Madam Speaker, let me begin by congratulating the government and the Minister for Human Resources Development on his initiative. Indeed, it is a bold approach that in my view will respond to the nineties and beyond.
This is one segment of an overall strategy and overall action plan which will be proposed by this government over the next year or so in order to respond to a commitment made by the Prime Minister on behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada as well as on behalf of the people who elected him. Those commitments were made in Creating Opportunities or the red book as people might call it.
There are three aspects of the proposal. One looks at the whole way in which we deliver our social programs in Canada, as well as human resources training and development. The second aspect will look at the overall industry in Canada and the way we deliver our goods and services here and abroad. The third aspect is to try and put our house in order in terms of looking at the overall finances of the government.
There is no doubt in my mind that if one is to look at Canada from the outside, which the United Nations has done on a number of occasions, one would come to the conclusion that we live in the greatest country on earth. I knew that 20 years ago when I came here. I knew I was going to heaven on earth. I am sure that my colleagues in this House and all Canadians would agree and would know that we live in the greatest land on earth.
To keep Canada in the forefront in terms of equality of social programs that we provide our citizens, the quality of education that we provide and access to the finest medicare in the world, we have to do a number of things.
Before I enter into a detailed explanation I want to share with you some statistical information in terms of the status quo, the situation that now exists in Canada.
Today approximately 10 per cent of the Canadian population are considered to be senior citizens. By the year 2031 that number will double to the point where more or less about one in every four Canadians will be a senior citizen. In parallel with that if we are to look at the number of people who are entering the workforce, we have a shrinkage. Today there are a lot less people in the workforce than there were 10 or 15 years ago.
The challenge is to use the output or the productivity of those people who are in the workforce to try and support all of the programs, social benefits and everything else in order to contin-
ue to provide the quality of life that we have been providing to Canadians for the past 100 or so years.
To that extent one would say that we not only have to work harder but we have to work smarter.
I would be misleading the House and Canadians if I were to say that at the turn of the switch things are going to be better. Canadians know that in order for things to get better we all have to make sacrifices. We all have to take a bold approach toward changing not only the appearance but the fundamental structure when it comes to the kinds of things we do and the programs we provide.
The reason I say this is because if we look at the programs that we have today, many have been in existence 25 to 50 years in some cases. Some of those programs have kept up to the demand and to the technological changes and have been updated. Other programs definitely require a closer look.
I am going to give a couple of examples. Let us look at the figures for 1972. In 1972 the Canadian government spent $3 billion on unemployment insurance and social assistance. Guess how much we spent in 1993? We spent $33.4 billion. Looking at how much we spent on education, it is interesting to note that Canada spent perhaps more than any other country in the world on education. All governments together spent in excess of $50 billion a year on education.
When it comes to the overall expenditure on all of the social programs, that would put Canada behind Sweden as the country that spent the most on social programs of any country in the world. That is why we have the finest support services anywhere on the globe. That is why we have to make sure we do everything we can to continue to provide the quality services that are required.
If we look at what we are spending in terms of resources, gross, financial and otherwise versus in terms of how much we need in order to continue to support those programs, the devil will show up. That devil is a tremendous amount of debt that totals in excess of $700 billion if we combine the federal as well as the provincial governments' debts.
To support that debt in terms of the deficit it is in excess of $37 billion to $40 billion on an annual basis. If we add this to the amount of funds we are putting in to support social programs and our educational system and if we continue to do the kinds of things we are doing today without some major overhaul, it will take us quite a while to catch up. I might suggest that we will never be able to catch up because, as my colleagues know, cutting services alone is not going to solve it.
If the government was to fire every public servant we would still have a deficit of approximately $20 billion a year. Cutting programs is not going to solve it. What will solve it is if, as the Minister for Human Resources Development has suggested, we look at the way we provide those programs and services to the community and try to fine tune those programs and services so they will meet the needs and the challenges of the 1990s.
Second, we have to improve our productivity and our standing on the international scene as well as here in Canada in order to create wealth. The NDP's theory of redistributing wealth failed. We have seen it in Ontario as well as in Saskatchewan and British Columbia when they were in power. It does not work.
The second theory of ultra independent capitalism without government being at least there in order to provide a fair and proper environment also does not work because the private sector alone will not solve it. As well, if we leave it up the public sector alone it will not work.
Historically, the best approach to solve our socioeconomic problems has always been the Liberal approach. Would the House not agree?