Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the budget. It is a budget that in the opinion of those who get past the initial media kowtowing, the interest group moaning and the Liberal back slapping, is dishonest. It is overrated. It is underachieving and hypocritical. It fails to attack the efficiency and the internal wastefulness of the federal government.
This budget deserves no praise. It lacks will. It lacks solutions. It is not an answer. It is only prolonging the inevitable demise of our social programs, our financial security and our way of life, including that of our children.
What the finance minister has done is altogether typically Liberal. He has made some token reductions which he thinks will placate voters. He has increased taxes in such a way that taxpayers will not know they are being hit hard. Furthermore, he has done some things that, had they been done by any other party with the Liberals in opposition, would have caused the Liberals to explode in outrage and violent criticism. That is the hypocrisy of this budget.
The Reform Party's taxpayers' budget laid out a series of reasonable, manageable cuts to transfers and established programs financing, cuts that would ensure long term health and the continuation of these programs. The Liberals assailed us, as the hon. member is doing right now. They accused us of being heartless, of being uncaring, of bashing the poor. What is the Liberal alternative to this imagined Reform Party heartlessness?
The Liberals will double the fees of refugee claimants. That is really something. That is without a doubt the most blatant hypocrisy I have ever seen from this government or that party. They have done nothing in any promise for the future.
Look at what is going on within the department of immigration. Look at those increased fees that are coming. For a moment, look at the increased fees and the recipients of those fees, the immigration department. If you take an honest look, you will come away with a very different impression about the seriousness of this government, the willingness of this government and the party across the aisle to make real change. You will come away with a very different impression of the will of that party and the intestinal fortitude of the finance minister and especially the immigration minister.
There are two reasons the finance minister together with the immigration minister have decided to increase fees. One is stated and the other is not.
The stated reason is to raise revenue to offset the cuts. In other words, they want to bring more money into the coffers. Charge a little more up front and recover more of the costs of processing and resettlement, as the minister points out. Fair enough. Why should those who apply for immigrant status not pay their way? We are not objecting to that.
There is no good reason for the taxpayer to subsidize the processing of immigrant applications. Remember that if any other party had done this, the Liberals would have fallen all over themselves moaning about taxing the poor, charging more to those who are unable to pay.
The other reason for almost doubling the fees, the unstated reason that observers from both sides of the immigration debate recognize, is to quietly cull a certain percentage of the applicants for immigration. Changing the immigrant mix is a good idea certainly. Both the C.D. Howe Institute and the Fraser Institute agree with the Reform Party that we need to do that. However, doing it this way is cowardly and devious on the part of the Liberals.