Michael Wilson. Some input before the budget, boy I would have jumped at the opportunity.
Yet tonight I hear nothing but more of the same old thing from a party that said it was going to come here to change things. I will not get too partisan. Perhaps some of them are listening.
The ship of state is in trouble. Canadians want change. On October 25 they threw out a government that was not responding to their needs. They want men and women who are determined to change things from the way they were.
We are still in the midst of an economic disaster in this country where we have 1.6 million people unemployed. We have 455,000 permanent full-time jobs that have been lost. Part-time jobs have increased to 840,000. We have two million Canadians visiting over 300 food banks each and every day. Youth unemployment is over 18 per cent. Among female lone parent families 62 per cent have incomes below the poverty line.
We have a mission. That is to think about each and every one of those 29 million Canadians who look to us to try to solve these problems. I could blame it on the former government that moved the debt from $120 billion to $500 billion. I could blame it for leaving us with $46 billion deficit.
However what do we accomplish if we look back at yesterday? Our mission is to look forward to tomorrow. I believe that collectively we can. Collectively we can put our minds together and work in the new spirit of parliamentary reform now that the committees are struck, now that we have this debate and now that we have heard from people in our ridings as to what the proper medicine for this country is.
Last week my colleagues and I had our pre-budget consultation in London, Ontario. We invited people to come forward with their views as to how the government should run its affairs, how it should put its house in order and what their priorities were. They told us.
Hon. members have probably heard the same thing. I know that the finance minister heard the same thing at his consultations. Canadians in London, Ontario are not any different from those out west, in Quebec or in Atlantic Canada. They want good government. They want honest government. They want a government that will solve the problem of the deficit.
We know we have a crushing debt and deficit. Yes, we have to cut programs that are useless. We have to streamline the process so that each and every dollar we spend counts, so that it helps people and does not enslave them.
Yes, we have to make changes to our social programs, our net. The safety net must not only catch people but it needs to be a trampoline that pushes people back up to take advantage of the opportunities that are there.
That safety net is important. One only has to look at our society and compare it to that of the United States. In our country 85 per cent of people who need help get help from their government. In the United States 25 per cent of people who need help get help from their government. Look at its crime statistics. Look at the problems it has in health care. Look at the problems it has with its infrastructure and in its cities. Look at the social problems that country has.
I believe we have succeeded in creating a great country by working together. In 125 years we have managed to become one of the economic powers of the world with one of the highest standards of living in the world. That did not come easy. That came from the dedication and hard work of a lot of people working together to create this great country.
That is what we have to do starting today along with the other members of this House. We need to create jobs. People on October 25 told us that jobs were their number one concern. People need to work in order to look after their families.
That is why we are committed as a government to creating jobs through infrastructure programs, through the residential rehabilitation program, to investing in small businesses to give them opportunities. We must invest in their minds and talents because we know that small businesses will create 85 per cent of the jobs in this country. However we need to get the capital for them, the affordable long-term capital and the support of the banking institutions for them to allow them to grow and prosper. If they do, people will work. Young people will have hope and opportunities. Women who want to get into the work force will also have opportunities. But we have to support small business and this government is committed to doing that.
We also must look at ways of living within our means, of looking at the expenditures and renewing our pledge to social programs. There is nothing wrong with saying that we believe in supporting people, because our job here is to protect people, especially those who are not in a position to look after themselves as much as they would like. We have a social responsibility to every Canadian.
The budget is a blueprint not only for our economic views but also for the kind of society we want to build. Yes, we know the horror stories and we hear of wasteful spending, but there are ways of saving money and we are committed to doing that.
I will say that in my riding the people said yes to no more taxes. They all agreed they were already over-taxed. The middle income group is now paying for the top and the bottom and they cannot afford to do so. They want us to streamline it and make sure every dollar counts. They want us to create jobs. They want us to invest in people, in training and retraining programs. They want us to invest in small business. They want us to invest in research and development and work in true partnership with the universities, the private sector, labour and government, all working together to forge a new society.
I believe that is what Canadians expect of each and every one of us. This government is committed to doing that, to putting our financial house in order, but more important to investing in people because if we have people working, deficits go down, not up.
That is the Liberal message and we hope that the opposition and all parties in this House will work with us to help build a better country.