Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Calgary Southeast for pulling up his reins, because I know he has a lot more positive interventions and I am sure he will make those during question period today.
If I were a cynic I might believe that this budget was the leadership budget, but I am not. Certainly the government deserves to be congratulated for balancing the budget. But this budget is a tale of lost opportunity. This budget is a tale of what could have been an opportunity that could have really managed to give the Canadian people the ability, the opportunity and the chance to build a better, stronger future for all Canadians.
Yet we have missed opportunities that flew threw the finance minister's and this government's fingers like water in sand. The finance minister and this government have once again pulled the wool over the eyes.
I am going to talk about government fables. But first I would like to talk about one fact. If we look back in history to the behaviour of government finance ministers and Liberal governments in the past, we can see that their governments have spent, spent, spent. If not for the Reform Party the government would never have balanced this budget.
History has proven that it was the Reform Party on the tails of this government which has managed to force this government to finally do the right thing and balance the budget.
Let us talk about government fables and fact, reality versus fiction. Government members like to talk about a million jobs created. That is the natural increase that we would normally have in the most unambitious of growth rates. The cold hard reality is that in this country we have a 17% unemployment rate among youth, we have a 9% unemployment rate in the rest of the country and we have an underemployment rate that is beyond what anybody in this House can possibly imagine.
All one needs to do is go down the streets and see the vacant store front windows, see the people who are far overqualified for the jobs they have, listen and talk to the shopkeepers and business owners. They say “my gosh, if I only had some extra money I could hire apprentices, I could hire more employees, I could invest in my business, I could become more competitive, I could be the engine that helps to drive our economy in this country, a country that is only scratching its potential”.
The government likes to talk about tax rates. The government likes to say it has dropped the tax rates. Let us look at the reality. To a family earning $30,000 the government in its generosity in this budget has given back $148. That family should not spend it all in the same place because $148 for a family of four with one earner will not go very far.
The cold hard reality is yes, the government has gone and given some tax relief. It has put a couple of pennies in the left pocket while taking both hands and scooping out pails of money from the other to the tune of $38 billion over the last four years since we were elected.
CPP rates doubled, and that is going to crush our economy. It is going to have a major negative effect on the economy. I challenge the members on the other side to address that issue with us in an active debate and to open their eyes and not accept what their government colleagues tell them but, for heaven's sake, look at the facts. Take a critical view of what they are told. Analyse what they are told. Take a look, with the experiences that they have, to see in their own riding with their own business people, their own people who cannot find a job and compare that with what they are told. That is all we ask. If they do that then the reality will be immediately evident to them.
The fact is we have the highest tax rate that exists today in the G-7 nations, and that has a major crushing effect on the economy. The finance minister could have lowered the tax rate, could have taken a leaf out of the books of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, taken a look internationally at Ireland and England, countries and provinces that have taken the bull by the horns, lowered taxes and removed egregious rules and regulations that seek to strangle off the ability of the private sector to function properly. Did the government do that? No. Why? If I were a cynic I might think it was a leadership budget. If I were a cynic I might think it was trying to seduce the Canadian public by giving it a few pennies so it will remember at election time. But I would never say that in this House.
This is a shame. The government intelligently made an investment in education. We compliment the government for doing that. But that is only one half of the equation. An educated population can be provided, but what is the point of providing an educated population when the educated population has no jobs to go to in Canada?
As has been mentioned numerous times in this House, those people flock to greener pastures, to vibrant and growing economies. They flock to the south. They flock to the east. They flock to the west. But they do not stay in Canada.
The taxpayers are spending their hard earned money to educate the public and to provide it opportunities in a country where the opportunities are far less than what they could be.
The government has failed on one half of the equation. It should have listened to the plans of the Reform Party, which are based on fact, experience and workable pragmatic solutions to get people back to work. We would do it by reducing taxes and by eliminating interprovincial trade barriers and the rules and regulations which strangle the private sector.
The government has partially addressed the issue of research and development, a major pillar in our ability as a country to be functionally active.
The finance minister was very incorrect in his speech when he said that the Asian flu is over. I can tell the House that the Asian flu is far from being over.
There are two major cleavages taking place in Japan and in Indonesia. The solutions are there. There is no domestic will to deal with them. I can only implore the government to work with other countries and pressure those countries to produce solutions to deal with their problems. If they do not, an economic tsunami will come across the Pacific and hit Canadians harder than anything before.
I would like to congratulate the government on listening, in part, to the Reform Party in getting the budget balanced. However, the government is once again pulling wool over the eyes of the Canadian public. It is saying it is giving something to Canadians when it is not. It is using this budget as a leadership budget. It is trying to seduce Canadians so it will vote for this government in the future.
The government should have done the right thing. It should have listened to sound economic advice, which I know the finance minister is open to. He should do the right thing and provide targeted spending for things like education and health care, for which there was no spending provided in this budget, contrary to what the government says. One of the great fallacies of this budget is that the government says it is putting money into health care. The cold hard fact is that there is not one red cent going into health care.
The government has merely juggled the books and given the public an illusion. There is a serious problem in health care. Patients are not receiving essential care in emergency departments and hospitals all across the country. People are suffering and dying on waiting lists.
I implore the health minister to get together with the finance minister and the Prime Minister to make a concerted effort to invest some of the funds they are sitting on now in health care, reduce taxes and provide Canadians with the real opportunities they deserve.