Bill C-48 (Historical)

An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments

This enactment authorizes the Minister of Finance to make certain payments out of the annual surplus in excess of $2 billion in respect of the fiscal years 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 for the purposes and in the aggregate amount specified. This enactment also provides that, for its purposes, the Governor in Council may authorize a minister to undertake a specified measure.

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Inky Mark, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will go into even more depth. In 1993-94, the first year of the Liberal reign, the revenue side was $116 billion, the deficit was $42 billion, and the debt was $508 billion. The Liberals paid interest of $38 billion. In 1997-98, the debt went up to $619 billion and $50 billion of interest was paid. Someone has to account for all that debt.

Let us not forget that the deficit was balanced on the backs of all Canadians when the Chrétien government and the current Prime Minister, who was the finance minister then, took $24 billion from his budget and paid down the deficit. Obviously that is when we had the health care problems. I remember that because I was mayor at the time and it was all downloaded to the provincial governments. The provinces had to figure out a way to pay their bills. That was when the cuts started. A decade passed before we recovered from those cuts.

Let me demonstrate the Liberals' love of money. They certainly do not criticize the GST. They are collecting $30 billion plus every year. They receive over $30 billion from EI, which again is overtaxation. In fact, the Liberals took the federal employees pension fund of $30 billion. On the way to Ottawa this week, I sat beside a federal employee who said that the union is going to sue the government for taking that fund away from its workers. I say shame on the government for doing that.

At the same time, we have unpaid liabilities of something like almost $1 trillion on the old age pension. How are we going to look after our seniors down the road when we have to budget annually to pay the bills?

This debate tonight is not about the budget. Bill C-48 is really not worth the paper it is written on. Under the section “Purpose and amounts of payment” and “Authorization” on the second page, the bill states the governor in council “may” give consideration and “may” authorize the minister. It says “may”, not “must”. That does not mean anything. It really means that the NDP signed something that it is not sure is going to happen.

[Inky Mark, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate this evening. There is no doubt that those watching this debate will conclude that Bill C-48 certainly is a creation of the NDP and that Bill C-48 was a deal to save the government from defeat.

We also know that the Liberals do not understand the whole concept of accountability and taxation. We all know that Liberals love to tax and spend.

I want to say for the record that in 1972 when Pierre Trudeau started governing the country the national debt was $16 billion. When he finished in 1983 it had actually increased to $160 billion. That is 10 times more.

Mulroney came in 1984 and started with a debt of $160 billion. When he finished in 1993 he left a debt of $489 billion.

When Jean Chrétien came in 1993, the debt started at $489 billion. When I came to Parliament in 1997 it had already ballooned to $620 billion. That is Jean Chrétien's debt. Who is going to account for that $620 billion in 1997?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-48, the NDP buy off budget, what I like to refer to as BOB. I actually thought that I should call it REG, ruining economic growth, but I could not find anything to tie it to so I will call it BOB.

The theme of my speech tonight is the Canadian dream. I believe Mr. Harry Bruce from the Halifax Herald summed it up the best. He stated:

Nothing has more clearly shown why [the Prime Minister] should not be a prime minister than his Faustian campaign to remain one.

His chief claim to virtue and ability in government had been fiscal restraint but, in a pathetic deal to save his prime ministerial skin, he recently betrayed the sensible budget of his own finance minister.

The budget's defeat in the Commons would have brought down his government, and to avoid that fate--apparently worse not only than death but in standing up for principles one had long claimed to believe in--[the Prime Minister] told the NDP leader that if the NDP would only support his budget, he'd add to it no less than $4.6 billion for assorted social programs that [the leader of the NDP] happened to like.

Thus it was that, overnight, [the finance minister's] budget became the NDP's budget.

Overnight, in one fell swoop, billions of taxpayers' dollars that were unavailable in the original federal budget are now miraculously available to be spent on programs that do not even exist yet.

I remember the Minister of Finance standing in the House several times and telling Canadians that there was simply no more money in his pot. There was no more money for anything and now, all of a sudden, there is $4.6 billion to buy, with BOB, 19 votes from the NDP. I find it, quite frankly, incredible that our government would run like this.

This blatantly demonstrates the Liberals' thirst for power and desperate actions that they are willing to take to hold on to power. The question is, why? From my surmise of this, it is either to continue to hide the actions of the past or to repeat those actions again.

It clearly shows a failure of any long term vision, an inconsistent vision for Canadians. I believe the Liberal government has had no future vision for Canadian families. BOB or Bill C-48 exemplifies the Liberal government's terrible record of managing Canadians' money. The Liberals' formula in this particular case is to tax more than 50% of our income and then to spend more money on their friends, bad programs and luxurious trips. This has absolutely no value for Canadians.

One day it is one budget, the next day it is BOB, and the next day it is yet another budget. Canadians must see this as vote buying and support it no more.

If this were a Canadian family business, it would be broke in months. It could not operate under the premise of not having a plan. As we have seen time after time, it will continue to operate because the Liberals can simply up taxes one more time. Canadians will pay because they have no choice but to pay.

Does the Liberal government not want Canadians from every region to enjoy economic growth and better opportunities for their children? Does the government not want every family in Canada to be able to go to bed at night knowing that their children will have a chance to live the Canadian dream, to get a post-secondary schooling, to find a good well-paying job, and to afford to have children? Why can people not buy a house? It is because they cannot afford it. They cannot save for their retirement because they are overtaxed. They do not even have a little money left over to send their kids to summer camp or to go on vacation.

One can only do those kinds of things if the government does not tax too much and leaves some money in people's pockets and that is just not happening. The government spends not only like a drunken sailor but a drunken sailor with only one last night on leave. That is exactly what the Liberals have done by striking this deal with the NDP to form BOB.

The Conservative Party of Canada believes in the Canadian dream. We believe in solid values, long term commitments to programs and solid fiscal management with a plan, something different than we have in front of us today. The Conservative Party believes that our goal should be to give Canadians the highest standard of living in the world so they can enjoy life.

As soon as we become government, we want to implement those dreams and values to help Canadians achieve the Canadian dream, to let Canadians spend their own money, not some billionaire who controls our finances but does not even let his own family company pay taxes in Canada. Is this the example of a Prime Minister that we hold high?

More specifically, Bill C-48, or BOB, deals with environmental initiatives, low income housing, post-secondary education and foreign aid, all four things that the Conservative Party has great platforms on. I note that my friends on the other side agree with me.

Let us be clear. With this Liberal-NDP BOB, there is no plan for where the money is going to be spent. There is no detail. In fact if we look at the Monopoly rules, we will see there is more detail in the Monopoly game rules than there is in this particular budget.

The Conservative Party of Canada has very long, specific commitments to these issues, which by the way were not hastily thrown together on a napkin overnight. We have taken into consideration financial things that may give a good example to the Liberal government.

For example, on the issue of the environment, the Conservative Party believes that in order to have a strong economy we have to have a balance between the environment and the economy. Let us start by cleaning up 30,000 sites that are all across Canada and which make Canadians sick every day, polluted sites that have been developed over the last 100 years of neglect.

The Conservative Party also believes that Canadians should have a reasonable opportunity to own their own homes, to have safe and affordable housing. For instance, my constituency in northern Alberta needs 5,000 more affordable homes. One would think I would jump at this chance, but how can I jump at a chance when there is no plan, when there is no detail, when there is no strategy, when it was thrown together on a napkin in an overnight meeting? I cannot support something like that. Anyone with proper fiscal management cannot support that either. There is no plan in BOB.

The Conservative party believes in greater accessibility to education as well by eliminating as many barriers as possible to post-secondary education. We believe in transferring money to the provincial governments so they can utilize that money for their benefit and their priorities on a pro-rated basis that would be fair.

We believe strongly in provincial jurisdiction, and that we must respect that provincial jurisdiction. The provinces should be able to spend that money how they see fit.

The Conservative Party is also committed to strengthening Canada's foreign aid. There is a difference between these four principles that have been put forward by the BOB consortium and the Conservative principles. We believe that we should have a plan for this, that we should have a clear mandate for development assistance, a clear mechanism for policy coherence, monitoring of the plan, accountability and reporting for the plan, specifically to Parliament. We believe that we should enhance public transparency.

None of those things are in the $4.6 billion backroom plan that was made by the Liberal government and the NDP. The Liberal government does none of that. With 400 words in this bill spending $4.6 billion, that is $11.5 million per word. That is a lot of money. It is surprising because most of the time the Liberal government has no lack of irrelevant rhetoric.

Most important, a Conservative government would reduce business taxes and personal taxes for lower income Canadians. This would create jobs that would lead toward the Canadian dream. Reducing taxes would encourage foreign and domestic businesses to invest in Canada and encourage spending, meaning more and better jobs for Canadians.

Lower business taxes mean greater returns for pension plan members and those who have RRSPs so they can actually retire some time in the future, those people who want to retire but cannot because of this drunken sailor spending attitude. There is no detail regarding programs that would be developed as a result of this. As such it cannot be supported. There is no long term vision, no safeguards and no plan.

The bottom line is that BOB clearly demonstrates that taxpayers' moneys will be wasted without a proper detailed plan. In no way would it result in anyone receiving the Canadian dream, which we should work toward. It is time for the Liberals to wake up and for this nightmare to end. Vote no to BOB, no to the buy-off budget of the NDP and the Liberals.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South, NL]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to say a few words in the debate tonight.

People watching think we are debating the budget, but that is not factual. The bill implementing the budget has already passed through the House and is in the Senate. Hopefully, it will receive royal assent shortly because it contains a lot of good things.

I would like to give the House a bit of history. When the government was elected last fall, it found itself in a minority position. It then brought in its budget, which was carefully doctored around the concerns of the opposition. All parties in the House can take credit for suggesting, pushing and ensuring sure certain items were included.

The Atlantic accord was a Conservative initiative, a Conservative commitment. It was included in the budget. We were the ones who pushed to get it in there. We had tax cuts, with which the government played around, that would stimulate the economy, create jobs, employ people, bring in more taxes and put money into social programs, all indirectly. We had included help for the homeless, an issue about which every party in the House talked. Generally it was a budget to satisfy everybody. It was not a Liberal budget. It was a parliamentary budget.

Consequently, the Liberal Party voted for the budget. The official opposition did not vote. If we had voted against it, we would have sent Canadians back to the polls. The NDP and the Bloc voted against the budget. Thanks to the official opposition, the government survived and things began to progress.

As things were progressing here, they were also progressing at the Gomery commission. We heard very heated and pointed testimony, pointing clearly to the involvement of the Liberal Party and high profile Liberals in the scandalous operations during the sponsorship time in Quebec. Unfortunately, the people of Quebec grew tired with a lot of the accusations. We have said many times that it was not a Quebec scandal; it was a Liberal scandal.

As a result of that, the government found itself in a very precarious position. People across the country were getting upset. Pressure was put on opposition parties to get rid of the government, to make changes. Liberals being Liberals, hanging on by their fingernails, tried to find ways to stay in power.

One of the members just asked if that was not what minority governments should do. He asked if we should form coalitions to try to beef up support to stay in power. My answer to that is yes. A government gains the support of other parties in the House, whether it be a four party system, as we have here, or a 25 party system as we see in other places, by being responsible, by providing good government and by being the type of government that opposition parties, especially fringe parties, can feel proud to support and keep in power. Is that what happened here? Not at all.

In trying to find ways to hang on to power, the Prime Minister knew he could not get support from the chief opposition party. He knew he could not get support from the Bloc after what the Liberals had done to the province of Quebec. His only choice was to try to buy out the NDP. Therefore, there was a hurried meeting in a hotel room.

Let me tell the House how hurried it was. The topics that were mentioned were the environment, public transit, energy efficient refits of low income housing, training programs, access to post-secondary education, including aboriginals, affordable housing, including aboriginals, and foreign aid.

It seems that there must have been a rapidly called meeting and the leader of the NDP must have rushed there not knowing what it was about. When the Prime Minister said that he wanted to make a deal with him, he must have had a copy of the budget. Trying to come up with a quick answer to satisfy the Prime Minister, he rattled off these topics because these very items are well spelled out in Bill C-43, the budget.

It talks about the implementation of a tax exemption for employer provided transit benefits, investment in communities, sharing gas tax revenues for sustainable infrastructure, and the amount of $5 billion over five years for public transit et cetera. In large urban areas investments would target one or two of the following priorities including public transit.

Then we go to renewable energy and we talk about capital cost allowances for investment in efficient and renewable energy generation.

When we look at the post-secondary scholarships for aboriginal Canadians, there is a $12 million endowment, $10 million more for a post-secondary education program administered by the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. Then we talk about affordable housing with $340 million over the next five years for first nations housing on reserves.

On foreign policy, there is $500 million over five years, and I could go on, but these are items that are in the budget, Bill C-43.

If these items were there with a plan to spend x number of dollars over x number of years, why would the leader of the NDP say that we needed to put money into these five or six areas? They are already there. He says and the NDP will say that it is to up the ante; it is to sweeten the pot.

If we look at Bill C-48, we will find that this extra upping the ante only kicks in if there is a $2 billion surplus which the government will not know until August 2006.

Justice Gomery is supposed to report in November with a final report in December. The Prime Minister said that he would call an election within 30 days of Gomery reporting. Therefore, somewhere between now and August 2006 we are undoubtedly going to have an election which means that the promises to the NDP mean absolutely nothing. Am I the only one saying that? No, not at all. Let me read what the NDP member for Winnipeg Centre said:

It is my personal belief that the Liberal Party of Canada is institutionally psychopathic. Its members do not know the difference between right and wrong and I condemn them from the highest rooftops. But before the last Liberal is led away in handcuffs, we want to extract some benefit from this Parliament and that means getting some of the money delivered to our ridings before this government collapses.

That is what he thinks about the party opposite. Perhaps I should read what the member for Vancouver East said. She said, when asked if she believed the Liberals were going to deliver, “Who does one trust? How do we trust someone? We are adults. There is no perfection in those guarantees for sure”. The NDP members do not even think they are going to get the money. They just said that they made a point. They did make a good point and I congratulate them for it.

However, the whole thing is a sham and we are here debating a bill which is nothing but a sham. This bill will deliver nothing to anyone in the country. The main components are already in Bill C-43 which has passed.

How can the members stand and ask the people of the country to support this ill-conceived bill, completely outside the budgetary process, listing items that are already in the main budget, and with no intention of delivering the promise? It is just a matter of sucking in the NDP, like the Liberals tried to do with the people of Canada.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think what the member asked for is called the wondrous cross. Very briefly, the member used a line that many of his colleagues have used tonight about making a deal with the NDP simply to maintain control of the government.

We remember what happened to Joe Clark in 1979, the last minority government. He indicated that he would govern a minority government as if he had a majority. We know exactly what happened. He lost the vote and lost his government.

Does the member not think it is important that in a minority scenario all parties have to seek ways in which a minority government can work? More specific, since the Conservative Party voted in favour of Bill C-43, the principle budget implementation bill, why would it vote against Bill C-48, defeat the government and, therefore, throw out Bill C-43 and go into an election that Canadians do not want? What is the explanation?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James, MB]

Mr. Speaker, Canada, should be one of the best nations in the world. We should have more higher paying jobs and a much higher standard of living, but Ottawa, the federal government, taxes too much and spends too much.

Since 1999-2000, program spending has gone from $109.6 billion to $158.1 billion, an increase of 44.3%, a compound annual growth of 7.6%, when the economy itself managed to grow by only 31.6%, a compound annual growth rate of 5.6%. Clearly the Liberals are spending more as a percentage of the economy than the economy is growing. It is very clear that this government is wasting a vast amount of money.

Let us look at some examples. The Liberals confuse spending money with getting results. Let us look at the health care situation. Wait times have increased, and doubled as a matter of fact, since the Liberals have taken office, and the quality of service has diminished.

The recent Supreme Court ruling on wait times is an indictment of Liberal neglect and mismanagement of our health care system. The Liberal solution is to throw more money at it, but that is not actually a solution and it is not a plan.

Let us look at another disaster that occurred under the Liberal government. This is the mere fact that there was a referendum in Quebec and that Quebec almost voted to separate. The Liberals again responded by throwing money at the problem, again without a real plan. The result was the sponsorship scandal, a $250 million waste of money, with $100 million apparently illegally funnelled to Liberal friends and the Liberal Party. Even worse, this has reinvigorated Quebec separatism.

The Liberals threw money into a firearms registry as way of dealing with the criminal misuse of firearms but offered no explanation of how this would prevent criminals from getting guns. The registry was said to cost $2 million but in reality it is costing approximately $2 billion.

We have seen the instances at Davis Inlet, where we have had a great tragedy with the youth of that area. The community was moved to housing a few miles away at a cost of $400,000 per person, but the problems went with these poor children. It was another case of no plans and poor results.

The Conservative Party is committed to fiscal responsibility. One dollar wisely spent by the Conservatives is better than $5 haphazardly thrown at problems by the Liberals.

Between 2003-04 and 2004-05, the Liberals could not help themselves. Program spending skyrocketed by 11.9%. Per capita program spending by the federal government has reached its highest point in over a decade and it is scheduled to go even higher in the future.

In 1996-97 real federal program spending per capita was $3,466. It will have risen to $4,255 in 2005-06. That is an increase of about $800 per capita in volume terms, or $3,200 for a family of four. Current Liberal-NDP spending plans will take it to $4,644 by 2009-10. That is an increase of almost $1,200 per person. The Liberals do not seem to understand that more government spending does not necessarily mean better results.

While government spending went up, Statistics Canada says that Canadian families saw their after tax income stall in 2002 and fall in 2003.

The Conservative Party has consistently opposed the Liberal approach of spending without an adequate plan, which is reflected in Bill C-48. The Liberal approach is cruel not only to taxpayers but, more important, to those who depend on the promised services.

The Auditor General has raised serious concerns about the ability of certain departments to deliver programs effectively, departments to which the Liberals want to give more money in Bill C-48.

The Conservative Party wants to make sure that the social needs of Canadians are met and recognizes that many Canadians are not receiving the level of assistance they deserve from the federal government. This is a direct result of the Liberal government's approach to problem solving: throwing money at problems without an adequate plan.

It would be irresponsible and cruel to Canadians in need to throw more money at programs that are not meeting their objectives. The responsible approach is for the government to first ensure that existing money is spent effectively to improve programs and services and to ensure that no one is left behind.

At committee--and this is important because it shows how arrogant the government is--the Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition rejected Conservative efforts to restore prudent fiscal management, to include real solutions for Canadians, such as matrimonial property rights for aboriginal women, and to ensure accountability and transparency.

At report stage, the Conservative Party tried once again to move amendments to make the spending in Bill C-48 more accountable to Canadians and to reflect a more prudent fiscal approach.

The Conservative amendment to clause 1 would raise the amount of surplus that would be set aside to pay down debt. The interest saved as a result of additional debt paydown is needed to prevent social cuts in programs as a result of the impending demographic crunch.

The Conservative amendment to clause 2 would force the government to table a plan by the end of each year outlining how it intends to spend the money in this bill. Spending without a plan is a recipe for waste and mismanagement. Again, not only is it cruel to taxpayers, but we have to remember that it is cruel to the people who are promised these services.

The Conservative amendment to clause 3 would ensure that important accountability and transparency mechanisms would be in place for corporations wholly owned by the federal government. Accountability and transparency should be paramount to any government, especially in these cases, considering that Bill C-48 advocates spending an additional $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money. It is important that a plan is under way.

The Conservative Party will always uphold the principles of transparency and accountability in regard to the allocation of the public purse.

I would also like to talk about the process involved in this budget. We had a minority government that was in trouble, ditched all its principles, those that were left at least, and signed a deal with the NDP, which is notorious for poor social planning and outrageous social spending, putting whatever government happened to be in charge, whether it was in Ontario or B.C. or Manitoba, hopelessly in debt. The Liberals did this just to hang onto power. They did not have the guts to go to the people, because they knew the people would give them the boot.

There are many examples where moneys could have been better used, such as, for example, compensation for people who received hepatitis C from tainted blood. The Liberal government still refuses to compensate those people for that. Or it could be used for investing in the strategy for cancer control in Canada, for which the Conservative Party motion passed just a few days ago.

The bottom line is that the Liberal Party cannot be trusted to spend any of the public purse. It has been proven unable to manage. The Liberals have mismanaged, they are corrupt and it is time for change. Only when there is a Conservative government will accountability be brought back to Canada.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must say at the outset that it really cannot be easy for the member or the party opposite to look in the face of 10 years of an outstanding economic record in the country. It is very difficult to overcome. It is very difficult to look forward.

We have a situation whereby the government, having been duly elected in minority form, has the wisdom and the shoulders big enough to negotiate and mediate a deal with the New Democratic Party of Canada to come up with the second part of a budget, Bill C-48, which builds deeply and widely on the priorities in the first budget, a budget which, I need remind no one in the House, that party at first said was a wonderful piece of work and a wonderful illustration of Canadians' priorities. It cannot be easy for those members and I sympathize, but I do not sympathize that deeply.

However, the question for the hon. member is clearly this. It is a simple one. This government has worked very hard over the last decade, with the help of Canadians, who pulled in their belts and committed to eliminating deficits. We now have a situation where we can luxuriate in planning with an anticipated surplus. Would the member prefer to see a time, as in years past, when governments were hamstrung and shackled, one arm behind them, without any kind of flexibility in terms of moving forward? Is that where the Conservative Party wants to take us?

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the comments from the other side have already started but that is okay because I think it is all in good spirit.

This debate reminds me of a statement made by P.J. O'Rourke, the famous civil libertarian from the U.S, who said, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whisky and car keys to teenage boys”. If we ever had a better example of what that means, Bill C-48, the very bill we are discussing right now, exemplifies exactly that.

We have a desperate government prepared to cut any deal with anybody. In this case, the anybody turned out to be a complicit NDP combined with a desperate Prime Minister, combined with a complicit finance minister in a minority Parliament where common sense and financial prudence have been thrown out the window.

One does not have to be a lawyer to read Bill C-48. I know my colleague from Yukon on the government side was complaining about one of the earlier speakers, actually my seatmate from Provencher, saying that he was not speaking to the substance of the bill. There is no substance to the bill but I will speak to what is in the bill just so people will get an appreciation of how their hard earned $4.5 billion have been subject to the whims of the government.

The bill states very simply on two pages how the Liberals will do it. It states:

...the Minister of Finance may, in respect of the fiscal year 2005-2006, make payments out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund up to the amount...be the annual surplus as provided in the Public Accounts for that year....

The payments...shall not exceed in the aggregate $4.5 billion.

The payments...shall be allocated as follows:

(a) for the environment...an amount not exceeding $900 million....

What this has done on that subject is that the NDP, which has had this stated commitment to renewable energy promotion, has bought into the Liberal version of the environment. There is no reference at all to the promotion of renewable energy. It has bought into the Liberal non-plan, the non-plan for Kyoto compliance. It has bought into the buying of foreign carbon credits from Russia, China, India or any other developing country rather than a cap and trade system within Canada that would actually invest in new technology in Canada and create Canadian jobs. Instead, we are talking about sending our money overseas.

The second area in the bill reads:

(b) for supporting training programs...an amount not exceeding $1.5 billion....

Did we not, long ago, have an EI fund that was set up to do training as part of its program? Does that very fund not have a $46 billion surplus? Does that fund, still to this day, not suffer from the fact that it is continuing to accumulate surpluses? It is continuing to take money from employers and employees and it is leading us into a place where those very people are subsidizing general revenues for the government. This does nothing to address that.

We see an amount not exceeding $1.6 billion for affordable housing. We know that when money is thrown at a problem with no plan we get non-delivery. This government is famous for that.

The final item is for foreign aid, an amount not exceeding $500 million. We know that is another area where we can see very clearly that without a plan we have a problem.

The Auditor General has identified two areas of major concern where money goes in and programs are not delivered in the way that was predicted: CIDA and our foreign aid; and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Those are two areas that this $4.5 billion addition to our budget is focusing on.

This is not an answer. That is the essence of the bill and the sum total of the substance of the language.

Why would the government agree to such a document created by the Prime Minister, Buzz Hargrove and the leader of the NDP in a hotel room in a meeting at taxpayer expense? This is unprecedented in Canadian history and probably unprecedented in a western democracy. This is something that is absolutely incredible. Of course, the government can justify anything after the fact. The worst thing about the Liberals is that the easiest way to criticize their actions is to restate their earlier words against them.

However the problem is that most often this is not newsworthy and second, the Liberals have no shame whatsoever. Any finance minister who was the architect, steward and defender of the budget would have resigned when his budget document was shredded by a $4.5 billion addendum or alternative budget that was presented to him as a fait accompli to buy the support of the NDP in order to prop up the government for the next few months.

How did this unprecedented action occur? We know. A meeting was held between the Prime Minister, Buzz Hargrove and the leader of the NDP in a Toronto hotel room and they fashioned a deal. How sweet it is and what an irresponsible act and slap in the face to taxpayers. Can anyone imagine $4.5 billion of taxpayer money to keep a minority Liberal administration in power for the short term?

Does the NDP budget meet the smell test? It contains no money for worker rights, no money for softwood dispute support, no reallocation of firearm registration spending, no money for rural Canada or for the resource sector in any way, shape or form. It contains no money for salmon enhancement funding shortfalls, fisheries enforcement or the Coast Guard.

The government after the fact is defending the $4.5 billion deal on the basis that it will not create a deficit. If there were ever more clear evidence that the federal authority was delivering little and collecting lots, then here it is. This is prima facie evidence of the fiscal imbalance.

What about paying down the debt and reducing taxes? Canada should be the most prosperous country on earth for its citizens. Instead, we have the government frittering it away and measuring its progress by whether or not it is running a deficit.

The reality is that the federal government collects two-thirds of taxation and the provincial and municipal governments supply two-thirds of services. The federal government lacks fiscal discipline and it is costing each and every Canadian taxpayer. Taxpayers are being fleeced to save the government in its pursuit of power. I hope taxpayers see it for what it is. It is naked, self-serving and it is a grab for the continued existence of the government.

[Rob Anders, Conservative, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I remember door knocking during the 2000 election campaign and one of my constituents said something very wise to me. He said, “You know, you get what you tolerate”.

Let us talk about balance. On that side I see excessive spending. I see a withering away of the military, a morale decay, a corruption that is setting in and a tolerance for crime. What we should be looking for on the other side of the scales for that balance is: frugality; a strong military; a government exercising real moral authority rather than jiggery-pokery and smoke screens; a lowering of taxes; personal responsibility; a commander in chief , a Prime Minister who is personally going to take command of some of these issues; a maintenance and preservation of order by going after the criminals and protecting the victims; and the protection of the sanctity of marriage in honouring our traditions. That is the balance that this country needs.

I would ask my colleagues across the way to think about this. Where is the balance when it sends tens of millions of dollars to a government like China that has repressed Falun Gong practitioners, that has engaged in gunboat diplomacy against Taiwan, that has used forced abortions with regard to its population control policies and that is committing genocide in Tibet?

How is it that the government justifies taking hard-earned Canadian tax dollars and giving it to a regime with the worst human rights record on the face of the earth? How is it that the government is able to support a Prime Minister who builds his ships overseas, tries to avoid Canadian taxes, flies foreign flags and has his ships built by the people's liberation army and navy in China? There is nothing morally upright about those two things.

I will address my NDP colleagues in the House for a second because I know they will have a kindred spirit on this. The government takes about $11 billion a year out of honest, decent people's pockets to go ahead and put into corporate welfare where they rob from Peter to pay Paul. It is wrong. There is nothing morally right about that.

I remember representing a company in the Goulds which is close to the St. John's area. It was sad when we found out that the company went bankrupt twice but the government propped it up continually and actually put the law-abiding tax paying company out of business. That is not right and that is exactly what has to come to an end. It is the reason that I do not support Bill C-48 and it is the reason that the government needs to fall.

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, it may be because it is late at night, but this is one of the rare times that I have heard references made to people such Marcus Aurelius, Hobbes and de Tocqueville and I would like to congratulate the hon. member for referring to these people. However it seems to me that when the member brought these historical figures forward and seemed to suggest that all the problems he was talking about were problems of today's world in Canada, did he realize that those great people of the past were talking about a balance in their civic life?

Everyone of us in the House are anxious to develop democracy. We all want, as he suggested, some sort of balance. Why does the hon. member not recognize that everybody in the House has a knowledge of history? Everybody understands that the history of Canada is all about bringing the strains of everything that he talked about together and that we wish to make this country work together. Why does his party not try to come together in the dying hours of this Parliament, at this time, to make this House work for the benefit of Canada and get our budget through in a compromise in a sense of what Canada is all about, not what the collapse of the Roman Empire was all about but what Canada is all about in making compromise and being tolerant and respectful of one another's work so we could get Bill C-48 and Bill C-38 through and move on so that next fall we can come back together here and achieve what the Canadian people want us to achieve?

[Rob Anders, Conservative, Calgary West, AB]

I am glad to hear the Liberals across the way are perking up their ears.

I have been reading a lot about ancient history recently. History does not really care about whether one is right or left. It does not really care about whether one is capitalist or Marxist. It really only cares about whether or not there is success or productivity and whether or not something has survived and thrived. That is all it really cares about.

I have been reading Edward Gibbon's The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire . I have been reading Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History and Will and Ariel Durant's The Story of Civilization . I would like to tell a story about Rome.

Edward Gibbon talks about the time before Augustus and Octavius. In that capacity one of the things that afflicted Rome was excessive spending. It did not have sound finances. The society was no longer frugal. It also suffered from its young men being unwilling to bear arms to be trained in the art of war and to defend the Roman empire. It also suffered from a large degree of extortion, moral decay, corruption and a general disregard for religion. Therefore, it also had a low birth rate.

Augustus came along and he said that he was going to change some of those things. One of the things he did was he cut taxes. For every single child that a person had, the person's taxes would be reduced by 20%. Someone who had five children would pay no tax at all. He also made sure the Romans had sound financing and frugality. He made sure they had a strong military.

Another thing he did is very important, and it touches not only on this bill but also many others that we will be dealing with in the next little while and some we have been dealing with over the past while. He governed with moral authority. He sought a society with strong faith. He removed those people who were unworthy administrators.

This is what I want to focus on in light of Bill C-48 and some of the other bills we are going to be dealing with. If we do not have a society that largely believes in a very concrete set of right and wrong, most often provided by religion, then the only thing that actually rules is the covenant of the sword. The only people who police the difference between right and wrong in that capacity are either the military or whatever police function there is in that state.

The great problem that arises with that is that the police and the military are largely a reflection of the society they serve. If we get to a circumstance where the society is becoming more and more accepting of moral decay, extortion, corruption and various things, then we cannot be surprised if the military, the police and the people who are there to administer the law themselves become corrupt and caught up in it. Then it is merely as Hobbes would have said that life is nasty, brutish and short because one is ruled by those people who have the right of might and the sword. It is the survival of the fittest in the most base way.

De Tocqueville also talks about this in his writings on early America. Sadly, one of the things that pains me across the way, one of the things that Augustus would have never stood for as a Roman emperor, is if there had been corruption on the level and scale that we have had brought forth by the Gomery inquiry, he would have done his utmost to rout it out. Because of the moral authority that he brought to that position, his rule of 50 years was extended by another 300 because people tried to largely leave unchanged many of the things he put in place. Had he not been around, the Roman empire would have been a blip of only 150 years rather than the pax Romana of 800.

One of my great frustrations when I look across the way is that I see a Prime Minister and to a large part a party that is complicit with regard to this form of extortion and corruption, this scandal, whether it is involving the sponsorship money or if it is the unity fund or various things, and it portends very badly for the future of this country and where we are all going.

Let us talk about some of the solutions then--

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House tonight to address concerns with Bill C-48. I refuse to call this bill the budget because it hardly reflects the intent of the original budget presented in the House.

The original budget bill had some key elements that were extremely important to improving the lives of Canadians, as well as strengthening our economy. Some of the critical elements that were fundamental in the original budget were cast aside in favour of what is being debated this evening.

Bill C-48 is not about improving the quality of lives for Canadians, giving our children a brighter future, or helping the environment. It is definitely not about giving our seniors what they were promised and worked so hard for. This bill is nothing more than a deal to keep the Prime Minister and his party in power for a little while longer. This is a deal to buy votes. In buying the votes of the NDP, the Liberal government has ignored the democratic responsibility to Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

It is interesting to note that while the Liberal government has no moral dilemma in buying votes, the NDP also has no moral problem in being bought at the expense of Canadians. I find it interesting that the NDP has continually criticized the government on the democratic deficit and yet it is the one propping up the corrupt Liberal government.

In recent months the Prime Minister has stood before Canadians announcing deal after deal. These are not deals that will improve the lives of Canadians. It will only improve the life of the Liberal government. It is simply a deal with the devil. The Prime Minister used taxpayers' dollars to buy NDP votes and continues to use Canadians' hard earned money to maintain the little power he still has. If the so-called measures in Bill C-48 were truly in the best interests of Canadians, why were they not in the original budget?

The Prime Minister's recent spending spree, including spending involved in this bill, is not in the best interests of Canadians. When will the Prime Minister learn that governing is not about clinging to power? It is about giving Canadians the highest standard of living possible. The Liberal government is not interested in letting hardworking Canadians enjoy the fruits of their labour. The Liberals are interested in and have been successful at filling the pockets of their friends. Why will the Prime Minister not let Canadians hold on to more of their hard earned money?

I would like to take this opportunity to speak about an elderly couple living in my constituency, Kate and Bill Alsopp. They are fighting to maintain a decent standard of living. Kate and Bill have worked hard all of their lives to provide for themselves and their families. They supported their children when they were dependent upon them and worked hard so that they could enjoy their golden years.

The government of this country made a promise to Kate and Bill and other Canadians just like them. It promised all hardworking Canadians that their tax dollars would be there when they needed them most. The government promised programs that would allow seniors to maintain a high standard of living, yet the government has continually broken its promise. To Bill and Kate these promises mean very little any more. Let me provide one specific example of how the government has let Bill and Kate down.

Bill will wait for one full year before he receives the hip replacement surgery he needs. While the Liberal government has recklessly spent his and Canadians' tax dollars, Bill continues to wait for the surgery that he deserved a long time ago. When Bill needed it most, the government failed him.

The Liberals have not only failed seniors but our parents, children, veterans, low and middle income families, new Canadians, businesses, the military and many others. The worst of it all is that it is not only ignoring the voices of Canadians but ruining the finances of this country.

The proposed blank cheque budget, better known as Bill C-48, will not improve the lives of Canadians like Bill and Kate because it has no definite plan. In my past career as a small business owner, one of the greatest lessons I learned is that without a coherent and well thought out plan, a business is doomed to fail. With such failure, those who depend on the business will be left with nothing.

In Canada half of all small businesses fail within three years of start-up. The predominant reason for that failure is that they have no plan. The Liberal government refuses to understand the simple principle. When the Liberal government proposed the spending of billions of taxpayers' dollars without a plan, it is not the only one paying for these great mistakes. It will be hardworking Canadians who will be victimized by this reckless budget.

There is absolutely no logical reason why Canadians should be victims of their own government. Bill C-48 is truly an injustice to all hardworking Canadians. Canadians must be assured that every single tax dollar collected is directed in an open and transparent manner and with a sound plan behind it.

The Liberals have made it clear with this bill that they are not working in the best interests of Canadians. They have made it explicitly clear that they will take whatever measures necessary to preserve their government. When will the Liberals learn that government is not about trying to create legacy? It is about democracy and honouring promises.

All parties in the House claim to have the same objective which is to improve the lives of Canadians. The question is, which party has a plan that will actually accomplish this objective? The Liberal government has clearly shown that it is not interested in a plan. Liberals are more interested in patting themselves on the back for spending more and more money. It is for this reason that I question the Liberals' sincerity of achieving the goal of improving the lives of Canadians.

It is time for the Liberals to realize Canadians want a government that will plan for the future and not just spend for today. The Conservative Party of Canada understands the goal of all Canadians and knows what they want. The goal is simple. It is what all hon. members have been entrusted to do when they are elected to represent the great people of Canada. It is to better the lives of Canadians.

It seems like a simple goal which makes me wonder how it could be forgotten by the Liberal-NDP coalition. The Conservative Party has a plan that is built around the fundamental principle of putting more tax dollars back in the pockets of Canadians where they belong. We will put Canadians and their needs first and foremost. We will ensure that every tax dollar spent will be spent in a wise and prudent fashion and we will provide Canadians with an accountable government they can be proud of.

We will continue to hold the Liberal government to account for its mismanagement and reckless spending. The Liberal government has stood before Canadians claiming to have solved issues such as the fiscal imbalance, lack of infrastructure for cities and the health care crisis. These announcements are only spending announcements. They are empty promises. Where can we find the plan that goes along with the billions and billions of dollars promised to fix the largest problems facing our country today?

I have yet to see these plans and Canadians continue to wait to see how the Liberal government will use their money to improve their lives. Canadians continue to pay some of the highest taxes among G-8 nations while their take home pay continues to decrease. The Liberal government is stripping more dollars out of the pockets of individuals and giving them less in return. The promises made to individual Canadians are not the only promises being broken. Promises are also being broken to the business community.

In the original budget the Liberal government promised to cut taxes for businesses. This tax cut was supposed to give businesses the opportunity to grow and thrive in a global marketplace. Canadian businesses have been at a competitive disadvantage for years because of overtaxation.

The excise tax, for example, on exported Canadian wine is but one of many examples of how the government has constrained the growth of our economy. The Prime Minister and his government expected Canadian wineries to pay tax on wine being exported to other countries while they allow international wines to be imported at a much lower rate. How is the industry expected to grow when small wineries cannot afford to pay this archaic policy?

Canada has been recognized in recent years as having some of the best wines anywhere in the world, yet the Prime Minister through unfair taxation is not allowing Canadian wineries to be competitive on the world market. Is it not the duty of the government to act in the best interest of our businesses? Why is the government then taking the obvious measures necessary to promote a healthy economy?

The original business tax cuts would have stimulated the economy, created new jobs and provided more incentives for businesses to remain in Canada, but the Prime Minister decided it was more important to spend money to make his party look good in the public eye. The wine industry as well as others will remain in the shackles placed on them so that the Liberals and their NDP cohorts can continue to run amok with the finances of this country.

The original budget was obviously flawed and lacked a coherent implementation plan, but it did address issues that are important to Canadians. The Prime Minister has manipulated the original budget so much that it no longer adequately addresses the needs of Canadians. Even worse, the billions and billions of dollars he has committed since the original budget bill was tabled have absolutely no implementation plan.

We cannot allow the Prime Minister to play politics with taxpayers' money. We have seen hundreds of millions of dollars go to waste and stolen under the leadership of the Liberals through ad scam and other scandals. Millions more will go to waste if we do not see an implementation plan for the $4.6 billion promised in this bill.

It is for this reason and this reason only that I cannot and will not support this Liberal-NDP coalition deal.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is talking about how the NDP sold its soul. What does my colleague have to say about the Conservatives who voted for Bill C-43? Where does he see a plan in Bill C-43? He is saying that Bill C-48 does not have a plan. Where does my Conservative colleague see a plan in Bill C-43?

The leader of the Conservatives walked out of the House before the Minister of Finance even finished his speech and said that there was no way that he could not vote for this budget because it was something that he could agree with.

I do not see a plan in Bill C-48. I would like my colleague from the Conservative Party to tell us if they were blind when they agreed with Bill C-43.

The Conservatives talked about the NDP voting with a corrupt government. Where were the Conservatives on Bill C-43? Could my colleague explain? I have a hard time to understand when they say that Bill C-48 is the worst budget that they have ever seen, but Bill C-43 is all right because we are giving money to the big corporations, but not for affordable housing, not for students who are in debt, not one extra cent to the municipalities. The Conservatives said that the municipalities were left behind. I would like to hear my colleague's comments on why they voted for Bill C-43 with no plan.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, many of the things the member said in his speech I have heard in every other Conservative speech so far, a lot of platitudes.

He did ask one interesting question about why the deal, why the spending. It is not because someone wants to hang onto power. The member has forgotten that Canada has not been in a minority government since Joe Clark in 1979. This is 25 years later. Everybody can remember what happened to Joe Clark. If a party governs a minority government as if it had a majority, what happens? It loses the next election. It loses the budget and it loses the election. Governing is about working with what we have. In a minority situation, it was important to collaborate and work with other parties, and that is part of it.

I can see by the animation here when opposition members hear the truth, they just cannot take it.

On Bill C-48, the member asked the rhetorical question. He asked where the plan was. If he would read beyond the first couple of clauses, he would see it recognizes that certain of these items are provincial jurisdiction and that arrangements and authorizations have to be made. The bill asks for those.

What part of Bill C-48 does he personally disagree with? Is he against providing assistance for retrofits for low cost housing? Is he against post-secondary education assistance for students? Is he against affordable housing? Is he against foreign aid for countries like Darfur? If he is against Bill C-48, which one of those is he against?

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Grey—Bruce—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House tonight to speak to Bill C-48. Bill C-48 is also known as the desperation bill that was struck with the NDP. It is also known as the power budget. It was brought about by a Prime Minister in such a dither to stay in power that he made a desperate attempt to do so and in doing so decided to go fishing. Off he went fishing on the socialist river. He landed a catch of 19. I have been on a few hunting and fishing trips, but I never had a trip that cost me $240 million a fish.

This trip is paid by the Canadian taxpayer. Not only did each one of these fish the Prime Minister landed cost more than $242 million each, the government also went and cancelled a big part of the original budget that would have created hundreds of thousands of jobs in Canada, thus doubling the financial blow to Canadians.

The budget is also filled with unplanned spending and it is an approach that is a recipe for waste and mismanagement. It is $4.6 billion that will be in the control of 30-odd Sheriffs of Nottingham who surely will be looting all Canadians, but definitely these merry spenders will not be giving it to the poor.

The budget is a joke to Canadians, to those in my riding of Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, who depend on the promised services that might never come to fruition and to the many farmers who have been devastated by BSE who will not receive anything from this desperate power budget. There is not one red cent in additional funding for agriculture in this $4.6 billion. Shame.

A responsible approach to this or any budget would be for the government to first ensure that existing money is spent effectively to improve programs and services to ensure that nobody is left behind.

Liberals have a lot of experience in spending without a plan and we have seen the ridiculous results. Take, for example, the gun registry that has been mentioned here before, but it has to be mentioned again. It was supposed to cost $2 million and it has ballooned to almost $2 billion without saving any lives. In fact, last week the government voted to dump millions more into it instead of scrapping it when it had the chance, or at the very least fixing the flaws in the program. Even some members from across the House who said they did not approve of it sat on their hands and let it happen.

In 1997 real federal program spending per capita was $3,466. In 2005-06 it will have risen to $4,255. That is an increase of $800 per capita in volume terms or $3,200 for a family of four. Current Liberal-NDP spending plans will take it to $4,644 by 2009-10. That is a projected increase of almost $1,200 per person. However, increases in real government spending do not necessarily equate to solving the problems or even getting better results.

The Conservative Party of Canada believes that our goal should be to give Canadians the highest standard of living in the world. That should be the goal of any government. Our goal is that every Canadian who wants a job should be able to get a job. With this part of the budget that has been taken out, job creation is defeated.

Our goal is that every region of the country will enjoy economic growth and new opportunities for the people of all regions. Our goal is to make Canada the economic envy of the world, and we can do it. We want every mom and dad in Canada to be able to go to bed at night knowing that their children have the chance to live the Canadian dream. We want them to be able to get post-secondary schooling and to find good, well paying jobs, and that goes back to that job creation, so they can afford to start a family, buy a house, save for their retirement and ensure that they can have a bit left over for summer camps and a vacation. Maybe they will want to start a business. One can only do that if the government does not tax too much and spend too much. The government eliminated the only benefit in the original budget to business when it crawled through the window and into the bed of the NDP. Lust, just a pure lust for power.

According to Statistics Canada, while government spending went up, Canadian families saw their after tax income stall in 2002 and fall in 2003. A dollar left in the hands of a homemaker or an entrepreneur is much more beneficial than a dollar left in the hands of a bureaucrat or politician.

The Conservative Party has tried to move amendments to make the spending in Bill C-48 more accountable to Canadians and to reflect a more prudent fiscal approach.

The Conservative amendment to clause 1 would raise the amount of surplus that would be set aside for debt paydown. The interest saved as a result of additional federal debt paydown is needed to prevent cuts to social programs as a result of the pending demographic crunch.

The Conservative amendment to clause 2 would force the government to table a plan by the end of each year, outlining how it intended to spend the money in this bill. Spending without a plan is a recipe for waste and mismanagement. It is cruel not only to taxpayers but, more important, to those who depend on promised services.

The Conservative amendment to clause 3 would ensure that important accountability and transparency mechanisms would be in place for corporations wholly owned by the federal government. Accountability and transparency should be paramount to any government, especially in this case, after what we have seen happen in recent years.

However, the Liberals only agreed to this bill to save their political skin, a deal that they cut to win the support of the NDP. It is shameful that they are willing to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to fund an addiction for power.

If all this spending was such a wonderful idea, I would like to know why it was not included in the February budget. In the end, the Liberals spent $4.6 billion to buy 19 votes

However, now, we have to look at the other side and why the NDP members sold their souls for $242 million each. It is not about the $4.6 billion or the budget at all. It is all about their will to get a bill passed, Bill C-38, a bill that two-thirds of Canadians do not want to see and a large number from across the House. It is a bill that should not even be on the books. Hundreds of my constituents tell me that. This is another example of the lack of direction and ideas from the government.

The Conservative Party is the official opposition. The job of any good opposition party is to call the government on anything not good for Canadians. Bill C-48 is not good for Canadians. Dithering and desperation together can be thrown into a hat, but when we pull them out, they do not spell delicious . I do not like the taste of this Let's Make a Deal budget. I will be voting against Bill C-48. We will continue to hold the government to account where spending is unfocused and wasteful on behalf of Canadians.