Mr. Speaker, Canadians are a tough breed and it is a good thing. They will have to be tough to face what lies ahead.
Bill C-76 provides for the legal implementation of the measures contained in the February 1995 budget. Among the initiatives contained in the bill is the new block funding plan which will alter the transfer of payments to provinces for health and education. The passage of Bill C-76 will, as well, facilitate the termination of the Public Utilities Income Transfer Tax Act.
Let us get on with it. The House has wasted enough time and taxpayers' money debating measures which are secondary to the main problem in Canada. While the Liberal government directs its energies to useless mandatory gun registration, the national debt steadily rises.
Today the debt stands at $547,758,477,000. That is approximately $39,000 per taxpayer and over $18,000 per capita. Canadians are worried about their future and they are depending on their elected representatives to straighten out this mess. We had evidence of that earlier in the year when the polls showed that Canadians were ready for a tough budget. They recognized that the debt was out of control and expected the Minister of Finance to bite the bullet. Instead, the finance minister's plans were torpedoed by his left leaning cabinet colleagues.
He is not the first to have his plans watered down. In fact, for the last 20 years successive ministers of finance have declared war on the debt and we have not seen any results. One after another they have succumbed to the whims of political fortune. One by one they have shown disregard for the Canadian taxpayer. Now we are so far in debt that our legacy to our children will not be something to cherish. Their debt riddled inheritance will bring them a future full of fiscal instability.
There was a short-lived budget back in 1979 that dared to be different. The new government of the day inherited the leftover Liberal debt and what was then the highest debt ratio among the major industrialized countries. Some things never change. Canadians saw what happened to that government. It started to put its fiscal house in order. The Liberals defeated that budget and the rest is history.
In 1980 the Liberals regained power and allowed the debt to escalate. When they finally were defeated in 1984 the Tories, who learned their lesson in 1979, took a vow never to be so fiscally responsible that it would jeopardize their power.
In the end, this philosophy helped to bring about not only their defeat but their unprecedented drop into oblivion. Today, even the Canadian economy is sinking faster than that 1979 budget. The Minister of Finance refuses to predict when his budget will be balanced. He continues to talk about balancing the budget but he does not tell us when.
Interest costs on the debt continue to grow. Inevitably this will result in a loss of security for Canadians, robbing them of an independent future. The minister made sure he could meet his deficit target by using what most economists consider to be conservative assumptions.
He is instituting new rolling two-year targets, whatever that means. That way he can change the target as the interest rate fluctuates. He padded his budget with enough hidden taxes to ensure that there would be sufficient tax revenue growth over the next two decades to allow him room to meet his deficit targets.
The bill, as I mentioned earlier, will terminate payments made under the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act. This is one of those hidden personal taxes found in the budget. It is a selective tax on the people of Alberta, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Yukon, but particularly Alberta.
It is estimated that the average Albertan could lose $70 per year in disposable income as a result of this measure. The village of Warburg, which is in my constituency, estimates that the cost to the village will be $4,000. One might say that this is a rather insignificant amount but it is not. It is a 10 per cent increase. When one factors in the impact of the current belt tightening by other levels of government, it adds to the increased costs facing small municipalities in Alberta that are still the backbone of the rural areas.
Why would the government single out these provinces for tax increases? How can one province be taxed and not another? Is this the Liberal version of fairness? Even though Alberta will bear the brunt of the tax, we can only assume that there was nothing untoward in the minister's decision. It is hard to convince residents of Alberta otherwise, especially after they have heard about the study conducted by the University of Calgary economist, which was reported by Canadian Press on Monday.
That study not only confirmed that Quebec was the biggest net winner from Confederation but it also confirmed that Alberta was the biggest net financial loser. Between 1961 and 1992, Quebec received some $168 billion more from the federal treasury than it contributed in other revenues.
Over the same period, the taxpayers of Alberta paid $139 billion more into the federal treasury than they received, thanks in part to the national energy policy. It makes you wonder why we in Alberta want to stay and why they want to go.
We would like to be treated equally but the government seems to have other ideas. It continues to seek out new ways to tax us. Even with the new creative method of deficit accounting and other moneys generated from the budget, the deficit target of 3 per cent of GDP is still far from adequate.
While 3 per cent of GDP would be the lowest deficit in 20 years, it is irrelevant when one considers that the net federal debt has risen to 73 per cent of GDP. Despite the federal reductions outlined in the budget, we cannot hide from the problem of increasing debt.
A year from now the debt will be in excess of $600 billion and the interest on the debt is expected to go up by about $8 billion to top the $50 billion mark.
When the Prime Minister boasts about the 3 per cent deficit target, all he is really saying is that the growth of the debt will be slowed. The debt may grow at a slower rate than it did in the past. That is not really anything to boast about when one considers that the $42 billion spent on interest payments is $4 billion higher than a year ago.
What is the reason for that jump? It is the $2.5 billion for interest on the new debt that has accumulated. Our past deficit now requires interest and it is the $1.5 billion for which higher interest rates are responsible. Program spending will only be reduced by some $12 billion over the next three years while the interest charges will grow by $13 billion. We are not gaining. We are paying more and getting less.
The reality is that Canada has a debt problem, not just a deficit problem. The government was elected 16 months ago. How long do we have to wait before it gets on with tackling the problems of the 20th century? The debt clock is ticking and the Liberals are still fiddling. Someone should tell them that they do not have a lot of time left. Canadians know all too well that if a government does not address these sorts of problems in the first two years of its mandate, it is not likely to implement any difficult decisions in the face of an impending election or in the last half of its mandate.
Canadians are demanding action. They want government and politicians to be accountable. If the government shunned traditional Liberal practice and did the right thing for Canadians, it would find those very Canadians willing to support it.
The problem is that the Liberals do not have a plan to take Canadians to their ultimate goal of deficit elimination and tax reduction. They do not have a plan to solve the labour disputes over a long term. They do not have a long term plan to reform social programs. That is particularly obvious when one looks at the new Canada health and social transfer act. This is the much touted initiative that rolls established programs financing and the Canadian assistance plan into a new block funding arrangement.
The idea may have some merit but it presents more than one dilemma for the provinces. There are no financial projections, for one thing, beyond 1997-98. How can provincial finance ministers make their fiscal projections for the future with any degree of accuracy if they do not know how much they can expect from the federal government?
Canadians want to see some light at the end of the tunnel and they do not want it to be the headlight of an oncoming train. They want to know that the fiscal sacrifices that they have to make will not be done in vain.
That is why the Reform Party took the unprecedented action of presenting a budget that explained how the deficit could be eliminated in three years. It is too bad for Canadians that they elected a government that lacks vision. The only solution the government can come up with is to drop everything on the provinces. We do not think that is fair. By transferring additional tax points to the provinces, our plan offers them a dependable, growing revenue base to fund health and education over the long run.
As a farmer, I have come up with a way to explain the difference between the Reform Party and either the block funding proposal or the existing arrangement. This does not involve teaching a person to fish or giving him a fish. It involves a chicken and an egg.
Under the existing arrangement, the federal government keeps the chicken and gives the provinces a dozen eggs. All the eggs have strings attached. That means the federal government can unilaterally make the decision to give less eggs to the provinces.
The Canada social transfer involves giving the provinces a carton of eggs with one or two eggs missing and still with strings attached to the carton. The federal government continues to hold the chicken and can continue to remove the eggs from the carton it sends to the provinces.
Neither of those situations sound like perfect situations. The Reform Party proposes to give the provinces the chicken.
The government budget tells the provinces their transfers will be cut. We would work with provinces to develop national standards for health care and education. The Reform taxpayers budget showed with reasoned determination Canadians can emerge from the tunnel into the sunlight. The Reform budget offers Canadians hope for the future. Under our plan there will be enough money to support those who are unable to help themselves.
The real threat to social programs is the failure of the Liberal government to control the deficit and the debt. The government will do and say anything to prevent Canadians from realizing this fact.
Reform wants Canadians to know the real facts about the future. This is 1995 and the Liberals are still trying to come to grips with the 20th century while Reformers are planning for the 21st century.
For instance, social security has always been provided only through the delivery of costly bureaucratic centralized government programs and agencies. If the government does not come to grips with this program now social programs will not survive this century.
Reform's vision for the future of social programs contains ideas which will generate affordable, cost effective and people effective programs that will provide greater personal security and freedom from dependence on government for all Canadians.
At the heart of Reform's new social vision for Canada is the concept that we can get more social security for dollars spent by changing the division of responsibility between Canadians and their governments. The Reform budget proposes to balance the budget in three years. The Minister of Finance continues to duck the issue. He knows at the rate he is going he will never bring in a balanced budget. A balanced budget is not simply an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is the first step in building a strong, vibrant economy for future generations.
The Reform budget offers hope for the next generation and a chance to escape from the burden of debt. If quick and decisive action is taken sooner rather than later the impact on employment will be minimal and measures will lead to more permanent positive employment for Canadians than the red book plan of slow deficit reduction.
It is inconceivable how the government could ask Canadians, who have the fastest growing personal tax burden in the industrialized world, to shoulder the burden of deficit reduction without first putting its own house in order.
Last month the government announced an agreement had been reached among Liberal MPs to reform the gold plated MP pension plan. The only really good aspect about the plan was the opting out provision and that provision was intended to pit one Reformer against the other and split our caucus.
I cannot deny that was the strategy but it did not work. It did not work and this Reformer cannot wait for a chance to opt out of that plan.
The government made sure that senior Liberals and youthful cabinet ministers will be protected. At the end of their days here they will receive cash for life courtesy of the beleaguered Canadian taxpayer. The taxpayer can only dream of such financial security. The media charge of a double standard rings pretty true.
Where is the hope? At the rate we are going none of us will live long enough for this mortgage burning ceremony. Canadians are beginning to realize this government is not any better than its predecessors. If the government had any heart, any real concern for Canadians, it would deal with this debt now.
In case there is any question, I will not be supporting the bill.