Exactly! I was also surprised to notice that there was nothing in this budget to help the business community, and the small and medium-sized businesses of Quebec and Canada in particular, face the challenge of globalization. Again, the red book is disregarded, because the red book said this was a priority, that support would be provided to the small and medium-sized businesses to help them recover from the recession and face market globalization. What do we find in this budget? As expected, the Minister of Finance was true to himself and the budget is pure posturing. It reflects a taste for consultation, consultation and more consultation, without ever making decisions or taking positive steps.
The Minister of Finance is suffering from acute consultation fever. When he said: "Working in partnership with the private sector and the financial community, the government will seek the best possible way to provide long-term funding to businesses". The government is not making any decision, only a commitment with regard to consultation. I am still new to some things, but I get the distinct impression that I have been hearing about nothing but consultation, whether in the form of constitu-
tional talks or citizens' forums like the Spicer Commission on the future of Canada, the future of something which is technically flawed.
That is something! I quote another passage from the budget speech, where it says: "The government will undertake a thorough review of federal spending on science and technology, in order to implement a more effective policy to assist research and development".
Once again, for about five years, Canada has had a chronic R and D deficit; it is lagging in technological development, the key to meeting the challenges of globalization, and we are told that a thorough review will be done. What credibility can the Minister of Finance and this government have in presenting such things to us?
Still quoting the Minister of Finance: "The Minister of Industry, with funds available in 1994-95, will establish a program of technological partnerships to strengthen co-operation between public and private institutions, so that the results of research lead to new products and employment". For ten years we have been discussing these things, for ten years we have had no decision and the minister is continuing this governmental inaction.
I think that the time has come to act, to stop discussing, to stop sitting around a table and trying to develop new partnerships. The partners are there. They are waiting for this government to get out of its laissez-faire attitude, to make concrete decisions and not to compromise the economic recovery by its actions, by increasing taxes or in various ways. That is what people want. Presenting things like that is not serious.
Another very important point in the budget, which I found particularly disturbing, yesterday we discovered-I hear laughter from the other side, that is not serious, but so is the budget-who the real Minister of Human Resources Development was and we saw that it was the Minister of Finance, the member for LaSalle-Émard, who was dictating to the Minister of Human Resources Development that he would have to do without $7.5 billion for social programs over the next three years.
I was shaken because there always is some trust between individuals and I believed the members opposite were serious in some regards. When the Liberals were the Official Opposition, they said that social programs should not be tampered with and they warned the Conservatives against meddling with the Canada Assistance Plan and the federal contribution to post-secondary education.
The current finance minister and the Prime Minister rent their clothes every time the Conservatives talked about changing social programs one iota. In this regard, yesterday the minister made everyone proud and happy by presenting us with a $7.5 billion budget reduction plan over the next three years.
What kind of social conscience do these people have? Is this how they intend to restore tax equity and fairness in Quebec and in Canada? Is this what they had in mind? Is attacking the underemployed and the poor what they were thinking of? It is outrageous.
The Leader of the Bloc Quebecois and Leader of the Official Opposition was right. When the members opposite talk about reforming social programs or about reforming the health-care system, like the hon. member for Hull-Aylmer did, they are talking about cuts. They are not talking about improving the systems but about cuts, pure and simple. We had undeniable proof of that yesterday.
It is the same thing with social housing. As you know, Madam Speaker, maybe better than I do, 1.2 million Canadians, mostly women and young children, are waiting for social housing. Why is that? It is because these people spend between 30 and 50 per cent of their income on rent. This means that they have roughly half of their income left for clothes, hydro, telephone, medication and unforeseen expenses.
Not that long ago, some poor people from Quebec and every part of the country took part in a demonstration here in Ottawa. This is actually a good opportunity to make a point. Five MPs were there to meet these people, and all five were Bloc Quebecois members. Neither the Liberal Party nor the NDP were represented.
These people asked us to be their spokespersons and tell this House as well as other Quebecers and Canadians about their plight and their daily hardships. The hon. members for Laurentides and Ahuntsic, a couple of others colleagues and myself have had the opportunity to work with these people and help them make a budget. Once they had paid for rent, food, clothes-and I mean the bare essentials-and medication for their children, some of these people, particularly single-parent families, had a deficit in their monthly budget. In the case of one person whom I had the privilege of helping with her budget, that deficit was $27.
Again, the Liberals were in opposition last year and they were outraged when the Conservatives announced a $600 million cut in social housing programs. But what are they doing now with this budget? That is the problem: they do nothing to give some hope to the poorest families.
I remind the Minister of Finance and member for LaSalle-Émard that the level of poverty in Montreal has constantly been on the rise in the last ten years. In that city-and the minister should know that since he is one of its prominent representa-
tives-close to 64,000 families, that is one family out of five, spend more than half of their income on rent. This makes Montreal the Canadian city with the largest number of renting households spending more than 50 per cent of their income on accommodation.
There is more, and I want the minister of Finance and member for LaSalle-Émard to listen to this. He is not here? Surely he must be listening to me. Excuse me, Madam Speaker, I apologize. I made a blunder. I wish the Minister of Finance would realize that in Montreal, as I said earlier, 64,000 families-one household out of three-pay more than 50 per cent of their income on housing, and 20,000 people are homeless. Are the Minister of Finance and his government going to close their eyes much longer to this human suffering?
It is time to stop the pretty speeches and take action. The government should stop saying it will do anything at all to help people, when it agrees to maintain a decision to cut $600 million from the budget for social housing.
I have a few comments on national defence, since the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Defence referred to the Bloc's position on the subject this afternoon. The measures in this budget are not what the Bloc Quebecois asked for. I will explain, perhaps for the last time in this House, what the Bloc's position was on the budget for National Defence. The Bloc Quebecois was in favour of a 25 per cent cut in the defence budget. It favoured using part of the resulting savings on reconversion of defence industries to civilian use, something which is entirely absent from the budget plan of the government and its Minister of Finance. It is not the same perspective. They can use as much political rhetoric as they like, as the Minister of National Defence did this afternoon, but they cannot deny that this was requested by the Bloc Quebecois.
Second, we asked, and we defended the principle during the election campaign, that a fair share of Canada's national defence budget be spent in Quebec. We asked that fairness be restored to the system before proceeding with drastic cuts just about anywhere.
Today, and the Official Opposition defence critic will correct me if I am wrong, about 19 per cent of Canada's national defence budget, let us say between 17 and 19 per cent, is attributed to Quebec, although Quebec represents 25 per cent of the population, and now they say: of course you will agree with the closing of the only francophone military college in North America. I think that is outrageous. We will never agree with that decision, and I can assure you that in the case of the Collège militaire royal in Saint-Jean, the Bloc Quebecois and its supporters, and I think we have quite a few in Quebec today, will stand and fight, and I mean this quite seriously, against the closing of the only francophone military college in North America.