Mr. Speaker, I wish to take part in this debate on the last budget to show its impact on the lives of my fellow citizens, especially those in my riding.
Because it seemed like a very nice budget that did not impose any new taxes or because tobacco, gas and alcohol prices did not go up, some people might feel that it evens out the score, that it is not worth arguing about.
That is why I decided to shed light on this budget's hidden impact on family life. To that end, I will use the example of a fictitious family of five people, which could be called the Lemay-Dumas or the Jobin-Duguay family. It includes the mother, the father, their two children and a grandmother.
The mother, Mrs. Lemay, is currently unemployed after losing her part time job as a nurse's aide in a home for seniors. The father, Mr. Dumas, works for a community organization and earns $32,000 a year. The older daughter, Martine, is in her last year of college and hopes to be accepted in the maths program at Laval University next year. She works part-time as a waitress in a restaurant. As for the son, Maxime, he is in his last year of high school and has not yet started to earn money. The grandmother is retired and has been a widow for three years. She lives on the second floor of the house belonging to her son and daughter-in-law. After the birth of her first child, the grandmother never went back to the labour force.
I would like to explain how the federal government's budget cuts will affect these five people, how they will threaten and, as a result, lower their quality of life.
To that end, I will go quickly over the cuts to the Canada social transfer, which were widely condemned by the Bloc Quebecois because these cuts and the resulting shortfall in social programs financing will threaten and automatically alter the lives of the people in this family.
It is quite simple. The Quebec government will receive less money from the federal government. There is talk of $1.2 billion for the year 1996-97, which means $4 billion over four years. The people in Quebec will receive less but continue to pay the same amount in taxes. This will not change the tax rate. So, Mr. Dumas will pay his share to Ottawa, but his provincial government will not get back from Ottawa as much as it used to in terms of transfers.
The Government of Quebec will have no choice. Since it will be receiving a smaller percentage of the taxes paid to Ottawa by its taxpayers, it will have to cut its expenditures. That is plain and simple.
In what areas will the Quebec government spend most of its revenue? It will be up to the Quebec government to decide. Will it be health, education, social assistance? The responsibility will have shifted from one level of government onto the other-in fact, several government members plan to take advantage of this situation to score political points, praising the benefits of the federal system and contending that only the federal government can provide an efficient social safety net.
The government has come up with a novel idea: the social union; at the same time, and the President of the Treasury Board himself boasted about it in this House: "We are going to wait for the Quebec government to make cuts, and then we will brag about how the federal government, which is committed to providing all Canadians, including Quebecers, with a social safety net, will go about it."
Chances are that the family in question will be directly affected. Martine, the young student, will have to pay higher tuition fees at the university because of the social transfer transferring less to Quebec. With these higher fees, her income as a waitress will no longer be enough, and she will have to forget about pursuing her education or work longer before being able to register.
Chances are also that Mrs. Dumas will have to pay out of her pension benefits a portion of the cost of her medication, because that too is what the Canada social transfer is about.
Should she need to be hospitalized, or to have a nurse come from the local community service centre, at this point, it is hard to know the impact, since the Quebec government has not yet announced where it will make cuts, but some cuts will definitely be made. The government is no different than a family. If its revenues go down, so must its spending. This is why the Bloc Quebecois so strongly condemned federal cuts in transfers to the provinces.
What would the grandmother, Mrs. Dumas, Martine, Mrs. Lemay or Mr. Dumas do if they were asked to choose between these new constraints imposed on them and a increased tax on profits made by banks? Considering that, for the first quarter alone of the current fiscal year, the five major Canadian banks made profits of $1.47 billion, and considering that if the trend persists, these banks will exceed their record profits of $4.9 billion in 1995,
do these people wonder, like us, whether the banks could contribute a little more to the effort to put our fiscal house in order?
Do the members of that family approve of the federal government tolerating such huge profits, while forcing the provinces to cut programs such as education, health and social assistance? No, they do not approve. I am convinced that they do not approve, and neither does the Bloc Quebecois.
Let us now talk about old age pensions. Mrs. Dumas does not have to worry about her pension, since she is already receiving it. She does, however, and deservedly so, worry about her son and her daughter-in-law's future. She realizes that the federal government is doing a great injustice, particularly to her daughter-in-law. Indeed, Mrs. Lemay, who contributed to the plan for years when she was working, and who will continue to do so as soon as she finds another job, could see her pension affected, since it will be based on her income combined with that of her spouse.
Years of efforts to ensure that women would gain financial autonomy have been annihilated by this new measure. There is a strong possibility that Mrs. Lemay will get less than she would have under the old system.
Moreover, Mrs. Dumas realizes that her son's family is far from being rich and that its members had to give up small luxuries. She also finds it unfair that they are forced to contribute to a pension fund, which reduces their disposable income, without knowing whether they will be able to benefit from it later on.
Now let us take a brief look at student employment programs. Our student Martine is worried. She has heard about an increase in federal budgets for student jobs. However, one of her friends has explained to her that the money would go directly to employers hiring students.
Martine is well aware that her employer has no trouble finding employees and that he does not need any more bureaucratic red tape. She tells herself that it must be the same in most places and that she therefore stands very little chance of finding another, better paying job to cover the probable increase in tuition fees.
Mrs. Lemay is also worried about unemployment insurance reform. She has heard talk about demonstrations to protest the reform and has gone to her union for information. They have told her that she would indeed be penalized.
Mrs. Lemay and her husband had agreed that she would look after the children full time until both were in high school. This has meant that Mrs. Lemay has fallen considerably behind in her field and been unable to find a full time job. She wonders why the federal government is not proposing any measures that would create jobs. All she wants is a job, and she will take care of the rest. Jobs are not a dime a dozen and I do not think that there are any job creation measures in the budget.
There are 21,500 families like this one in my riding. There are 16,000 senior citizens. There are also 6,000 people currently unemployed. When you explain to these families and these individuals why the Martin budget is not as nice as it seems, they are of the opinion that the government has definitely not done its homework. They think that we should call this government to order and propose alternative measures. People will see through this budget. They know that it does not create jobs and that it is not fair to Canadians and Quebecers.