fiscal management in this way and it ought to be done on good financial forecasting and on good economic principles. Those things have been missing, in my view, in terms of what the government has done.

The third thing in the bill concerns government spending. The government says that it will use one-third of the surplus for government spending. I fail to understand that. When the Minister of Finance reads his budget every year he should be projecting the expenditures. The government already has a $3 billion contingency fund in case something happens, some tragedy or national emergency. I have no problem with that but it should be able to project very accurately the total expenditures.

I do not understand how the government can say that if there is an unexpected surplus, one-third of it will be just a free for all. It will be like a big lottery win for the Liberal Party to be hauled out at the next election. To me that is very wrong.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Liberal

Joe Fontana Liberal London North Centre, ON

No, it's tax reduction and debt reduction.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Ken Epp Conservative Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB

One-third is debt reduction, one-third is supposed to be tax reduction and one-third is government spending. The government will now have to work real hard to see where it will be able to spend the extra money. I think that should be covered by the contingency fund. I think we should have very orderly and planned tax and debt reductions. The government should be headed in that direction, which is certainly the direction in which we will be going when we are over on that side, and we hope it is soon.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

Etobicoke North Ontario

Liberal

Roy Cullen LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Mr. Speaker, as a young person growing up, Sunday nights I would sit in front of the television and watch The Wonderful World of Disney . One of my favourites was Davy Crockett from Adventureland. Another part that I really enjoyed was Fantasyland. Every now and then they would have a feature on Fantasyland. I was sitting here thinking back to those days and when I listened to the comments from the member for Edmonton--Sherwood Park, I thought that it was fantasyland all over again.

He talked about the Laffer curve and I am not sure if that is spelled l-a-u-g-h-e-r, but if we take that argument to its logical extreme, then no taxes is the best solution. Of course everyone would like no taxes, but the reality is that if we did not have any taxes, we would not be able to fund the many programs that are so valuable to Canadians. The market does not solve everything.

In fact this is what happened in the province of Ontario and under Reaganomics, the trickle down theory. Mike Harris tried it and said all he had to do was cut taxes, the world would unfold and all this revenue would be generated, but the reality is he cut some health services and education programs to the bone and now the province is having to rebuild them. We know about those theories.

The part that I found really comical was when the member tried to argue that the Conservative government actually paved the way to deal with the deficit and reduce the debt. We know in fact that Brian Mulroney or his finance minister set targets. His finance minister, Michael Wilson, did not actually have much of a mandate because his prime minister kept pulling the rug out from under him, as we all know. The finance minister set targets to reduce the deficit but he never did. In fact, he built bigger deficits. During the Mulroney era the Conservatives had a chance.

The argument that the member puts forward that the Conservatives could have done better is like saying that the Liberal hockey team won 80 games this year, the Conservatives won 20, but we could have done better and maybe we could have won 85 games.

It is well acknowledged that the current finance minister and ones beyond him have really taken on this job and eliminated the deficit. We are paying down the debt and that is what Canadians expect us to do.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ken Epp Conservative Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB

Mr. Speaker, I just love it when the member asks me questions because he opens so many doors.

First of all, the Laffer curve is spelled L-a-f-f-e-r, after Professor Laffer, an economist who invented that particular theory. It is very simple. Sometimes when I am talking to students in classes I give this example. If a professional hockey team charged zero dollars per ticket, the arena would be full and the team's income would be zero. If the team charged $1 million per ticket, the arena would be empty and the team's revenue would be zero. I wish we could use graphics here because I am used to teaching and in the old days I liked to use a chalkboard. If I had that I would draw something that looked like an inverted parabola. Obviously there is someplace over there where the revenue for the government is maximized. That is the rate. There could be a lower rate, usually at two places, and then the tax rate is reduced, the revenue goes up to a certain point and then it goes down again.

The member's statement that with zero taxes there would be no revenue was absolutely right, but what a simplistic way of looking at it. I invite him to buy a book, or to borrow one from the library, and read about the Laffer theory. It is a very good one and it is one to which the Liberals should pay attention.

The member talked about Prime Minister Mulroney pulling the rug out from under the finance minister of the day. That pales in significance when compared to the present Prime Minister pulling the rug out from under the feet of the finance minister when, unprecedented in Canadian history, there was a budget presented by the Minister of Finance that turned out to mean nothing. Prior to now, budgets had to be kept secret. There could not be a single leak from the budget documents. If there were, we would demand the resignation of the finance minister.

This time around, the finance minister gave his speech, and it is supposed to be that those are the rules that govern Canada from the day of that speech. Lo and behold, a week later the budget meant nothing because the Prime Minister had made a deal with the NDP changing the budget by some $6 billion, which means that the budget speech really is meaningless.

The finance minister, the Prime Minister and the whole Liberal government through that exercise alone have lost a great deal of credibility among Canadian people and certainly among those in the economic and financial fields.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

4:55 p.m.

West Nova Nova Scotia

Liberal

Robert Thibault LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, I have difficulty understanding the logic of some of the arguments presented by the member.

If we look at an unanticipated surplus and say we will pay one-third toward the deficit, I do not think there is a problem with that. If we return one-third to Canadians, I do not think anybody has a problem with that. Where the member has a problem is if we consider one-third would go to program spending, investments in the needs of Canadians.

Every day in the House during question period or in the committees, I hear from the opposition members about all sorts of areas where they think we should have increased investments. Any time there is an industry in trouble, they say that we should assist it. We agree, and we are always there to assist.

How does the member expect us to make those investments or to have those programs that are talked about all the time or that are required or that are asked for from government if we do not have the revenues to do it?

If we have an unanticipated surplus and we are able to direct one-third of it toward improving program spending in strategic areas, why would the member find that to be such a problem? I think it is laudable and I would expect that he would support it.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

Ken Epp Conservative Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB

Mr. Speaker, what the member opposite has said sounds so reasonable, but we should just stop to think about what he has said. He said, “We have programs here and we want to fund them”. I will simply say that if it is a program that is defensible and is necessary, it should be in the budget. That is exactly what I said with the NDP deal. If every one of the things which the government put into its second budget to replace the first one were viable programs that should have been there, that are important to Canadians, why were they not in the budget in the first place so we could plan on it?

The idea of planning on not to spend money that is needed on behalf of Canadians but to use it as a little goodie bag at Halloween or Christmas or during elections is wrong. It is called fly-by-night economics, which I think is the worst kind there could be, and the kind that the Liberal government is guilty of.

I would like to see all those programs very rationally planned so that Canadians know what they can expect. Whether they are farmers or other business people or ordinary taxpayers, Canadians should know what they are getting.

It is time that we had things like income trusts. I wish the government would put to rest all the uncertainty on that issue and say that it will not touch them. In the last years, the Liberals have been musing about changing the rules. It is too late for Canadians who depend on those income trusts to make changes. They are really concerned. That type of thing should not be done. There should be a long term definite plan that Canadians can count on.

Frankly, the idea of using one-third of the surplus for program spending is just another example of lack of planning. The government should be able to plan for what is needed. If there is an additional surplus, as I said before, I agree it should be used for tax reductions, thereby probably increasing government revenue, get rid of the debt, thereby increasing the amount of money that is available for programs by reducing the debt servicing charges. But to have a slush fund that is not defensible at budget time should not be there at taxpayers' expense.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5 p.m.

Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Mr. Speaker, while the Liberals may be lost in the wonderful world of Disney, I would bet that the Americans certainly do not let their federal prisoners, the child predators, out on day passes to visit Disneyland.

I ask the hon. member, as a responsible government, what would the Conservative Party's policy be in terms of surpluses?

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5 p.m.

Conservative

Ken Epp Conservative Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB

Mr. Speaker, I think we have made this clear over the last number of years, and it is very similar. We are saying that the money left in the hands of the taxpayer, the entrepreneur, the businessperson, the investor, would generate more economic activity and actually make Canadians on all economic levels better off. There is no doubt about that. It would probably increase government revenue so that we could do things like reduce the EI premiums to the place where they actually are fair, vis-à-vis the benefits that are paid out, and not use the fund as a huge cash cow.

I think also that besides those reductions in taxes, we would find a very rapid reduction of our debt. That debt is still over $500 billion. It is a huge load on Canadian taxpayers. Even though it is now less than it was, it is still a huge load. I would like to see some substantial tax reductions and substantial debt reduction from those surpluses.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, before I speak to Bill C-67, I would like to respond to my colleague from Edmonton—Sherwood Park when he used the hockey team analogy. He was very right in his response to a question from the parliamentary secretary when he said that if a hockey team charged $1 million for a seat in a hockey arena, the arena would be empty and there would be zero revenue. He is absolutely right, but that is if $1 million is charged. That is the key. If a reasonable fee is charged that hockey arena will be filled. That is what the National Hockey League did recently. It came to that realization.

From 1993 until this very day the Liberal team realizes that we have to use a balanced approach. We have to come to grips with what is going on in this country and tell people the truth, basically deal with it and say what the problem is and what we have to do. That is what we did in 1993.

Today we are discussing Bill C-67, the unanticipated surpluses act. Earlier on the gentleman from Abbotsford was a bit confused about the summary of the bill. I want to take this opportunity to read the summary of the bill so that members opposite understand:

The enactment authorizes the Minister of Finance to make, in respect of fiscal years 2005-2006 and 2006-2007, certain payments out of the annual surplus that is in excess of the sum of $3 billion and the amount paid in respect of that fiscal year under An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments, being chapter 36 of the Statutes of Canada, 2005. It also authorizes the Minister of Finance to make, in respect of fiscal years 2007-2008 to 2009-2010, certain payments out of the annual surplus that is in excess of $3 billion. The enactment allocates the amounts authorized to be paid as follows: one third to tax relief, one third to spending priorities and the remainder to reduce the accumulated deficit for the fiscal year.

The enactment also provides a mechanism for increases to the basic personal amounts under the Income Tax Act for taxation years 2007 to 2010 in addition to those implemented in the Budget Implementation Act, 2005, so long as the increases are considered to be fiscally sustainable.

For the benefit of my Conservative Party colleague from Abbotsford, that is what the bill is all about.

I came to participate in this debate with set comments with respect to the bill and other issues related around why the Minister of Finance in his wisdom and through consultation with his cabinet colleagues and us as a party is presenting this bill. However, as I sat in this honourable chamber listening to the debate, all of a sudden certain comments triggered me to say to my hon. colleague from Edmonton—Sherwood Park, thank God for immunity in this chamber because a couple of times he contradicted himself. He talked about the debt being over $500 billion and then about it being lower than $500 billion. In a minute I will point out exactly what the debt is.

Certain comments were made. The member for Cambridge talked about fiction. Let me tell him and his party about fiction. In the 2000 budget, as was mentioned earlier by one of my colleagues, a $100 billion tax relief program was rolled out over five years. If he thinks that is fiction, maybe he should look at his T-4 slips for the last five years. I know that each and every Canadian looks at his or her T-4 slip and those Canadians will answer whether it is fiction or not.

The member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park talked about pennies, and I am glad he used the words “ EI premium”. In the past members of his party would say it was a tax. I cannot thank him enough. As a former employer, that is really what it is. It is an employment insurance premium.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Gary Goodyear Conservative Cambridge, ON

It's a tax.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

There we go. Those members even contradict each other. They cannot even agree on that side. One says that is a premium and the other says that it is a tax. It shows us what their policy is all about.

I want to touch upon the word “premium”. What has happened again is another reduction in the EI premium.

Back in 1993 our unemployment rate was 11.2% and 11.3%. The corporate world said to the government that it wanted to create employment, but it wanted the government to address EI and lower the rates. For so many consecutive years EI premiums have been reduced, and most recently again, with tens of billions of dollars less being paid by the employer and the employee.

If that is another fiction, then I challenge the member for Cambridge or anyone else across the way to talk to their constituents. Ask them if they were paying more then and less now. Members will get the answer. If they think it is peanuts, that is fine.

Members over there have the tendency to only complete half the sentence. The member talked about the GST. I state here and now that I am willing to take up the challenge with the member. In the 1993 red book we said that we would replace the GST with an equally revenue generating tax. He knows very well that unless we have revenue coming in, we cannot address areas such as Bill C-67, or Bill C-43, or Bill C-48, or $41 billion for health care, or money for post-secondary education, or money to address the concerns with respect to our environment or the close to $13 billion for our military. If this money is not generated, from where is that revenue going to come?

As I close my remarks, I first challenge the member to come and see me. I will show him the quote in the newspaper and the quote in the red book. Canadians until this very day are asking us why did we not get rid of the GST. We did not promise to get rid of the GST. We promised to replace it with an equally revenue generating tax, and that is in writing.

Second, the proof is in the pudding. Certain provinces have already harmonized. If other provinces were to pick up on that lead, it would be indeed a savings to the provincial governments.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:05 p.m.

Some hon. members

Did you forget to give John Nunziata his talking points?

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Nunziata did not resign on that and the member knows that very well.

The member also said “squandered the money and nothing to show for it”. As I said earlier, thank God for immunity in this chamber. The member is known to be one of the greatest story tellers in this chamber.

Let me also tell him where we have indeed squandered this money. The national debt then was $562.9 billion. Today it is $499.9 billion. The debt to GDP ratio was 68.4%. Today it is 38.7%. Our foreign debt to GDP ratio was 43% in 1993. Today it is at 15%. The debt charges to revenues were then at 37.6% in 1995-96. Today they are at 17.2%. Unemployment, as I said, was 11.2%. Today it is at 6.7%. Over 3 million jobs have been created.

That is squandering? Take the almost $43 billion, the debt the government inherited from the true Progressive Conservative Party, and eliminate it. If the government takes almost 60-odd billion dollars that the debt has been retired by, that is over $100 billion. If that is fiction, then I must look that word up in their new dictionary. If we add over the past five years the $100 billion of tax relief to Canadians as a whole, that is almost $200 billion. Then add the various other investments in seniors with respect to GIS most recently, in housing, in health care, in Sports Canada, the offshore accord and the list goes on. These are not only hundreds of millions of dollars. These are billions of dollars.

We have the cities agenda, the GST rebates. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has applauded the Liberal government continuously for the support it has been getting.

Then there is national defence. I happen to be the chair of the national defence committee. Almost $13 billion has been invested in national defence. We need to do more because now our obligations internationally have changed. If there ever were a time to support our men and women in uniform, this is the time to do it. I do not want to get off topic there.

Crimes rates, which were also very important, back then were about 7.5% to 7.8%. Today crime rates are hovering around 3%. What does this do? This allows our economy to move very positively. This allows young couples, for example, to buy homes. That quarter of a per cent or 1% makes a big difference in their monthly income.

For a moment, I want to talk about the EI situation discussed earlier. That is a very important issue for people to understand. I know I have heard comments from Bloc members who have said that we took money that did not belong to us.

I tend to look at the government or the country as one big family. I know when I was growing up and the revenue was coming into the household, my mother did not say that this was her share. Nor did my father. They did not say that this was her bank account and that was his account.

My parents said that it was one account because it was family. They looked at their expenses such as shopping, paying the mortgage and paying other expenses, et cetera. If there were money left over at the end of the year, they had the opportunity to go to the bank and pay down the mortgage in an accelerated way. This allowed the debt to be reduced as quickly as possible. Then whatever money would be left over would allow them to address other needs, whether it be in post-secondary education or a car for the household, or a vacation or whatever.

Why did I point that out? Because part of Bill C-67 would do exactly that. I was pleased when the Prime Minister, the then minister of finance, brought forward this program with the support of all of us as colleagues at that time, the contingency initiative of $3 billion. He said that we would go down the list of expenses. In addition, we had the contingency fund for a rainy day. That is good money management and proper thinking.

If the government does not use that money for unexpected expenditures, it then can take and pay down that mortgage or pay down that debt, which is what we have done year after year.

The government could not have done that. We could not have been in the position to do that if we had not made those tough decisions back in 1993, 1994 and 1995, to streamline government, to change the way things operated around here. Doing that has provided us with eight consecutive balanced budgets. It provided us with surpluses never heard of before in the history of our country. I do not think another country could say the same thing.

What have we done year after year? We have taken a good initiative toward retiring the debt. If the contingency fund is not utilized, that too will go toward addressing debt retirement.

Bill C-67 would go beyond that. It would let Canadians know that we have heard them. Constituents on my streets in Scarborough Centre repeatedly ask for a fair deal. They want a balanced approach. Meaning what? They want some tax relief. They want the government to invest in programs that they want. Some were addressed, and I mentioned them earlier. Canadians want us to look at debt retirement. That is exactly what Bill C-67 would do. In addition, a $3 billion contingency has been set aside. This is planning for a rainy day.

I am quite proud to stand here today almost 12 years later. I appreciate the comments from the member for Edmonton--Sherwood Park who pointed out that time flies. We both were elected some 12 years ago in 1993. We have enjoyed some good moments together and some heated debates.

I like all my colleagues feel very proud that we have put ourselves in the position where we can give the Minister of Finance the ability to bring forward something such as Bill C-67. This tells Canadians once again that we are listening to them, that the balanced approach we talked about in 1993 has continued.

This initiative is not revolutionary. This initiative is simply one of common sense. It makes a lot of decent sense. I do not want to hit below the belt, but I am compelled at this point in time to respond to my colleagues.

One reason I decided to seek political office in 1993 was this. I was tired of seeing good revenue come into the country, yet a Conservative government could not meet its budgets. In the late eighties and earlier nineties I was an independent businessman who did not mind paying taxes. I felt that if I were paying taxes, it meant thank God, I was doing okay. The Conservative government at that time was following this Reaganomics agenda. It did not meet one budget target in the nine years it was in government. I challenge those members to tell me that is not true.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance quite eloquently pointed out how the Minister of Finance at that time, Mr. Wilson, wanted to do the right thing. Unfortunately, he kept having the rug pulled out from under his feet all the time and was not allowed to implement some of his proposals. Things might have been different. Why could that government not meet one budget target?

Bill C-67 is an add on to what we have been doing. It is showing accountability to Canadians. It is making things more transparent. We are judged on what we did yesterday. The $100 billion tax relief of 2005 is reflective of what we are doing here now. Canadians can rest assured that this proposal will come to fruition. It will show them the fruits of their consideration for us over the years. We will keep our word.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

Stockwell Day Conservative Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC

Mr. Speaker, this morning I suggested some tax approaches that I wish the finance minister would give some consideration to that would alleviate the burden on Canadians, but also produce, at the very minimum, the same flow of revenue to the government as it is getting with its present regime of excessively high taxation.

I would like to propose something else to the finance minister and ask him at the very least to consider whether he would accept this idea or reject it. This has to do with the whole issue of the so-called surpluses and how they are so incredibly underestimated or overestimated. The famous dyslexic budget surplus projection from over a year ago where we were told was going to be $1.9 billion turned out to be $9.1 billion.

I understand the vagaries of trying to predict what a surplus is going to be. Yes, the items on which a budget is predicated can change during the year, but a surplus of that order of magnitude is inexcusable.

There are two problems that arise. First of all, throughout the year the government can see when an excessive surplus is coming its way. What the government does is madly and wildly spends through the year as it sees that wave of overtaxed dollars coming at it. It can wildly spend it and yet still wind up in a surplus. In fact, it looks as if it has had good management, but in fact it has been terrible management and it has blown away the windfall that was coming its way.

The way to avoid that, and I would ask the finance minister to give this consideration, is through incisive quarterly reports from each department, from the revenue generating departments and from the spending departments. At the start of each year departments produce budgets showing how much they are going to spend or receive in revenue, but if they have to market quarterly and show how they are approaching their targets, there can be sufficient advance warning that the government could see.

For instance, after the first quarter the government could see that revenues are coming in at a little higher rate. More importantly, the transparency that will result from that is that all Canadians and we in Parliament would see that revenues are coming in at a higher rate. By the second quarter, if that wave of surplus was continuing, it would be visible.

At the end of the year that would avoid the wild spending because the budget year is approaching. There is money in the till and it has to be spent. To avoid that March madness, we would see this coming in quarterly reports. The adjustments could be made, but it also has to be reported to the people. Then we would have a real sense of what the true surplus is, how much was unplanned spending because it would be marked every quarter and how much was in fact based on unpredictable events.

The price of oil and gas can change, there can be a SARS crisis, and I appreciate that, but it would put the government on notice that the development of the increased or decreased revenues was going to be known to everybody and known incrementally as it was happening throughout the year. It would produce far better management, far better spending, and the possibility of some true tax reductions which would still result in a surplus.

Would the minister consider that process of transparent, incisive quarterly reports from each department, so that we would know what was coming at us as we move throughout the year?

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what the member said. He is a very experienced politician now on the federal side. He was also a member of the provincial government of Alberta. I too have a question about his question. Did he have the same procedure when he was treasurer in Alberta? I do not know. I just simply ask.

Inasmuch as what he was saying, I see the merit from a private business point of view. However, he must appreciate, as I am sure all members and Canadians do, that sometimes unexpected things happen, things beyond our control. Who was to know that we were going to have a Katrina, for example? Who was to know we were going to have an Afghanistan? Who was to know we were going to have a crisis in Kosovo? There are so many expected things that occur.

At the same time, given what has happened, I do not see the necessity of it. When the report card comes out, Canadians will say the government is not perfect, but it has certainly managed the economy well. What I am hearing on the street is that people are now in a position to compare almost a decade of a Progressive Conservative school of thought under the Brian Mulroney regime to what the Liberals have done in almost decade.

Indeed, the report card will be put out very shortly, in eight or nine months, or a year, whenever that may be. We should let Canadians judge whether they are happy with our approach or not.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Bloc

Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC

Mr. Speaker, I find it a bit ironic to hear my colleague speak to this bill, which deals with the allocation of surpluses, and to hear him talk about paying down the debt because, in the final analysis, the Liberal Party has been in office for 49 of the last 60 years.

The Liberal Party created the debt. I agree with the member that the Conservatives increased it, but it had been created by the Liberal Party. How was the deficit eliminated? Since 1993, it has been done at the expense of the provinces. When the Prime Minister was Minister of Finance, he decided to eliminate the deficit and to reduce the debt at the expense of the provinces.

Today, the federal government is no longer willing to give money to the provinces. Let us not forget that, in 1993, it started to reduce reinvestments. In 1997-98, investments in the health care system reached their lowest level in Canadian history, thanks to the Liberal Party. We are clawing our way back up in terms of investments, but in the meantime the provinces have become poorer. Now that we have money, we are being told that it is going to be used to pay down the debt and that the provinces will not see a penny of that money.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

An hon. member

That is just awful.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:25 p.m.

Bloc

Mario Laframboise Bloc Argenteuil—Mirabel, QC

That is what the Liberal Party is telling us. We are told that the money is going to go to the municipalities. I was president of the Union des municipalités and we paid the price for what this Liberal government did to the provinces, which then turned to the municipalities to get money. The municipalities are simply given back the money that had been taken from them since 1993. This is not a gift.

All the Bloc Québécois is asking is that the provinces be given back the money that was taken from them, that the unemployed be given back the money that has been taken from them since 1993, when the Prime Minister was Minister of Finance.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

John Cannis Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, first, the member is being intellectually dishonest when he says this debt was created by the Liberals. It was created by governments of this country, including Liberals. Second, when he talks about municipalities, he is absolutely wrong, simply because the municipalities are the offspring of the provinces. We did not take from them; the provinces did.

Never before in the history of this country has there been a greater investment returned to the municipalities. We not only met the Romanow report, we exceeded it. Yes, there were adjustments that needed to be made in the early nineties, when we took office, and I addressed those in my presentation. Canadians agreed with that.

The moment we turned the economy around with the help of Canadians, with the cooperation of Canadians as a whole, we turned around and reinvested in this country like it has never been done before. I am quite proud to stand on that record.

Unanticipated Surpluses ActGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Official Languages Act (promotion of English and French) , as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

Official Languages ActPrivate Members' Business

October 27th, 2005 / 5:30 p.m.

Liberal

Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

moved that the bill be concurred in at report stage.

Official Languages ActPrivate Members' Business

5:30 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?