Debates of April 25th, 1996

Budget Implementation Act, 1996

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Order. I hesitate at the best of times to interrupt anyone, but when an indication is given to the Chair that members are splitting their time, although 10 minutes may not seem very long, in fairness to other members awaiting an opportunity to speak on the same bill, I feel I must.

[Nic Leblanc, Bloc, Longueuil, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what the member thinks of the present the federal government just gave the three maritime provinces.

We know it will give close to one billion dollars to these three provinces. It was mentioned that harmonizing the GST will cost more to the maritime provinces involved. Right now, as far as I know, the provincial taxes in the maritimes are between 11 and 12 per cent. They are the highest in Canada. In Quebec, the sales tax used to be 9 per cent, now its is 6.5 per cent.

Could it be, by any chance, that this gift of one billion dollars to three maritime provinces is to compensate for what they are losing due to UI cuts? Is this a way the government found to compensate them for their UI losses? This seems to me a rather obvious coincidence.

The two ministers from New Brunswick were having a great deal of difficulty making people swallow the UI reform. It seems that they are being rewarded or compensated so that the two senior ministers from New Brunswick can be better perceived by the public.

In any case, for us in Quebec, there is something we find unacceptable. It is estimated that Quebec will have to pay $250 million in compensation. We are going to give close to one billion dollars to the maritime provinces.

Of course, this $250 million is not directly part of the one billion dollars. However, we know that when the government's revenues are down, and when the time comes to transfer money to meet its responsibility with regard to health care and post-secondary education, among others, we know that the funds it will transfer will be less the money it will give the maritimes.

We are well aware that in Quebec we will experience losses amounting to at leat $250 million because of this. I would like to know what the member thinks of all this, of this nice present to the maritime provinces.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Order. I would like to ask the hon. member for Longueuil whether he intends to make a comment without answering the hon. member, otherwise, in the little time left, I will allow him to answer the comment already made. Agreed?

[Nic Leblanc, Bloc, Longueuil, QC]

Agreed.

[Ovid Jackson, Liberal, Bruce—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the jury is still out on the UI issue. We are reforming it. I do not believe the measure undertaken by the government with regard to what he called gifts has anything to do with UI.

When the UI fund is underfunded the money has to be found by the government. It is strange that we are trying to restructure it and other members think we should spend the money in some other way.

With regard to the member's other question, the government looked at 20 alternatives to the replacement tax. The accommodation it came up with was the best one. There is some dislocation with regard to these provinces. They have a small population base. We are still a country and we still have equalization payments. Provinces that do better under these circumstances have an obligation to transfer some of their funds to get the other provinces going.

The government is trying to get government right. We believe through the moves we have made that we will have more jobs and be more competitive. We will wean those provinces off that money over a period of time.

[Dianne Brushett, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to add my voice to those of my hon. colleagues to strongly endorse the budget implementation bill before us today.

In the next few minutes I will focus on one key theme of the budget. The focus will be on youth, on what government is doing to invest in Canada's future through education and youth employment programs. Everyone knows the government is committed to deficit reduction and the positive spinoffs of lower interest rates and economic growth. At the same time, we must have the vision to sustain our social programs and build a future for our youth.

There are some areas in which additional funds must be invested while we cut back in others. One such area concerns the youth of Canada. Young people are Canada's most important resource but sadly youth unemployment is about 50 per cent higher than the national average. Young Canadians are not looking for handouts, but for a chance to lend a hand. They need enhanced educational opportunities and an extra hand up to attain their very crucial first jobs.

There is no question about the importance of education. It is the underpinning of this country's progress and accomplishments. Everything we have as a country and as individuals rests on the skills, abilities and talents that have been developed and polished through education.

In today's changing world, education is a lifelong endeavour. During our time in this House we continue to learn more about the

Canadians we serve, about their needs, their expectations and their hopes for this country's future.

It is for Canada's young people that education holds a very special place. The greatest asset a person has is his or her own self-resourcefulness. No one can take your education from you. What they learn now they will use for the rest of their lives. During their lives they will see that the Canada of the future, how it lives, how it works and how it interacts with the broader world outside its borders, will change and grow beyond anything we see today. It is education that will take our young people there.

All of this is well recognized by the government and with this budget we are taking durable, meaningful steps forward. One significant step is the new learning package. It delivers real help to Canadian students. The education tax credit is being raised from $80 to $100. The limit on the transfer of tuition fees and education amounts to those who support students is being raised from $4,000 to $5,000. The annual limit on contributions to the registered education savings plan is being increased from $1,500 to $2,000, while the lifetime limit is being increased from $31,500 to $42,000.

We are also helping parents who are full time students. Single parents and family parents who both attend school will be allowed to deduct child care expenses against all types of income. Parents who attend high school full time will also be allowed to claim this deduction. These new measures will deliver an extra $165 million in tax assistance over the next three years to students and their families.

The new money in the learning package tells only part of the story. It supplements the considerable sums we already target to students. I am sure hon. members are familiar with the Canada student loans program. Currently we budget some $556 million to this program, money that will allow some 360,000 students to negotiate over $1 billion in loans this year. To help students, this year's budget announced the removal of the 10-year ceiling that was imposed on the repayment schedules of students who borrowed money under the Canada Student Loans Act.

Under the new rules lenders will have more flexibility to match the repayment period to the financial reality of borrowers. Not only will this measure help the students who borrow the money, but it will also benefit the government as we will not have such a high default rate on loans.

These changes follow on major reforms of the Canada student loans program made last August. At that time the government announced that it would provide special grants for disabled and high needs students and expand interest relief for borrowers who encounter difficulty in repaying their loans. Loan ceilings were increased and the efficiency of the program was improved through new arrangements with the financial institutions. Under this arrangement it is the lenders who take on the risk and the costs of loan defaults.

Formal education is a necessary foundation that all students seek, but there is something equally important that complements it and that is work experience. I am sure hon. members understand fully the challenge involved in making the transition from schools, colleges and universities to the workplace. Given the difficulty that this transition represents in today's fiercely competitive job market, which is evidenced by the youth unemployment numbers that I mentioned earlier, the government had to take action.

Before the 1996 budget the government had already earmarked some $705 million over the next three years for programs to promote youth employment. These include Youth Service Canada, Youth Internship Canada and the Student Summer Job Action program. Now we are doing more. Funding will be increased with $315 million of new money reallocated from other areas of the budget. Some of this reallocated funding will be used to facilitate summer employment. Government support will double to $120 million for this fiscal year. This action recognizes the value of on the job experience to students, not to mention the money it provides to help them with their education.

Most of the remaining money will be used to assist young people who have left school to find jobs. Individuals with lower levels of education will be a special target group, and to fully fund and to fully understand the particular needs and difficulties they face.

When the new funding for the learning package in youth employment is added to the existing employment programs, the total support for the next three years will be more than $1.2 billion.

When I was a young girl growing up in rural New Brunswick in the 1950s, few young women went to university. Most were encouraged to get married. It was almost like a career. I was always an eager learner and I can remember my mother saying to me: "Diane, do not get too smart or no one will want to marry you". That was a particular and prevailing attitude of the times.

I went to university and I am still enrolled today in the masters program at St. Mary's University at Halifax. I encourage young women and young men to look at education as the greatest asset they will ever attain. You can never have too much of it, it will be the greatest gift that you ever give yourself and it will last a lifetime.

I recognize this and as a working person all my life I am still being educated through a lifelong process. The government recognizes this. Education is a foundation for all successful employment and for successful citizens.

I have a young man in my constituency who encountered drug and alcohol abuse throughout his education at university. He was a failure and dropout. He came to see me in great disgrace in his community. Having been considered a complete failure by family

and friends he asked for my help to get back to school. My message to him was: "I will help you when you are prepared to help yourself".

Over the past two years he has called on me every few months. I am so pleased to say that these last few months he has taken control of his life, he is back on track and he is now enrolled in an education program in the Halifax area.

If I do nothing else through this next period as a member of Parliament, I will feel very satisfied that I have been able to encourage and help one young person take control of his life and get back on track to get his education. It is education that opens the doors to successful young people who become successful adults not only in the workplace but as mothers in our society, as providers, as givers in the community and as very successful Canadians that will take this country into the 21st century.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on this bill. I am discouraged that closure has been moved on it.

There are so many important things that need to be mentioned. I would like to mention a few, based on some of my travels over the last year, talking to ordinary Canadians all across the land. Most Canadians really do not understand a lot of the details of budgeting. Certainly I do not. However, they have been asking questions. I would like to relay some of the messages I have heard.

First, the one thing of which Canadians are certainly aware is the huge debt. They feel it is the one thing that is tearing the guts out of our social programs. It is hurting our agricultural programs and it is hindering the country in a number of areas.

I have been waiting to hear a Liberal member address the debt, but I never have. All I hear is a lot of rhetoric and glorified stories about what a wonderful thing the budget is. However, they never talk about the debt which will continue to be a serious problem.

When the finance minister read his budget he said: "When we came here the deficit was at 6 per cent of GDP. Then it was at 5 per cent. Then it was at 4 per cent. Then it was at 3 per cent. Next year the deficit will be at 2 per cent of GDP". The crowd opposite cheered. Of course, most Canadians were not sure what they were cheering about. If he had said: "When we came here we were $450 billion in debt. Then we were $500 billion in debt. Then we were $550 billion in debt. Then we were $600 billion in debt. Now we are moving to $650 billion in debt and before we reach 2 per cent of GDP we will be pushing nearly $700 billion in debt," that would have made sense.

Instead of talking about the deficit going from $40 billion to $35 billion, to $30 billion, to $25 billion and then to $20 billion, he should have said that our interest payments have gone from $30 billion to $35 billion to $40 billion to $45 billion and that we are on our way to more than $50 billion, that would have made sense. People could understand that.

They would question: How can we do that? How can we afford that problem? When our deficit is decreasing at a pace and our interest on the debt is increasing at a pace, and the pace is fairly level, all Canadians are saying: "Why do we not get the deficit to zero in order to stop paying interest?" The debt would stop growing.

That is what Reformers have been saying since we arrived. Let us do that. Let us stop that growth. It is tearing the country apart. It has brought us to the point where the biggest expenditure we have is the one which services the huge debt.

I am going to talk about the things people understand when we are sitting on the tailgate of their truck, in their barnyard, in their small store and in a small community.

We see different reports that come from different sources, such as the Canadian Taxpayers Association and other groups which look at government spending. They will be asking these kinds of questions: Why are we spending so much money? Why do we do that?

We look at the waste reports which my colleague from St. Albert so capably put together.

Many of the people in my riding of Wild Rose wonder why we are giving grants to businesses such as Beyer, Brown and Associates. Who is that to get half a million dollars? What about a real estate company getting $15,000?

Breakwater Books Limited, Big Bill's Furniture and Appliance, Sears, Canadian Wine, Walch's Family Foods, Navy and Army stores, on and on it goes. It is grant after grant after grant to these businesses.

They have a hard time understanding why businesses in Wild Rose are not receiving any of these grants. "What is the story behind that," they ask. There is no answer. Why does this kind of spending continually go on?

People keep looking a little farther. It is too bad you are not my age, Mr. Speaker. You would really appreciate this one: $116,000 on a committee on seniors and sexuality. Boy, it makes me feel really good now that I am getting old to know a committee would get that kind of money to study seniors and sexuality.

There is page after page of lists of grants given to do this and that. Pretty soon one starts adding it all up and find it comes to millions of dollars.

That is what the people in the countryside are talking about. They are asking: What is going on? Where do we have that kind of spending? What is happening? Why is it that you can come to the House of Commons and hear people denounce us because we are politicians?

Recently Alberta radio station CHQR-770 took a poll on what is your favourite occupation and for whom do you have the most admiration. Politicians were right beneath lawyers. We were way down the list.

It was not until I came here that I found out part of the reason. There is a great deal of difference between being a politician and a leader or a statesman. When the minister of human resources stands, as he has done on a number of occasions, speaking about the million children who are living in poverty in our country, it is cause for concern. What are we doing about it?

We hear different reports about the crimes being committed in cities where we have many street kids and many difficulties. We hear about 11, 12 and 13-year old girls who are being arrested for prostitution. There are pimps being arrested and, of course, they are let off the hook with a minor charge. You hear these things. You know the costs involved. We wonder as we sit in this House and talk about them. In the meantime, we spend money like there is no end of it. We waste it on the things I mentioned such as golf courses and grants.

It does not make sense to Canadians. It does not make sense to me. What is even worse is when politicians are sitting here, with the leader sitting on the other side of the House, driving up here in a limousine with a driver, going around with your nose stuck in the air because you have a highfalutin position in this place. You are not willing to cough that up, nor are you willing to join some of us who gave up our MP pensions because that might help with some of those costs and bring things into line.

When we start talking about those issues, they immediately get a bit concerned because the people opposite do not want to talk about that. Not one time has the waste or the lack of support for the things that would help us start fighting crime been mentioned.

They talk about poverty being a reason for crime. Let us do something about it. They talk about the problems in the streets. Look at the penitentiaries. A number of things are happening there. We want people to be released. That is the idea. They are going to come out.

We provide them with programs such as cognitive skills. They come out with a paper saying that they have cognitive skills but that does not get them a job. They walk out of the prison with $80 in their pockets. The paper says that they have cognitive skills. It does not mean a thing.

Two or three days later, they are back in jail. They are back in trouble. Why are we not doing something about that? Why do we not redirect some of our money to fight the very things which cause those things to happen? Why do we not train some of these people to become useful workers?

We can incorporate these cognitive skills into any program if we know what we are doing. We can help these people so that when they do get out crime will go down. When crime goes down, boy, talk about saving dollars. We do not want crime happening in this country because it really does a good job of supporting our legal system. It does not do anything for justice but it sure keeps our lucrative legal system going.

Let us train them. Let us create some discipline. But what do we do? Last year we spent a million dollars to make sure everybody in prison had cable TV. Maybe that is too much. Then of course $180,000 was spent to provide condoms in men's prisons throughout the country. I am having a difficult time with that one.

Then of course there is this bleach project. We have to make sure the prisoners' needles are clean so we are going to spend a lot of money to give them clean needles. Why do we not go into our prisons and put an end to the drugs? Why do we not have the political will and courage to go into these places and put an end to it? Then when those people came out of prison they would be rehabilitated from the very problem that got them in there in the first place. Why not spend money on training them?

Why do we not look at the idea of putting more police back on the streets where we can help kids? We could give them a little more authority to work with the kids rather than having to follow the little book right to the letter. Put more police out there. Oh, but that costs more money.

I have an idea. Let us not register the rifles and shotguns. Let us take that $85 million, using the justice minister's own figures, and hire another 2,000 police. If we used the auditor general's figure of $1 billion, then we should not hire 2,000 police, we should hire 20,000. If that is going to help prevent crime it will mean a great amount of savings to society as a whole. It will mean a great deal to the morals and values of our communities.

When I was a school principal if any violence broke out at the school and it looked as if things were getting a little carried away, the last thing I would do would be to give them blackjacks and clubs. That is what the government is doing with bleach projects, condoms and all these other things. It is telling the prisoners that it is okay and we will make it better.

None of this makes sense to normal Canadians. I hope I am normal. Sometimes I wonder myself when I walk out of here. I walk out of here and I hear people like that member from Saskatchewan who just clapped over there. That same member would sit in committee and say that our schools are the same as

they were 40 years ago. Hogwash. Forty years ago chewing gum was the major problem in schools. Today it does not evencome close.

I sit in the justice committee and watch them interview people from the field of education. The final decision was that schools are no different from when we attended. What a bunch of baloney. The government is not recognizing the problems that are coming up and how to deal with them. Instead, the government tries to feed the problem by allowing this to go on. Not one government member will give up their limousine to help. Not one of them will give up their pension. They will hang on to that. Why not redirect that money into problem areas and help solve these things? It does not make sense.

When I was in the school system there were ivory towers there as well. I was given a budget every year and was told to spend it. At the end of one year I had $2,000 left in the physical education budget. I was told I had to spend this money or I would lose it. I said I did not need it in the physical education budget but I needed some math books or something else. I was told no, I had to spend it or lose it. That was the mentality at that level of government and it exists here.

Not too long ago some CIDA workers told me that there was $200,000 which they could have turned back into the federal government coffers but they were ordered by those in the ivory tower to spend it. That does not surprise me. It is what happens at every level of government. They figure out some trip, take the bureaucrats and away they go.

I challenge members of the House to stop being politicians and think about being statesmen. Start looking at some things they can sacrifice or do to help the causes and let us see where it goes. Change the attitude to one where they are here to serve the people instead of the other way around as it appears because they have to have this or that or go here or there. Those are the kinds of things people in the communities of this land do not understand and I have a hard time understanding them as well.

We can stand here talking about the millions of starving children who are living in poverty and not do anything about it for two and one-half years. Well, there are opportunities to do something. We just have to have the political will and the political courage to do so.

Instead the arrogant Liberals sit over there with their pompous little attitudes and let it be known that they are in power and they are doing what the people wanted them to do. Well, I am not finding that to be the case. I did not find that to be the case when I travelled through Manitoba a week ago or in Saskatchewan the week before that or when I was on the west coast or in southern Ontario. I did not hear the same messages I am hearing from across the way.

I am not sure how I will be received when I return to Wild Rose next week. I will tell my constituents that I know what kind of people they are. If there was a huge flood and a region needed help, they would be the first to cough up some dollars and give a lending hand. No doubt about it, they would help.

[John Harvard, Liberal, Winnipeg—St. James, MB]

Sounds like Winnipeg to me.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

If farmers needed something in an area because of a serious problem, Canadians would be there to help, just like the ones in Wild Rose.

I can hardly wait to tell them: "I know all of you need tax relief. That is what everybody in Canada would like to have, but you are not going to get any this trip. What you are going to do is give tax relief to another region of the country through this new GST harmonization". I am not so sure they are going to accept that as being a good cause.

I am really anxious to find out what my constituents will have to say about members from the other side of the House who say it is a shame that Alberta does not pay a sales tax. We happen to be pretty proud of the fact that we were able to manage things without a sales tax. To hear the comment that it is a shame that we do not pay a sales tax in Alberta is a pretty sad statement.

[An hon. member]

I never said that.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

I hear the member from Saskatchewan across the way saying that he never said that. I never said that he did. I can guarantee him that it came from that side but it does not make any difference.

I know that Alberta is not looking too kindly upon this whole idea of harmonization. I know that for a fact. We will wait and see.

In conclusion I look at these waste reports that come out and then I look at the work the Canadian Taxpayers Association is putting together expressing that it does not understand how these dollars find their way to strange places. It is just not understood at all. And the best we can come up with is another target that even I could make if it was a two-foot high jump.

This target making is a farce. Get after the problem. The budget does not do it. It is a fuzzy, warm, feel good budget. Be happy, I guess.

[Morris Bodnar, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has been talking about a tax, about a particular manner of handling a tax, and about its effects in Alberta, Saskatchewan and other provinces.

It is always interesting to hear a Reform member refer to taxation but never refer to Reform's so-called budget which it presented, the taxpayers budget. The Reform members' idea of

dealing with matters in Canada is to deal with matters like the elimination of multiculturalism funding. They would eliminate regional development groups such as western economic diversification, an organization that for many western areas of the country has resulted in a dynamic expansion in industry and secondary processing. They recommend the elimination of regional groups in other parts of the country.

The Reform budget also includes a reduction in senior citizens benefits, reductions in unemployment insurance benefits, reductions in funding to post-secondary education, reductions in health, reductions in the Canada assistance plan, reductions in equalization, total cash transfer reductions to provinces totalling 24 per cent, which is over and above what I have already referred to.

Has the hon. member ever tried to correlate the cuts, the drastic slash and burn in the Reform budget to what he is discussing here today?

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, slash and burn is not true, except for the hon. member's pension which he will someday be eligible for. We would certainly slash and burn that. We think parole boards are unnecessary. We would probably slash and burn parole boards. We could do with better correctional services. We would slash and burn a few other places where dollars are wasted. The member could count on that.

As far as multiculturalism is concerned, there are a number of things in our budget. We set priorities. The priorities were pretty well listed. It just so happens that multiculturalism is something we believe should be funded by the communities that are affected. I do not believe the communities object to that. We do not object to multiculturalism but we say we are at a time now when some of the nice things to do are not affordable. They will have to be paid for by some means other than tax dollars.

As far as seniors are concerned, we said from the beginning, and our budget says it loudly and clearly, that one of our highest priorities is to make absolutely certain those who are most in need will have their needs addressed. That is loud and clear in our budget. That idea came from many senior citizens in my riding who said they did not know why they were being given something that was just clawed back and they would just as soon not have that happen.

As far as the transfer payments are concerned, what has happened as a result of this government is worse than what would have happened under the taxpayers budget over three years. I challenge any of the members over there to go back to square one and take a good long close look at what those transfer payments are doing.

The member talked about post-secondary education. Perhaps I was mistaken and there were not thousands of young people on our

lawns protesting what was happening by this government in that area. Maybe I was elsewhere at the time.

I do not quite understand where the government is coming from. It is already a known fact that what it has done is worse than what it would have been under our plan.

[Barry Campbell, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member opposite familiar with the name Michael Walker? He has something to do with the Fraser Institute, an institute often referred to by the Reform members.

There was an article in the Globe and Mail on March 14, 1996. I remind the hon. member that Michael Walker, one of their great folk heroes over the last two years, had this to say about the budget which he so roundly criticized:

In regarding the government's latest budget, commentators have missed some of the most aggressive fiscal action in the country's history.

The federal government is going in the near term future to be able to boast that it has the lowest borrowing requirements of the G-7 countries. Total government deficits in Canada will total less than in any of the G-7, and by 1998 the total financing requirement relative to the gross domestic product will be less than half the comparable U.S. figure.

Far from being a bore-

or worse, as this member suggests

-this budget was a turning point in Canadian fiscal history. We may well chart a dramatic turn in our fortunes to March 1996.

This is tough talk from Michael Walker, one of the hon. member's heroes.

I wonder if you might like to comment on how Michael Walker,, who has been so tough on us over the years with respect to our budgetary plans, could have this much praise for a budget you think is so terrible.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I remind members not to directly refer to one another but to make their interventions through the Chair.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am familiar with Michael Walker. I am familiar with the article the member mentioned to me. I was wondering at the time I read the article that although the deficit figures and all these targets were mentioned why the whole idea of this huge debt and the interest payments were not mentioned. That is the same question I have been asking all day.

Why are government members not talking about the debt? Why are they not talking about the interest payments on the debt which is growing far beyond what they ever thought it would?

They are very fortunate. So far things are working well in terms of being able to meet these targets. However, when we run into that kind of huge debt I really wonder if anybody has anything in place or any plans at all, including Michael Walker-and I would like to ask him one of these days when I see him-if all of a sudden there is a downturn for whatever reason. It could be caused by something south of the border which would cause interest rates to suddenly jump.

With a huge debt like this a downturn could be the very disaster we do not ever want to see. The only way to avoid that kind of disaster is to stop the debt from growing.

The government under its plan is continuing to let the debt grow. I cannot understand why any economist or anyone with more knowledge than I have, and believe you me there are plenty-

[An hon. member]

What do you want to cut?

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Your pension, for one.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I am sorry, but this concludes the period of question and comments. We also move to the next stage of debate, having concluded five hours of debate.

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that question to be raised tonight at the time adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Davenport, the environment.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I always consider it a privilege to rise in this place on behalf of the constituents of Hamilton West. We are supposed to be dealing in this debate with Bill C-31, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament March 6, 1996.

My constituents elected me back in 1988. My colleague from Winnipeg St. James and I were colleagues back in 1988 and we sat on that side of the House in opposition. Whenever an opportunity came along we were not shy on words or prepared to take off on the government on the plan it had.

In those days we had pretty good evidence in our hands; precise statistics, precise numbers, precise policies that the Liberal Party, in opposition from 1988 to 1993, could attack the Tories on. We sat over there, we made our arguments and they were solid.

I will drift away from Bill C-31 only because I cannot let the comments of the hon. member for Wild Rose get by. First he says "pompous attitudes". I do not see any pompous attitudes coming from this side of the House. I see red books being thrown across the floor. I see members over there getting up and calling other members liars, getting kicked out of the House and that kind of thing, which is outrageous.

I remember an election promise from the Reform Party that it would do things differently in the House of Commons, that there would be a certain attitude, a new way of doing politics in the House. There would be a new decorum in the House of Commons.

I did not understand that it meant the decorum would get worse. I assumed it meant the decorum would get a little better in the House of Commons.

Then the hon. member for Wild Rose says: "I am not sure, but blah, blah, blah. I do not know much about that, but blah, blah, blah. That is all fuzzy and feel good to me, blah, blah, blah". You cannot talk in generalities.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Shut up. I do not like you either.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

There we go. There is the decorum again. The hon. member for Wild Rose says "shut up". That is the kind of thing that should not go on in this place. We have a history to respect here. We have to stand in our places and appreciate that for decades before us men and women were elected to the House, thankfully more women today than there were in the past because of the contribution they make to the House. This kind of attitude cannot go on in the House.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Blah, blah, blah.

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

Blah, blah, blah-exactly the kind of comment I would expect from Wild Rose. I would appreciate it if he stuck around to hear this because it is important.

My constituents have been calling me as of late. They are talking about how the member for Hamilton West voted for the budget. There was a guy from this party who stood up and did not vote for the budget, no sir. We all know what happened to him.

Here is why the member for Hamilton West, yours truly, voted for the budget. I voted for the budget because of its deficit reduction plan. For example, the budget delivers on the red book commitment to reduce the deficit to 3 per cent of GDP, down from 6 per cent when we took office, something we promised to do, something that has been accomplished.

By 1998-99 program spending will be reduced to 12 per cent of GDP, its lowest level in 50 years. Canada's financial requirements will be the lowest of the G-7 nations.

[An hon. member]

How much has interest come down?