Thank you.
It's good to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.
KAIROS is a national ecumenical social justice organization engaging in education and advocacy for social justice in Canada on behalf of its member churches, which include Anglican, Catholic, Christian Reform, Lutheran, Mennonite, Presbyterian, Quaker, and the United Church. Their membership numbers in the millions of Canadians.
Budget-making is a core function of government. You know your budget will affect the attitudes and the behaviours of Canadians, and it will shape the Canada we have. I'm glad you're getting input, and I hope you're listening for two kinds of input. I hope you're listening for input about the values and objectives that should inform the budget, and I trust you're also looking for input about concrete measures that will achieve those objectives.
When I saw the press release you issued in June, I was a little concerned because the four questions you posed all related to measures and means. You proposed some objectives, but you didn't explicitly ask Canadians for input about what the objectives for the budget could or should be. So that's what I want to take a couple of minutes to emphasize, and that's what I emphasize in my brief. The onus is really on you to try to identify some shared values and shared principles you can agree on. Your parties disagree on lots of things, but looking at your party documents, I think you also share some common values, and I think Canadians share some common values as well.
The five values our church membership believes in, which are reflected in the Canadian public and also reflected in your party documents, I outline in my brief. They are: prosperity, which you emphasize, but I think there are some other values as well; opportunity; compassion; fairness; stewardship or sustainability; and citizen engagement. In our brief we give one or two policy measures or budget measures we think could advance these values.
We call for a poverty reduction strategy to ensure there's prosperity for all Canadians. We call for a working tax income benefit, something both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party have called for, so that every Canadian who works has the opportunity to make a decent living.
We call for the continuation of the supporting communities partnership initiative for homeless people and an increase in overseas development assistance, and that's to build a compassionate Canada.
We call for strong reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, as per the Kyoto Protocol, and that's so we can build a sustainable Canada that's addressing the major environmental issue of our time.
Finally, we call for you to think about how you interact with citizens during this process, because you have a great opportunity to create spaces for citizens of different backgrounds and different views to come together around common values. I'm not sure you're making full use of that yet. There are ways to democratize the budget-making process. That's part of engaging citizens.
To conclude, you've got a big task ahead of you. My plea is that you take the time to try to identify your shared values and that you set some specific objectives in the budget that link to the core values you can agree on and Canadians agree on, and then you can talk about the measures you need to achieve those objectives.
If you do go to values, there's an opportunity in the 2007 budget to develop a visionary document, a document that unifies us rather than divides us, and that captures the best of Canadians and Canada.
Thanks.