Mr. Speaker, I have the distinct honour today not only to congratulate you on your position but at the same time to congratulate the hon. Minister of Finance on one of the most balanced and reasonable budgets presented to the House in recent times.
This is my first opportunity to address the House as the newly elected member for Ontario. It is a privilege to be able to stand before the House in that capacity. Before me have gone some great members who passed through the House. I am thinking of the Hon. Norman Cafik, the Hon. Michael Starr and more recently Rene Soetens, the member who served here from 1988 to 1992.
I take the House very seriously. The constituents of the Ontario riding have given me an opportunity for once to express their interests on their behalf. It is a humbling task which I plan to serve with diligence, integrity and honesty. I would like to say a bit about my riding before I proceed into some of the highlights of the budget as I saw it and some important aspects of the budget that are worth while pursuing and supporting.
Ontario riding is one of the largest populace ridings in the country. It stretches to include the ever growing towns of Ajax, Pickering and Whitby. It also includes a vast urban-rural area known by some who have been in the House before as the Pickering airport lands or as the Seaton lands. It is growing rapidly and it is in many respects a microcosm of the future of Canada. It is one of the reasons it elected one of the youngest candidates, one of the youngest members of Parliament on the government benches. I am quite privileged to be able to perform in that capacity, but in order to understand a bit about the budget I had first to understand a bit about my riding.
The budget starts the process of getting Canada working again to bring our economy from a position of stagnation to a position of growth. In previous years we have seen a neo-Conservative policy adopted by the government which preceded us. I believe the policy did much to hamper our understanding and appreciation that the economy around the world including Canada has changed fundamentally.
The appreciation of that change has allowed us as a government to signal and to design a new way, a new approach and a new economy, an economy based on ideas, on innovation and on the recognition the government plays a very strong role in the maintaining, supporting and ensuring of an effective direction for economic viability.
What Canada is about to undertake could otherwise be known as planning its own future. It could be known by some as being able to prepare ourselves as to where we want to go. A famous quoter from years ago made the following comment: "If you do not know where you are going, chances are you are going to wind up somewhere else". I would submit to the House that is precisely where Canada was until 1993 and until the budget more recently.
In this economy we have seen the view that deficits are not as important as growth or jobs. I take a different view. In the country over the past few months we have seen the faces of many people who have lost their employment, businesses that have gone underground and companies that have simply shut down. That is no longer acceptable in this great land. We have designed a policy which we believe will help Canada not only renew itself but the people within it.
People do not want to live on UI or welfare. Canadians want to work, to earn a living and to obtain the respect that having a job brings. They want to talk about the personal experiences they have in business, how to run one and how to maintain it in periods of difficulty.
This is an area which the budget has addressed. It has recognized the importance of small business. My riding, perhaps unlike other ridings, has a higher number of people working in the private sector with small businesses, companies of 10, 15 or less. It is important for the government to appreciate the role it has in terms of access to capital. It is one of the reasons I commend the hon. Minister of Finance for his tenacity in ensuring that a code of conduct was instilled in the budget.
If we did not have such a code of conduct banks would be basically able to make suggestions as to where they were going to priorize their lending priorities and small businesses which are creating wealth in this economy would simply pack up and leave or go underground.
In order to address the subject of the underground the budget focused on the GST. The finance committee has been charged with the task of amending or changing what is perceived as the most hated tax in modern times in Canadian history. We believe the GST if changed could help make a new economy. It could help make business work once again.
Parliament has an obligation to the people of Canada to put forward some sound fiscal policies and to restore faith in our political institutions. We have a duty to reform Parliament and do away with the perks and privileges to which ordinary Canadians do not have access. We must be an example for Canadians. Parliament is in no position to ask Canadians to make sacrifices if it fails to practise what it preaches.
That is one of the reasons as a younger member of Parliament I would certainly support an initiative at some point that would redress the great and grotesque imbalance Canadians rightly perceive between what is taking place in the real world and what is taking place in the House of Commons.
Ontario riding has a population of some 200,000. Its size is one of the most daunting tasks confronting me as a member of Parliament. It is not one I am prepared to take lightly. Daily we receive letters from all sorts of constituents addressing any number of issues at a given time. I do my best to respond to them.
In the period leading up to the budget I noted two or three issues that the constituents of my riding asked me to ensure were taken into account by the Minister of Finance. The first was that there be no charge for the benefits of dental and health care. That is something the government delivered on. It listened, it acted, it delivered.
Another area was to try to stimulate the housing industry through the use of RRSPs. I note that policy initiated by the last government on a temporary basis was actually a ripoff of the Liberal Party policy in 1988-89. It was a good policy then. I am pleased the government decided to adopt it on a temporary basis, but I am even more proud of the Liberal Party for deciding to make that permanent. It recognizes that the construction industry is not a simple cog in a wheel as far as this economic situation is concerned. It realizes it is one of the fundamental keys in our economic picture.
The budget process is an ongoing additional budgetary measure that we should believe will be examined in the course of time. It should be brought forward in a few months to allow Canadians, certainly people in my riding, an opportunity to discuss its many important attributes.
I am looking right now at an opportunity for my constituents with whom I have had an opportunity to discuss the budget last week to become more meaningfully involved in the overall decisionmaking not only of a member of Parliament but of the actual budgetary process. It is a great tribute to the government that it has taken upon itself the opportunity of ensuring there is before Parliament a chance for public input.
Canada is benefiting as is my riding from the infrastructure program. Some $47 million has been allocated to my riding that will result in over 1,000 people being employed who might otherwise not have had an opportunity to work. I could put that into another perspective: a 1,000-job investment in infrastructure, sewer and water upgrades, will help the economy.
I am pleased to support the budget. I thank the residents of Ontario for their support.