Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in support of Bill C-17, the budget implementation act, because the bill seeks to legislate a number of measures announced by the minister in his budget in February. The bill reflects the widely shared conclusions reached by many Canadians from all walks of life who participated in the prebudget conferences. They agreed at that time and I believe we agree in this House that action is needed on three major, closely linked challenges.
First, Canadians want the government to create job opportunities and to take action to restore the country's economic viability. Second, Canadians have called on government to address the deficit problem. Third, they point out, as they did in those prebudget conferences, the urgent need to reform Canada's social security programs, including unemployment insurance, so that these programs better serve those who are in need while remaining affordable for a nation with a growing debt. These are three important challenges: job creation, deficit reduction and the reform of social programs so that they can better serve the needs of Canadians.
On that last point, when we gave the enabling legislation in this House with respect to the reform of social programs, I said at that particular time when this issue was under debate at least that reforming social programs ought not to be a code word for dismantling, for gutting social programs. I am careful to say at all times when I talk about this that it must be an effort which
improves, better tailors those programs for a new time, not an excuse for gutting those programs.
There are people in need. There are people who depend on those programs. That is why I am proud to live in Canada. We were told this week once again that we live by internationally accepted criteria in the best country in the world. That comes as no surprise to us; even those who are working hard to leave the country must grudgingly acknowledge that.
The budget addresses all three of those important elements or areas. There are initiatives to create jobs, including the $6 billion shared cost infrastructure program which is now well under way. In so far as Newfoundland is concerned, the first phase was announced a month or so ago. The second phase will be announced tomorrow, a number of other projects that will help stimulate the economy and some short and medium term job creation.
The budget also contains important support for technological innovation and for the small business sector, a subject dear to the heart of my good friend from Broadview-Greenwood.
There is also important action in this bill, in this budget, to reduce the deficit primarily through cuts in government spending. Gross fiscal savings including the savings announced in previous budget secured by this legislation total $28.6 billion over the next three fiscal years. Net savings in that period total $20.4 billion. These measures will help to shrink the deficit from $45.7 billion in the year just ending to $39.7 billion in 1994-95, and to $32.7 billion the year after; $13 billion savings in two years.
I say to my good friend from Yellowhead, whom I am always delighted to see in this Chamber, it is important that the choice is not seen as being between jobs and the deficit. It is not one or the other. We would be irresponsible as parliamentarians if we saw it as one or the other, as if we said put the whole job need on hold for five years until we get the deficit under control, or put the deficit issue under control for five years until we get the job situation properly addressed. It is not that simple. Life does not stand still for people who have to buy the groceries, nor does life stand still in terms of accruing interest on our indebtedness as a country.
We have to juggle those two very difficult balls at one time. That is the challenge. The country is full of experts there who will tell you how to create jobs, who will tell you how to reduce the deficit. The crunch comes when you ask them to hold both balls in the air at the same time. Whatever the rhetoric of various members in this House, including mine, I do not believe there is a single soul in this chamber who believes that we can put one of those issues on hold while we solve the other. That would be irresponsible and I do not think Canadians sent us here to be irresponsible.
The measures announced in this budget last February will, of course, be supplemented with further initiatives next year as we reform major spending programs. We are taking some action now and will take some more in the future to ensure the deficit continues to decline steeply.
The budget also takes some measures to provide stable, sustainable funding for Canada's social safety net. This funding will provide a secure and constructive environment for both individual Canadians and policy makers at all levels of government as we embark on the process of reform and renewal that is currently under way. This legislation, Bill C-17, addresses two areas of spending in this regard: transfers to the provinces and changes to the UI program. I want to spend a moment on each of those.
First, the matter of unemployment insurance, a matter that is dear to my heart because it is dear to the hearts of my constituents who, through no fault of their own, have gone through the following traumatic situation in the last few years.
I say to my friend from Okanagan-Shuswap that when I first came here in November, 1979 my riding had a rate of unemployment which was the same as that in Alberta, the province of my friend from Yellowhead. It was 3.8 per cent in November, 1979. The riding of Burin-St. George's with its deep sea and inshore year round fishery, unaffected by ice conditions which have an impact on other parts of the island of Newfoundland, has always had a basic 11.5 month fishery, never a 12 month fishery. We believe strongly in certain things in Newfoundland and one of the things we believe in is the 12 days of Christmas. We take that time off for a great celebration of a great Christian festival and for a great party. In Newfoundland these two issues are not mutually exclusive.
It is an 11.5 month fishery. It never was a 12 month fishery. I would oppose it from ever becoming a 12 month fishery for the above reasons. It has degenerated, through no fault of the hard working people whose ancestors came to that coast 500 years ago. It is certainly not laziness or what we call in Newfoundland being a hangashore, one who stays ashore rather than go fishing. We have a very provocative and descriptive term for a lazy person in Newfoundland; he or she is called a hangashore and by definition that is somebody who will not go fishing. In Newfoundland work is fish, basically. That is why 17,000 people in my riding, until the recent catastrophes in the fishery, have traditionally earned their living either in the fishing boat or in the fish plant.
I was saying to my friends from Alberta and British Columbia across the aisle that in 1979 the rate of unemployment in my
riding was 3.8 per cent, the same as in Alberta, the province at that time with the fastest growing economy in Canada and the lowest unemployment rate in Canada. My riding was identical.
Today I could not even put a figure on it. Is it 40, is it 50, is it 60, is it 70 per cent? It depends on what you do with all those people who through no fault of their own are not in the boats today, not in the plants today, drawing a compensation package as a result of the moratorium.
This UI issue is very dear to my heart because it does affect some of those people. Contrary to public popular opinion in Ontario, I would say to my friend from Bramalea-Gore-Malton, all the people down there are not on the the fisheries compensation package. Many people in Newfoundland ply their trade in terms of forestry and in terms of seasonal construction activity, in terms of mining, in terms of tourism, and so on. These are impacted by unemployment insurance changes as well.
These changes being proposed through this bill are designed to achieve a couple of things. The first is to encourage the private sector to create jobs. We believe firmly in this party that government cannot be the employer of last resort. We believe that government can help create the climate, but it is private industry, including the small business sector, which must create the jobs. My hon. friend from Okanagan-Shuswap agrees. He and I agree on many things and this is one of them. It is the private sector. That is one of the objectives.
The second is to increase the fairness of the system by increasing benefits to low income recipients with dependents. To help create jobs, the bill rolls back the UI premium for 1995 and 1996 to $3. We believe and we hope this payroll tax relief will encourage business to create jobs.
By the end of 1996 the government expects that there will be 40,000 more jobs in the economy than would be the case if premiums had been allowed to rise to the levels required by the previous legislation.
Those rollbacks have to be accomplished in a way that supports deficit reduction. With this in mind, the legislation proposes measures to reduce UI expenditures by $725 million in this fiscal year and a further $2.4 billion annually thereafter.
I submit that these rollbacks in expenditures are being done in a way that is fair so that persons in areas with high unemployment will still be eligible for more benefits with less work activity than people in other regions of the country.
Our package of UI reforms promotes fairness in other respects. It increases the benefit for low income claimants with dependents. As well, the benefit of the doubt will be given to claimants who quit voluntarily. I have to say that this is an issue that I had a lot of difficulty with when the former administration brought in that change, about letting the axe fall when people quit or were fired because it put employees at the mercy of the employer in a way that they never should have been. This redresses that issue in a way with which I am comfortable.
Let me come to the Canada assistance plan. To help create a positive, co-operative climate for social security reform, the government is providing a two-year period of predictability and modest growth in social security transfers under the Canada assistance plan and established programs financing.
This means that in 1994-95 there will be no new restraint measures applied to either CAP or EPF transfers. The legislation before us today will place a ceiling on subsequent CAP transfers to the provinces, so they do not exceed the current year's levels. This ceiling will remain in place next year pending social security reform the following year.
EPF financing is not affected by this legislation. However, the existing restraint will be maintained. The process of social security reform has a goal of central interest to all Canadians, no matter where they live, to renew and revitalize Canada's social security system over the next couple of years. We will preserve protection for those in need. We will improve incentives to work and we must ensure that the social safety net remains affordable.
Bill C-17 is a key part of the government's agenda, an agenda that includes job creation, deficit reduction and renewal, and reform of our social safety net. Our mandate for this agenda comes from the people of Canada who entrusted us last October to set a new course. We, the Prime Minister and his team, are keeping faith with that trust by listening to what Canadians told us last year.
The recent budget was an important step, an early step, a big step, but just one step in making our agenda a reality. That budget reflects clearly the input we received from Canadians as do the measures in this legislation. That is why I am hopeful that members on all sides of the House will see fit to want to identify with what I believe are a handful of good initiatives, not the whole nine yards. We are not there yet. If we, through the infrastructure program, the youth corps and otherwise can see the jobs generated that we have projected, we will create just a little less misery for people out there, including young people.
If we are going to achieve our goals in terms of deficit reduction to get it under $40 billion, to have these $13 billion in savings over the next couple of years, that will go a long way to reducing the drain on our capacity, the drain we are paying out in interest charges, and be able to take that and redirect it to more job creation, to more social program underwriting.
Third, if we can, over the next couple of years, reform the social safety net in a way that does it credit to Canadians, in a way that meets the needs of those who are in need, while at the same time crafting it in a way that is affordable for us as a country with severe financial restraint facing us everywhere we turn.
Nobody in this Chamber, whatever their partisan platform during the election past, whatever their particular political ideology, can be against putting those young people back to work, putting people of all ages into productive labour activity. Nobody can argue with our goal of bringing down the deficit to free up dollars for use elsewhere. Nobody can disagree with what this party has said and stood by for many decades, that there is a group of people out there who have need for social programs through disability, through age, through other circumstance, through no fault of their own particularly, have need for those programs.
There but for the grace of God go I, go you. Again I repeat I am proud to live in a country that has that kind of social safety net for people in those circumstances.
For all of those reasons I hope members of the House would find it in their hearts to support with a heart and a half Bill C-17.