Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the House on the the 1996-97 budget.
The problems associated with federal overspending is what brought me and many of my Reform colleagues into politics in the first place. We recognized that the ballooning federal debt was to endanger the livelihood of most Canadians. If something was not done quickly it would endanger the programs delivered to Canadians who need them the most.
Canadians threw out the Conservatives in the 1993 election because they were fed up with the high spending legacy of the Mulroney Progressive Conservatives and because they were deeply concerned about our debt problems.
Imagine my surprise when travelling through Dallas last week. I picked up a copy of the Dallas-Fort Worth newspaper and I read that the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney was to be giving a keynote address in Fort Worth.
The introduction in the newspaper suggested the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, former Prime Minister of Canada, will present the keynote address to Tarrant Export 40 awards. It went on to say
that Mulroney was a decisive Prime Minister credited with correcting his nation's disastrous economic course.
Imagine taking credit for something, the exact opposite of which he did, when he had the chance as Prime Minister. It seems that is why there is so much disillusionment with politics in this country.
Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives were elected in 1984 to clean up the mess that was left by the Liberals who had created some $200 billion of national debt. What did he do when he had his opportunity? He doubled that amount. Taxpayers were much worse off after the Mulroney legacy and not vice versa, as he would claim.
I am convinced that if it had not been for the presence of a number of new members in the House, Reform members and some Liberal backbenchers who were elected in the 1993 election, the finances of the country would even be worse than they are today.
We have had some cuts. I think we can take credit for that, those of us who came here in 1993. We were a breath of fresh air in Parliament.
I know that cuts hurt. My riding of Peace River has made quite a few sacrifices in order to reduce federal government spending. However, as painful as these cuts have been, it is tragic that absolutely nothing has been accomplished through them. The cost of servicing the federal debt has grown. We have had a lot of pain but we have not had the gain to go along with it.
As part of federal cost cutting measures in last year's budget there were a number of things cut back in the riding of Peace River. The weather service was cut. Twenty-one jobs at the Beaver Lodge agriculture research station were cut. Air traffic control jobs were lost in the city of Grande Prairie. We lost jobs and services. However, I think Canadians are prepared to make those sacrifices.
There was a real human cost. Nothing can make up for those personal sacrifices made by the people in my riding, but it would have been nice to know that at least the cuts were worth it, that their loss and the loss of people like them had made a real difference in turning the country around. All that happened was the debt grew and the cost of servicing the debt also grew.
Cuts in last year's budget amounted to $4 billion. That is exactly the amount the national interest on the debt increased by. It was all lost to increased interest on the debt.
Not only is Canada threatened by members of the Bloc who want to take Quebec out of Canada, the country is also threatened by the Liberal government. It is not being responsible in getting our finances in order. It is putting the country at risk.
If we look at a pie chart of the budget, the biggest part of the pie would go not to the poor, not to funding for our health care system, not to maintaining our educational institutions; it would go to the increasing cost of servicing our national debt. That is absolutely shameful.
Before the government came into power we were spending $38 billion a year on interest payments to service the debt. That has grown to $42 billion in the past year and under the 1996-97 budget it will rise to $48 billion. There has been a $10 billion increase in the interest on the debt during the three years the Liberal government has been in power. That is tragic.
I believe the picture could have been entirely different. There is an awareness in the country that the deficit and the debt must be tackled. I think the public is far ahead of the government on this issue. The deficit and the debt must be tackled quickly and decisively. Half measures will not do because increasing debt servicing will simply eat up the cuts that are being made.
Provincial governments have received the message. Provincial governments across the land have taken the fiscal problem seriously. They have set firm targets and dates for eliminating their deficits; not reducing them, eliminating them.
The federal government is now the only government in the country which has not set deficit elimination targets. The government talks about rolling targets from year to year. What is the date the government will have a balanced budget?
Without a goal and a target date the people of Canada who are bearing the brunt of the cuts cannot hope that the government will get to where it is supposed to be going.
I would like to speak about my home province of Alberta. The government there is trying through a survey to decide what to do with this year's budget surplus. That is something we have not heard much of for a long time at the federal government level. The Government of Alberta is trying to decide whether to cut taxes or pay down the debt. Soon provincial governments all over Canada will be in the same position.
Not the federal government. Instead it has offloaded its problems to the provinces by reducing block funding for health care, welfare and advanced education. In effect it is asking the provinces to do its dirty work for it.
What is the situation in Alberta? As I said, this year we have a budget surplus. We have growth in the economy. We have the lowest unemployment rate than any other place in the country and we are starting to pay down our provincial debt. This province has made a difference. B.C. and Saskatchewan are currently on the
same track and all provinces have recognized that is the road we have to take. Not only do we have to start reducing deficits and get to a balanced budget, we have to start paying down our national debt.
This is not the first time Canada has found itself under a staggering debt. Right after the second world war Canada had a debt larger in relation to our GDP than we have now, but there were special circumstances. That debt had been incurred because of the great depression of the 1930s and to finance the war effort. It took the Canadian people with their shoulders to the wheel 25 years, a lot of hard work and a lot of will, to pay off that debt.
We know this did not last very long, however, because the Liberals came to power and especially under Prime Minister Trudeau started another spending spree and the spiral started all over again. By the end of the Trudeau era we had built it up to $200 billion again. Unfortunately the current Liberal government is still adding to our debt.
On March 6 the finance minister tabled his third budget. Like his other budgets, it did nothing to address the problem of the debt which now stands at $578 billion. To service this debt Canadians will have to pay almost $40 billion in interest payments this fiscal year.
That sounds like a big number but I would like to put it into perspective. Fifty billion dollars translates into $4.2 billion each month which translates to $137 million a day in interest payments. The average Canadian taxpayer pays $3,700 a year just to cover the interest on debts. Taken as an average of their monthly cheques, it amounts to $309 million a year.
The third budget of the finance minister is no better than the others. It brings us the pain but no gain. We need balanced budget legislation. We need a firm date. It will happen only when in all corners of Canada where Canadians have made sacrifices they come to some kind of fruition through a government committed to a balanced budget and to pay down the national debt. It has to happen.