Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have had the opportunity to speak in this new Parliament.
I would like to extend my very best congratulations and good wishes to you on your appointment to this important post. As you have heard from many other members, you enjoy the confidence of this House and we look forward to having you preside over some of these debates.
I would also like to take the opportunity to thank my constituents of Calgary—Nose Hill for their confidence in me and for returning me to this position as their elected representative in the Parliament of Canada.
I take my duties to them very seriously and want to do a good job of representing their interests and of being their voice in these debates.
To my constituents in Calgary—Nose Hill, a profound thank you and a commitment to them to act in their interests over the next term of Parliament.
I am the opposition critic for Human Resources Development, a very large portfolio of government which handles and administers the social programs of this country.
Because social issues are extremely important to Canadians, we have a very important job as official opposition in this House to hold the government accountable for what it is doing on behalf of Canadians and for the administration of their security and their futures.
Canadians take very great pride in our country's social stability and in the security that we enjoy. When we are sick we feel we can be looked after. When we are old we have hope that we will have enough income to have our needs met and to have a comfortable life.
These are only two of many areas where Canadians are proud that there is not the want and the disadvantage and the need as in other countries of the world that are not as fortunate as we have been.
The Reform Party places a very great emphasis on the social safety net for Canadians. Reformers have children to educate. Reformers get sick. Reformers have disasters happen where we become disabled and need additional assistance. Reformers get old and want to have pensions. We are vitally concerned as a party and as Canadians about this important area of Canadian society and Canadian life.
Part of what we have been doing over the last 10 years in trying to emphasize and push Canadian governments into getting our economic affairs under some sort of rational control is targeted to sustain the social security we have enjoyed in the past and enjoy now. Many Canadians see this security slipping away as we are crippled by debt, deficit, runaway programs, and waste and abuse of the resources of the country.
The focus or end target of our strong fiscal message is security and sustaining of the social safety net we enjoy. Sometimes as Reformers we talk a lot about the means but not so much about the end which is vitally important to all of us.
Canadians have a history of hard work, thrift, saving part of our income for a rainy day and investing for the future. These characteristics were essential to the settlement, development and enrichment of this great country. These characteristics are exhibited today by new Canadians, people who continue to come to this country from all over the world to become citizens of Canada in order to build strong futures for themselves and for their children.
Canadians also have a sense of fairness. We like to see those who are disabled, disadvantaged or have experienced unexpected hardships succeed. We like to see the young given a fair start. We like to see those who work, who contribute and who save be rewarded.
Canadians dislike waste. They dislike seeing our tax dollars foolishly spent or abused. Canadians dislike seeing those in greatest need receive too little from the rest of society while some with substantial means receive too much.
I speak for a party committed to a political process which reflects the views and interests of regular Canadians rather than the political elites, a party whose principles and policies are formulated at the constituency level and must be approved by the membership, a party that publishes its principles and policies called the blue book for all to read and to consider.
They know what they are buying when they vote Reform. Often our policies and principles are distorted and misrepresented by opponents, but as we grow in maturity and in strength as a party more and more Canadians know the common sense and the solid policy underlying what we are doing as a party.
I also speak for a party whose leader consults with real people, not imaginary ones, about their interests and needs and has a long term vision for the country based on openness and compassion.
Reform Party principles and policies support a secure and sustainable social safety net including secure retirement incomes, insurance against unexpected job loss, and promotion of research and educational excellence. They ensure that families have the resources to care for their children. Reformers strongly believe that social benefits must be focused on those who truly need them and must be delivered in a compassionate manner.
Reformers also stress that programs must be soundly designed and managed. They must be financially sustainable and administered as much as possible without huge bureaucracies, masses of rules and regulations such as supposed universal benefits which are then followed by complex clawback rules.
All these traditional Liberal practices need to be reduced or eliminated. Co-operative arrangements with provinces, communities and the private sector need to be encouraged and expanded.
Canadians and Reformers are realistic. New realities emerge and Canadians see and understand them. The Liberal Party and the government are slow to recognize new things and even slower to act.
As Canada's opposition party, Reform has a duty and a responsibility to point out areas where the government is not adequately serving the interests of Canadians and to urge government to take corrective action.
The Liberal government is failing to grapple successfully with at least three emerging realities.
The first is that Canadians increasingly understand personal income taxes in Canada are unjustly high. The after tax income of Canadian families has declined by 7 percent since 1989. This translates to a drop in the income of the average Canadian family since the Liberals were elected in 1993 of $3,000. Yet the government continues to waste money and to think up additional non-essential programs while Canadian families increasingly must go without.
The federal government has failed to be specific or to demonstrate convincing determination about cutting taxes for Canadians, allowing them to keep their own resources to care for their families.
A second reality is the consequences of Canada's federal debt. Liberal and Tory governments have gleefully borrowed everything they could get their hands on for the past 25 years. Borrowed money outstanding now stands at $600 billion, with an annual interest bill of $46 billion. This is the largest single item in the government's budget and it looms as a long term threat to Canadian social security. It is a mortgage on our children's future.
A third reality is that Canada's social programs need reform. Many of them are badly designed, unsustainable and even dysfunctional. The traditional Liberal, NDP and Tory approaches of throwing additional billions at problems is no longer a realistic solution, even though we see the government continuing to attempt to do that.
Canadians are concerned by what they see happening. How did we get into this fix? Who was asleep at the switch? How will our social programs be repaired? Who will pay for the errors of the past? What is reasonable and fair? These are important questions.
Let us talk about fairness for a moment. Government revenues to pay for social programs such as educating the young or paying for non-contributory benefits for the elderly come largely from taxes levied on those who are working. Canadians have always been willing to support the transfer of funds between generations. Intergenerational transfers, however, must be seen to be fair.
Are the excessive EI premiums levied on workers and businesses today fair? The answer in the minds of many Canadians is no.
Is the excessive tax hike and the resulting burden placed on generations x and even y fair? Again the answer coming back is no.
Government can be evaluated on many things including on how well it looks after the interests of all our citizens and how well it designs and manages programs, especially social programs.
The throne speech led us to expect government legislation during the 36th Parliament on proposed changes to the Canada pension plan, the new seniors benefit, a national child benefit system, the Canadian Labour Code, as well as new programs for people with disabilities, youth training, education and employment, expanding opportunities for aboriginals and health care.
One of the key blocks in our social safety net affecting every working Canadian is the Canada pension plan, so I would like to talk about it for a moment. The Canada pension plan has been with us since January 1, 1966 or almost 32 years.
Canadians are in favour of a contributory public pension plan. That is assuming that such a plan is well designed and managed. Unfortunately the CPP is neither. It is neither well designed nor has it been well managed.
The combined contribution rate for CPP was just 3.6 percent of earnings for the first 20 years of the plan, moved up to 5.6 percent by the 30th year, and will be 9.9 percent prior to its 40th birthday.
The architects of the plan promised Canadians that contributions would never exceed 5.5 percent. Already we see a margin of error of 80 percent in the forecast of the contribution rate. The inevitable conclusion is that the plan has been either badly designed or poorly managed, and in fact it is both.
Designers made huge errors in their projections of birth rate, numbers of contributors and rates of economic growth. The managers, subsequent Liberal and Tory governments, enriched benefits, added new benefits and invested the fund at low yields without adjusting contribution rates.
The first beneficiaries of the CPP received benefits averaging over 11 times greater than the value of their contributions, while those entering the plan today will receive a return of less than one-half of the value of their contributions. One generation receives a return over 20 times greater than another generation, and we have a difficult situation because of that.
Reform introduced a modern new redesign of this important plan which would provide good and fair pensions for all contributors at retirement. Our plan calls for individualized accounts which means that individuals own all the assets in their account and can leave them to their survivors, while still protecting the benefits of retired and near retired Canadians.
If young Canadians knew that each dollar they put into CPP would go into their own personal account and that they would receive it all back, including a fair market return on their investment, they would gladly support the plan. Our plan reduces intergenerational transfers which will become a major source of social stress. We see that already beginning with the current debate on changes to the plan.
Our plan would be open and transparent. Thus each individual would know the value of their assets in the plan at all times.
The transition from the present CPP to our super RRSP, which is what we have called our Reform plan, would take some time. Middle aged Canadians would have to be given options to stay in their present arrangements or transfer to the new plan. Several countries have already made this transition and we believe Canada can do so as well.
What I am suggesting to the government is not to just keep going down the same old road of poor plan design and eventual failure and crisis but to look around, look at new ideas and adopt a plan that would deliver fairness to future generations of Canadians.
This whole matter of the Canada pension plan will be debated in the House starting on Monday. I urge Canadians who are watching the debate today, if they do not watch any other debate the rest of the year—and some of us wonder why they would—to watch the one on Monday. It will affect every working Canadian, especially our children and our grandchildren. It will be a very important debate.
The latest product of the Liberal spin doctors is the seniors benefit which we understand will be introduced in this parliament. Apparently the program is designed partly by officials in the Department of Human Resources Development and partly by a number of focus groups under the direction of a political consulting firm. The political consulting firm essentially gave the government advice on what was politically saleable, but it appears that no one provided advice on what makes sense for Canadian seniors, for Canadian taxpayers or for future generations.
Among other things, in order to deliver extra dollars to the finance department so it could claim great success in its deficit fighting measures, some believe the tax back rates on this new federal seniors benefit will be irrational but certainly excessive. It will force Canadians to change their economic behaviour in other ways to avoid this penalty.
When people change their economic behaviour and hide retirement income, it simply increases the load on government with more demand for social programs.
The measure will be debated in the House and I urge Canadians to be alert to these changes. We believe there are many flaws in this proposed seniors benefit. For example, the provinces will lose a fairly large source of future tax revenue because the present old age security is taxable and the new seniors benefit is not taxable by the provinces.
We in the Reform Party will work hard in the committee and in the House to ensure that the seniors benefit legislation is right for seniors, taxpayers and for all Canadians.
Canadians are seeking a fresh new vision and plan to replace the failed directions of the past. The Reform Party was formed because the old parties no longer serve our interests. I am sad to say that includes four of the parties in the House.
The Reform Party was formed because the people want good jobs with good incomes as their best social security. They want generous help to be there for the disabled and those in need. However, they are fed up with programs that reward not need, but greed.
Younger Canadians want affordable education and fairness in their tax load. All of us want prompt, caring medical help when illness or accidents strike. We want a safety net if disaster befalls us, but believe we could better protect ourselves and our families against that if there was less government meddling in our lives, however well intentioned.
The Reform Party is finding new and better ways to deliver these results for Canadians. We are seeking out the best thinking and creative alternatives, both here and internationally, to preserve the security and well-being Canadians want and deserve. We will be a positive voice of new ideas and fresh directions as our country moves into the next century.
