Mr. Speaker, I quote from the speech of the Minister of Finance on March 6, 1996 to the House:
What Canadians want is action and they want to see real progress. These are the standards that Canadians have set.
Seldom in our history have so many people experienced so much anxiety. Canadians feel our very way of life is at risk.
They look at medicare and feel that it is threatened. They look at the pension system and wonder if it will be there in years to come. They consider the economy and worry that gale force winds of competition and change will carry away their jobs. Canadians think about their future, our youth, and ask what kind of opportunities will be left for them.
These are the damning words of the Minister of Finance to the House, from a government that has been in power now for two and a half years. Obviously the government does not have the answers, period.
The hon. member for Etobicoke North confirmed these issues when he talked about unemployment and said we do not have answers. He talked about the various issues of concern of Canadians and continued to repeat the government line. Unfortunately when we listen to the government line it does not have answers.
These things are important to Canadians. I quote from page 8 of the budget speech:
It is our view that chronic deficits constitute a clear and present danger to this country-to our way of life and to our future.
Chronic deficits put the disadvantaged at risk, because it is they who suffer when the financial strength of government is so weak it can no longer reach out to those in need.
Members may have noticed that in question period a few minutes ago I asked a question of the Minister of Finance to bring to the attention of all Canadians that the Canada pension plan is seriously at risk. That was acknowledged by a minister in his budget speech:
First, the CPP must be put on a sound financial footing-and done so in a way that is sustainable, affordable and fair.
In the House we saw the Deputy Prime Minister stand and say how she is committed to standing behind seniors and the Canada pension plan. We have asked questions of the Minister of Human Resources Development and he has stood up in the House and said they stand four-square behind seniors. We have heard the Minister of Finance repeat the same rhetoric.
When we look at the public accounts, page 1.16, we find the government has no liability, commitment or responsibility to pay seniors on Canada pension plan beyond the money already in the bank.
This concerns me because the government has misled Canadians on the GST with rhetoric from the Deputy Prime Minister and others which has so often been pointed out in the House: "We will scrap the GST. We will get rid of the GST". When we ask them to deliver on their commitment they picked up a thing called the red book, and I believe it is page 22 that the Prime Minister has so frequently referred to. He says it was always that they would harmonize, replace and change, and with some smoke and mirrors give us something else that will cost us more.
I am concerned for seniors because while the government said one thing before the election, it was a different thing after. While it held up the promise of improvement before the election, it hit people over the head with the continued GST and higher taxes after the election. I see the same thing looming once more for the Canada pension plan. The numbers are quite simple. The numbers are huge but they are simple.
The Liberal member who is on the tour on the Canada pension plan is on record as saying Canada pension plan contributions should double and double soon, so we will not contribute 5 per cent of our income, we will contribute 10 per cent, double. We will be paying 5 per cent more into the Canada pension plan in order to protect seniors and they way they are currently receiving Canada pension.
I do not think that it is strictly a case of increasing payments to maintain payments to seniors. I think there will be a trade-off here and we will see increased payments and at the same time there will be a decrease in benefits.
That is the point I want Canadians to be aware of while the Minister of Finance keeps using euphemisms: "We will fix the Canada pension plan. The Canada pension plan is in a little trouble. Maybe we will make a little increase in the payments and adjust the payments to the beneficiaries".
There will be a massive increase in payments. There could very well be a massive decrease in benefits. The sooner the Minister of Finance says that and gets it out in the public domain for people to decide the way they want to go the better.
I have a real fear that from now until the next election we will see these little euphemisms: "We will fix it. We need to have a little more cash in the kitty. We may have to tinker a little with the benefits".
The point is after the next election when the Liberals think they will be firmly ensconced on that side once more, they will drop a big hammer on the heads of Canadians, just as they have done on the GST where they dropped a hammer on Canadians again and said "no relief from taxation, pay the GST forever more".
We will see the same thing with the Canada pension. We will see huge increases in payments. We will see great decreases in benefits after the election, and that is my concern. I want to get Canadians thinking about these things now. I want them to think about them before the next election and ask the government what it really intends to do because these euphemisms will lead people into thinking the government has it right when the government has it wrong.
Part of the budget implementation rules and regulations being brought forward in this bill give me some cause for concern also. The bill intends to amend the Financial Administration Act, which would provide for the termination of employment in certain cases where government services are being transferred.
I do not really have a problem with the termination of employment of the civil service where we are maybe transferring programs to the private sector. It does not concern me. It happens all the time. People in the private sector change jobs all the time.
What does concern me is the way the government plays fast and loose with Canadian taxpayer money. Take a look at Nav Canada. Nav Canada is some new hybrid. The Liberals call it privatization but it is a not for profit monopoly with virtual taxation powers they have created. They have hived it off from government balance sheets and government records. They have created this new entity, Nav Canada.
I think it is unique in Canadian corporate history because I have never heard of a not for profit enterprise that has billions of dollars
in revenue. When you can go to money markets and borrow $3 billion and still call it not for profit I have a problem with that.
I also have a problem with the way the government was able to manage the transfer of employees off the rolls of the civil service and on to the Nav Canada payroll. Somehow while these people were working on Friday, they kept their job, the same desk, the same telephone number, the same pencil on Monday morning. While there may be a new name on the paycheque they get at the end of the month, somehow we said they have lost their job and they are entitled to severance pay. We gave the people in the organization $200 million in severance pay and nobody lost their job.
I scratched my head. You work on Friday, you work on Monday, same desk, same telephone number, same pencil, same job, same everything, but you got laid off? There was $200 million in taxpayer money to recognize you got laid off and it does not seem to fit.
We are now to institutionalize that or put it into legislation, saying that is the way we want to do it. That is the least of my problems with regard to this bill.
The bill goes on to say: "In addition, amendments to that act would provide for exceptions to appropriations so that the unused portion of funds appropriated by Parliament does not lapse at the end of one year".
What is this? Is it that appropriations are no longer going to lapse at the end of a year? Is that what the bill states? I thought the whole parliamentary tradition was that this House appropriated funds for a department and said: "This is the money you are going to get for one year and if it is not spent then it is not spent and if you need more for next year you come back to this House and ask for it".
The Liberals have now sneaked in some legislation which states: "the unused portion appropriated by Parliament will not lapse at the end of a year". This House is losing control of the government. The government has lost control of the management of the country. I cannot understand why we do not have a full debate on that one issue alone. However, what do we find? Closure.
This bill was introduced yesterday. We have closure today. We vote on it tomorrow and it becomes law on Monday morning.
In the bill we find the tradition of hundreds of years of Parliament having control over the government out the window without even a mention.
This government is trampling on the rights of this House. It is trampling on democracy when it thinks it is going to slip a few lines into this bill to eliminate the lapsing of funds so that it has to come back to this House every year for the money it needs to run the government.
The bill continues on: "As part of the restructuring of the public service, successor rights in the form of continued collective agreements and union representations will be introduced", and so on. The Liberals are going to legislate rather than negotiate with the unions on how they are going to handle the transfer of civil servants into the private sector. I put the private sector in quotation marks because NavCan, by no stretch of the imagination, can be considered private sector. It is a not for profit monopoly with virtual taxation powers. All the government has done is taken it off the balance sheet and off the expenditure side of the government.
No doubt the Minister of Finance is going to stand up here next year and boast about how expenditures of government have come down when all that he has done is drawn a line between the air navigation and said that it is no longer part of government and no longer part of its expenditures, even though we are still paying for it. He is also going to boast about how he is containing government expenditures. The point is that he is not. We have seen it time and time again as he manipulates the numbers and calls it a success.
The President of the Treasury Board, every quarter, brings out a booklet telling us how he has met his target of reductions in the civil service. I know that in the next quarter the President of the Treasury Board is going to stand up in this House and boast about how he has once more met his target of reducing the civil service. However, 6,500 of this reduction just moved over into NavCan. Nobody lost his or her job. This is the type of smoke and mirrors that we get from this government. This is what Canadians need to know about because I do not think they really appreciate being led down the garden path in this way.
The bill continues: "Amendments to the Public Service Superannuation Act would facilitate the portability of pension values on an individual and a group basis and provide flexibility for the extension or termination of coverage of an entity and its employees under the act".
Maybe there should be portability. I think we should have some portability of all pensions. Careers are changing rapidly and many Canadians are changing jobs more frequently. It is important that this government address the important issue of portability of pensions in the private sector.
However, it has demonstrated no desire to help people in the private sector and every desire to legislate things for its own benefit. By introducing under the Public Service Superannuation Act portability of pensions allows the government to take large chunks of the cash sitting in the public service superannuation fund and set up a pre-funded pension plan for the NavCan employees so that their pension plan can continue unabated.
Canadians out in the private sector who lose their jobs on Friday afternoon have to go out on Monday morning and find a job. After months of searching they find that there is no portability of their pension.
These are the types of social issues that the government should be dealing with rather than the smoke and mirrors of legislation to allow it to bully the unions, to bully the civil servants and create these fictitious types of situations regarding the downsizing of the government.
As I said, there is a much bigger issue concerning the pensions. I would have thought the government would have wanted to address it. It has not. The Minister of Finance has not. Everything has always been focused on what can the government do to let Canadians think it is addressing the issue when in fact it is not.
Bill C-31 was introduced yesterday. The government moved closure on it today. How are we as parliamentarians and how are Canadians able to join in a debate about the finances of this country, about the management of this country, about the way the government tries to run this country when closure is invoked after one day? On the budget the Liberals threw out one of their own because he stood up and voted against the government. Now they are not prepared to even entertain debate by anyone in this House. Otherwise we might find embarrassing problems that are buried in this legislation. That is despicable.