Mr. Speaker, I rise to add my two cents worth to this debate and to talk about the 1997 budget. I will discuss five or six points.
First, the budget projects a deficit of $19 billion. That is an awful lot of money. Yet the government is bragging that this figure means that the back of the deficit has been broken. It spends $19 billion more than it brings in and it claims that it has broken the back of the deficit. It came in with a deficit around $42 billion. It boosted it to $42 billion from $38 billion. It has reduced it to $19 billion
which is a little over half. It has taken the government four years to cut the deficit by $23 billion. In my estimation that is just half a job. It is only half good which means it is also half bad.
It is a shame this finance minister brags to the nation that our finances are in good order. We are spending more than we bring in. He is giving the Canadian public a false sense of security. It is one thing to hold out hope-which is important-but it is another thing to claim victory before you have won the battle.
There is another thing I do not like about this budget and the finance minister. The finance minister plays games. He cooks the books. He does what the previous member just talked about. He borderlines on representation and sometimes comes close to misrepresentation. He reduced the social transfer by $7.5 billion, which I believe is an accurate number. I believe it covers health care, welfare and education. I believe it affects all the provinces. I believe it means they have less money to put into health care, education and welfare, which means they in turn have to do something and the problem has been transferred to them. It is called downloading, I believe. I believe all those statements are accurate and true and not a misrepresentation.
To justify this painful decision, which I also agree had to be done, the government said it would cut $9.5 billion or $9.8 billion from departmental program spending. That is the amount of money that is spent, excluding these transfer payments to provinces. After four years only $4.6 billion has been cut. There are $5.2 billion missing.
The President of the Treasury Board tried to explain it to our finance critic and our deputy critics. He almost had them hoodwinked. Talk about misrepresentation. Talk about cooking the books. Talk about keeping on the straight and narrow and being honest with the people and telling them the way it really is.
I am not going to distort this, I am going to be very accurate. What really happened in this case is that the government, in order to come up with an explanation on why it is $5.2 billion short of its projected $9.8 billion promise after four years said, "wait a second, there is another year". Plus the government has changed the definition of departmental spending between what it was in 1995 and today. That is accurate because it came right from the Treasury Board officials when we met with them.
That is how the government can claim that it kept to 18.8 per cent and how $4.6 billion now represents 18.8 per cent in program spending reductions versus the $9.6 billion, the definition in 1995. This is how the government plays games, and I am tired of it. I hope that the Canadian public is tired of it as well.
The finance minister has gone against generally accepted accounting principles. The auditor general slapped his wrist for it in the last budget.
The public accounts committee will be meeting in two weeks. I have asked for finance minister's presence but he cannot make it because he is busy. However, the deputy minister will be there. I want to know how they can get away writing off $961 million on the harmonization of the sales tax in the budget two years ago when the money just went out last October.
There are $800 million for the foundation for innovation that will be spent over the next five years which is written off in this budget. That is not right. There had better be a darned good agreement with that foundation. There had better be a darned good signed agreement with all the provinces on where the money is going and who is going to get the money for innovation. If not, the books are being cooked. Public sector companies get fined by Revenue Canada for doing things like this.
Money cannot be written and charged off to a year's expenses unless that money has been spent or there is an agreement in writing in which the money is committed to be spent in a short term, meaning one year, not five. We will see. The meeting is coming up in two weeks.
I have already heard government members say twice now that the government has not raised personal taxes. I agree. It is a true statement. Then the finance minister and even the Prime Minister in question period say, "We have not raised taxes," which is a much different statement. Is that not misrepresentation? Is that not borderline with what the member just talked about and that he wishes members would not do? I wish he would talk to his finance minister and to his Prime Minister and tell them not to do it because they are giving Canadians a false sense of reality.
Finally, after being pushed by our finance critics they agreed: "Yes, if you mean that we have eliminated loopholes for wealthy companies, yes, we have increased taxes. If you mean that we have done insurance things, yes, we have increased taxes". We finally got it out of them. Then a day later they said: "We have not raised taxes".
There are two ways to raise taxes. If it is the personal tax rate, they have not done it. I agree. But they have raised taxes through the elimination and reduction of the sizes of exemptions and what can be deducted. Therefore, they have raised taxes 35 times.
Let me give another example of the games they play. My colleague from British Columbia submitted a petition prior to the 1995 budget about not raising taxes on gasoline. We are afraid of it, and were saying, do not do it. They claim they have not raised excise taxes. We know they have. We know that two years ago they
raised the excise tax on gasoline by 1.5 cents. Is that true or not true?