Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on this bill. I join the hon. member for Yukon in her sincere desire that no Canadian ever have to suffer the anxiety and the stress of being unable to find a good job with a good income sufficient to provide for themselves and their family. I commend her for her compassion and for wishing to devise a way to relieve this and other difficulties faced by all too many of our citizens.
Unfortunately the measure she is proposing in the bill before this House today simply cannot achieve this ideal. It would be wonderful if people through their elected representatives could by putting the right words on paper eliminate difficulties and uncertainty in the economic, political and social spheres of our society. In my view it does not work that way. That view is based on observations of government actions both past and present, some in our own country.
Creating a state bureaucracy which will somehow create jobs for everyone is certainly not a new idea. The well known slogan of the old Soviet Union was: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". What that led to was summarized in the typical black humour of the Polish workers who used to say: "We pretend to work and the government pretends to pay us".
To suggest to Canadians that governments owe them jobs or are even capable of providing them with jobs in every case would be a cruel deception. This is particularly true for this government, already over half a trillion dollars in debt and spending $41 billion and rising every single year just on interest on that debt.
The tax burden on working Canadians simply to sustain the present level of spending is already a crushing load. Where will the money come from to create the ministry of plenty envisioned in this bill? Governments have no money of their own. They must work with money taken from citizens. Even if they recovered some revenue in the form of taxes this proposal would still require an enormous additional expenditure in terms of the bureaucratic handling fee that would be made necessary by this new initiative.
If government programs, spending, borrowing for more programs and increasing tax grabs to fund it all could give people jobs, there would be enough programs and spending in Canada to give every single citizen three jobs. It has not worked out that way.
Since big government, big government programs and interference in the economy are what have brought us to today's fiscal mess I am frankly amazed that anyone would be advocating more of the same today.
Allow me to outline some of the obvious flaws in this bill. Clause 3 of this legislative proposal calls for governments to give priority to the undertaking of sufficient measures to achieve full employment in Canada and establish programs that ensure that employment opportunities are available to all adult Canadians who seek work.
These suggestions are vague and they are optimistic. The shortage of specifics with intent to achieve idealistic goals seems to infer that the government should spend tax dollars to create employment without creating wealth or economic growth to support it.
It seems to me that we have tried these measures before in countless forms throughout our history without creating any possibility for long term employment. The most recent example is this government's initiative to assist unemployed Canadian youth. These programs amount to a redistribution of tax dollars to our young people in exchange for performing routine tasks. It does nothing to give them long term jobs and skills.
The premier of Ontario tried to spend his way out of recessionary times during his first year in office. We know the results there. This type of mentality has already plunged Canada to the brink of fiscal collapse. Investor confidence has weakened and with it has come a loss of jobs and a shaky economy.
High interest rates are another result of this type of government policy. The vicious spiral of government spending leads to a high level of taxation which in turn contributes to inflation which stifles entrepreneurship.
The best way to create employment and thus achieve this bill's objectives is to eliminate government waste, remove barriers and regulations that hinder commerce, cut spending and reduce taxes. In this environment there would be a streamlined bureaucracy serving the real needs of Canadian entrepreneurs. Canadians would have more money left in their pockets to start and build businesses and there would be enough profit left to make their work and risk worthwhile. Only when individuals are prepared to risk their own capital can we expect to have a strong and vibrant economy.
Studies have shown and indeed the hon. member opposite just mentioned that an enormous percentage of real long term jobs are created by a healthy small business sector.
We need to get government off the backs of people and keep governments' demands from obstructing their dreams and work. There is no need to further encumber the people of Canada with yet another government department and still more regulations to stimulate employment.
This bill also calls for a draft plan that will include an estimate of the number of jobs expected to be created in Canada as a result of the plan and a timetable for its implementation and
for the achievement of full employment. This suggestion poses some very serious questions.
First, experience has amply demonstrated that governments by their nature cannot be trusted to forecast the economic capacity of a free market. Their attempts to do so have only led to some type of a planned economy. I am sure we are all aware of the outcome of such strategies as practised in other countries.
The omniscient role for government as advocated by this proposal would be best replaced by enhancing the resources of the private sector which has the most at stake. Other countries have recognized that economic decision making must be centred not on periodic pronouncements and decrees from a distant bureaucracy. This type of top-down policy would only cost Canadians jobs by stifling initiatives and creating obstacles.
There is a need for government policies that promote competition and choice. This would foster a market culture predicated on efficiency and ingenuity. These in turn will generate more activity in the marketplace which will create more jobs. It would be of great benefit if government was more user friendly and more accessible. Canadians want more personal responsibility and less imposed government dependency.
This bill's plan unfortunately seeks the opposite. Every able and willing Canadian should be able to find suitable employment but that can only happen when the nation's wealth is left in the hands of entrepreneurs, investors and business people rather than taken from them to be spent by bureaucrats, politicians and grant recipients.
Clause 6 of this bill itemizes 22 regulatory protectionist or expenditure related measures which the sponsors hope will ensure full employment. Most disturbing of all is the consideration of the establishment of a department of full employment that would include a mandate to achieve full employment. It is almost incredible that as our fiscal crisis looms larger, ideas involving yet another increase in government spending and thus an increased tax burden are still being promoted.
Still others of these measures would close doors to Canadian drugs and restrict our markets to imports. To tie this all together, an intricate web of new agencies would also be created to carry out the policies.
What fascinates me is that there is no mention of where the funds would come from to realize these goals. This is one of the best examples of a recipe for disaster. We must instead strengthen co-operation between business, government and labour to ensure sustainable environmental development, the development of training programs which will meet the real demands of industry and work for tax relief and reform.
The Reform Party supports a general program of expenditure reduction, not increase, leading to a lower level of taxation, a lower cost of doing business and a lower cost of living. We need to get the deficit and debt under firm control while reforming the tax system in order to create a level playing field which would allow private initiatives to stimulate the economy.
To this end we will work toward a simple, visible and flat taxation system. I was glad to hear the member opposite support that in the speech before me. Investment consumer confidence in a market economy are directly related to the cost of participation. Canadians should be allowed to spend their hard earned dollars as they see fit, not in funding endless government programs.
In conclusion, Bill C-209 reads like another attempt at a planned economy which historically has never achieved its objectives. This legislative proposal does not allow society to harness the initiative of individuals. It creates structure and dependency, trade, profit-