Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague for Waterloo. I have been listening to my fellow colleagues from the Bloc and the Reform. I felt very depressed when they talked about history and all the things that have gone wrong in the country.
The reality is we have a very good and very strong country with a bright future. It is five years before the 21st century and it
is time to focus on how we need to change. We have had a good history together but there are things that have to change in the country. That is what the budget and the borrowing authority are linked together to do.
My colleagues have possibly missed the real point of the budget. I became involved in politics and came to the House for some of the very fundamental reasons we are discussing today. I was very concerned about where our country was going economically.
I can see where we have overborrowed and where we have made lots of mistakes. We made genuine mistakes because we wanted to do the right things. In some ways they went askew but we are learning the process of government. The budget is an attempt to address how we will change. I would like to deal with the basic concept of how the budget is about change and about a new future for Canada.
I took the time to go to my riding where I conducted a number of tax forums with the professional community and lay people. While there were some exceptions to parts of the budget, they were all very supportive. They said that it was about time a government had taken leadership to try to move us away from our debt and deficit problems to a new tomorrow. The younger generations were concerned that they would never have better incomes or a better way of life than their parents. These negative aspects existed prior to the budget. The country feels a lot better today because of the actions of the Minister of Finance.
In what ways are we changing? We could talk about the history of the country which is good. I am a great believer in history. The lessons of the past teach us a lot about the future. Also some of the things we did in the past have not worked very well.
Basically the budget is about seeing government a little differently than we possibly have in the past. We see government today as being a referee of the country, a referee between business groups and individuals, making certain that people disenfranchised by the system become part of the system and making certain that the wealthy do not abuse their power. Some things in the budget try to strike a path toward the 21st century in which all Canadians can share.
How is the budget different? I do not remember a government bringing in a budget like the one for this fiscal year which was $2 billion lower than projected. I do not remember that in my lifetime. We have developed a whole culture of assuming that every time a government brings down a budget it will overshoot it. The government did just the reverse and the people of Canada are happy about it.
How are some of the things we have done in the past being addressed in the budget? We have a bloated civil service. It is not the fault of people in the civil service. Nor is it the fault of anyone in particular. It just happened. It happened in all other governmental administrations in the western world.
Technology has caught up to Canada. Sometimes it caught up with us a lot faster than we wanted it to. In some ways people are having problems with job security because the country is being pushed into a technological framework with which we have to deal. It is global. It not only affects Canada. It affects all countries of the world. We will either be part of it or we will be washed up on the shores of disaster by not taking it into account.
We need to restructure the civil service in fundamental ways. Not only do we need to reduce some of the numbers within the civil service. We need to do it equitably as well.
There is a human side to the downsizing buzzword. There are real people involved. The government is committed to finding approaches to retraining and to finding new entrepreneurial skills so people will be able to share in the massive expansion of our labour market which saw over 422,000 new jobs created last year.
By restructuring the civil service we are also talking about a new way of government. We want the civil service to be more responsive to the needs and the desires not only of government but of the people generally. It should be responsive to the needs of the community. We need more quantifiable measurement tools to remunerate people and progress them based on their success. This is healthy for government and for the civil service because it gives them a future and it gives them a challenge. After all, that is what most human animals really want.
What other areas do we need to change? The government has come to the conclusion that it cannot be an interventionist in the economy any more. In past times it has worked; new industries and so forth have been created. Today we simply cannot afford it and it has not been very efficient. I think governments are realizing that business can run business a lot better than they can. That does not mean we give a total licence to business. It means that we temper it and recognize the rights of citizens. At the same time we realize that governments should simply govern and business should do business.
How is this affected by the last budget? Clearly privatization of CN is one such aspect. Another one is the possible sell off of Petro-Canada. In a number of other areas the government will gradually withdraw and allow the private sector to make up the difference. It is good for the economy and it is good for the taxpayers of Canada.
That came through loud and clear before the budget, indeed in the last two or three years. Canadians feel overtaxed. They do not think they are getting value for their tax dollars. They want us to be more efficient. That is what the budget was all about.
We are downsizing. We are also cutting out subsidies to industry. Different types of people are living off the governmental system. One is industry living on subsidies and getting grants. These things will be curtailed. Most people in the
business community recognize that it is no way to run a business.
I referred to subsidies. We talked about rail subsidies with which I will deal in a minute. There are also grain subsidies. The first intentions of a subsidy program are usually good. We want to encourage some kind of action. Unfortunately what invariably happens-and history has told us-is that it becomes a dependency. It distorts trade.
We have heard from many members about grain travelling all the way to Thunder Bay when it is on its way to California from Regina. These are some of the ridiculous aspects of subsidization. We need to create value added products in Canada and I believe by reducing subsidies we will do just that.
Industrial milk production is another area that will be curtailed by subsidy programs. We need to become more competitive. GATT has told us that we will have to be part of an international marketplace. Gradually reducing tariffs is a way to make the Canadian economy much more efficient.
The rail industry is on our mind these days. Much like government it has some prehistoric systems within its employment structure. Some of the contracts entered into hearken back over 100 years to a guild system. I understand there are still blacksmiths in some machine shops in Toronto. We pay people to be blacksmiths even though the whole industry has disappeared. We must revisit the contracts that people have with the government through crown corporations. We cannot let job security ruin the security of the whole country.
We have to revisit these matters. We have to retool the country. We have to make it whole again. That is what the budget was all about. It was positive in terms of change for Canada and for the people of Canada.