Debates of Feb. 25th, 1998

The Budget

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, if I wanted the truth, I would not read out of that book.

Who got us into this mess? It was the spenders, the big Tory spenders, the big Liberal spenders who got us into this mess. Who got us out of this deficit? It was the savers. It was the taxpayers, the hardworking taxpayers. Yet in yesterday's budget, the surplus was given to the spenders and the taxpayers got little or nothing.

Why does the Prime Minister always at the end of the day reward the spenders rather than the taxpayers?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, turn to page 17. I am rewarding those who want tax relief and debt reduction. Yes, there is more revenue than expected because we had the right policies to make sure that the interest rates were low and that our exports were very good. That is why Canadians are making more money and they keep more money, and of course they help us to balance the budget. It is as clear as that.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have taken out the taxpayers' chequebook again. Just when we thought that taxpayers had some rights, just when we thought that the Prime Minister would do the responsible thing and start paying down the debt, he popped the cork on the spending champagne, and that is wrong. The tiny token tax cut was more than swallowed up by the CPP increases that they instituted at the beginning of this year.

We had a surplus yesterday. Just how is it that that surplus got sucked up so soon?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, they should know, according to the budget of yesterday, that the government will have paid back $12 billion of market debt in 1997-98. This is the debt whiche we have to collect money to pay interest on. They should know that.

In fact, yes, we have balanced the books one year earlier than they were to do it. It is going to be balanced next year and the year after. At the same time we will continue to care for the people who need help in Canada.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister talks about paying down market debt. That is like bragging because I have paid off my Visa with my MasterCard.

Last year Canadians paid $161 billion in taxes, including the huge CPP tax hikes. This year we will pay $167 billion. By the turn of the century, in the year 2000, it will be going up to $173 billion: $161 billion, $167 billion, $173 billion. It is going up, up and away.

Just how is it that the Prime Minister can explain this is spelled tax relief?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, it is very painful for opposition members. They should relax a bit. It is a time to rejoice. We have balanced the books in Canada.

I would like to read a comment that will be appreciated by everybody in the House:

It does make it hard to criticize. It's a significant financial accomplishment. I am not going to argue a balanced budget isn't good.

That was stated in the Calgary Herald by a guy named—no, I cannot name his name—the member of Parliament for Medicine Hat.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on February 21, Roy Romanow wrote the following to the Prime Minister: “The premiers unanimously agree that the federal government's top budget priority should be to increase funding for the Canada health and social transfer”.

Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that, while the opportunity was there, the budget completely ignored the genuine needs of Canadians and Quebeckers, as expressed in the unanimous request by the 10 premiers?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in his speech, the Minister of Finance read the press release that followed the premiers' meeting in December. The premiers were telling us to look after students, by ensuring that their debt levels are reduced and helping them graduate from high school and university. That is what the premiers asked for.

We have listened to them and done what had to be done, that is, to ensure that young people in Canada and Quebec are better prepared for the 21st century.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance should have read the premiers' letter explaining their press release. He might have understood what they were asking for.

When the government made cuts to curb its deficit, transfer payments to the provinces were the hardest hit and this had an impact on the health and education systems across Canada and Quebec.

Now that budget surpluses are being generated, why did the Prime Minister make the deliberate choice not to give back the money stolen from the provinces, preferring instead to use this money to try to go down in history as the first Canadian government leader to—

[The Speaker]

The Right Hon. Prime Minister.

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I was happy to hear young Quebeckers say, yesterday, they were pleased to see that the government got its priorities straight.

This has always been a concern of the federal government, but Bloc Quebecois members are not telling young Quebeckers that the money for the grants and loans they are getting right now comes from transfer payments to the provinces and that this money comes from the federal government. And we have decided to give them more.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I guess we did not watch the same television channel, because we heard just the opposite on the news.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

He was watching cartoons, as usual.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Yesterday, the Minister of Finance delivered yet another budget full of hidden data. Jean-Luc Landry, the president of Bolton Tremblay, said that the minister was clearly hiding surpluses.

Given that the Minister of Finance was off by $15 billion last year and by $17 billion this year in his deficit forecasts, what does he have to say to this financial analyst who said, as we do, that the budget is again full of hidden data this year?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the fact that the Minister of Finance is doing better than he anticipated is not a big problem for the Prime Minister.

So much the better if people think the minister will do better in the coming year than he is predicting, because we all know that he is such a humble person.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are essentially being told that we have to be cautious.

If so, what does the finance minister have to say to Alain Dubuc, an editorial writer for La Presse who usually approves of his policies, but who said that, in this case, the minister is cautious to the point of deceit?

[The Speaker]

Dear colleagues, we all have to be more careful in our choice of words. The Minister of Finance may reply to the question.

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, it is thanks to the cautiousness shown in yesterday's budget that we will tackle the debt, lower taxes and invest in our young people.

It is thanks to this cautiousness that we managed to balance the budget, that Canada experienced the most spectacular turnaround of all G-7 countries, and that we succeeded. We will continue to be cautious.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, less than a week ago the finance minister, coming out of the G-7, assured us that his budget would tackle unemployment. It turns out that he was being somewhat liberal with the truth. He jettisoned his jobs commitment while crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

With inflation below 1% we see firm targets for inflation. With unemployment still hovering around 9% we see no targets for jobs.

How can the finance minister take no responsibility for 1.4 million Canadians remaining unemployed well into the next millennium?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the economic policies of the government have been very good. We have created one million new jobs in the last four years.

In order to do that we had to have a good economy. To have low interest rates and job creation in the nation we need to do what we have done.

We have balanced our books. The economy of Canada is very competitive. That is the way to create jobs. That is why we agree that the main preoccupation of the government is to have a set of economic policies that will create jobs across the whole economy, not only put people—

[The Speaker]

The hon. leader of the New Democratic Party.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister has told Canadians that the hardest thing he ever had to do was cut health care. It is hard to believe this is the same finance minister who, despite a $6.5 billion surplus, could not find one extra dollar this year for health care transfers. If he just kept his promise to spend 50% of the surplus on vital services, we could have shored up health care.

My question is for the Prime Minister. What happened to his promise?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the House of Commons is dealing with a bill which will increase by $1.5 billion the floor for transfer payments to the provinces. It is a bill that the House has not voted on yet.

Even before the budget we had money for health care and transfer payments. It seems to me that the leader of the NDP does not follow very closely what is going on in the House.

[Jean Charest, Progressive Conservative, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, neither does the Prime Minister tell the whole story. Seven out of ten provinces, including Nova Scotia, will be cut in health care and education over the next few years.

The Prime Minister said in question period that you “should relax—. It is time to rejoice”. I wonder whether this is the message he is delivering to unemployed Canadians or to young children in poverty, more of them being in poverty since he was elected.

I would like to know what kind of logic the government is using to conclude that it cannot afford to reduce taxes, yet it found the money to spend on this new program.

Where is the logic in not cutting taxes?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, in the budget we announced several tax cuts, including the 3% surtax which the Conservatives implemented to lower a deficit that continued to grow.

The Minister of Finance has just removed that 3% and he has made other tax reductions for lower income people, because it is our belief that the first tax reductions must go, first and foremost, to those most in need of them.