Madam Speaker, we seldom have an opportunity to do so but before resuming our comments on the budget of the Minister of Finance, I would like to start by congratulating the interpreters who do an excellent job, both in French and in English. This is not always easy, especially when members speak quickly and use technical terms.
Yesterday's budget speech by the Minister of Finance is a direct contradiction of any expectations we might have of a new government in this House. This government promised us jobs that would restore the dignity-as the present Prime Minister said and kept repeating, especially during the election campaign-of a million and a half unemployed Canadians and nearly half a million unemployed workers in Quebec. That did not happen in this budget.
This budget merely refers to the infrastructure program which already been announced on many occasions and will create only 45,000 temporary jobs, or barely 3 per cent of the needs of the unemployed. Three per cent, that is what the government and its Minister of Finance are giving us after repeating for I do not know how many months, while waving their little red book, that what was needed was jobs, jobs, jobs. And all we get is 45,000 jobs, 3 per cent of what the Canadian labour market needs.
The government was also committed to putting its financial house in order. However, the deficit for 1994-95 will remain very high, at nearly $40 billion the highest deficit estimate ever in federal history.
And since yesterday, this government has felt very proud. The minister says he is proud of this budget, and he brings us the highest deficit in Canadian history. How can anyone be proud of a budget as disastrous as this one?
The government failed to make much-needed cuts in government spending. It failed miserably. It did not have the guts to attack departmental operating expenditures and cut the fat in the federal bureaucracy. The fat is still there. Every year the Auditor General keeps repeating the fat should be trimmed from program administration and public spending in general. But where is the political will to do what the Auditor General asked the government to do not so long ago? Nowhere.
This government, and the Minister of Finance in particular, does not have the courage either to end overlap and duplication which at the very least cost Quebec alone between $2 and $3 billion. This is unacceptable for a first budget from a federal government which promised to get its fiscal house in order. If my memory serves me correctly, yesterday's budget reduces federal government operating expenditures by only $400 million, out of a total operating budget of nearly $20 billion. How can it be proud of this achievement?
Instead of cutting expenses, the Minister of Finance and his government have foolishly chosen to increase the fiscal burden of taxpayers, specifically the burden of the middle class, thereby falling into the same ruts as the previous government.
Overall, the government will collect no less than $575 million in 1994-1995 from a variety of new taxes, and more than $1.3 billion in 1995-1996. Not so long ago, every member of this government, and in particular the current Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, was saying that when they came to power, there would be no tax increases and no income tax increases. They are doing exactly the opposite of what they have been saying for months. They are also doing exactly the opposite, Madam Speaker, of what they said they would do in their red book, this rag that they have been waving in our faces every day.