I wish to congratulate the Minister of Finance for recognizing that the success of our next federal budget will be as dependent on the quality of the process that we use to identify and implement our budgetary measures as it will on the substance of those budgetary measures themselves.
Our Minister of Finance understands quite well that over the last number of years Canadians have come to feel very uncomfortable with the ways and means of government, and in fact this has translated into the inability of the previous government to implement effective and efficient government initiatives. Consider, for example, the GST.
We all know that if we are going to bring our financial situation into an acceptable state of control, we are going to need the combined and national commitment of all Canadians. It is not going to be good enough just for 176 Liberal members to say: "We can make a difference". We have to ensure that every single Canadian is committed to helping us bring down a $45 billion deficit and rein in a $500 billion debt.
This debate today provides us with a good opportunity to ensure that we get the commitment of Canadians to manage our deficit and our debt in a humane and acceptable way that is consistent with getting them back to work.
I applaud our Minister of Finance for his original speech, given on November 29 to the students at the Universities of Montreal and McGill where he committed himself and his ministry to an open and transparent process with no more private delegations. He wanted to hear what Canadians have to say. I congratulate him on the completion of four very good cross-country townhall meetings.
The minister in doing this gave each and every one of us as members of Parliament an opening to do the same thing in our constituencies. I challenged the minister on that and asked him if he would not send a member of his ministry into my riding to hear what the people of Brant have to say on this very topic of budget management. I was not surprised and was very pleased that he responded very quickly in the affirmative. On January 6, 1994, Mr. Karl Littler, a member of the minister's office, came to the riding of Brant and listened for three hours to what my constituents had to say on this topic. It is that information I would like to share with the House today.
First of all, and it was not surprising, my constituents said we have to restore integrity in government. Otherwise meetings like the one I held and debates like this mean nothing. Fortunately, Mr. Littler's attendance at the meeting indicated to my constituents that this government does intend to do business differently and so we carried on with our agenda.
My constituents said they wanted a clearer and a more understandable way of keeping on top of how the government spends its money and collects its revenues over the course of the year. They were extremely uncomfortable with the previous Prime Minister's response, or lack of response, to the now Leader of the Opposition's question during the leadership debate on the state of the nation and what the size of the deficit really was.
We talked at length about the GST, about its failure and about possible solutions to it. By and large my constituents felt that a melding of the federal and provincial retail sales tax would make sense but small business warned us against implementing procedures that would negate the money, the time and the effort they had already put into accommodating the goods and services tax to date.
Other small business owners and the farmers in my riding indicated the importance of capital gains exemptions and RRSPs to them. For them they are the main tools, in fact, in many cases the only tools they have to provide and plan for their retirement. They understand changes may be necessary but they want them done in a fair and equitable fashion.
Other members of my constituency, some who work in the real estate business, others who build homes and others who are looking to buy their first house asked that the minister consider continuing the home buyer's plan. At the point of our conversations they understood that plan was a no cost plan to the government and had in fact encouraged economic development in our community.
I was interested by other constituents who spoke in support of arts and culture. One constituent in particular stated he believed that for every dollar spent on the arts $7 more were generated in spin-off purchases. It was suggested that a tax break for Canadians who choose to donate to the arts be created, something like what we have for Canadians who choose to contribute to political parties.
We talked about a number of other things. There was support, for example, for a national debt reduction fund. There was support for an interesting idea where we might provide tax breaks to businesses that offer new, permanent and long-term jobs to the community.
There were a number of very interesting ideas but the one which received the most debate, most conversation and the most support was one which was presented by an individual. He called it GAMI, a guaranteed annual minimum income.
We have talked about guaranteed annual incomes for a number of years, since the 1960s in fact. Every time we take a look at our income support systems we think about a guaranteed income. The Croll Senate report on poverty talked about a basic income, as did the Castonguay-Neveu report in Quebec and later on the Manitoba basic annual income experiment. In the 1980s the Macdonald commission and the Forget commission all talked about and gave real consideration to a guaranteed annual income.
There are those who will say that this kind of negative tax strategy will not work, it will instil poverty across our nation. I believe there are strategies to avoid that and some of them are mentioned in the Macdonald commission report.
There are others that say we cannot offer a guaranteed income to able-bodied Canadians because they will not work. I submit that Canadians will work. We found over the course of this election that Canadians want the dignity of work and a guaranteed income will not stop them from going to work.
In fact data we are now analyzing from the Mincome experiment in Manitoba suggests there is not a really strong relationship between a guaranteed income and a refusal to work. It does not exist.
Others will say we cannot afford that approach. Interestingly enough the gentleman who proposed the GAMI at our meeting was to my mind probably more a part of the right wing of the political spectrum than the left wing. He saw real opportunity to streamline the number of programs we have now to support Canadians and their income. He saw an opportunity to reduce the bureaucracies we have built up around unemployment insurance, old age security, WCB, some provincial programs as well.
What I am seeing is that we may have a window here where the left and the right and where all provinces across this country may now be able to come together.
I started my comments by congratulating the Minister of Finance on a step change in process toward budget consultation. I now ask him to consider a step change in the substance of what many of our programs might look at, the one that we spend a majority of our money on, income security.
It will take some work and we will not be able to do it in the 1994 budget but I believe as Liberals we have a mandate for a number of years and we do have to seriously consider the notion of a guaranteed annual minimum income.
I have given you some highlights of the meeting I held in my constituency on January 6. In closing I would like to recognize that the citizens of Brant know that the minister has a difficult task ahead. They appreciated the opportunity to share their ideas, provide advice and direction.
They hope and expect that he will listen to a number of their ideas and they also expect that those ideas which are not incorporated are talked about after the process and the reasons why they were not considered will also be shared. The process must continue. It must go on.
This is the kind of process to which our government is committed. Certainly our minister has indicated that is the way it will be. I wish him well on the tough road ahead and would like him to know that the people of Brant appreciate his continued support and openness.