Madam Speaker, it is always a great moment in the life of a government and in the life of politicians when a budget is introduced. It is an important moment as we can tell when we see the media bustle feverishly around the House of Commons or the Quebec National Assembly trying to see, to understand if what is going to be announced will have some impact on our lives. They try to find out if all the affirmations made some days earlier in the different media, in the newspapers-a tax on this or that-will be confirmed and if the government will once again hit the taxpayer with new taxes or increases.
In this case, I watched the media this morning and I read all the documents that the Minister of Finance tabled in the House. I worked with my hon. colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, who is the critic of our party on these matters, and with assistants to try to find out what the Minister of Finance had said and especially, what he had not said in his budget speech. I came to the following conclusion: either the government is short of ideas or it is preparing to call an election. We are going to discuss both scenarios.
I repeat: the government has no imagination. I know that you are going to ask me to prove it and it will be an easy task. Experts admit that they have not seen such a minor, feeble, watered-down budget tabled in the House for in a very long time. The Minister of Finance gave us some general indications on the state of the economy, on his deficit predictions, on the state of the debt. He mentioned a few small programs here and there, made some nicely put announcements, but his speech did not really respond to the need to know of parliamentarians and experts alike.
I decided to push my analysis a bit further. I looked at the documents. I took this one, The Budget Plan tabled in the House of Commons by the Minister of Finance . On page 14, we can read ``Direct budget savings''. Everybody knows, citizens asked us that, that the government's first objective is to reduce the size of the government. We absolutely must succeed in reducing the size of our governments, particularly the federal government, which is the biggest. The government must learn to withdraw, to do more with less, to reduce the size of its departments and organizations.
I tried to determine what direct savings would flow from this budget. Normally, in a budget speech like the one that was delivered yesterday, the finance minister tells us that the government will reduce its spending by three or five billion dollars. That is normally what the minister should have done, but he did not. That made me think.
I checked again and found that there will be absolutely no direct savings in the 1996-97 budget-and I use the minister's own numbers, Madam Speaker. None, and that is not much. There will be no savings in 1996-97. Zero savings, zero for the Minister of Finance. In 1997-98, the savings will reach $0.2 billion. I must come to the conclusion-and that can be checked-that the net impact of the budget on the reduction of the government's size will be nil. Zero again for the Minister of Finance.
That shows that the government is unable to reduce its own expenditures. But you will object that according to the estimates tabled this morning by the President of the Treasury Board, there will be some budget cuts.
All these cuts result from previous budgets. As he is used to, the finance minister announced long term programs. We hear about cuts, but they will apply only next year. The cuts he talked about last year will show up this year in some departments. This year, the minister tells us that he is not cutting, which means that he considers he has finished downsizing the government. To me, that shows a considerable lack of imagination.
After realizing that he had not cut spending, I decided to find out what he himself said in praise of his budget. I checked the document giving an overview of the 1996 budget. These documents from the Minister of Finance are quite interesting. In the first section of this document, the finance minister and his government talk about "securing our financial future". This is interesting. What they fail to say is that we will be paying for a long time. Let me explain.
First of all, they say that the deficit will be cut to about 3 per cent of GDP, as though this 3 per cent was the ultimate objective, the philosopher's stone. Our spending will be cut to 12 per cent of GDP, which, according to the Minister of Finance, is a great achievement. So 3 per cent of GDP, 12 per cent of GDP, and then next year's goal is to bring the deficit down to 2 per cent of GDP.
I, however, looked at a different set of figures. This looked interesting. Like many others perhaps, I thought that the minister had done a terrific job and was on the right track, and then I looked at some other figures. The reality is this: Canada's debt exceeds $600 billion, or $20,000 per Canadian. This is quite something. I am not talking about 3, 2 or 15 per cent of GDP, but about the debt that we will have to pay: $600 billion, or $20,000 for every Canadian man, woman and child. Most interestingly, since this hon. Minister of Finance took the helm two and a half years ago, he has added $110 billion to the debt-as I figured out with my friend, the Bloc Quebecois' financial expert.
In the last two and a half years, this minister who brags about a budget with nothing in it has increased the debt by $110 billion, or $3,700 for every Canadian man, woman and child. Did you realize that, since the Minister of Finance took over this portfolio, he has borrowed or incurred a debt of $3,700 for every Canadian-for everyone of us in this House, for every person listening to us, for every member of our families, for each of our children and grandchildren, for everybody we know. That is a huge amount of money.
I looked at another figure that is more significant than the 12 and 3 per cent of GDP. Thirty-six cents out of every dollar we pay in taxes-and we know what a tax dollar means-go to service the debt, to assume our collective responsibility for this debt.
How can the Minister of Finance submit a budget he claims to be proud of? How can he brag and say: "You see, we are reaching our goals"? The finance minister thinks he is a good manager who meets his targets, but his figures are meaningless for Canadians, considering that, in the last two and one half years, his government put them $110 billion deeper into debt, for a total of $600 billion, that it put an additional burden of $3,700 on each of them, bringing the total to $20,000 per capita, and that 36 cents of each dollar goes to the service of the debt.
I decided to go a little farther in my analysis. You will understand that I was disappointed to see the state of public finances, given what we were told by our friend the Minister of Finance. So, I went a little farther. In that same brochure, which MPs will use to sell this budget, it says: "Getting the government right". I find this rather cute. "Further action is being taken to define a more appropriate and effective role for the federal government".
There is also a reference to Parliament's effectiveness. "In the modern Canadian federation, most departments will have their
budgets cut-". Etc., etc., etc. I checked it out. I kept searching. I certainly did my homework, Madam Speaker. I consulted a brochure tabled by the President of the Treasury Board on the role of the state.
I expected, like most Canadians I am sure, to learn that the federal government would withdraw from certain areas, given that it is involved in numerous fields that do not come under its jurisdiction, that it does not even comply with its own Constitution in that regard, that it is way too big, cumbersome and loaded down with debts, that it has difficulty making good decisions, and that it is overburdened by its bureaucracy. I would have expected the government to say that it would withdraw from certain areas. We could have expected the federal government to give back to the provinces the areas of jurisdiction that belong to them, to put an end to all the duplication and to totally abolish some of the services, which are provided by some departments that have no business providing them, and which duplicate services provided by other levels of government.
I found some real gems in this document. According to this action plan, the objectives of the federal government are to: "strengthen our economy and economic union to ensure a prosperous country for ourselves and our children-that is so nice; enhance social solidarity in Canada-in preserving and modernizing the social union so that the caring and sharing society is truly Canada-wide in scope-this is really fine; pool our national resources to achieve common goals efficiently and effectively; protect and promote Canadian values and identity while celebrating our diversity; and defend Canada's sovereignty and speaking for Canadians collectively on the world stage".
I found in the document a lot of principles and a lot of things that look quite trivial when you read them in a brochure like this one. However, when you know about the federal government's propensity to centralize and to interfere in areas of jurisdiction where it should not get involved, I think you are right to worry about the centralizing hidden behind all these nice principles.
So, I reread the throne speech, the budget speech, and realized something: the throne speech indicated that "the federal government would not intervene in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction". One must know the real meaning behind these words. "The federal government would not intervene in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction without-"