Madam Speaker, once again it is a pleasure to speak on a bill in the House of Commons but it is not such a pleasure to talk about Bill C-17.
In question period today I mentioned the simile of bailing out a ship with a thimble. That is what we have here, the government trying to deal with the large problem of $40 billion and we are playing around the edges with some of the cuts. Most people in Canada know that just will not work.
I spent some time in Halifax during the spring recess with a number of business groups and a model parliament. It was with enthusiasm that I watched the prime minister of that model parliament and his elected members from the school expressing their views and frustrations about things that are happening in the country; the criminal justice system, parliamentary reform and so on, but expressing long term views of the problems that exist in our economy. I do not think we should take this so lightly. These young people have reason to be concerned.
A lot of people talk about our younger generation today and refer to them as generation x , a generation some say that does not have its own identity as far as music and other things. My impression of generation x is one of young concerned Canadians, a group that probably will have, very rightly so, very little tolerance with us baby boomers who have managed to spend ourselves into oblivion.
When it comes time for us to have a pension in the next 15, 20, 25 years I somehow think that generation x will be very dissatisfied with us and our spending and will have no sympathy
whatsoever. Perhaps it is well deserved by us. The frustration is across the country. I see it in my riding every day in Langley, Aldergrove, and Max Lake.
The budget has created some serious concerns for Canadians and as I travel and talk to people in this fair city of Ottawa you can hear it every day. It is on their minds. The government has not addressed the concerns of the economy.
I sense there are some members on the government side who want to deal with it. I do not know what the problem is. Maybe the cabinet ministers wish to hold them back but I sincerely hope those members will convince their leaders that something more serious has to take place.
I have talked to bankers in the maritimes. They expressed the same concerns as bankers in Fraser Valley West. It is no different. It is not regional. How can any rational person support Bill C-17 which will provide for $3 billion more in expenditures next year than the previous year?
The Liberal government has provided what I referred to some time ago as a flaccid approach to managing Canada. The dictionary definition of flaccid is limp-wristed, lacking vigour and feeble. At the time when I talked about that I put my own definition of the word flaccid. I made it an acronym. Flaccid to me really means the federal Liberals are crafty Conservatives in disguise. I do not see a lot of difference. Now I am getting a rise from the members on the other side of the House so I am starting to hit a few buttons here. I expect that will happen over the next few years.
However, they should not take it so badly because I am going to do my very best in the next 10 minutes to explain why Canadians coast to coast feel this way and are disappointed in the selection of the government in the last election.
Let us compare the short record of this Liberal Party with that of the Conservatives who were annihilated in the last election. It is necessary to make this comparison throughout this speech to understand why we cannot support the Liberal budget and why I predict that party will fail dismally in the next election. That is a pity really but that is the way it is going to go.
I can remember back in 1984 when the Liberals were thrown out and we brought in the Conservatives. Canada had so much hope. What happened? They spent their way into oblivion. Now we are just continuing on with the next generation of traditional politics.
The budget is going to see Liberal spending increase by $3 billion at a time when our national debt is $40 billion.
The financial markets are reacting to it and businessmen have reacted to it for the last 10 years. They are concerned. The only group that is not reacting to it is the government itself. It is ironic.
The government does not have the intestinal fortitude to deal with reality. It indicates also that the government cannot take a tough stand on the big issues and will not. This Liberal government really is a Liberal government. It is not Conservative in nature and it is definitely not Reform in nature. Some of the members are suggesting that is a good idea but we will see in the next election.
Let me take you into some detail that will astound you, Madam Speaker. I want to talk a little bit about just why we get frustrated here and why the people out in all of the communities in Canada get frustrated. I want to talk about a little organization called the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
This council has existed for some years now. I do not know how far back, but it existed in the Conservative reign and it exists here today. I will just run by a couple of bottom line budgets of this organization. In 1991-92 its budget was $90 million. In the next year, 1992-93, its budget was $101 million. The budget has gone up and at one point it was $97.7 million.
One might say: "Well what is wrong with that? It must be a good organization and it must do a lot of good things". I do not doubt that. However, in this budget when we were looking for some cuts there were no cuts to the organization. In fact its budget increased.
Let me give you an idea of some of the expenditures coming from that organization that have not been questioned at all. In fact its budget has been increased. After I read these I think the people watching and listening this afternoon and my colleagues next will ask themselves the question: Why did we not look a little harder at this in the budget? Why did we not take some money out of this budget?
Payments: $15,435 to study eunuchs in Imperial China. Now I ask: Do we have a better way to spend $15,000? The amount of $147,827 was spent to examine lullabies, form and function in infant directed music.
While that may be interesting to some, I doubt very much whether there are many people in this country who have a lot of interest in their tax dollars going this way.