Mr. Speaker, I also thank my colleague from Chicoutimi for having agreed to share his time with me. I am pleased to have a turn at voicing my opinion on Bill C-10 on the government's borrowing authority. I interpret this bill, in the same vein as my colleague from Chicoutimi, as the federal government's asking the members of the House of Commons' permission to put Canadians and Quebecers further into debt, for, in the budget presented to us, there has been no real effort to tackle the deficit and the debt.
The Minister's projection refers to the next three years, and we can see that his planning has not yet allowed him to successfully predict the day there will no longer be an operating deficit, when the deficit will be zero and we can start paying back that debt.
We need to realize that the public debt has increased by close to $100 billion since the Liberals came to power, on the federal level alone. I tried to use my calculator to divide that $600 billion by the number of people in Canada, a little over 27 million, to get a figure per capita. I must admit I had to give up and do it manually because my calculator was not able to divide $600 billion by 27 million.
I was amazed. I said to myself "Incredible". People hear about the public debt all the time, but in terms of billions. A billion more, a billion less, they do not have much idea what that represents. One of my colleagues figured it out the other day. He said it came to $100 million per day, $69,000 per minute. That breaks down to $1,100 per second. Imagine, this all adds up.
We are talking big numbers, but if we express it in terms of individual Canadians, when we reach the end of the fiscal year, when we have reached $602.7 billion, the figure will be $22,322 per person. Newborn babies in Canada owe $22,322 from day one, in terms of the federal debt alone. Earlier, I was saying that, with the Liberals, it is another $100 billion. Individual Canadians have gone another $3,800 into debt since the Liberals came to power.
Sometimes in municipalities they talk of taxpayers, but here every single Canadian, from infants to old folks, will owe $22,000. That means that a family of four, comprising two parents and two children, will owe nearly $100,000 in debt to the federal government alone. I am saying this, because people often look at their own budget first. It is, therefore, a considerable amount.
Of course the Minister of Finance planned to reduce the deficit from $32 billion to $24.3 billion this year. In one way, there is a reduction. But, how did he manage it? He did it over the past two years by cutting $7 billion in transfer payments to the provinces. He is asking the provinces to work at the deficit more than he is doing himself, because, if you look at the budget carefully, you can
see that it has increased in the end by $150 million. Federal expenditures are not really being cut.
Seven billion dollars in reduction comes from transfer payments to the provinces, and $5 billion comes from the unemployment insurance fund. The federal government is feeding off the provinces and the unemployed. They are the ones being asked to pay off the deficit and to work on the debt, because we will certainly not pay off the debt by the year 2000. We are only reducing the deficit.
I listened earlier to the member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine when he talked about youth. He also talked extensively about the provincial government. I found that a bit odd, I thought maybe he wanted to run for provincial office. He devoted eight minutes, out of his ten-minute speech, to the Quebec government.
I will not make the same mistake. I will talk about the federal government, since this is where we are. This is the House of Commons, therefore, we will talk about the federal debt. My specific role as member of the opposition is that of critic for training and youth.
In the throne speech and in the budget speech, the government said it would double funding for summer jobs. Naturally, I looked closely at that; I perused the press release issued by the Minister of Human Resources Development on March 12, 1996. I read each line and each figure. I added the amounts and discovered that there is a $14,350,000 shortfall in the $120 million announced.
I see the parliamentary secretary is here now. I wonder what happened in the government press release; there are three possible explanations for that $14,350,000 gap. It might be a printing error. If that is the case, it is unfortunate, but we should know. It might be a miscalculation. In that case, a mistake of $14,350,000 is cause for concern and one could be a bit insecure. If the human resource development minister cannot add figures, if his many civil servants cannot add properly, where does that lead us?
A third possibility is that it means new cuts since the tabling of the budget. We would like to know.
Assuming that this is a mistake and that the amount is really $120 million, instead of $60 million last year, we must understand that the $120 million the Liberal government is spending for summer jobs this year is even less than what the Conservatives were spending when they were in office.
The last year the Conservatives were in office, just before the Liberals in 1993, they spent $156 million for summer jobs. In the two previous budgets, that is for 1991-92 and 1990-91, they had spent $180 million for summer jobs.
The Liberals are boasting that they are doubling and increasing the amounts, but if we put that in perspective, it is a reduction over what the previous government was doing. And I do not take inflation into account.
Also, assuming that this $60 million is true, even if we cannot find this amount in the press release, that means $15 million for Quebec, $60 million to be divided by about 25 per cent of the population, which represents Quebec's population; for Quebec, it is $15 million more than last year. However, this year, as a result of a decision that was made last year by the then Minister of Human Resources Development, transfers to Quebec for post-secondary education will be cut by $150 million.
This is an additional $15 million to dissimulate a $150 million cut to post-secondary education, which will indirectly affect students since slashing transfer payments to Quebec in this area by $150 million will force educational institutions and the Quebec government to raise tuition fees. It has already started, and it is only going to get worse.
In fact, what they are doing is investing a little more in McJobs, in summer jobs, while forcing individual students, the targeted public, to borrow more money. This is what I would call an indirect transfer to students.
Among other measures in this budget, the Liberal government wants to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act to make it even more difficult for new entrants to the labour force to collect benefits. While they needed only 300 hours of work in some regions and 400 in others, new entrants are now required to accumulate 910 hours to qualify. Is this helping young people? I think this is a masquerade.
In the old days, seniors used to warn us about getting candy, explaining that recipients should wait for the other shoe to drop. This is what is hitting us, what is hitting students. It is a little present. An increase on the one hand, but a cut that is ten times bigger on the other hand.
This is what I call smoke and mirrors designed to hide this government's unforgivable attitude toward young people, on whom this budget places the heaviest burden for paying back the debt.
In conclusion, the government is not making a special effort for young people. On the contrary, it is making a special effort to push them even further into debt.