Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of things to add to the issue. I would like to finish with the CPP. It is a very big issue. Currently there is $40 billion in the fund which generates $4 billion through interest on loans to provincial governments at low prevailing interest rates.
We have to fix this. The way to fix it, unlike what the government is doing by trying to treat everything separately, is to look at the economy as a whole. This is a payroll tax just as UIC is a payroll tax and so is workers compensation. When there are high payroll taxes, it is a job killer. The government should try to look at the collective package.
One thing that could be done with CPP and has even been recommended is to start working with the fund toward a greater growth investment fund rather than just a yield of low interest rates. Try to get it into a growth fund where possibly we might luck out in a couple of years and have anywhere from 15 to 30 per cent growth in it. That is what the Reform Party is recommending with its super RRSPs. It would be something which would be run by an independent fund manager to let the money grow so that we would all be guaranteed our pension benefits down the road.
We all know who creates jobs. The government's job is to create the economic environment, the right environment for the private and public sectors to create jobs. There is room for job creation in both the public and the private sector, but the public sector thinks,
feels and acts as if it is the only engine to fuel the economy. Once we balance the budget and offer across the board tax relief, not selective cuts, the government and the country will benefit from the growth in the economy. A lower overhead and lower spending will result in lower taxes which will increase disposable incomes and thus through greater demand the private sector, along with some public sector services, will create the increase in jobs that is required.
On unemployment and employment, under the section in the report that the chairman of the Finance Committee put forward, the words were carefully chosen. However carefully they were chosen, they could not hide a dismal record of achievement. The growth in unemployment barely kept pace with the increase in population, natural and through immigration. That is a sad situation. The government pins much hope on job creation by lower interest rates. That is going to create a whole bunch of jobs. We hope these expectations will be met for the sake of the large number of Canadians who are seeking work and who are ready to enter the labour force. We will need a long and prolonged period of low interest rates and a willingness for people to borrow and spend more.
There is a lack of consumer confidence for big ticket items and that is what is keeping the domestic market restrained. There would be increased confidence if income growth lowered the relative size of the debt they carry.
This fact makes income raising tax cuts even more important in the restoration of genuine prosperity.
In this prebudget fiscal plan and this report we see nothing encouraging in this account for the Canadian public. What we see is the government not even at a balanced budget, saying how it is going to spend anything it gets once it approaches.
Heaven forbid, if the finance minister ever gets up and tries to say this one more time and to hoist this on the Canadian public, that once the deficit in this country reaches single digits, $8 billion or $9 billion, then we have virtually a balanced budget and a zero deficit.
He has said this and that is not true. Just because the OECD countries have a different formula and by their standards-crap. If there is a $9 billion deficit and if that deficit is not borrowed abroad but is borrowed domestically from the public service pension fund, it is still a liability. It has to be paid back. Those funds have to be replaced even though they are borrowed from oneself. Therefore, let not the minister say ever, until he is at zero, that he has a balanced budget.
We need to work toward the debt, to use the debt as a percentage of gross domestic product as our solution. Lower taxes like in the States are the solution. That is how we will create jobs in this country. I appreciate the extra time.