Madam Speaker, there is something surprising in this debate and in the Speech from the Throne presented by this government.
In its throne speech, the government makes a commitment: it is as if it was wondering just how it could keep on doing exactly the same thing it has been doing for the past 27 years while appearing to be doing something new. In other words, to keep on spending taxpayers' dollars to make them happy, gain votes, gain popularity or score political points at the expense of the provinces.
With budget surpluses within reach, the Liberal government is wondering if it could not carry on pleasing people, without their noticing what is going on.
It takes a profoundly irresponsible government to forget, as the Liberal government is doing, that, while the deficit could apparently be reduced to zero by the year 2000, this government, this country is still $600 billion in debt. A zero deficit does not mean Canada's debt burden has been made any lighter.
Since this government took office in 1993, the Canadian debt has grown by an additional $75 billion. It is one thing to say I now have enough money in my pocket to buy groceries, but I will have to use some of the money I will save to reduce the debt I accumulated over 30 years.
But right now, the Liberal government seems to be favouring a formula that would once again shift the responsibility onto the provinces, which would be left with the dirty job of making cuts in health, education and social programs because the federal government has apparently decided to use funds earmarked for the provinces to repay its debts.
If it wants to reduce taxes, ensure that social programs benefit taxpayers to a greater extent and see the taxpayers' debt at every level of government go down, all the federal government has to do is give back to the provinces the money it took away from them.
Let the government give back to the provinces the $4.5 billion in transfer payments it cut, and the provinces can then maintain their social programs. They can also then cut taxes.
But no. This is not what the federal government wants, because it wants the glory of being the one to give taxpayers the most. It wants to give the provinces the thankless job of making the cuts, and once they are suitably hated and detested by taxpayers, the federal government will ride in as the saviour and say to these taxpayers “The federal government, the best and strongest government, can now give you what the province denied you or deprived you of”. That is what is hateful about the situation.
This business started years ago. We need to look back at our history. When the federal government asked the provinces during the first world war for the loan of their power to tax directly, the provinces agreed to come to the aid of the nation at risk, to protect its future. However, the federal government hung on to this power, refusing to give it back to the provinces. The first theft, this country's greatest theft, started then, when it took over the power of taxation from the province, supposedly on a temporary basis, and never gave it back.
This is the power the federal government is now using against the provinces, selling its bill of goods about a strong government in Ottawa and a subservient one in the provinces. No wonder Quebec is now thinking of sovereignty, of autonomy. It is tired of having to play the heavy, the one to make the cuts to the taxpayer, while the federal government, because of the taxation power the provinces have given it to collect taxes in its stead, has equipped itself with a tool for making the provinces subservient.
The transfer payments, which should have been used to share the wealth and rebalance the means of meeting the needs of the population, are being used far more by the federal government at this time to make the provinces subservient to its centralizing domination.
The provinces, Quebec in particular, are tired of this situation. The government of Quebec wants to be able to tell its taxpayers that it is able to meet the needs of social programs, education, health, which are its responsibility, provided it has the taxes we are paying for that, and not just a portion of them with which it can meet some health needs, while the rest of the taxes go to the federal government so that it can say that it will also meet another part of health needs then leave it to the taxpayer to judge which of the two governments is doing a better job of fulfilling those responsibilities.
The same taxpayer is paying taxes to two governments at the same time. One too many governments is involved in this, and Quebeckers feel that theirs is not the one that is superfluous. They pay twice to two institutions, and end up exploited and with fewer services than they ought to have. Our federal government, with the Liberal Party at its head, ought to think first of all of saving money, instead of making more cuts and more expenditures, if it wants to have money to spare.
Recently once again, the newspapers have reported—and this was really not a new discovery, since the auditor general has been saying so since 1993, without the government doing anything about it—that the auditor general has spoken out against the fact that they are trying to put a new computer program in place for processing the old age and income security pensions.
In the beginning, it was supposed to cost some $260 million. Four years later, the cost has reached $365 million and the computer system is still not operational. The people in charge of setting up the system are poised to ask a further $150 million to do so, four years later.
The federal government has not seen fit to wonder whether it was on the right track. Are we on the right track with this computer system we are having trouble setting up?
Imagine, $500 million for something which initially was supposed to cost $260 million. The auditor general has mentioned it in his reports a number of times, but the government has done nothing about it. This is where money could be saved. This is where the government should have saved money instead of cutting transfer payments to the provinces to be able to act later on and appear to be a generous big brother, a kindly father willing to meet the needs of the nation.
Quebeckers can see through all that. So do Canadians as a whole. I believe maritimers, who also are faced with high unemployment and poverty, must be wondering what the federal government is waiting for to enter into partnerships with other governments, with the provinces. In this case partnership means “Here is the money we collected, take it and meet your taxpayers' needs in your areas of jurisdiction provided for in the Constitution”.
This is called showing respect and making better plans for the future.