Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words about the budget. In particular I would like to say that as this debate has unfolded in the last few days, time and time again hon. members of the Bloc have risen and talked about what a horrible deal Quebec gets at the hands of the rest of the country.
After the last such outpouring of emotion from the Bloc I thought it might be interesting to do an analysis, an investigation, and see how bad it really is. I would like to read it into the record and bring some edification to some of the members of the Bloc. Let me quote from the estimates of equalization for 1993-94 by revenue, source and province.
An hon. member of the Bloc recently talked about the transfer payments and equalization and the fact that: "We recognize we are the recipients of transfer payments, but we send a whole lot of money into Canada, into the national treasury by way of income and corporate taxes".
Let me set the record straight as far as personal income taxes are concerned. I will not go through all of the provinces, but I will if I may outline Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta.
Transfer payments from the federal treasury to the province as a direct result of personal income taxes: Quebec is the net beneficiary of $1,529,700,000 a year; Ontario pays out $2,137,000,000; Alberta pays out $63 billion and B.C. $199 billion.
On business income revenues, Quebec pays out $78 million; Ontario $175 million; Alberta $245 million and B.C. is the recipient of $109 million.
Let us cut to the bottom line. There is a whole stream of statistics here and any of my hon. colleagues from the Bloc are quite welcome to ask the Department of Finance for the information. They can get it by phoning the Library or the Department of Finance.
Estimates for this year have Quebec being the net recipient of $3.730 billion from the federal treasury. Ontario will contribute $3.946 billion. Alberta with one-tenth of the population of Canada will contribute $4.218 billion and British Columbia, $1.294 billion.
I thought it would be worthwhile to put this on the record so my colleagues in the Bloc and the people of Quebec understand that there is a net benefit to Quebec to remain in Confederation. This is not a one-way street.
The other point I would like to raise in conjunction with the debate on the budget is the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act. I am speaking in support of the changes that the government has introduced and would ask it to consider extending them to some of the recommendations that were leaked in the press earlier.
The unemployment insurance program as it is today is not the program that was envisioned when it was first announced. Unemployment insurance today is a wealth transfer tax. It is a transfer of wealth from those who are working to those who are not working.
That is fine except let us call it what it is. Instead of calling it unemployment insurance, let us call it a wealth transfer tax. It transfers that wealth from one part of the country to other parts on a sliding scale of entitlements and requirements. It certainly cannot be considered unemployment insurance.
I ask members to consider the situation of an employee who earns $15,000 to $18,000 a year, has never been out of work, pays unemployment insurance on a weekly basis and has done so for 15 or 20 years. Contrast that with a seasonally employed person who might make twice as much money working six or eight months of the year. That person is then entitled to unemployment insurance for the remainder of the year. They already make twice as much money as the person who works all year long. Yet the person who is unemployed seasonally gets a ton of money from the unemployment insurance program at the expense of the person who works all year long and does not take any time off.
Is it fair? We have to change the unemployment insurance program to reflect reality. Just as individuals may take advantage of the unemployment insurance program that exists today, so do businesses take advantage of it.
If a business sees that it is going to have a slow time for a month, a month and a half, or two months it is very easy to lay people off and bring them back into the workforce. They can go on pogey. The employer has no fear of losing them as skilled employees because they are not going to find a job in a month and a half.
When laying off employees the employer can tell them: "Don't worry, we will bring you back in a month and a half". What happens? The unemployment program is subsidizing a business and their employee pool. That is not what it was designed to do. That is a business taking advantage of the unemployment insurance program just as some employees do.
How do we go about fixing that? If we were to make the unemployment insurance program a pure insurance program run
by the employees and paid for by the employees, there would be natural checks and balances built into the program that would prevent abuse. If premiums were abhorrently high because other people were abusing it, it would not take very long for all the people who found themselves being abused to get in there and change it.
Therefore, what do we do in order to ensure that those who do not have the resources or the employment are looked after? Canadians are caring and compassionate. We are not going to let people starve in the street. That is a basic understood fundamental Canadian value.
How do we go about ensuring that does not happen? I submit it is time that our country started dealing with situations and problems as they are, not as we wish them to be. If that means that because of the changing nature of work in our country and around the world people are going to be working fewer hours and getting more for it, having more leisure time, then we have to reflect the realities that exist.
If it means that we are going to have to look at a guaranteed annual income then let us look at it. Let us look at these things honestly so that when we have an area of the country with extremely high systemic unemployment, people can say: "I can choose to live here because I like living here. This is where my family has always lived. I am only going to simply survive. If I want to do well or if I want my children to do well I am going to have to do the same thing that my forefathers did. I am going to have to go where there are jobs and where the economy is stronger".
We have to deal with the reality of the economics in our country and around the world as it is and not as we would wish it to be. If we continue to look at this through the rose coloured, rose tinted glasses that we have been we will never start dealing with the fundamental problem we have in our country. The fundamental problem is that there are areas where the nature of work is changing.
We know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the unemployment in the maritimes is going to stay high for at least our lifetime. It is tragic but the reality exists that if people who live in the maritimes or in any other systemically disadvantaged part of our country want to do better they are going to have to move to another part of the country where their children are going to have opportunity just as our forefathers had to leave whatever their home country was and come here.
I thank the Chair for the opportunity to make these points. I wanted particularly to make these points about the value of Confederation to my hon. colleagues from Bloc from Quebec who are constantly reminding the House of how historically disadvantaged they are when the reality is they are not.