Jane Stewart

[Chechnya, February 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians were extremely happy to hear this morning that a ceasefire has been reached in the terrible war in Chechnya. Like most Canadians, I have been horrified by the brutal violence and bloodshed that have marked this war.

Can the Minister of Foreign Affairs inform the House what the ceasefire will mean for the efforts to establish a lasting peace in this area of the world?

[Canadian Airborne Regiment, February 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the comments made by the member for Saanich-Gulf Islands denying any racism in the video depicting the conduct of some members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment indicate how difficult it is to understand racism.

In the video a black paratrooper, like his white colleagues, was personally humiliated but in addition he was challenged and degraded at a second level. In the video his captors wrote on his back with excrement "I love the KKK". Had they written that message on a white recruit the meaning would have been lost. Its intended effect was only achieved because its host was black. In this case the individual was humiliated but as well all members of his race were implicated and humiliated.

This is racism in its simplest form; so simple that it can become systemic in our society.

We can say and be proud that Canada is not a racist nation. However, if we do not recognize racism when it exists and when it occurs I am afraid that our protestations may become hollow and untrue.

[Criminal Code, December 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I would like to suggest to the House that we view the clock as reading 7.07 p.m.

[Employment Equity, December 8th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today the Standing Committee on Finance tabled its report on the first ever pre-budget consultations. As a member of that committee I could comment on several aspects of the report. But as the sole female member I feel compelled to highlight the necessity of understanding the gender impact of budgetary measures.

We recommended a 12 per cent cut in government operations, but will we ensure that the positive impact of employment equity initiatives will not be lost as we pare down our public service? We suggested a 10 per cent reduction in international aid, but will we be sure that our women in development programs are not disproportionately cut?

There are those who say this strategy is too expensive, but I say the government must take the initiative and ensure that systemic discrimination is not perpetuated nor created. We insist on this in the private sector through employment equity legislation. We can expect no less from our government.

[Infrastructure Program, December 5th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, recently in my riding of Brant, we have witnessed a successful and important example of intergovernmental co-operation.

The town of Paris has recognized that its police station is outmoded and can no longer effectively meet the town's needs. Meanwhile, Canada Post, while continuing to serve the rural and urban residents of the area, has been under utilizing its large building in the downtown core.

After successful negotiations, the town of Paris and Canada Post have reached an agreement under which the town will renovate the old post office into a new and modern police station with the help of infrastructure money, which I might add is another product of intergovernmental co-operation. Canada Post will find a more suitable and cost-effective location to continue its service to the town.

I would like to congratulate the council of the town of Paris and in particular, Mayor Bawcutt, for identifying and implementing this common sense deal. I would also like to recognize Canada Post for its effective resource management and its commitment to the betterment of our local communities.

[Telephone City Musical Society, November 17th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, on November 11, residents of Brant had the chance to remember the thousands of Canadians who have paid the ultimate price for our country. Again this year one could hear at the Brantford cenotaph the music of the Telephone City Musical Society. In fact, the band has played every November 11 in Brantford except two since 1919.

This year the band celebrates 75 years of providing music for parades, concerts and ceremonies in Brant. During these years highlights from the band include playing for the royal visit to Brantford in 1939 and playing on the same stage as the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1978.

Congratulations and many thanks must be extended to all members of the band, past and present, for their contribution to the quality of life in Brant. Special congratulations go out to Mr. Bert Locke and Mr. Fred Nicholas who are celebrating 57 and 48 years of service to the band respectively.

On behalf of the residents of Brant, I would like to say that their contributions are very much appreciated.

[Social Programs, October 28th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue.

Newspaper reports indicate that many wealthy Canadians are receiving support under Canada's social security programs. Some are receiving unemployment insurance benefits; others the child tax credit.

Will the minister please tell the House how he intends to ensure that the support of Canada's social security programs remains available for those Canadians who are truly deserving?

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, again a number of important questions were asked in that dissertation.

I want to make clear that neither my government nor I is pointing a finger at forestry workers or seasonal workers and saying it is their problem. Quite the opposite. We are suggesting that we recognize the system is at fault and the system needs to be repaired.

In response to the issue of dealing with subsidies and making cuts to agencies and other organizations, we are clearly and actively using a consultative approach to understand precisely what the hon. member is suggesting. We recognize that making cuts for the sake of cuts is not appropriate. We have to understand that when we make subsidy cuts there will be a response. Every action creates a reaction and we have to think them through before we slash and burn holus-bolus. It is not our strategy. It is not our philosophy. We will not do that.

Finally, we have to recognize that we are going through significant change. Government is going to change. Canadians will be dealing with change. We have to accept the difficulties there. Part of doing a credible job, a good job, is to involve Canadians in the process. I believe we have struck a perfect strategy to reach that goal.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his questions. There are many in his intervention.

I think our process is very clear. I would refer him to the lilac book, as the member for Capilano-Howe Sound called it. A very clear set of documentation was presented by the Minister of Finance last week. He talked about our commitment and our role in economic development. He talked about our responsibilities in terms of fiscal management. He identified very clearly the areas that Canadians can address and look at as they make their considerations and deliberations on how we should manage the process.

In talking about the process of consultation I feel it is an exceptionally important part of the way we want government to behave and manage itself in the 1990s and into the 21st century. Canadians all through the course of the election campaign talked about feeling divorced from the government process, about the fact that they were never consulted or asked; things were just done to them. We are doing our best to change that. Through the formal consultation process, the process that will be held by the finance committee, Canadians will have a real opportunity to participate.

I would suggest as well that each individual member has the opportunity to participate at the grassroots level in his or her riding; to take documentation that has been presented and prepared for us by the Ministry of Finance and share it with individuals, with groups and with people in their ridings; to help work one on one with people to understand the issues; to discuss the strategies and the possibilities; and to bring that information to the standing committee, to the House and to the minister directly.

As for the question on whether or not the minister and our government will make the decisions, we will make the decisions. They will be very clear at the time of the budget. Prior to that the critical point is to talk to Canadians. We are talking about the need to make changes, the type of which we have never seen before. These issues will impact on each and every one of us and each and every Canadian we represent. They have every right to be consulted; they have every right to contribute.

In my role as a member of Parliament I have a responsibility to get that information from them and I will do that. The member should not be mistaken: our minister has made a commitment to reach our deficit targets and he will find them in the budget.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate.

I would like to start by thanking the third party for giving us yet another opportunity to crystallize for the Canadian people the differences that exist between the Liberal philosophy toward the role and responsibilities of government and the Reform philosophy in that same regard.

It was a year ago exactly today that the Canadian people elected 177 Liberal members to this House. I believe they did so because they believed and had confidence in our philosophy; one that said that it is important and necessary for the government to take fiscal management responsibilities seriously, that we must reduce the debt and the deficit. The Canadian people also agreed that there is more to the role of the Canadian government. They agreed with us that part of the role is to help create jobs and develop economic growth.

Contrast that with the Reform Party members who, as I saw them today in question period, were very happy to elect 52 members from one region of the country, a very important region but one region. Their strategy is very telescopic, very single-minded, and says that the role of government is really to

get into power, slash and burn, cut the debt and deficit, fold up the tents and get on with it, get out of town.

Every once in a while I wonder what it must be like to be a constituent in a Reform member's riding. I think of the young people who come to see me in my constituency, young people who have graduated from university and have been unable to get that important first job. They cannot get unemployment insurance and the alternative is welfare. They come to my office and we talk about the Canadian Youth Services. We talk about wage subsidies. We talk about different strategies whereby the government can impact and assist the young people in their search and their finding of a job.

I do not know what it must be like to be a Reform member and be unable to talk about these strategies, to talk about a government providing these kinds of opportunities and actions that do in fact help get Canadians into the workforce, contributing and productive in our economy.

We are here talking about the deficit and it is important. I have a few words I want to share in that regard. Many suggestions have been made about eliminating the deficit. Unfortunately, a significant number of those suggestions, including some made by hon. members in this House, are not based on a sound grasp of the facts.

This afternoon I would like to discuss some of these misconceptions. Let me begin with a remedy much favoured by certain members of the opposition, eliminating social benefits for higher income Canadians. Of course there are some potential savings here but they are much smaller than is often claimed. Why? To begin with, many social programs already target benefits on the basis of need or income. The guaranteed income supplement is an example. So are spousal allowances, the child tax benefit and the GST credit. Other social benefits are reduced or recovered as income rises. Old age security, for instance, starts being recovered at about $53,000. Unemployment insurance is recovered at about $58,000 and the age credit at about $26,000.

There is also an unfortunate truth faced by anyone who wants drastic cuts to elderly benefits. The fact is most elderly Canadians are at the lower end of the income scale. Almost three-quarters of our elderly have annual household incomes below $30,000. About half of all elderly benefits go to those who receive the guaranteed income supplement. That means individuals with incomes under $15,700 and couples under $23,800. In short, the notion that rich Canadians collect huge sums in social benefits is simply a myth and a mistake.

Another common belief about our social programs is that much of the social security spending goes to cheats but that too is a myth. Cheating is not the culprit behind the high cost of social programs. Chronic dependency is.

The rules for governing unemployment insurance for example have unwittingly encouraged chronic use, fostering dependency on certain industries and regions. This is precisely the kind of problem that calls for a careful rethinking of the way we structure our spending. What will be achieved by a draconian slash and burn approach? Does Reform believe that thousands of jobs will immediately appear for workers in depressed regions once they are forced off their UI dependency?

Another silver bullet solution held out by Reform members is to slash government operating costs. They see Ottawa as a fat city and the public service as an easy target for the resentment of heavily taxed Canadians. Yes of course the reduction of operating costs is an important goal, one to which our government has demonstrated a commitment, but it can never be the principal source of the savings needed to address the deficit problem.

The net cost of running the government and delivering programs represents only about 12 per cent of the total federal budgetary spending, about $20 billion. That is a lot of money but it is less than half the 1993-94 deficit. Even the most drastic cuts, even the absurd extreme of laying off every public servant would come nowhere close to solving our deficit problems.

Other facts speak loudly too. The cost of government has been repeatedly restrained in recent years including restraint measures in the last budget. In fact we have implemented 16 specific expenditure reduction exercises over the past decade of which 12 had a direct impact on operating budgets of the government departments but operating costs exist for a reason whether the mythmakers want to believe it or not. It is futile to repeatedly cut back operating costs in isolation from the programs that give rise to those costs.

There are other suggestions for eliminating the deficit that do not entail spending cuts at all. Some of these too are based on mistaken notions. For example we are often told that the government should sell off crown corporations. There may be good reasons for privatizing crown corporations but reducing the deficit is really not one of them.

The impact of privatization on deficit is extremely limited. That is because crown corporations are already recorded as government assets. As a result the only situations in which the deficit would be reduced by privatization are those where the assets could be sold for more than their current book value. I doubt whether there are many such cases at this time.

We also hear that the government could drastically reduce the deficit by lowering interest rates. People who hold this view forget that interest rates are not set by the government but by investors. The Bank of Canada can influence short term interest

rates but it cannot dictate long term rates or the cost of borrowing in international markets. Who would buy our bonds if we offered uncompetitive rates?

Occasionally the argument is still made that the government should increase the money supplied to finance the debt but history has shown time after time that this is a bogus and a bankrupt solution. Printing money to pay down the debt failed miserably. That is because it ultimately fuels inflation because people realize that their money is worth less. The ultimate result is that printing more money to solve your fiscal problems leads directly to higher interest rates and higher debt servicing costs. In the end the problem has not been solved. It has been worsened.

So far I have focused on a number of proposals for deficit cutting that are based on what we might call myths. My purpose in doing this is not to accept a defeatist attitude because the deficit must be wrestled to the ground and this government has and will do just that. But you cannot defeat the deficit with shallow snake oil solutions founded on illusion. What we need as I said earlier is a careful rethinking of the role of government and the way we spend. It is precisely what the government is doing.

As the finance minister has said the time of nibbling away at the margins is over. The government's comprehensive strategic approach is reflected in a new framework for economic policy that was released last week. It is also reflected in the comprehensive reform of our social security system that is already under way as well as the ongoing reviews of science and technology, defence and foreign policy, and small business policy.

I want to focus this afternoon on the federal program review. To my mind this is precisely the kind of meaningful selective approach to cost cutting that has been absent from deficit reduction exercises in recent years. It is precisely why earlier efforts have not succeeded.

What is program review? It refers to a fundamental review of all federal programs and activities besides the major statutory transfer payments to provinces and people which are being reviewed separately as I mentioned.

It includes examining grants and contributions, tax expenditures, cost recovery and overhead. The goal of this review is a more effective, smaller and affordable government, one that concentrates on its core roles and responsibility.

Each government department and agency has been asked to review and assess its activities against six guidelines. These guidelines are as follows: First, does a program area or activity continue to serve the public interest? Second, is there a legitimate and necessary role for government in this program area or activity? Is it really ours to control? Third, is the current role of the federal government appropriate or should the program be transferred to the provinces?

What activities or program should or could be transferred in whole or part to the private or voluntary sector? If a program continues how can its efficiency be improved? Finally, is the program affordable in light of the current fiscal situation?

As a result of this review some programs and services will be streamlined and some may be eliminated, particularly those that can be provided more efficiently by the private sector or that overlap with services provided by other levels of government.

Some of the changes resulting from the review will be announced in the 1995 budget. Others will be implemented over several years. The end result will be a smaller and more affordable government, but that government will continue to protect the most vulnerable in our society.

The federal program review is only one facet of the government's efforts to put our fiscal house in order. I have spoken of it at some length because I believe it provides an excellent example of the kind of approach that must be taken to deficit reduction; an informed, thoughtful and efficient approach, one that contrasts sharply with the draconian knee-jerkism proposed today by some hon. members.

I have had the opportunity to utilize this kind of approach with the private sector and it has worked very effectively to improve productivity, to help companies focus on what they should focus on. The strategy that I am proud of is part of our Liberal philosophy. It suggests that we understand that there are things that we cannot deny and that is that straight across the board cuts do not recognize differences in individual needs of Canadians and our institutions.

I would like to make one final point. In his presentation last week before the Standing Committee on Finance, the Minister of Finance emphasized that the government has clear principles to guide it in making the decisions necessary to achieve its deficit target. The minister said, for example, the deficit reduction measures should weigh on the side of program spending cuts over revenue increases, that selective, strategic cuts are to be preferred over across the board cuts and that the most vulnerable in our society must not be left behind.

The minister also made it clear that the government would not be making its decisions alone, that it wanted to hear from Canadians. I believe that the open, democratic consultation process that the government has put in motion is exactly what is needed if we are to put an end to the glib solutions and nibbling away at the margins.

I have every confidence that Canadians will recognize the importance of and contribute significantly to the kind of thoughtful approach our fiscal problems in Canada need.