"Tax increases" as my colleague says. In other words the deficit is the symptom of a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
What about protecting health care? By the time the Liberals leave office they will have slashed health and education spending by $75 billion or 39 per cent. Is this protecting health care? The government has cut $7 billion in health transfers to the provinces and then let the provinces take the fall for the reduced services. This is not protected health care. We are facing a government which is lacking in accountability, integrity and responsibility.
The Liberal vision is a country where the average taxpayer pays $10,200 to the federal government each and every year, and $3,400 a year is to service the debt alone. As well the Liberal vision is a country where 7.3 million Canadians earning less than $30,000 pay 27 per cent of their incomes to the federal government.
With regard to creating jobs, doubling the CPP premiums does not bode well for the 1.1 million unemployed Canadians who will now become more expensive to hire. Payroll taxes are job killers. On top of all this the Liberals have done nothing to address the waste and inefficiencies in government.
This year we can again expect unemployment and not tax relief, bankruptcy, personal insecurity, more contract work, layoffs, shrinking income, increasing taxes and another year of record high tax burdens.
Spending borrowed money is living on borrowed time. We have mortgaged the futures of our children and grandchildren and it must stop. Today I have some of my grandchildren sitting in the gallery. It is their futures I am concerned with as well as those of others.
Let us take a look at that part of the fresh start plan to make government smaller and more effective. I am sure the members
opposite would agree with that. It would provide tax relief to stimulate job creation, end overspending and attack debt. I am sure all of us in the House would like to see that happen.
A balanced budget is a means to an end with the end being a smaller, leaner and more focused federal government. A balanced budget is not an end in itself. Attempting to balance the budget by waiting for tax revenues to catch up to spending simply ignores the fact that the current size of the federal government is unsustainable.
Let us look at our unemployment figures. In 1993 the government was elected on the promise of jobs, jobs, jobs. Three years later Canada still suffered from a jobless rate of 10 per cent. Since the Prime Minister took office the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has averaged 9.96 per cent. High taxes go along with high unemployment.
I would like to use a chart to emphasize some of these items. Some points have been made on it. There are a few facts regarding the government's failure on jobs. Since January 1995, some 25 months ago, only 153,000 full time jobs have been created or about 6,000 jobs per month. There were far less than the 312,000 new entrants the labour force needed. In the same period 121,000 part time jobs have been created or about 4,800 a month. Also over the 25 months since January 1995 the economy has added only 274,000 jobs or 10,960 per month. At the same time the labour force has grown by about 12,500 per month.
We are getting the picture here. The need is not being supplied. The result has been a 37,200-person increase in unemployment since January 1995. Since taking office the Liberals have presided over a level of unemployment that has averaged 1,490,000.
We must stress that unemployment now is not a global problem. The Prime Minister likes to say his record is the best in the G-7 group. but I would like to clarify this. The Prime Minister likes to compare our job creation performance with that of European countries. I draw to the attention of the House that the comparison is irrelevant since the economies are so different.
Better comparisons might be found with the United States, with Australia and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom where performance has been much better than in Canada. In Canada it is 9.7 per cent on this chart whereas in the United States it is 5.3 per cent. In the United Kingdom it is 6.7 per cent. In Australia it is8.6 per cent. In Japan it is 3.3 per cent. In Austria it is 7 per cent. In Sweden it is 8.7 per cent. In Switzerland it is 5.3 per cent. Those are all lower than Canada's unemployment rate. We have to take a look at that.