I am not holding my breath for sensible ideas from over there. I cannot reveal the extent to which I know what is in the budget. I will briefly review the opinions of the opposition parties regarding the budget and then come to the core principles the finance minister has already referred to.
I will begin with the Canadian Alliance. Until the last election I did not think it was possible for a party to propose economic measures which were both slash and burn and deficit creating. Until then I had thought if we slashed and burned we would not have a deficit or if we went into deficit we would not have to slash and burn.
The Alliance's happily defunct flat tax proposal in the last election campaign was so utterly fiscally irresponsible that politically neutral economists of the day, not including myself, indicated that the proposal would have taken us to an $18 billion deficit. It was utterly irresponsible. In terms of the flat tax favouring the rich it would have led us to an $18 billion deficit. To partially compensate for that the Alliance was talking about slash and burn on the expenditure front.
When we listen to Alliance members today we are getting a warmed over version of their happily defunct electoral flat tax proposal. What they are saying does not add up. They are proposing substantial new tax cuts although I am not sure of the sum. They are proposing billions of additional dollars in expenditure and telling us to have larger surpluses. The only way to do that is to slash and burn on the expenditure front. This is a point they tried to hide from us.
One example of the kind of thing the opposition calls corporate welfare or pork is in my riding where IBM recently opened a new state of the art software lab. The lab has a global mandate providing 2,500 of the highest tech jobs. It is universally acknowledged by those who know what they are talking about that had it not been for a federal government investment of $33 million into the project it would not have occurred in Markham or anywhere in Canada but in Asia, Ireland or somewhere else.
IBM is ahead of schedule in repaying the loan, with interest, to the Canadian taxpayer. If that is pork all I can say is let us have more pork. That excellent project which created high tech jobs in my riding would not have occurred had the Alliance policies been in place.
The notion we hear from the Canadian Alliance that we are on a spending spree is absolutely ridiculous. If we measure the size of government in the correct manner, which is program spending relative to the size of the economy, the federal government today is smaller than it has been at any time in my lifetime.
The NDP will not like this but the Alliance pretends we are spending recklessly when the size of the federal government today is smaller than it has been since 1949 or 1950. It is something like 11.5% of the gross domestic product. Unless the Alliance changes its present tack I do not see much in what I have heard from it today that would influence our budget.
As for the Bloc Quebecois, we often hear its finance critic saying the government has a $13 billion surplus. He is the only economist in the country to think so. All the others think the surplus will be much smaller.
This Bloc member repeats incessantly that he alone has the accurate forecast and that all the other economists in the country are wrong.
So, if this Bloc member is right, the solution is obvious. What an enormous waste of talent for this brilliant economist here in the House. If he is right and he alone has the accurate forecast, he should quit politics and start his own firm. He would become an instant multimillionaire.
As the members are aware, this accurate forecast from this Bloc member has an exceedingly high commercial value. If he is right, he could become an instant multimillionaire. If not, I will continue to disbelieve his forecasts.
As for the NDP, I will need to be brief or I will not get to our own program. The NDP has about eight priorities for massive new spending. When one has eight priorities it is like having no priorities. Unlike the new labour party in Britain, the labour party in Australia or the Scandinavians, the NDP remains mired in the past. It alone has failed to realize that the permanent tax and spend and deficit policies of the seventies and eighties have failed.
Given that my time is getting short I will not mention the fifth party because during a previous take note debate it did not suggest anything. I will simply comment on our four priorities which the finance minister has already enunciated.
First, we will move heaven and earth not to go back into deficit. Second, we will do whatever is necessary on the Canadian security and safety front. Third, we will honour the $100 billion tax cuts we announced just over a year ago. Fourth, we will honour the $22 billion investment in health care we announced just before the last election and which will take place over the next five years. These are the priorities of the government.
Finally, in contrast to the ridiculous notion of a made in Canada or Liberal recession we in Canada are in good shape compared to our neighbours. As I said earlier, all major forecasters, IMF, OECD and the private sector are united in the belief that Canada this year and next year will perform better than the United States.
In part the reason for this is that having achieved surpluses we moved early to put $17 billion in tax cuts and more than $3 billion in health care and other expenditures into the economy this year. This year we have more than $20 billion of fiscal stimulus. In American terms that would be like $200 billion.
The point is, and this is in large measure why our economy is doing relatively well during these difficult times, as of January 1 this year we have provided a fiscal stimulus which is coursing through the economy as we speak and which is larger than the Americans are contemplating. This is one reason Canada is in such good shape in relation to our neighbours. After the budget measures are announced we will be in even better shape, as the House and the country will see.
