Mr. Speaker, during this debate members of the opposition have raised many issues arising from the budget, in particular about building an effective social security system for Canadians.
The motion before the House today and pronouncements from the Reform Party indicate one perspective on social programs, a perspective I do not share, one which no one on this side of the House shares, a perspective not shared by most Canadians and certainly not by the constituents in Windsor-St. Clair.
In the federal budget and in the vision sketched out by the Minister of Human Resources Development there is quite another vision. The difference is clear. While Reform rambles on, indiscriminately cutting here and hacking there, the government is taking a thoughtful approach to human resource issues.
The government is turning the page from the strait jacket of rigidly centralized Tory programs. The government is leaving behind the Tories laissez faire approach of writing cheques and to the more Tories the better.
It is an innovation, something Reform does not know much about. It should not be the Reform Party. It should be the regression party. It is innovative in terms of social programs far beyond the simplistic notions of the Reform Party.
In essence the budget reinvents government for the 1990s. These social programs and the budget are built on our belief that Canadians want communities and individuals to have the tools to make their own decisions while ensuring basic principles are in place on a national basis.
It is very important to listen carefully to what Reformers say so that one can compare what they say to the government's vision of social security, peace and good government for this nation.
Here come the guns. This government's approach begins with a focus on three priorities. We want to keep our citizens alive. We do not want them shooting each other. We are concerned about employability. We want to find the best way to combat poverty.
Employability by helping people to find, keep and improve their jobs and skills and the elimination of poverty are our goals.
We have learned there are many ways to achieve these goals. The employment needs of a single parent led family in a housing project in Toronto are substantially different from the employment needs of a family which formerly made its living in the Atlantic fishery. In a country as diverse as Canada, there is no one size fits all, quick fix answer like Reform would suggest.
For that reason provinces and territories are joining us in finding these new answers. They know innovation is not reserved to one level of government in our Constitution. One place that will become clear is the new Canada social transfer. This will shift federal support for post-secondary education, health, social assistance and social services into one package starting in the fiscal year 1996-97.
Currently transfers under the Canada assistance plan come with a lot of strings attached. Strings have become less and less relevant to today's world. We believe some of these strings are unnecessary. We believe they impede innovation, restrict flexibility and increase administrative costs. They also impede regional solutions to very real and very different regional problems.
In short, this cost sharing approach hampers provinces that need the breathing room to design and deliver social programs in line with their local needs.
We believe the provinces share our goals to improve the employability of Canadians and to reduce poverty. What they also want is the flexibility to deal with these problems in a way that responds effectively to people's needs.
Under the Canada social transfer we will allow this to happen while remaining faithful to certain fundamental national prin-
ciples. First and foremost the conditions of the Canada Health Act will be maintained. In other words, universality, accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness and public administration will be respected.
Canadians also do not want to see their mobility restricted because of minimum residency requirements. Beyond those principles but consistent with them always there will be flexibility and partnerships.
The Minister of Human Resources Development will be inviting all provincial governments to work together to develop through mutual consent a set of shared objectives that will underlie the new Canada social transfer. By achieving a coherent framework with provinces and territories we will be able to tackle the core problems of employability and poverty.
This government wants to work with the provinces and territories to increase access to good quality child care. This can help improve the employability of many Canadians with low income. It can offer children a great environment that helps them learn and grow.
We would like to work out better means of helping persons with disabilities to get jobs and to achieve greater independence. We believe provinces and interested groups will welcome that commitment and will help us achieve it.
In these two areas, as in our entire array of federal-provincial relationships, we want to build new partnerships that focus on results and that are grounded in common values.
While that is the government's approach, what about Reform? The record is silent. Reform has nothing of substance to say about any of these issues. Employability? Who knows. Reducing poverty? I think we can guess what Reform's perspective is.
Perhaps I should simply move on to some other subject on which Reform members actually do have a policy. Unemployment insurance is a very good example. Their position is that we should knock $3.4 billion loose from the unemployed by cutting out all special benefits and the interest differences tied to local unemployment rates.
Who would pay? Women would pay. There would be no more Maternity benefits. That is the Reform's idea of a baby gift. Welcome to Newt Manning's Canada, little one. The sick would pay. The sickness benefits under unemployment insurance would be cut out. Under Reform's plan we would have to guess that we might break our leg in advance and save up for it. Welcome to Preston Gingrich's Canada, convalescent Canadians. People in less prosperous regions would pay. Reform wants to see UI entrance requirements that would be sharply higher than they are now to bring them up to the level of the wealthy regions. Welcome to the land of neo-Newtism, unemployed Canada.
Can the UI program be reformed? Absolutely, but this is not the way. The government has been quite clear that we need to move forward from the current unemployment insurance program. We believe it does not do enough to help people get back to work. We believe it can be a far more active policy. We have set a target for program savings of at least 10 per cent.
As the Minister of Human Resources Development has already said in the House, unlike Reform we will not achieve these results at the expense of 165,000 new mothers a year. We will not achieve these results at the expense of 155,000 people who fall sick annually. We will not achieve these results at the expense of 30,000 fishers. These are precisely the people Reform is attacking when it claims saving for a rainy day equals an intelligent social policy.
The same holds true for seniors and seniors benefits. The Reform Party claims there is $3 billion waiting to be plucked from the old age security program. I cannot wait to hear what the seniors I meet for coffee at McDonald's on Wyandotte Street in east Windsor have to say about that.
Like so many Reform proposals, we know the price but it will not tell us what we would be buying. Precisely who would lose their benefits and how much would they lose? Would it be a clawback? At what rate? From what income level? There is no way anyone can squeeze $3 billion from OAS without taking it from the seniors, whom no one would call wealthy.
It is clear from the budget response Canadians support the direction the government has taken very strongly. They see the complaints from the opposition and from some provincial capitals about this new direction for what they are: pure politics, old fashioned politics, politics as usual. Our citizens know, even if some partisan politicians do not, we must build real ways to work together productively. They have no time for transparently obvious grandstanding. They have no time for ideological shell games.
The government is determined to build a better system of social security for Canadians, one which could be sustained financially, one which sets clear goals and one which enlists consistent support to achieve those goals. The government's budget is a blueprint for that system.
At the end of the day we have to wonder which approach is better. Canadians clearly prefer the approach of the government and reject the simplistic, facile approach of the Reform Party.