Madam Speaker, I would not have thought it necessary to have this debate today. After the October 1993 election I thought the message would have sunk into whichever party formed the government.
Canadians want decisive spending cuts, no net increases in taxes and a smaller, less interfering central government. What has happened? Since taking office the Liberal government immediately inflated the size of the deficit so when it was seemingly reduced it could pat itself on the back, saying job well done.
By doing this Liberals avoided tough decisions. Then we had the costly cancellation of the helicopter EH-101 purchase. Long term, high tech jobs were lost and millions paid in cancellation fees. The Pearson airport contract was cancelled. An airport desperately in need of refurbishing is allowed to decay while the
Liberal government fights it out with developers over the costs of cancellation. Again, jobs are lost and taxpayers' money is to be paid out with no gain whatsoever.
The infrastructure program begins. Billions of dollars borrowed for infrastructure programs by communities that needed jobs but not increased debt. We know that in a healthy economy it is the business sector that creates jobs, real jobs, and not the government through temporary government programs. As the unemployment figures released last week indicate, the jobs are not there anymore but the debt surely is and will be for years to come.
Then in the 1994 budget it is handed down, the great wait until next time budget. Canadians sat in anxious anticipation, hoping at last a Liberal government would make tough decisions. Who were they kidding? The joke was on the people of Canada. The government they elected, this Liberal government, let them down. Spending programs abound in last year's government's budget.
It is hard to imagine a government elected to make tough decisions using the old phrase that losing sports teams use, wait until next year. This is next year and there is still no sign of any willingness to take tough decisions. The government had a chance but really side stepped it.
Canada was going to go through the most massive restructuring of the social welfare system since it was put in place. Studies began. The minister of human resources made grand announcements. Policy and discussion booklets were produced. Two sets of committee hearings were held. This committee of the House of Commons travelled across the country in both sets of hearings.
Four million was given to 159 special interest groups. The people we should have heard from are regular, hard working Canadians who regularly pay their taxes and receive no special grants or privileges. However we heard from special interest groups to ensure that the committee heard testimony. And to what avail?
The minister of human resources announced that the government will have to deal with its budgetary problems before it will be able to get on with reforms. To paraphrase and perhaps combine a couple of old expressions, when the government's fiscal chickens came home to roost, they could not because the field was too full of social welfare sacred cows.
The Liberals side stepped yet another decision to revamp and reshape our social system. It is hard to believe a government so early in its mandate would admit to be fresh out of new ideas.
No one in Canada who has studied our social welfare system believes it needs more money thrown at it. If the government was not going to do anything, why did it spend all the money studying reform? How much did this exercise cost: $10 million, $20 million? Who knows, who cares? Obviously no one on the government side.
We in the Reform Party care deeply. We care about the country and we care about its people. As elected members to this House we realize we owe the people of Canada a duty, a duty not just to criticize but to present alternatives. We believe that the country's financial situation must be addressed in a positive way before the next election.
As a policy the Reform Party believes the solution to our deficit problem must be found on the expenditure side rather than on the revenue side. Presently the government has more than sufficient tax income.
Canadians expect to pay taxes. Canadians expect the government to spend our tax dollars wisely. When the government mismanages our tax dollars as governments have been doing since the 1960s, Canadians get angry. We cannot blame our fellow Canadians for not wanting their hard earned tax dollars to be wasted on grants, unnecessary byelections, make work programs and government to government international aid, among other things.
I recently heard a suggestion that the Liberals might bring in temporary tax increases. Let us not forget another temporary tax measure which was introduced many years ago. It is still with us today. It is called income tax. This tax takes the biggest bite out of our incomes. But it is not the GST, income tax or any other tax that is the problem. It is mismanagement. The problem is mismanagement of our tax dollars.
As Reformers are saying, Canadians fear that the Liberal budget will be the worst of all worlds: spending cuts that are insufficient to lead to a balanced budget and solve the problem, combined with tax increases that reduce disposable income and kill jobs.
As Reformers have said in the past, we believe the first change should come with reform of the MP pension plan. We are not talking about MPs' salaries, which from what I have seen since I have been in Ottawa indicates that MPs work very hard to earn their salaries. Cuts must also come in the institutions of government; the office of the Governor General, the Senate, the House of Commons, the Privy Council and the Prime Minister's office.
We must look at excessive travel of senior officials and urge the government to reduce the number of ministers of state and associate ministers. Cut down the size of government. The Reform plan in the end is to have a smaller, less intrusive and more efficient federal government.
We can include the electoral boundaries reform. Cut spending. We do not need 295 MPs in the House of Commons or 300 plus, as the government is suggesting. Each MP costs Canadian taxpayers about $1 million. The country to the south of us has 270 million people to our 27 million. They have approximately 437 in government to our 295. Last week in Washington I met
with American congressmen, congresswomen and constituents who told me their representation was very effective.
Reform is on record for looking at federal funding to multiculturalism and the official languages program. These are just some of the examples where Reform would cut.
We must protect law enforcement, health, education and our environment. We believe we must bring forward alternatives so Canadians can see there is another way other than the Liberal way. We see a need for a fresh, new vision of social policy in the next century, forwarded on the belief that the best guarantee governments can provide of individual personal security is to establish a framework of laws within which individuals can save for or insure against each of the contingencies that life may bring upon them.
We believe in five guiding principles to support our vision of the future. First, build on the Canadian tradition of self-reliance, recognizing the family as the primary caregiver in society.
Second, empower communities and charitable organizations to play an ever increasing rather than a diminishing role in social security.
Third, provide temporary assistance to people who experience short term misfortune while ensuring that long term assistance is reserved for those who are generally incapable of providing for themselves.
Fourth, where government must be involved in social service delivery, entrust the resources and the responsibility to that level of government which is closest to the people.
Fifth, ensure that we can pay for security measures without borrowing more money.
We believe that security must be provided against these types of problems. The first class of security need is for protection against personal catastrophes, such as a medical emergency or the death of a family's chief income earner.
The second class of security need consists of needs that will arise reasonably far into the future but which are predictable. Most people will have such needs at some point in the future. One cannot insure against them but one can prepare for them. Typical needs in this class are post-secondary education, non-catastrophic health care, retirement income and periodic unemployment.
The final class of security need is for intermediate help for those who have not been able to provide for themselves. This is the proper function of charity or, in the absence of it, government transfers.
This is not the cruel and heartless vision of social reform that is attributed to us by the media. It is a system designed to deliver a sufficient level of income to ensure that nobody lives in poverty. Public assistance is to be directed at those who for reasons of physical disability or advanced age are incapable of providing for themselves. At the other end of the scale no one with enough to pay taxes would receive assistance and those who receive assistance would pay no tax.
We must begin to rely on ourselves. We must rely on our families. We can no longer ask the government to provide personal security from the cradle to the grave.
These are some of the ways in which we can achieve a government which is smaller but more effective; spending cuts which eliminate programs that are no longer useful but retain our much needed health care system and our criminal justice system.
I hope the government is listening and will adopt these measures in its upcoming budget.