Joe Clark

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 19th, 2000]

I am advised from his seat, by the minister, that this amendment is in order. That means it would—

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 19th, 2000]

Madam Chairman, the question is not whether the government believes that the provision reflects the agreement among the first ministers. The question is whether the amendment presented by the New Democratic Party is one that is consistent with the rules of parliament. It is on that question that I would like the hon. minister to consult the officials who are here on the floor of the House of Commons so that—

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 19th, 2000]

Madam Chairman, I appreciate the correction by my hon. friend.

Would my hon. friend consent to speak to his officials and to convey through his voice their responses to the questions that I have raised?

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 19th, 2000]

Madam Chairman, I was very interested that the amendment moved by the New Democratic Party was one that was designed to be within the limits with respect to the authority of parliament over expenditure. I would like to take advantage of the presence on the floor of officials to ask them whether in fact the amendment that was proposed is one that meets the requirements with regard to the role of parliament and spending. If it does, obviously there would be a desire on all parts of the House to support an amendment that would ensure that more money went into the system more quickly.

I call upon the officials here for clarification as to whether this is a receivable amendment.

[Canada Health Care, Early Childhood Development And Other Social Services Funding Act, October 19th, 2000]

Madam Chairman, on that point, the House and certainly the country knows that the agreement in principle that was met by the first ministers was an agreement that would restore all of the funding back to 1993 levels. This bill does not do that and so it behooves the House to find a way in which the words of the first ministers can be kept and in which we can avoid cheating provinces and territories out of $2 billion to $3 billion that they would otherwise receive as a result of the agreement in principle to go to full restoration of the 1993 levels.

The minister has found a technical point. There is no doubt that it would be possible for the government, if it chose, to find some means to rearrange existing expenditures, to front-end load the contribution by the Government of Canada so the word of the Prime Minister of Canada could be kept and so all of the funds that should go back to health and social transfers in the country will go back now rather than two years from now.

[Economic Policy, October 19th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, there are several things that can be done. Let me list them quickly.

First, we should be changing the basic personal exemption. It is simply unacceptable in a country like ours that low income Canadians earning around $7,000 a year have to pay tax. We propose to take them and others like them completely off the tax rolls in a staged process of raising the basic exemption to $12,000 a year.

We cannot just help the rich, as the Liberal Party always does. We need to have concern for low income Canadians who are trying to make their way and trying to improve their communities where they live.

The hon. member mentioned the issue of agriculture. I have just come back from western Canada, a region that has been doubly devastated. It has been devastated by nature, but it has also been devastated by the absolute refusal of either the government or the party now in official opposition to take any serious interest in the plight of agriculture.

We had a statistic last year from my native region showing that some 22,000 farmers have stopped farming in the last year and have moved off the land. That is a 10% drop in the number of people taking part in one of the basic industries in western Canada. That is a terrible thing to have happen. If it had happened in Ontario, the Liberal government would have responded very quickly, but it did not. It happened in the west so it gets ignored. However, it cuts into our capacity to be a competitive country, building upon the multiple strengths that agriculture can bring us if agriculture had the kind of support today that it had when a Progressive Conservative government was in office.

Finally, let me speak to the question of students. There is a tiny little measure in this budget for students now in school. This budget does nothing at all to help students who are leaving school with a massive debt, a debt averaging $25,000 per year.

What the government does in the name of Liberal values is say that education in Canada is for the rich, and if one is smart and able but not rich then one cannot get into our education system. That is not the kind of Canada we believe in. That is not a value worthy of the name.

[Economic Policy, October 19th, 2000]

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.

[Economic Policy, October 18th, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I express my appreciation to members of the four parties in the House, other than the reform party alliance, who respect democracy and would have allowed me to speak on extended hours on the budget speech.

I say to the members of the reform alliance that they are not going to be able to get away from me that easily in the next 20 days.

I want to speak in relation to questions I put with regard to the HRDC file. Yesterday, as hon. members know, the auditor general pulled the mask off the government's attempts to convince Canadians that it has the means and the ability to properly manage their money. He uncovered a litany of errors and mismanagement and he confirmed the House's worst fears about the problems in the human resources development department.

The auditor general said “It was more than just sloppy paperwork. We found that controls had broken down, putting public funds at unacceptable risk”. He went on to say “This is serious, because taxpayers have a right to expect that the government will follow due process when it spends public money”.

The auditor general studied the same four programs as the now infamous internal audit of the department. These included the transitional jobs fund and Canada jobs fund, the youth internship Canada program, the sectoral partnership initiatives program and the social development partnerships program. He concluded that there were widespread deficiencies in the management control of all four programs.

“We found breaches of authority, payments made improperly, very limited monitoring of finances and activities, and approvals not based on established processes.”

He concluded that many practices were not acceptable. I quote: “Proceeding without required approvals, relying on oral contracts and paying for ineligible expenses.”

Further, he adds: “Inappropriate practices had become the routine, accepted by management.”

While almost all attention revolved around job grants last year, this year we learned that while $25 million was poured into the Youth Internship program over three years only 5% of the files were properly assessed.

In contrast to the findings of the auditor general, the minister repeatedly defended the success of her programs. She stood in the House and said that everything was fine within HRDC. Yesterday she admitted in the House “we did not document appropriately the data that would support the numbers employed”.

The auditor general stated “We could not support the department's findings on the effectiveness of the transitional jobs fund”.

These problems did not happen overnight. They were warning signs that a vigilant minister should have acted upon. In 1998 an internal audit of the Atlantic groundfish strategy found serious weaknesses in all aspects of the project's life cycle. Why was corrective action not taken then? Why was a major overhaul of all grants and programs not initiated at that point? Why did the department under two different ministers wait until a crisis erupted?

HRDC has put forward a six point action plan which it claims will deal with the issues. That is not the judgment of the Auditor General of Canada. That is not the judgment of the House. The administration of this program has been a scandal and it is a scandal that continues.

[Auditor General's Report, October 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.

Earlier in the House the Minister of Public Works and Government Services said that no public money was being spent on Downsview Park. Then the Minister of National Defence admitted money was being spent by national defence.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister tell me which minister is telling the truth?

[Auditor General's Report, October 18th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the auditor general says during 1999-2000 national defence spent approximately $4.8 million. Is that nothing?

My question is for the Minister of National Defence. Because the auditor general said that those funds were not a valid charge against the national defence budget, why did the Minister of National Defence let that money be spent on purposes that were invalid? Will he stop those practices and get the money back to national defence?