Mr. Speaker, this budget is the failure of a newly-elected government, a government with a list of promises as long as your arm.
Sadly, we are faced with a double failure. First, this government has failed to start off its mandate by taking the drastic actions required to put our public finances in order. Second, it also failed to find ways to promote economic recovery. It has managed to take yet more from the have-nots of our society, while sparing the wealthy. It has even managed to cause controversy with unfortunate decisions like the closure of the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean.
However much the Minister of Finance tried to prove, with all kinds of figures and calculations, that efforts had been made to cut expenditures, few people believed him-not the media, and certainly not ordinary people-because the figures are there, implacable and merciless.
Those figures tell us that the budget will again show a deficit of disposable revenue over uncontrolled expenditures. This government will keep feeding an accumulated deficit by nearly $40 billion, an amount that the government is spending on top of what the people are able to pay. So, it should not boast about cuts and efforts to that effect. Its failure is visible, undeniable, because total spending continues to increase.
The level of indebtedness of this country is getting ridiculous. While this government will be adding some $40 billion to the accumulated debt, it will spend about as much just to service the debt. In other words, we are getting dangerously close to the point where our annual deficit will be equal to the cost of
servicing the public debt. Will we soon be forced to cut government spending just to cover debt charges? The Minister of Finance himself admitted that he will not be able to pay off Canada's public debt. What about the annual deficit? Could he pay it off? Not likely! If only the government could invest as much in job creation as it is paying just for debt maintenance.
Furthermore, the government could not resist picking up the bad habit of hitting on low-income people. We thought we had seen everything with the actions the former minister responsible for the Unemployment Insurance Program had recently announced. He had even tried to fool people by renaming his department, using the euphemism of Human Resources Development. Can you imagine? But people were not fooled; we know what they did with this kind of human resources development. In the last election, the Canadian people as a whole fired all those who did not understand the difference between tackling unemployment and attacking the unemployed.
The new government, far from distinguishing itself from the old Tory government, followed in their footsteps. Ordinary people have trouble understanding how the proposed changes to the unemployment insurance program are likely to improve the employment picture. I, too, have trouble understanding the increase in the number of weeks of work needed to qualify, when jobs are increasingly precarious and job security seems to have become an obsolete concept.
The cumulative deficit of some $6 billion in the unemployment insurance account at the end of 1993 is not a result of the system as such but of the failure of governments to support employment and the economy. It is not the unemployment insurance program that creates unemployment. The Liberals are confusing the disease with the cure. This remedy is not curative but palliative. The Liberals are on the same wrong path as the Conservatives; they have the same policies, the same lobbyists, the same kind of election fund, the same friends, the same protectors.
Observers quickly noted how fast the government acted to introduce in its current budget measures hitting the middle class. Yet, despite all the proposed measures regarding capital gains and tax loopholes, the Minister of Finance merely announced public consultations and hearings. Not only is there no equity in this budget but there is no appearance of equity.
While cutting transfer payments to the provinces by $2 billion over two years, it does not have the courage to close the real tax loopholes available to the rich. We in the Bloc Quebecois are always identifying tax trusts or invoking the Auditor General's recommendations, for example. If cuts to operating expenditures for 1994-95 only amount to $413 million, it is because the government did not take immediate action to eliminate waste and duplication.
It refuses to cut in the right places but does it in the wrong places. In his speech, the Minister of Finance called for renewal and accountability in social programs. To move in that direction, the government could have restored the non-profit housing program, for instance. That program provided needy households with housing of reasonable size and quality at affordable prices. It helped eligible sponsoring organizations to build, acquire, renovate and run subsidized rental housing projects. But the government did not restore the program, and thus missed a good opportunity to show its know-how.
Short of a similar program, it seems that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which was responsible for such applications under the National Housing Act, is now essentially a mortgage insurer and has given up its role of partner in social programs.
The office of the president and chief executive officer of the Société d'habitation du Québec told us that, in 1993, 782 new low-cost housing units had been built across the province, thanks to the financial involvement of the federal government. Thirty-five of these units are located at 41 Saint-Hubert Street, in Châteauguay, thanks to the initiative and efforts of all those involved within the community. Do you know how many new units are expected to be added in 1994, after this budget? None, Mr. Speaker. None at all! Maybe this is the government's message! Maybe this is the solution found by the government to free itself from its obligations towards the poor.
I say to the government that better management is not synonymous with reneging on commitments. The necessary streamlining of expenditures and operations did not take place. It is more than urgent that the government use common sense. The Liberals had their red book, but their budget does not show that they have the know-how. This is why the Bloc Quebecois has every reason to be here in this House. It must make representations on behalf of all those who are forgotten and neglected by the government, and it must inform this same government of the opportunities which exist but that it refuses to recognize.
As the Official Opposition critic for Veterans Affairs, I was surprised to read that the secretary of state was satisfied because no programs were affected by any cuts, and that he was confident that no service would be adversely affected. These comments were reported in the February 24, 1994, issue of the Charlottetown Guardian . How can the minister make such claims when cuts affecting the department are somewhere around $3.2 million? How can these cuts, which will impact on the 1994-95 department's operating expenditures, have no effect whatsoever? Is the department so badly managed that cuts of that magnitude will not be felt at all? I certainly intend to ensure that the statement made by the secretary of state is not merely exaggerated optimism.
This budget clearly illustrates the failure of the Canadian federal regime. The wheel of the regime is turning with such inertia and is under the influence of such external force that it does not seem controllable. The result is that the Liberals have drafted a budget identical to the one which the Conservatives might have tabled, had they been re-elected. It is the exact same thing! If the elected government does not seem able to control the federal regime, how can Canadians have the impression that they can make a difference and change things in that regime?
We believe that the real solution lies in a major redefinition of the controls of public authority. Quebec's sovereignty is not an end in itself. It does not automatically mean the end of Canada or the will to come to that. Rather, Quebec's sovereignty represents the beginning of a new relationship in which solutions simply not possible in the present constitutional structure could be used to resolve common problems. Canada's structural crisis can only be solved if Quebec becomes a sovereign nation. This is the option I favour for the benefit of our future generations.