Mr. Speaker, Bill C-76, which is the continuation of the budget and deals with the Work Force Adjustment Directive, is a rather important one. It drew many comments, especially from the Reform Party and the Bloc. I believe there are some fundamental elements we should take into account in Parliament. For all intents and purposes, we are the voice of our fellow citizens, and it is important that they know exactly what is at stake here.
I listened to the Reform members talk about the deficit, government spending, and the debt which is growing at the rate of $100 million a day, and also to all their arguments to the effect that the government must cut expenditures. As we know, it has been proven, on many occasions, that at the present time, except for the debt service, the regular operating expenditures of the government do not exceed its revenue. The debt service is very high in Canada because we have an accumulated debt of close to $500 billion.
Members opposite keep on talking about government spending. But we must not forget that expenditures are only one of the elements of the deficit we are facing in this country. One must not single out the expenditures of the Canadian government as the only reason for our deficit.
In the past, deficits were very high, as compared to total expenditures. Expenditures were high in the past, as we saw under the previous government. I am not trying to say that we were blameless in the past; in some instances, expenditures went well beyond what should have been tolerable. In any case, what is important now is to correct the situation. One must not lose track of the fact that expenditures are but one element.
Second, we must recognize that our tax system being slightly obsolete, the in-depth reform of our tax system is one of the elements which is going to put our economy back on a level that is acceptable to all Canadians, especially the middle class.
Third, and this is important, it is the monetary system of this country which causes our interest rates to be too high. We must recognize that the Bank of Canada has a role to play. In the past, the Bank of Canada played a very important role in controlling interests rates nationally. But, because of our deficit, we lost this power. However, with good management, it should be possible to get it back. We are trying. It will take several years, but let us hope we will succeed within one mandate or one and a half at the most. We want the Bank of Canada to really play an
active role, we want complete fiscal reform, and we hope that our monetary system, which is not working to our advantage, will be modified.
So three different elements come into play.
Furthermore, the Minister of Finance proposed some workforce adjustments. Since we are being told to reduce spending, we tried to achieve this by streamlining of the public service.
When I hear that 45,000 employees will lose their jobs, I think this is a bit of an exaggeration, because this will happen over a three-year period, and most of these 45,000 people will either take normal retirement or early retirement, or accept what we call a buy-out.
In conclusion, therefore, I would like this House to understand that our problems cannot be ascribed to one thing only, that is spending alone. High interest rates, largely the result of our monetary system of the last 15 to 20 years, made it difficult for us to carry out reforms, especially the reform of the tax system which is sorely needed because of the very heavy tax burden on the middle class.