Now we are going to get to the heart of the matter, the ways and means motion for last year's budget.
I would like to quote from a book that I am sure you all read regularly a few years back, and that you were only too keen to forget about once we had read it too. I am talking about the red book. We are still waiting for the second volume, the one on promises kept, which will perhaps be as thick as this piece of paper. I would therefore like to quote from the red book. I will read what my friends across the way said on page 13:
Today, after nine years of Conservative government, Canadians are facing hardship: 1.6 million unemployed, millions more on welfare, a million children living below the poverty line, record numbers of bankruptcies and plant closings.
I repeat, this appears on page 13 of the red book.
What has become of the fine words of the Liberal Party, of the compassion that we read about in the red book, but that never actually materialized, because in concrete terms we have seen nothing? What have they done after three years? We will give figures, but not the Bloc Quebecois's figures, because as our friends across the way tell us, the nasty separatists tend to play around with figures. We will therefore give figures provided by Statistics Canada, Industry Canada and Human Resources Development Canada.
So, instead of the 1.6 million unemployed Canadians they complained about in the red book in 1993, there are now, according to Statistics Canada, 1.5 million Canadians without jobs. In 1993, they wrote about "millions more on welfare", but Statistics Canada tells us there are now 3 million Canadians in this situation.
Instead of "a million children living below the poverty line", as they told us in 1993, Statistics Canada reports that there are now 1.5 million such children, 500,000 more than before.
In 1993 they wrote in the red book about "record numbers of [-]plant closings"-they did not give a figure because it was not true-while today Statistics Canada tells us there were a record 86,253 bankruptcies declared between January and November 1996.
Before speaking about the budget, it is very important to remember the compassion expressed by the Liberals in 1993, and the failure of the Liberals to take action since that time. The figures in the finance minister's budget can be interpreted any number of ways, as the secretary of state just demonstrated, and as other government members have shown, in trying to praise this government and cover up mistakes in the budgets and this government's failure to act or its blunders when it did.
We could also go on about a number of things, a number of critical sectors of our economy, our society, our culture, our history and our trade. I believe that the most important figures, the ones that will really make the public sit up and take notice in the next
election are these: the unemployment rate, the poverty rate, and the bankruptcy rate.
Before having a firm political ideology, before having intentions, projects, hopes, we need a bare minimum, that is to say enough money to realize our ideology, or enough money to realize our hopes and dreams for the future.
With a record as pitiful as 3 million people on welfare, 1.5 million children living below the poverty level, according to Statistics Canada, I do not believe the Liberals can pat themselves on the back and boast "We are proud of our performance record. We can present you with a budget and describe it as having successfully bolstered the social and economic fabric of this country". This is false, and who says so? Not us, but-I repeat-Statistics Canada, Industry Canada and Human Resources Development Canada.
The government could, perhaps-and I suggest it do so, as it has in other sectors-tell us that the head of Statistics Canada must be wrong, that he ought to be sacked, that someone new should be hired who could change the figures. We know that is a Liberal tactic. They would put a good Liberal in charge, a few figures would get changed, and then something more attractive could be reported.
Unfortunately for the Liberal Party, and fortunately for us and the man or woman in charge of Statistics Canada-I do not know which it is-this tendency, or way of doing things, from the past is no longer in use. The chief statistician and the heads of the other departments I mentioned will be able to stay put and keep giving the real figures, the results of this government's failure to act.
As I said before, the government has nothing to be proud of in this respect, and I think it has an obligation to explain these results to the public. Meanwhile, what was the Bloc Quebecois doing? Was the Bloc Quebecois, as an opposition party, shooting down everything that moved? In a way yes, but in another way no.
Yes, the Bloc Quebecois objected to various bills that were introduced and that, in our opinion, were skewed towards these figures. But at the same time, the Bloc Quebecois made certain proposals. We offered both negative and constructive criticism. So what did we propose? We proposed a plan for corporate tax reform and another one for personal tax reform.
In the new riding of Repentigny, if the Minister of Finance bothered to listen to us and realized that the proposals made by three excellent researchers of the Bloc Quebecois, not the slew of researchers that can be found at the Department of Finance, if he bothered to consider and implement the recommendations we made, he would realize that what is needed is not new money or an increase in the deficit. By reallocating amounts that are already in the tax system, an average family-for instance, a Repentigny family of two adults and two children with an average income of $40,000, these are not wealthy people, this is an average, modest income-if the Minister of Finance were to implement the proposals of the Bloc Quebecois, this average family in Repentigny would pay $821 less in income tax. This proposal would affect more than 50 per cent of the families in my riding.
Unfortunately, this family will have to pay $820 more in income tax because of poor decision making by the Minister of Finance. It may not be a lot, but for the average family with a modest income of $40,000, this is a lot money that could be funnelled back into the economy and could create real jobs.
However, the Minister of Finance has trouble going along with proposals made by an opposition party, a party that objects when something does not make sense, but also makes suggestions on how things should be changed in the interest of fairness.