Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting for me as a new member in this House to watch the business of budget creation.
I spent some time in the early eighties as a senior bureaucrat in the provincial Government of Manitoba and then some five years in the provincial legislature as the finance critic. I have participated in the creation of budgets from the perspective of a bureaucrat. I have participated in budgets from the perspective of a critic sitting on the opposite side of the House. For these last couple of years I have had the opportunity to participate as a backbencher of the governing party.
I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance for his unprecedented openness in the budget development process. Never in my experience has a Minister of Finance been so willing to consult, to open the process up, to invite people in and to sincerely listen to and respond to their concerns.
After the last budget I sent out a letter to a cross-section of people in my riding which included individuals from a large university, small and large businesses, social services and labour. I asked them to take up the finance minister's challenge. He said to us at the end of the budget process last year that he would be as open to us as he could possibly be, that he would invite as many of us as possible into the process of examining possibilities and developing new approaches to the finances of this country.
I invited a large number of people from across Canada into those very discussions. We set up a series of working groups. We first spent some time looking at issues they wanted the finance minister and government to focus on. Over time we began to do more detailed research on the issues and worked them down. This fall we came up with a series of proposals which we presented to the Minister of Finance.
In my role as chair of the social policy committee of caucus I went through a similar process with a series of working groups in our own caucus. I want to reflect on some of that work today.
The people in my riding of Winnipeg South said this to the Minister of Finance: "Continue to meet your targets. We know it is tough. The deficit process has been a difficult one. It is not easy. Nobody likes the process of cutting but we believe that it is producing better decisions, more efficient decisions and in the end the pain will be worth it". That is exactly what we are beginning to experience as confidence has increased in the finance minister's ability to manage the financial affairs of the country.
The terrible fluctuations in interest rates, fluctuations in the dollar and the uncertainty about investment decisions has begun to diminish and we see a much more stable, secure investment climate for the people who are confronting those decisions in their lives today.
All of the indicators are moving in the right direction. The feedback response and the analysis of the course set and maintained by the finance minister has been extremely positive. I can tell the finance minister and the House that it meets with the complete approval of the people in my constituency.
There were some areas of concern. Seniors had a serious concern at the time of discussions on the reform of the pension program. I had a number of groups working on it, a number of people consulting with me on it. People were caught because they could see from the tables and the research produced that there was a serious problem with the Canada pension plan. They knew there were some serious inequities in the distribution of support under the OAS and the GIS. They had that information.
People who were on income support programs, people who were retired and receiving benefits or people who were close to retirement and close to receiving benefits were extremely concerned. These were people with very limited options. They had set their course, they had made their plans and to have those programs changed suddenly was very threatening and very frightening.
They have reacted to the finance minister's decisions with great support and great relief. He and the government are committing to no change in the benefit structure for people who are currently receiving pensions. The government has agreed to involve seniors in a process of change that will take some years. The idea that people can alter their planning as they approach their retirement has been received with great support and great appreciation.
Another great concern was the threat of very large cuts to social programs, particularly the plan to combine the EPF health, the EPF post-secondary education and the Canada assistance plan into the Canada health and social transfer. People understand we have to deal with the major expenditure programs in order to get a deficit of our magnitude under control. They know and accept that. There was a great deal of concern about the size of the cuts and what the eventual outcome would be.
There was much work done within the caucus committee and a tremendous amount of time put into this by the advisory committee in my riding. It came forward with a proposal much like the one that came out of the finance committee, that a floor be placed on these payments which could be maintained until such time as the deficit could be brought to zero and we could start to reinvest in health care.
We are delighted the finance minister has chosen to take that route. Not only are we delighted he has chosen to accept the recommendations to establish a floor but that he has actually set a higher floor than we thought was possible. People are absolutely delighted that we will continue to play a role in medicare, post-secondary education and social programs in this country into the foreseeable future and that now the real work has begun on determining the national standards and principles in terms of providing a true social safety net for all Canadians.
Another area provoked a lot of debate in my riding because I have a very large university, the University of Manitoba, one of the best universities in Canada located fully within the boundaries of my riding. Like all universities it is undergoing tremendous difficulty right now as it works to restructure its programming, upgrade its style of teaching and its technology. There is a tremendous amount of pressure on universities across the country.
The pressure is very difficult to understand in some ways when we think that Canada is at the forefront of countries in transition to becoming knowledge based economies. By their very existence universities are major producers of knowledge. They are net generators of new ideas, of information, of new approaches and challenges to the ways in which we think of doing business.
Yet those very institutions that are so vital to our growth and our continued economic health are currently under tremendous pressure at all levels. Students have felt the effects of many increases in their fees to the point where people are beginning to make decisions not to go to university because of the costs. The pressure from new technologies and the questions about the style, the nature and the goals of training have put enormous pressure on the faculties of universities across the country.
They have been looking to us, asking us what our policy is on post-secondary education. They note that in the red book on page 111, which all members have memorized by this point, the second largest cash commitment we made was $1 billion in new money in the area of research and development. They have also noticed that in the budgets of the past two years, the first two years of this government, did not live up to that commitment. Not only did we not make those new investments, but we began to cut support for science research in Canada.
I am delighted and certainly the people in my riding are delighted to see the government begin to act upon this very important promise. The decisions on research and development, the support for students, the greater involvement of business and universities in the economic life of this country are decisions that are broadly welcomed.
Finally, the decisions around youth job creation were central to the discussions I had in my riding. People wanted to see us give more varied opportunities and options to youth in their search for employment and opportunities for wealth and security.
The decisions the finance minister finally made, which are reflected in the budget in terms of student aid, summer help and entry into the labour market, have been broadly welcomed. By and large, the constituents of Winnipeg South have been delighted by
the budget. We wish the finance minister well and look forward to working with him on the next one.