Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on Bill C-17 today. I am going to speak for a moment or two on debt.
In 1993-94 we all know that the provincial, federal and municipal debt amounts to some $660 billion. This is an increase of about 11 per cent over last year and it is quite a startling number.
Put another way, this amounts to some $23,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. The net federal public debt amounts to some $500 billion and that is an increase over last year of some $45 billion or again around 10 per cent.
Federal debt divided equally among Canadians comes to some $17,600 per person. The federal debt is increasing at the rate of $123 million a day. This amounts to some $6,200 per year for a family of four. To put this another way, the debt amounts to 93 per cent of our GDP at the present time. Ten years ago it amounted to around 50 per cent. It nearly doubled as a percentage of the GDP in 10 years' time.
As a matter of fact, the Vancouver Board of Trade, which has done a considerable amount to draw the Canadian public's attention to the debt situation, has placed its debt clock to work out that if the debt, rounded off to $.5 billion, were converted to hundred dollar bills there would, believe it or not, be enough to cover the Trans-Canada highway from Vancouver to Ottawa.
If this deficit were reduced to zero, the average employed person in Canada would see their taxes reduced by about $3,000 a year. Bill C-17 deals with budgetary measures and certainly unemployment insurance. To me this reduction in the taxation is one of the best things that we can do to reduce unemployment in Canada.
A recent Canadian Chamber of Commerce survey showed that if the debt and deficit were reduced, payroll taxes and corporate tax rates lowered, government regulatory burdens eased and training and education of the labour force improved, small Canadian businesses, any business under 100 employees, would be able to create jobs at the rate of 14 jobs per firm for the next three years. This is certainly another recipe for the reduction of unemployment in Canada.
The budget has simply nibbled at the edges of the unemployment insurance program. By reducing the generosity of this program, certainly I have to give the government credit for making a step in the right direction. After all, we are aware that over generous unemployment insurance programs do have the effect of increasing the number of people on UI, not decreasing, not putting a lot of people to work. The number of people on UI has increased as the debt ratio has increased.
We all know that the cumulative deficit in the unemployment insurance account is in the neighbourhood of $6 billion. We also know that it is a fallacy to believe that this is an employer-employee funded program and that $6 billion has to be picked up by the taxpayer of Canada. We pay the shortfall.
I have said in the House before that the Canadian unemployment insurance plan has become an inefficient income supplement plan rather than social insurance. We need to take the "un" out of unemployment insurance. We should come up with a scheme of employment insurance with extra emphasis on insurance.
The Reform Party's policy is to make employment insurance a sensible, sustainable program of social insurance which provides compensation for temporary loss of employment. We believe the program should be funded by employers and the employee and the level of premiums and benefits determined by the employer and the employee. This, I am sure, would also go a
long way to reducing the burgeoning underground economy and ultimately relieving the tax burden of Canadians.
Stephen Van Houten, president of the Canadian Manufacturers Association, has extrapolated today's figures to come up with a prediction that if the federal debt continues to grow at the present rate, by the year 2001 and we will hit the $1 trillion mark. He has also predicted that when we hit the $1 trillion mark our deficit will be in the range of $60 billion to $70 billion. Should it remain the same, the interest on that amount of money would amount to some $76 billion, and that is roughly double what we have today. In my opinion that would be extremely crippling to the Canadian economy.
I am convinced that percentage of after tax income has decreased, and yet at the same time the same government that allowed the debt to escalate to half a billion dollars continues along the same path. Really when questioned or pressed on it the Prime Minister even makes remarks about that line of questioning being irrelevant. It is extremely relevant and we look forward to the day when we can reduce taxation and have a stimulative effect on our economy.
Economic growth is hampered by high social spending. As we all know, high social spending is also accompanied by high levels of taxation.
If Canadians were relieved of this burden of high government debt and taxation and government intervention through excessive regulation, I believe Canadians would be motivated to work harder and to save more and invest more and ultimately hire more workers.
Investors would be clamouring to invest in Canada and to set up business here. It is high time that Canada was open for business and took on that posture.
We noticed the other day that when the Prime Minister did announce that he was willing to make further budget cuts there was a dramatic change in the markets. The dollar went up and the interest rate went down. I really felt quite heartened by all this.
Just the other day I noticed in the Financial Post the headline: ``Deficit rattles investors''. To say the least it would rattle them.
In conclusion, it is time to change this budgetary process and admit that we do have a spending problem in Canada. This is not a problem that can be solved strictly by revenue.
