Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to participate in the debate on Bill C-28, especially for me today as this is my anniversary and the anniversary of quite a few other members of the official opposition who were elected to this place back on October 25, 1993. I would like to commend members on both sides of the House who were elected 13 years ago. Lucky 13 I would say.
This anniversary brings me back to the fact that I was a member of the finance committee in my first Parliament from 1993 to 1997. It was the time period when the then prime minister mandated us as a finance committee to assist the government and the House of Commons to find ways to deal with the terrible deficit that we inherited from the previous Conservative administration. It was not just the efforts of members of Parliament, particularly government members, but members on all sides who helped us turn the government books around in a short two year period. This was also done with the assistance of Canadians from coast to coast.
I would like to point out that the finance minister mentioned, in a response to a question by the member for Miramichi, that during the time as the finance minister in Ontario, he had complained about the fact that the federal government was not achieving its goals. His predecessor, minister Eves in the Mike Harris government, actually lauded the then prime minister and finance minister for their efforts in bringing the books of this country under control. The IMF had basically given a stern warning to Canada about the deficit we had inherited from the previous Conservative administration.
That is why we want to be careful as we go forward. This country does not want to get back into a deficit position. Canadians do not want that. In fact, one of the biggest mandates from Canadians in 1993 was for us to deal with the mess that the books were in. The debt was climbing precipitously.
At that time we had to deal with the financial picture of the country. At the same time, while we were making an effort to get to a surplus position, we could not forget the vulnerable. We had to ensure that we continued to make investments in the social safety net of this country, in economic development, and in incentives for small business. We had to be ever-mindful of the most vulnerable among us and start paying down the debt.
Significantly, the ratio of debt to GDP in this country over the last 13 years up until late January dropped from around 70% to around 40%. We made fantastic progress.
This brings me to the present financial paradigm in which we find ourselves as a nation. My colleague from Miramichi also mentioned that the last time a Conservative government reported a surplus was in 1912. I would like to add to his comment by saying that the finance minister at that time inherited a surplus from the previous Laurier government. We have yet to see any Conservative government actually produce a surplus on its own feet. I like to be a positive person along with my colleague from Miramichi, so let us hope that the government can keep us on track as a nation and keep us in a surplus position.
At the same time, it is with grave concern that I remind members of this House, my constituents of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing in northern Ontario, and all Canadians, that the $13 billion surplus that the Conservative government inherited, which was reported as part of the budget package last spring, should not have in its entirety been used to pay down the debt.
Over the previous 10 or 11 years, we have put a significant portion of each year's surplus toward the debt. Imagine parents saying to their kids, “We are not going to feed you because we are going to put every spare nickel we have on the mortgage”. No, parents continue to pay down their house mortgage while continuing to feed and clothe their families. There is a balance between the ongoing requirements of a family as there is for a government. There is a requirement that governments be mindful of maintaining programs that in particular the most vulnerable need from their federal government.
I think that was a serious error in judgment on the part of the government. No doubt the finance minister, with whom I have no grief personally, had tremendous pressure from the reform elements in his party. It is the reform element that has this belief of every person for themselves. It is an ideological approach to government that really forgets that we are responsible for others. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, and that is the place and the role of government. While managing the state for everybody, ensure that we do not leave people behind. Even the best governments and best countries always have those who cannot keep up, and it is our responsibility to do the best we can to help them keep up.
If I could rewind the tape back to last spring and to some weeks ago when we heard about the cuts, I would hope that a replay of that would see the government maybe use half, even a bit more if it felt it were affordable but no less than half, as we were doing, toward debt reduction and the rest toward investments in the social safety net and economic development. Why instead did we see cuts of $1 billion, and I think $2 billion over two years?
It did not strike me as much as it did on a recent visit to the communities of Chapleau and Wawa in my riding a few days ago. I knew that the cuts were going to have an impact on Canadians, but imagine in two communities, three different groups and individuals came forward to tell me about the impact of the cuts on their groups or on them individually. In 13 years, I do not recall ever having that experience. In the space of six hours, between Chapleau, office hours, travelling to Wawa and office hours there, three different groups and individuals came forward to say that this really hurts, not them personally, and I will explain in a moment, but the groups that they work with which serve others.
One was a group in Chapleau that is involved with the francophone women's association, headquartered in Ottawa. It is an Ontario-wide organization that helps francophone women's groups with their advocacy efforts on behalf of francophone women. I have, in my large northern Ontario riding of 110,000 square kilometres, a large and vibrant francophone community.
I was really touched by the delegation's impassioned plea that some way be found to reverse the impact of cuts to women's programs that ultimately impacted their ability to help each other in Chapleau. I know this is also the case in Kapuskasing, and I could go around the riding and find other women's groups, francophone or not, equally impacted.
Imagine in the same tour, to continue, in Wawa, a delegation of small lodge owners came to see me. They were really concerned about the cut to the GST rebate for visitors. To the uninformed, to the uninitiated, it might seem that this is simply a matter of giving money to tourists who go back after their holidays to the U.S. or to Europe, let us say mostly the U.S. in the case of tourist operators in the northern Ontario, and lodge owners for fishing, hunting, camping and outdoor recreation.
The reality is that tourism is an export industry. I know my colleague, the member for Miramichi, has a large tourist industry in his part of New Brunswick. Tourism is an export industry. When tourists buy something at a store, keep their receipt, at least up until now, cross the border to go back to the U.S. if they are American, they are exporting that item and, as for all exports, the GST is removed. Why are we in fact picking on those who export to the U.S. or elsewhere as tourists?
There was a particular concern to these operators. Since the inception of the GST, which is known as a value added tax in Europe, visitors to Canada could claim the GST on their rooms while they are in Canada.
The lodge business in northern Ontario or the Toronto convention bureau or the Montreal convention bureau or the Vancouver convention bureau know that convention organizers depend on those percentage points of advantage they have to compete against other large cities for international convention business. So, now we have lost a few percentage points in competition with European convention destinations.
This happened to be a delegation made up of all women lodge operators. I was very impressed by the arguments they made and the concern they had for how would they make up, I think it was an average of 3% difference, in the net income to their businesses that they would have to cover because their customers could not get that 3% back at the border. They have lost the ability to promote that aspect in their tour of the trade tourism shows throughout mostly the northern U.S. I would ask the government to reconsider the GST rebate for visitors, as it should reconsider the support of women's programs.
Let me continue to the third example of an entrepreneur in my riding in Wawa. I will keep the confidentiality of his name. He has tremendous expertise in the tree nursery sector, not just knowledge but technology capacity as well. He has worked diligently to make business agreements in several Central American countries. When we talk about the importance of tree planting, reforestation is part of a larger strategy to deal with climate change. He has the potential in an important niche when it comes to greenhouse gas or climate change abatement technologies.
Up until recently, Canada's government believed in the Kyoto protocol and believed that climate change was a reality. Imperfections aside, and I will not say that our government was perfect in its pursuit of finding better ways to deal with climate change, at least we were looking forward, we acknowledged, and we knew better efforts had to be made to deal with climate change. We did not turn our backs on the importance of climate change and the Kyoto protocol. This entrepreneur has now lost some advantage in his ability to export his expertise and technology in terms of reforestation to parts of the world that indeed need this kind of help.
In a period of six hours there were three groups or individuals impacted by these cuts. I know that cuts are separate from the budget, but the foundation of the cuts is in the budget of last spring.
There is a notion that there is a plethora, a whole bunch of tax credits contained in the minister's budget which on the face of it look interesting, but when people find out that a $500 tax credit for the physical fitness tax credit is worth about $70 or $80 to the average family, then it really is not what it appears to be. It would have been clearer for Canadians had the government acknowledged that these tax credits which are $500 in this box on tax returns really meant about $75 or $80 at the end.
I think sports programs are very important. I look forward to the minister tabling his report from his expert panel. Not every family has a child that is capable, either physically or by inclination, to be involved on a hockey team, a basketball team or whatever. Some children are musically inclined and some are artistic. Some children in wheelchairs cannot play hockey. They have other pursuits that they would no doubt be interested in.
I really hope that the minister, who is a bit of an athlete himself, will be persuaded that the view of that tax credit, as modest as it is, should include a large array of artistic, cultural and physical pursuits for children and families. I want to make that very important point.
In my question earlier on to the Minister of Finance I asked about the difference between a wealthy family buying a $100,000 luxury motorboat or sailboat versus a modest family buying a $200 inflatable raft and which of the two families would receive the bigger GST benefit? The minister did not answer the question. He actually did not even skate around it. He did not even carry the puck across the red line in response to my question.
I will answer the question for the minister. If a person were buying a $100,000 boat, the saving would be about $1,000; I think a 1% cut would be $1,000. With that $1,000 cut the family could buy five inflatable boats that the modest income family could only get for $200. The $200 inflatable boat will realize a savings of $20 or is it $2? No, I think it is $20.
