Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member opposite for the question. I assure everyone here that it was not a set up question. I appreciate the question because it strikes at the heart of what is the difference between members on this side and members opposite. We virtually share all the same values but we do not share how we go about achieving them.
From discussions with members opposite I know the vast majority of representatives in the House share common values. How do we go about providing the kind of society the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood is talking about? How do we get young people working? Why is it that kids cannot play hockey? Why cannot their parents cannot afford it even if both parents are working? Why is it so expensive? How do we go about ensuring that everyone can participate in our wonderful nation?
The root cause of the problem can be found in The Canadian Global Almanac for 1996. It shows the per capita accumulated federal debt. In 1975 it was $849 and the interest per capita was $139. Today, 20 years later, the debt per capita is $17,381 and the interest per capita is $1,299. If we multiply that by four members of the family, it does not take very long to realize that we do not have any money.
We could then consider provincial debts and at our credit card debts as families. It costs 15 per cent, 16 per cent or 17 per cent to service credit card debt. We have the situation where most of us as a country, as provinces and as individuals are using today's income to pay for what we have already consumed in the past. Therefore instead of the money being used to purchase goods and services it is being used to service debts.
It makes us wonder when we read the paper today and see that all five of our national banks have record profits. They have $5 billion worth of profit. How do they get that money? They get it from the interest on the debt. The debt goes up and the interest goes up. The amount of interest goes up in real terms even if the rates do not increase. The banks get richer. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
People who are able to make financial investments get more money through investing in passive capital investments where there is no risk than people who risk everything they have to start a new business. They put every nickel they have including their homes and everything else into a business to get it going. And what happens? They pay tax after tax after tax.
I sat next to a person travelling from Vancouver to Ottawa yesterday in an aeroplane. He is in the garment business. He is also in the sports and recreation business. He has a fitness business. He is getting out of the fitness business. He said the problem was that it cost $33 a month for people to come to work out. People do not even have $33 a month that they can spend. It has to be dragged out of them. People just do not have any money any more.
Why do we not have the ability to create employment, especially entrance employment for young people, generation X? If they are not gainfully employed they will waste their time, get involved in crime and all other social ills. It is that people do not have enough
money to invest in anything other than necessities. Therefore businesses cannot sell, manufacturers cannot manufacture and shippers cannot ship.
Until we deal with the root cause of the problem, which is that we are all broke because we are paying interest on money we have already spent for goods and services, we will not get ourselves out of this mess. We cannot borrow our way out of this mess. If spending money we do not have worked, everybody would have five jobs.