Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the government's overall fiscal plan.
The budget which deals with raising money and how it is spent and the borrowing powers which make up for the shortfall in revenue go together to make up the government's fiscal plan for the coming financial year. At least that is how an economist might explain it.
In reality, there is no plan to reduce the deficit to zero allowing us to address the country's mounting debt. The budget falls short of pointing out the means by which Canada is to get to ground zero: zero deficit.
As well, the borrowing bill, which has been and is the subject of debate in this Chamber, is usually explained as necessary to make up for the shortfall in revenues, revenues being less than expenditures. In reality the money borrowed has nothing to do with the shortfall in revenues. It is the failure of the government to cut its expenditures which necessitates a borrowing bill of this size.
This is a failure that will haunt us for years to come, for if ever there was a time when the people of Canada were ready to see tough decisions made and leadership shown, it was on February 27. However, the government, afraid that its standing in the polls might suffer, took the tried and true Liberal way out. It put off tough decisions for another day. If it puts these decisions off for more than three years, they will not be this government's decisions to make.
The budget can be compared to a bad science fiction novel or movie. It is lost in time; it is lost in space.
It is lost in time because it comes a year too late and proposes some tough measures, but even they are to start only next year and are phased in over a number of years. If they had begun this year and not been phased in they would have substantially reduced the deficit. This is a major complaint.
It is lost in the broad space or expanse of Canada because it does not meet head on the problems of our economy. It seems to be a classic case of misunderstanding the mood of the people of Canada with this budget.
The space in history, the history of making tough decisions was there for the finance minister and his merry band of followers from the finance department to enter but they declined. They chose instead to nibble around the edges of the problem rather than meet it with courage and a plan for the future.
This is not the type of budget we in the Reform Party would have brought down. This is not the type of fiscal planning the Reform Party could have entered into. It is for these fundamental reasons that I cannot support this budget or any of the bills that flow from it.
What then does the budget do? It raises taxes. The finance minister made grand gestures of self-congratulation for not raising personal income tax. Yes, he is right. He did not.
Instead, he imposed a tax increase for gasoline, a commodity consumed by Canadians rich or poor. As well, changes were made to RRSP rules so that those who receive severance packages when they leave their employment will only be able to contribute $2,000 to an RRSP instead of the current $8,000, harming their future plans for retirement.
The timing is off here as it is with the rest of the budget. Canadians are now entering an era when they are concerned that private pension plans or even the Canada pension plan will not meet their retirement needs.
The rate at which the $40 billion Canada pension plan is deteriorating surprises even those who researched and wrote the 15th statutory actuarial report which was recently tabled in the
House of Commons. The last such report was written and tabled five years ago. Between then and now the report author found that two of the primary reasons for the deterioration have been a doubling of the number of disability claims and a lowering of contributions because of job losses during the recent recession.
As a leading financial adviser and retirement specialist from Vancouver stated recently: "I now look at CPP in the same way that I view UI. We all pay it but many of us will never collect it".
Will the Canada pension plan still exist for baby boomers as they begin to retire 15 or 20 years from now? The chances of CPP as we know it today surviving that long are very slim. I suggest there are none. This reality caught our attention last month when the Liberal government actuarial report concluded that if CPP contributions are not increased and benefits continue as now legislated, the plan which today supposedly contains just over $40 billion will be gone by the year 2015.
This is not only a boomer issue. The future of CPP will have a greater impact on the generation Xers who are destined to struggle in the wake of the baby boomers for at least half their job seeking and working lives.
At present five Canadian workers support each retired CPP collecting pensioner, with middle age boomers making up the majority of today's workers. However, by the time boomers start to collect CPP there will only be two to three workers to support each pensioner. Will the generation Xers, who are having it tougher economically than their boomer parents, be willing or able to pay a lot more in CPP contributions to support their parents' public pensions?
If the government had seriously addressed this year's budget and made the necessary cuts, then Canada could be on the road to recovery and the future for our future senior Canadians would not look so bleak.
Canadians were looking for a tougher budget. If over the last 25 years governments had been responsible, if thousands of dollars had not been given away in unnecessary grants which have already been talked about in this House, if new programs such as multiculturalism had not been devised to initiate help to groups of people who have always been strong enough in their feelings and respect and pride in their distinctive culture to establish and fund their own commemorative centres and festivals, if the past governments had managed the taxpayers' hard earned dollars, their tax dollars instead of mismanaging them, and if the present government would seriously look at cutting programs which drain our resources and seriously cripple the government's ability to maintain necessary seniors programs, the government would not be so desperate to raise more revenue on the backs of those very Canadians who trusted the past Liberal and Conservative governments to spend those tax dollars wisely.
Mr. Speaker, I am beginning to think I am in front of one of the chatty classes I have had over the past 30 years.
The government had an opportunity to put in force measures which, although tough, would actually help the taxpayer and not increase taxes, or revenue in the form of more taxes. However, that is not the case.
What does the government do to collect a little more revenue? It changes the RRSP rules, another hidden tax. If we think that is bad, how about this? Lessen the payouts for unemployment insurance but not the premiums because the government wants to build up a surplus. Unemployment insurance is a payroll tax and by not reducing premiums, another hidden tax is involved. However, this tax-