Mr. Speaker, I will start by congratulating the minister on his appointment as President of the Treasury Board. I also congratulate the department on the six pilot projects on the reformatting of the part IIIs so that parliamentarians can more fully enjoy and appreciate what is going on in the departments. We hope this progress will continue and that parliamentarians will be able to have useful documentation in order to analyse what the government is doing. Unfortunately my compliments seem to stop there.
The government is spending $157 billion and the minister gave a fairly short speech to cover how the government intends to do that. He boasts about the fact that program spending is coming down by about $9 billion, but interest on the debt is going up by $9.8 billion. It is not even a saw-off; we are spending more money. That was quite evident in the budget which was tabled yesterday by the Minister of Finance. We saw quite clearly that the deficit is coming down on the backs of the taxpayers because as the deficit has come down by $25 billion, tax revenues have gone up by the same amount.
He talked about program review. In the last session of this Parliament I tabled Private Member's Bill C-289 which talked about program review. I said that four things have to be done. We should be looking at programs and reviewing programs on a cyclical basis, based on the following: What is a program designed to do? Is the program meeting that definition that we intend to serve society? Is it being done efficiently? Is it a better way to accomplish the same service to society at a lesser cost?
The program review which has been done by this government has been done behind closed doors. It has been politically motivated. We have not seen very much in the way of efficiencies and improvements. Yet the government continues to slash across the board each department by 2 per cent, 3 per cent and 4 per cent. That is not program review; that is management without intelligence. It is basically cost cutting for the sake of cost cutting. It does not focus on service to Canadians.
If we look at the main estimates which were tabled today, we wonder why the status of women and the office of the co-ordinator get almost a 9 per cent increase, up by $1.3 million, while every other Canadian has to do with less.
The Department of Citizenship and Immigration will get another $8.6 million, which is an increase of 3.8 per cent. That amounts to $8.6 million extra with the concept that it is going to save money. It seems rather strange.
We all know what is happening in the fisheries, but the government is going to give an extra 47 per cent to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Maybe that is just to go out and look for some fish. We need programs that work and programs that help Canadians. Giving another 47 per cent to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is not going to bring back the fish as far as I am aware.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency are both up, while Canadians get less. We want to maintain this facade of an image abroad that Canada is a wonderful place and that it has money to spend, while Canadians pay more and get less.
These are the types of things that have to change if the government is going to get it right. One of the documents which the minister tabled this morning was: "Getting Government Right". I think that getting government right is spending on Canadians, not maintaining this facade abroad by spending our money on other people.
It says here that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development had a 20 per cent reduction in its budget, but yesterday the Minister of Finance said that the government was going to spend more. Money is going up and the numbers are going down just because they fudge it and move it elsewhere.
These are not the types of things we like to see in the estimates. We like to see some real solid facts and continuity from year to year so that parliamentarians can understand what the government is doing.
His own department, Treasury Board Secretariat, is going to get another $160 million. That is the department which is in charge of downsizing government, but he takes another $160 million for his own department to do that. It is incongruous that we see these types of numbers in the estimates.
I was glad to see the minister intends to remove the wage freeze next year. We have already called for the government to do that and we are glad to see it is doing it. At the same time we called for the unions to give up the job guarantees. We want to see merit in the civil service where people who do a good job are recognized. We want every civil servant to know that if they are doing a valuable job and doing it well, job security is there on that basis. We have to tell them that.
However, the government has gone one step further. It has suspended binding arbitration. It has said it is prepared to talk about an increase in wages, but it will suspend binding arbitration which simply says: "We are going to compromise, but we will do it our way". I do not think that is the message the government should be sending to the civil service. It is like the sword of Damocles.
Last year the Minister of Finance announced 45,000 job cuts. Tens of thousands of jobs were going to disappear and the civil service took it on the chin and carried on knowing that the morale was low because so many of their colleagues were going to go. Yesterday the Minister of Finance said: "That is not all. More are going to go". We do not know how many are going to go or when.
The minister said this morning that the civil service is known for its competency, integrity and hard work. The government has maintained the wage freeze during the two and a half years it has been in office. It has said it is going to eliminate 45,000 jobs and it has said it is going to eliminate more. It is going to deny binding arbitration to the civil service. I wonder how long Canadians can expect competency, integrity and hard work from those in the civil service while the government continues to treat them this way. That has to change. We have to treat our civil service well. We have to recognize that those employees are working under difficult circumstances and they deserve better treatment.
The minister talked about client approach. Client approach in the government has to serve Canadians. As a businessman I always knew I could look after my customers. Accountability and service delivery has to be number one. While the minister talks about it, what do we find?
The Canadian health and social transfer is being maintained at a constant level by the Minister of Finance. He said so yesterday. There is no accounting for inflation which means that the extra costs are going to have to be borne by the provinces. That is not service.
We have seen cuts to medicare from the 50 per cent that was guaranteed by the Liberal government many years ago. It is now down to the fact that it is only paying 23 per cent of health care. And the minister calls this client approach service delivery. Hospitals are closing, people are waiting for surgery everywhere. That is not a service delivery approach. It is budget cutting and Canadians suffer.
Total spending is $157 billion in these estimates and we know there will be more coming in the supplementaries. There is $112 billion in statutory spending and we as parliamentarians are going to vote on $45 billion. That is a disgrace. It is absolutely intolerable
that with the fiscal situation we are in today we as parliamentarians can only vote and express an opinion on $45 billion out of $157 billion.
We know from past experiences over the last two years that the government has maintained that absolutely not one nickel can change in the estimates regardless of what people on this side of the House say. That has to change. I look forward to the day the Reform Party is over on that side and introduces some meaningful change so that parliamentarians on both sides can have input on how money is spent in this country.
According to the minister, spending will continue to drop. Taxes are going to remain high. We got no tax relief yesterday. The amount of money being spent on programs is going down and down every year by the government's own admission and there is no tax relief. It points out that the Reform Party had it right when it told the government to balance its budget as quickly as possible. Every dollar that Canadians are denied from tax revenue is being spent on bankers abroad. There is no way the government can deliver or continue to deliver social services to Canadians that are so dearly needed. The government promised jobs and it has yet to deliver on that promise.
I see government is spending another $111 million on CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency. The estimates say aid is going up and yet the Minister of Finance said yesterday it is going down $150 million over the next two years. This is yo-yo accounting. One year the government jacks it up, the next year it cuts down and says it is saving money. This is no way to do things.
Let us be realistic. If cuts are to be made, let us cut, let us cut now and let us get the benefits so that we can ensure that things are going well.
My last point is defence. I have some correspondence from the minister of defence. Last year he said that the estimate to build a new range in CFB Gagetown was $2 million. I see in the estimates it is going to cost $3.5 million. That is a 75 per cent increase over the estimate in one year.
In Shilo, Manitoba, construction estimates according to documents that I have was $29.9 million last year and is now going to cost $47.2 million. That is increase of 58 per cent over the estimate of less than one year ago. There is no management in defence. In the meantime it has been cut overall by 21 per cent. There are morale problems in the ministry of defence. The chief of defence staff has said he cannot even fight a war to defend Canadians. Budgets are being cut and the estimates are out to lunch. There is a problem in the management of the department of defence. It should be fixed and fixed now.
I look forward to examining these estimates in committee over the next few months. Reform members will be calling the government to task. We expect that if we point out real, meaningful and
intelligent savings that government members will agree to them and amend these estimates when we vote on them in the months to come.