Mr. Speaker, as a New Democrat the issue of social programs is one particularly close to me. Our social programs essentially came about as a result of pressure from CCF governments, CCF politicians and New Democrats across Canada to address the concerns of people in times of need.
As a social democrat I am committed to ensuring that Canada is a more compassionate country rather than a less compassionate one. I am also committed to ensuring that if a person is unable to earn sufficient resources through the traditional economic marketplace to live in dignity, we as citizens owe it to that person to ensure that his or her basic needs are met. In order to do so we have to redistribute wealth from those who have to those who do not have.
The report we have in front of us called "Agenda: Jobs and Growth" is none of those things. It is neither an agenda nor has it anything to do with jobs nor anything to do with growth. It is a continuation of the Mulroney agenda. While that government is dead clearly its policies live on healthily with the new Liberal government. Last October we saw a government change but the bureaucrats and policies stayed essentially the same.
Those policies saw poverty numbers increase, taxes on middle and lower income Canadians increase, the deficit increase. Social programs kept for the last 10 years while tax breaks to the rich grew and while inequality in the country grew. We are now at a point where the gap between rich and poor is roughly where it was at the end of the second world war, after some gains in between. We are now heading backward to a situation of haves and have nots with an enormous gap between them.
The Liberals are continuing the same Mulroney agenda in terms of the same monetary policies, the same fiscal, economic and trade policies which have failed Canada and Canadians so completely.
Canada and Canadians support the reform of social programs. There is no doubt about that. We have a system of social programs and we have a society or an economy that is not working well for about four million Canadians. There is support for reform. There is the political will to look at reform.
Canadians want real reform. They do not want empty words, which is what this book contains. They want to have proposals they can look at and be consulted on in a meaningful way. It is not possible to consult with Canadians if there are no specific proposals with which to discuss the issues at hand.
There are a number of general criticisms that one can make before going on to suggest what might have been done. Clearly, as I have said, there is very little in the way of specifics in this paper. It is much too vague. The government has said that it is not committed to any of the proposals that are put forward in this paper. It is difficult to consult if something is not put forward that people can get their teeth into.
Where is the leadership in this paper? What is it that the government really thinks? When will the government finally start to govern after a year in office of doing almost nothing? This has not progressed us very far along the way in actually dealing with the problems of either social programs or the economy or the deficit.
It is clear, in spite of the government's attempts to hide this fact, that deficit reduction is a serious element or a serious component part of this so-called review. I would suggest that deficit reduction drives the social security review in the way it has been driven over the last 10 years. We are seeing an Americanization of social programs as our social programs continue under this government. There are choices, as many have indicated today and yesterday, between more people oriented social policies and those American ones the Liberals have chosen to follow.
The paper does not really deal with the problem we face. It does not deal with the job side of the equation. It does not deal with the taxation system whereby we will ensure we have both the resources to address the problems we face and the incentives to ensure that economic activity continues unabated.
Where are those issues in this whole debate? They are absolutely critical if we are going to ever appropriately reform social programs. It seems to me, and it seems to most Canadians from what I can understand, that the Liberals are continuing the attack on the deficit on the backs of the poor.
It is time we took a more balanced approach to dealing with the deficit. It is time that we did not foreclose on all those options that would require the rich to provide for their fair share of deficit reduction costs. It is time that we had a balanced approach to dealing with the deficit, not just one targeted at social programs.
Last, as a general comment, it is pretty clear that the consultation process with the provinces has been totally inadequate. Otherwise we would not have received enormous criticism from all across the country, from all parties both within the federal
Liberal caucus and outside, and from the leader of the Liberal Party in Ontario. We would not have had this enormous outburst of criticism of the paper had there been effective consultation with the provinces.
Clearly the process of social security reform can only take place with the close co-operation of the provinces. As long as the provinces feel they are right in that the government's main intention is to slough off the deficit on to their already difficult financial situations, they will not co-operate and they should not co-operate in the whole process.
Let us look at the words of the green book. I wonder how many different coloured books we are going to have. Its main focus appears to be that Canadians are unemployed in the numbers they are because they do not have the skills to fulfil the jobs of the new economy. We all have to support increasing training, upgrading and education for Canadians. We can only see the benefits from that. It is good to focus on these issues but, as we see from the green book, the expectations are modest. Above all, there are no jobs out there for people to take once they receive this training. We have already a serious expectation of finding people continuing to live in poverty but being a bit better educated and having a few more skills.
Until we address the real problem we will continue to attack social programs. Unless we solve the jobs problem we will continue to have more and more people flowing on to unemployment and social assistance rolls and we will continue to see pressures to address the overburdened system.
We need to ensure that the skills we have are adequate. We also need to ensure that the paper deals with the so-called disincentives to work. Those programs which make a transition into the workplace more difficult need to be addressed too.
There are some specific proposals that need some attention. Among all the words here, one proposal more specific than the others deals with changing the funding arrangements with the provinces. If all the federal government is going to do is continue to address its deficit problems, albeit not very effectively in this regard, by transferring the deficit to the provinces that have done a much better job of dealing with their deficits, we have not only the continuation of the Tory agenda but we have the continuation of the consequences that generates.
We have provinces, and I speak in particular of my own province of Saskatchewan, which have addressed the problem effectively. That particular province, under a New Democrat government, has reduced the deficit from the highest per capita in Canada to the lowest. It will balance its books in the coming year. It will be the first province to do that as a have not province, a province without enormous resources. It has done that in a balanced way while at the same time, I may add, it has increased social program spending. It is not a prerequisite of addressing a deficit to do it on the backs of the poor. The only way to do it is in a balanced way which requires all citizens to pay a share, to make a sacrifice in dealing with this problem which affects us all.
With regard to unemployment insurance, it affects many Canadians. There are 1.6 million people on unemployment insurance at the moment. Many more who would have been had previous governments not changed the rules. However to suggest, as this paper does, that perhaps we should continue to make unemployment insurance even more difficult-