Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to thank the minister for proposing this debate in the House. We may not agree with the content or with the minister's announcement, but this debate will at least launch a much-needed discussion of the government's intentions and of exactly where the government is going, considering the real interests of Canada and Quebec.
The government intends to focus its concern on our social security system. With the help of the people of this country, it will to conduct a review of the social safety net.
The minister's speech is full of noble sentiment and references to the dignity of work, leadership, the promise of change, and all those wonderful words people find in the dictionary when they want to make an announcement without saying exactly what they plan to do.
To listen to the minister, one would think this government, mindful of its social justice traditions-the traditions of the Liberal Party -is preparing to strengthen the universality of social programs, give broader access to these programs and provide reassurances for the unemployed, welfare recipients and people in need generally who are suffering most under the impact of the recession.
Unfortunately, that is not the case, because these fine phrases, pronounced so eloquently by the minister, are mere camouflage for an unprecedented attack against our social security system.
Although mouthing noble sentiments, these reformers have their scissors at the ready. Behind the Minister of Human Resources Development, we see lurking in the shadows the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board.
Can there be any doubt about the real motives for this rationalization when it is announced by a government that is trying to keep the wolf from the door?
Let us not be fooled into thinking that this government wants to improve the quality of health care. Do not believe for one minute it is trying to do something about crowded emergency wards or long waits for people to be admitted to the hospital or have an operation. And it certainly does not plan to raise the meagre pensions we pay to the elderly.
The threat is a serious one, because the federal government is involved. As we all know, the role it plays in maintaining and financing social programs is considerable. The federal government has taken advantage of the provinces' lack of fiscal resources and occupied a large section of this area of responsibility, so that today, a very substantial part of our social safety net is controlled from Ottawa. I am thinking of unemployment insurance, disability pensions, old age security, the guaranteed income supplement, spousal allowances, survivors' allowances and veterans allowances and, except in Quebec, the Canada Pension Plan and family allowances.
These programs are administered by Ottawa, which determines benefit levels, benefit criteria and eligibility. Another section of our social security system is dominated in part by the federal government because the services are provided by the provinces. Included are equalization payments; the Canada Assistance Plan, which covers welfare payments; and Established Programs Financing, which covers medicare.
Under these programs, the provinces provide services to their citizens, but in strict compliance with standards set by the federal government. Program costs are shared by both levels of government.
The one thing that all of the programs just mentioned, whether federal or cost-shared, have in common is the participation of the federal government. Whether or not they survive depends on the goodwill of Ottawa.
The provinces have continued to exercise their jurisdiction in the health and social services field, but their jurisdiction is no longer exclusive. Workers' compensation, assistance to residents of homes for the aged and dental care for children are just a few examples of vitally important social services provided by the provincial government.
Quebec was a pioneer in several fields and continues today to provide a range of services not found elsewhere such as maternity allowances and child grants. Quebec was also in the forefront in terms of protecting its rights from being encroached upon by the federal government. It took steps to establish its own pension plan, its own retirement pension scheme and its own family allowances system.
For many in Quebec and in Canada, social security is the very core of our values system. It should be remembered that the old age pension system was first introduced back in 1927. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Family Allowances Act, when the federal government first turned its attention to the plight of the poor. This year's reform initiatives promise to be a sorry tribute indeed to this event. Starting in 1944, the social safety net was gradually cast ever wider to cover the blind, the disabled and finally, the unemployed.
With each federal foray, the provinces found themselves with less room to manoeuvre where social programs were concerned. Indeed, to finance its so-called "national" programs, Ottawa needed a major tax grab and it set its sights on the same taxpayers that the provinces would have liked to target because they were underfunded and no longer able to meet the responsibilities associated with the baby boom. In other words, by encroaching upon provincial fields of taxation, the federal government put the provinces in a vulnerable position. And when Ottawa extended to the provinces an offer to establish social programs which would be partially funded and controlled by the federal government, the provincial partners had no choice but to accept. The joint programs included hospitalization insurance introduced in 1958, the Canada Assistance Plan introduced in 1966 and health insurance introduced in 1968.
Quebec challenged Ottawa's incursions into these areas. At federal-provincial conferences during the sixties and seventies, successive Quebec governments demanded that the provinces, not the federal government, have jurisdiction over health care and social services.
Jean Lesage said in 1965 that the provinces were in a better position than the federal government to take lasting, effective action. Daniel Johnson Sr. and Jean-Jacques Bertrand repeatedly argued that health and social security came under provincial jurisdiction. Even Robert Bourassa called upon the federal government to end joint hospitalization and health insurance programs and replace them with outright grants.
But, as usual, Quebec stood alone. Only once did it succeed in catching the federal government off guard, and this was when it set up its own pension plan, the Quebec Pension Plan, the cornerstone of the Quiet Revolution. Nevertheless, in spite of Quebec's dogged opposition, the provinces lost ground to the federal government. Today, Ottawa collects the taxes and sets the standards. And as it prepares to reduce transfer payments to the provinces, it wants to control programs and at the same time keep the money collected from taxpayers.
The goal of this exercise is patently obvious. The federal government wants to use the money saved by cutting transfer payments to finance the debt, using money it now allocates to social services. And what is likely to happen as a result of this action? Either the provinces will be forced to cut services, or they will have to raise taxes even higher. In either case, they will
have to bear most of the burden and the federal government will piously wash its hands of the whole matter.
The economic security afforded by our social safety net is the envy of millions of people who enjoy no such protection against the whims of fate. This is doubtless one of the reasons why Canada and Quebec rate so highly among the best places in the world in which to live. Canadians and Quebecers are pleased and proud of this affirmation of the values of social justice and, over time, a consensus has emerged on the success of our social system.
We know that social values are one of the symbols of Canada and of Quebec. We happen to be sovereignists. We have said so and we will say it again on numerous occasions. We know that not every program has been a failure in Canada and in Quebec.
We are not naive and extremist to the point of thinking that everything that has been done for the last century and more has been a failure or a weakness. We do not think that everything has been built on bad faith. There have been successes. Many people thought for a time there would be more successes.
One of the successes is the social programs. We should know that when we are trying to touch them. The minister probably knows that more than most of us because he is dedicated to social programs. I know it.
We know this is something very delicate. We know that politicians are devoted to rhetoric. We heard very strong words to qualify the importance of the social programs. Words like "sacred trust" were used and nobody laughed. This was something deeply rooted in the traditions, the mentality and the values of Canada and of Quebec.
I listened to the speech of the minister. Of course there were nice words: leadership, change, better days, to restart the engine. There were all kinds of words used to crank up people and make them believe that what will be done is something very sweet and nice for them.
When one knows the situation of the government and of the federal state, when one knows that we are on the brink of collective bankruptcy, who will believe that this is not a budgetary operation? Who would believe that out of this will stem a better system of security, a better system of health and care. Who will believe it? I suspect no one will believe it and certainly not the Official Opposition.
We have heard speeches like that in the past. For example last year, a few of us were here to hear the rhetoric of the Conservatives. When the Tories brought in Bill C-113 they used words like that. I am sorry but they were the same words. When we heard the ministers of the Tory government last year they said something like this: "to build up a new Canada, to restart the economy, to revitalize faith in our institutions, to put Canada back to work". We heard all those words so many times. The minister did not believe them. The minister was not fooled by those words. He voted against the bill like we did.
Here we are today. The minister is using the same words. I think we must fear that he is probably getting ready to do the same thing as the people he was strenuously denouncing last year.
It is already said in some circles that the federal government does not have a choice, that its disastrous financial situation requires it to reduce its effort to fund social programs but what is not being said is that these cuts have already taken place. In fact, the federal government has been reducing its share of program financing for the last 15 years.
In 1977-78, 45 per cent of total health expenditures in Quebec-I am taking Quebec as an example but I am convinced that it is about the same everywhere else-came from federal transfer payments. Today health expenditures account for nearly $12 billion-which is a lot of money, of course-only 33 per cent of which is Ottawa's share of Quebec's health budget. In 15 years we went from 45 to 33 per cent. That is a reduction, Mr. Speaker. It is indeed a substantial reduction and I think that to determine who must pay for health care, who must support the tax effort and the budget cuts necessary to turn around our financial situation, we must look elsewhere.
The health needs of Quebecers and Canadians have not changed. The fact that social programs will be cut, revamped or whatever term you want to use-restructured, redesigned, redefined, modernized-does not mean that health care needs will diminish. They are not going to decrease.
With the level of excellence-everything being relative-that we have reached in terms of hospital and medical care, people will not resign themselves to inferior care overnight.
The Quebec government allocates every year about 31 per cent of its budget to health and social services. To maintain the quality of its services, it had to compensate for the federal government's withdrawal by increasing spending and cutting operations elsewhere, a step the federal administration has yet to take.
Last year federal cuts produced a $1.121 billion shortfall in health and social services in Quebec alone. The more than $1.7 billion frozen by the federal government last year brought the proportion of Quebec revenues coming from federal transfer payments from 29 to 18 per cent between 1984 and 1993 in terms of health services.
The federal system of transfer payments is a trap that has slowly closed in on the Canadian provinces. Today, because it is facing a chronic deficit, the federal government is trying to make the provinces pay the bill without giving them the money needed to fund these programs or reducing its taxes to clear the tax base to the benefit of the provinces. It has chosen to attack the poor on the back of the provinces.
It will be the provinces and not the federal government that will attack the poor. The provinces will have to play the part of the bad guys, of right-wing governments without compassion while the federal government will make a large contribution to health care by maintaining by law its own standards to keep services at the same level. The problems will be left to the provinces.
Canada is now standing on the brink of the financial abyss. The deficit projected in this year's budget was $32.8 billion but the Finance Minister is now talking about $45 billion. This shortfall cannot be blamed on the federal government's social spending because, while it was slashing transfer payments to the provinces between 1985 and 1993, the federal debt jumped from 33 to 58 percent of the GDP. While social expenditures were being cut the federal debt kept growing, therefore we must not blame social expenditures. On the contrary, they helped to slow the growth of the federal debt.
Social programs have been in existence for a long time but it is only in the last 20 years that deficits have been fuelling the federal debt. But social spending was already on the scene when the deficit phenomenon emerged. Therefore social spending is not responsible for our current deficit. It is wrong to make our social programs responsible for the government's financial crisis. We must look elsewhere for the cause of the chronic deficits in the federal budget.
This problem cannot be addressed by another tax increase. Taxpayers are already feeling the squeeze. An increase in underground employment and in smuggling would deprive the federal Treasury of revenues it is trying to collect.
We cannot borrow more money. The deficit is already draining a large part of savings and the money withdrawn from the economy would no longer be used to buy goods and services, thus reducing government revenues. In addition, increasing foreign borrowing would put us at the mercy of international lenders. Let us not forget that the part of the federal debt held by non-residents has already doubled in ten years.
Like everyone else, we recognize that there must be more cutbacks. The welfare state has become a hunted animal that must bite somewhere, but where? Does the government not realize that it cannot make extra cuts in health care budgets without affecting the level and quality of services?
Since the poor have already been squeezed for money, we have to look elsewhere. Social justice means not only distributing wealth in times of prosperity, but also, especially in times of crisis, sharing the burden of the deficit and the debt before going any further in the direction of cutting social programs. The government must start by exhausting all other means of putting the economy back on its feet.
What is the government waiting for to cut drastically, I would even say mercilessly, just this one time, in the public administration? What is it waiting for to cut its operating expenditures? What is it waiting for to bring the military budget in line with the reduced requirements of a changing geopolitical situation?
The government should address the overlap between levels of government. Billions could be recovered, but the government is not even interested in knowing how much.
What is it waiting for to launch a program to eliminate unjustified tax shelters? What will it do in light of the scandal of family trusts that enable the rich to avoid paying tax on major portions of their capital?
The government made a mistake this morning. The Cabinet member who should have been the first to rise in this House to announce ways of remedying our disastrous budgetary situation is not the Minister of Human Resources Development-whose role it is to protect the less fortunate who need his help now more than ever.
It should have been the Minister of Finance. He should be the one to tell us how his government will cut excessive and unwarranted expenditures to restore tax fairness and put a stop to duplication between levels of government. That is where they should start!