Mr. Speaker, as it has done since the beginning of the process, the Official Opposition is reminding you, Quebecers and Canadians of the seriousness of Canada's fiscal situation. Nobody, on this side of the House or on the other, is denying the existence of serious problems, and I would say that when it comes to federal public finances, we are actually dealing not with serious problems, but rather with a state of crisis.
One only has to look at how expenditures and deficits have evolved to realize that, in spite of the restraint measures of the last few years, the federal debt has grown to become one of the largest of any central government in the world. It is standing in the way of sustained economic recovery and job creation. This has been particularly obvious in the last two years as, in spite of certain signs of economic recovery and growth, jobs are not being created in a sustained manner. We are not denying the fact that we need drastic measures to reduce expenditures, as well as measures concerning loopholes in our tax expenditures, as the finance minister called them. I believe that there is a fairly broad consensus on this point.
However, we disagree on the means. For the next few minutes, I am going to talk about our analysis of the means used by the Liberal government or even the means suggested by our Reform colleagues. I will conclude by explaining why the Bloc Quebecois will vote against the motion before us this morning. We will not support the motion presented this morning by the Liberal government with a view to postponing the tabling of the finance committee report, because the reasons for doing so are not the ones stated by the finance committee chairman.
We have been convinced from the start that these consultations are a smoke screen. They resemble those held by the finance minister before tabling his first budget, last February. We are equally convinced that the Liberal government is seeking to first move back the deadline, and second reduce to nothing the amount of time to be spent analyzing and debating the finance committee's prebudget consultation report.
I can tell you that the motion before us, which seeks to postpone to December 7 the tabling of the report originally requested for December 2, is the result of intense pressure on the part of the official opposition. The initial motion submitted to the finance committee asked permission to table the report not on the 2nd, as requested by the House of Commons order, not on the 7th as sought in today's motion, but on December 16. They were taking us for something we are not and assumed that we would not remember that December 16 is the last sitting day of the year, and that next year we do not come back before February, the very month when the Minister of Finance is supposed to table his budget.
While claiming that there is a need for consultation, a need to seek additional ideas, the government is trying to hide its real intentions. We hear great sounding, compassionate speeches on the need to protect the neediest, but we are not being told the truth on the upcoming reforms. We are given grand speeches on the social situation, on poverty, when all the measures taken so far by the government, in particular since the budget of the Minister of Finance, were against the unemployed, welfare recipients, students and seniors.
Just think that the last budget contained a $5.5 billion cut in social programs, a large part in unemployment funds; is that a social measure, is that what the Liberal government intends to do for the neediest in our society? The major argument used to request further consultations is that we do not want to target the neediest.
Behind the grand speeches, there are barbaric measures, unprecedented measures, backward measures, measures that would be among the most backward taken by finance ministers for many years. Even the Conservatives did not dare make such drastic cuts in social programs. Yet, as the Auditor General pointed out, there is no analysis of the consequences of such cuts, we do not know the relationship between unemployment insurance and welfare, but supposedly we are doing a review of social programs even without proper information.
We are not the ones who said so, although we have in the past. The Auditor General himself reminded us last week that this government works the wrong way round; without any information at all, totally in the dark, it makes decisions that go against the poorest, all the while making grand speeches. Such behaviour is a disgrace.
Since the past gives us a good idea of what the future will look like, and since the Liberal government is trying to shorten the period of time for public debate on various measures relating to taxation, expenditures, issues concerning Quebecers and Canadians, since the past gives a good idea of what the future will be and since we are faced with this disgraceful shortening of democratic debate, I would remind you that since it has been in office this government has been proposing, in an acrimonious
and cynical way, projects with a view to reducing social programs or aimed at students, middle income people and the poor.
The government sends out trial balloons, not in a disinterested way but because this is part of the hidden agenda of the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Human Resources Development. For instance, when the government talks about taxing RRSPs, it is not out of the blue. The government, the Minister of Finance already intend to cut and tax RRSPs.
When they talk about reforming transfers to post-secondary education under CAP, the Canada Assistance Plan, and other transfers to provinces and send out trial balloons or make little suggestions in the four or five scenarios contained in the report of the minister responsible for the development of human resources, it is not by chance. It is because it is part of the federal government's overall plan to address the deficit problem, to deal with the problem of its indebtedness we all recognize by going after students, the provinces, with its usual way of transfering the burden to the provinces and shifting the deficit and debt problems onto the most deprived.
Members of the Liberal Party of Canada are counting on economic growth to improve somewhat the public finance situation, not because they believe there will be economic growth, but because they are unable to take any responsibility. This government has not taken its responsibilities since coming to office. It is so irresponsible that it claims that with the savings it made this year-more than $2 billion in unemployment insurance-the deficit for the current fiscal year is $39 billion when it is in fact over $42 billion.
It is unacceptable to cut into the unemployment insurance fund, to which the federal government no longer contributes, and to use the savings they made this year to reduce the deficit. It is a way for the Minister of Finance to improve his image, to look like a good manager, even though he did nothing to bring public finances back under control. He did nothing to close loopholes in the Canadian tax system-something he should have done long ago-, to correct long-time injustices that he too denounced when he was in the opposition.
This government is not serious in its endeavours and does not inspire confidence, especially since it is only managing the downsizing of a crippled system. On our side, the most blatant sign of that remains the closing down of the Saint-Jean military college. There is talk about cynicism and acrimony. For me it is a real symbol, more than a symbol right now, especially when we see the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs wearing the button denouncing the college's closure, as the Leader of the Opposition noted over the week-end.
Such behaviour is scandalous and shows a cynical and acrimonious attitude. It is also disinformation since this minister is himself responsible for closing the Saint-Jean military college. Such disinformation and cynicism are typical of this government's general attitude, particularly with regard to the important issue of Canadian public finances.
This is intolerable, especially since the Liberal Party of Canada used to advocate transparency, social justice and fairness when it was in opposition. Liberal members used to describe the Conservatives as almost extreme rightists, but they are even worse now that they are in power.
Much needs to be done, if we look at the growth of government expenditures as well as the public debt crisis situation in Canada, with growing deficits, year after year, and a growing national debt. We did not wait two months after the finance minister's testimony before the finance committee to come up with suggestions to put some order in public finances. We were upfront. We made suggestions in front of the Minister of Finance, after he had made his statement and tabled his two books, the colour of which I cannot remember. There has been books of so many different colours tabled this past year, Mr. Speaker, that we loose track.
Unlike our colleagues, we did not wait two months to suggest, first of all, that the Liberal government do the responsible thing and take steps to recover-at the time, this is what we were suggesting two months ago-some $6 billion in unpaid taxes.
In fact, this first suggestion we had made to the Minister of Finance when he testified before the finance committee was reflected in the Auditor General's report tabled last week. But the Auditor General does not talk about $6 billion, as we had estimated, but over $8 billion in unpaid taxes, a quite substantial amount that taxpayers in Quebec and Canada owe, on average, to the federal Treasury in personal income tax, profits tax and goods and services tax as well, the famous GST, which is apparently the most commonly abhorred tax from coast to coast.
Two months ago we suggested to the Minister of Finance, and to the Minister of National Revenue also take the necessary steps, departing from their usual laissez-faire policy, to recover these $6 billion which became $8 billion following the recent tabling of the Auditor General's report. What did they do? Nothing.
We also suggested to the Minister of Finance at the time to ensure that the federal government withdraw from any provincial jurisdiction, in other words, that it mind its own business, in
view of the assignment of jurisdiction under the Canadian Constitution and many interpretations that have been given these past few decades.
We said then, and we repeat it now, overlap, duplication and instances of federal interference, which are increasingly numerous and even more centralizing with a Liberal government, amount to, by our estimation, approximately $3 billion per year. That is money! But of course when you ask senior department officials to see where the federal government is meddling needlessly and ineffectively in fields of provincial jurisdiction, they are both judge and party to the case. They will not shoot themselves in the foot. These senior officials who are in control will not reduce their staff, their power, their interference or their budget. Over the years and again recently, the Auditor General has found empirical evidence of duplication and overlap between the two levels of government, but the Liberal government does not want to face up to its responsibilities.
That is the second suggestion we made to the Minister of Finance about a month and a half or two months ago. We suggested that he not reduce corporate subsidies a little, as we have heard fairly often on both sides of the House, but that he eliminate them. Companies receive $3.3 billion a year in subsidies. Here, we are not talking about subsidies for regional development which have the merit of reducing regional disparities in some disadvantaged regions; instead, we are talking about direct corporate subsidies, which more often involve patronage or paying off the party's friends rather than useful subsidies.