I doubt it. What about unemployment insurance? We said last year that business and labour should sit down together and revamp the UI program in order for it to be a self-sustaining program. We hear some musings by the minister along those lines on this the anniversary of the election. It has been one whole year and he is just starting to get to the point where we were a year ago.
He could target social spending to those in need. Yesterday afternoon at the University of Alberta I was talking to people who are faced with substantial increasing costs in their education. As they are being asked to pay for more and more of their education, there are retired people who are sitting on the beaches in Hawaii or who are sitting in the sun in southern United States and Mexico collecting old age security on top of the whole wealth they have accumulated during their life.
I said during the election that we will cut off old age security to senior families which earn more than $54,000. All I got from the seniors was: "Why so high at $54,000? Bring it down. It is far too much".
They had never seen that kind of money before. Yet this government continues to pay almost $5,000 a year per retired individual regardless of their income. They may be millionaires. When we have fiscal problems why should we be spending that kind of money on people who do not need it?
Consider special interest groups which get half a billion dollars. Just cut them off. It is that simple. It does not take a lot of guts. Just do it. The Minister of Finance should start right away.
How about improved financial accountability in government? Treasury Board has a policy in place called program evaluation where programs are evaluated basically on four points. One, is it relevant? Are we still spending money by virtue of habit? Two, is it effective and meeting its objectives? Three, are we delivering the program efficiently and, four, is there another better way to deliver the program?
Program evaluation is a policy that is currently being used a small amount by the Treasury Board, but could be used much more in order for Canadians to find out how the programs are working and how they can be revamped and regeared to ensure we are getting maximum bang for our buck, that those in need are receiving the assistance and we are spending Canadian taxpayers dollars efficiently, well and wisely.
These are just some of the things we and the Minister of Finance could do, but unfortunately he is going to wait another six months until he tables his budget in February before we know what his next nickel of cuts is going to be. Even by his own admission he is already missing his target.
Let us take a look at some of the figures we have so far. The 1994-95 spending estimates show old age security costing $20.6 billion. Next year it will increase to $21.4 billion. Transfers to provinces were $26.3 billion last year, increasing to $26.4 billion. Grants to natives of $3.8 billion last year are up to $4.1 billion. Grants to international assistance remain the same at $2.6 billion. Other subsidies and transfers at $4.5 billion are going up to $4.9 billion.
There is not a single cut. We wonder why this country is in a mess. We wonder when this government will take serious, real, concerted action. That is what Canadians want. It is long
overdue. We call upon the Minister of Finance to table his plan and his vision now.