Debates of Feb. 26th, 1998

Grammy Awards

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, allow me to join with all Canadians in congratulating the successes of our artists last night at the 40th annual Grammy awards in New York City.

The number of Canadians represented at these awards reflects excellence in Canadian artists. The awards they won are prestigious international recognition of this talent.

Let me first congratulate Sarah McLachlan for winning both best female pop vocal performance and best pop instrumental. Let me also congratulate producer Daniel Lanois who shared awards with Bob Dylan for album of the year and contemporary folk album of the year.

Congratulations are due to Alanis Morisette for best long form music video and to folklore professor Neil Rosenberg for best liner notes.

Congratulations also to Céline Dion for her superb—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Abitibi.

The Budget

[Guy St-Julien, Liberal, Abitibi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance is the best I have seen in a long time in this Parliament.

I have no hesitation in saying that it is better than all those that were tabled when I was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party. Indeed, I made a good choice when I joined the Liberal Party of Canada. I could see that the Liberal Party was committed to improving the quality of life of Canadians.

The finance minister's budget introduces and implements various measures designed to create a climate for continued economic growth.

The budget also provides for the elimination of the deficit, something we have not seen in 30 years. The Liberals' rigorous management, combined with the co-operation of all Canadians, has made it possible to resolve this serious problem affecting the future of our country.

I want to congratulate the Minister of Finance, and especially our Prime Minister, who leads his troops in an efficient and humane fashion, in the best interest of Canada. Our Prime Minister has set Canada on the road to prosperity and I wanted to underscore that.

Poverty

[Réal Ménard, Bloc, Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since taking office in 1993, the Liberal government has never stopped implementing policies that have a negative effect on the poor.

In this regard, the National Anti-Poverty Organization released a report on the impact, on low income Canadians, of government spending cuts and other changes affecting health care and post-secondary education.

This report, sponsored by one of the most respected organizations active in the fight against poverty, includes two findings that are disturbing to say the least. First, the actual per capita value of federal cash transfers for social programs dropped by more than 40% between 1993 and 1997. Second, access to health care services is becoming increasingly dependent on one's ability to pay, rather than on the need for medical treatment.

When will the Liberals realize that the fight is against poverty, not against the poor?

Durham College

[Judi Longfield, Liberal, Whitby—Ajax, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank the Minister of Finance for highlighting Durham College in his budget speech.

Durham College was founded in 1967 and began with a brave and important mission, to create and offer the best in college programs and to help students embark on successful careers.

Durham College has succeeded in this mission and is now one of the premier education institutions in Ontario, serving over 42,000 students.

It provides a true integration of the traditional workplace mandate of colleges and the traditional scholarship mandate of universities, thus providing the best of both worlds to students, employers and taxpayers.

With the announcement of the millennium scholarship fund, the RESP program and the Canada studies grants, more students will be able to take advantage of Durham College's vision for the future.

I congratulate Gary Polonsky, president of Durham College, who was in the gallery for the budget speech, for his contribution to the future of our young people.

William Ormond Mitchell

[Preston Manning, Reform, Calgary Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, western Canadians, indeed all Canadians, today mourn the passing of beloved story teller W.O. Mitchell.

Millions of school children who have never been to the west have nonetheless tasted the dust of a prairie road and heard the chattering chirps of grasshoppers through W.O. Mitchell's characters like Jake and the Kid.

The men and women he wrote about were often tough as rawhide and as eccentric as tumbleweeds, but they always had heart and humour and an earthy common sense.

In his latter years W.O. Mitchell received acclaim from everyone, including most of the Canadian establishment, and yet he loved to gently poke fun at people consumed by their own sense of self-importance.

He might well have asked “Why do you accept and relish my prairie characters when you meet them on the pages of a book and regard them as rednecks and eccentrics when you meet the real thing in the flesh?”

Reformers salute W.O. Mitchell, the prairie bard who belongs to all Canadians.

The Budget

[Stan Keyes, Liberal, Hamilton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the students of McMaster University, Mohawk College and other post-secondary institutions in the great riding of Hamilton West, I repeatedly wrote to the Minister of Finance suggesting he assist students faced with increasing tuition fees and rising debtloads.

What a response. In the first balanced budget in nearly three decades the minister did what? He introduced the Canada study grants for students with children. He extended the repayment period for Canada student loans to 15 years. He increased contributions to granting councils such as the MRC.

He allowed Canadians to temporarily withdraw from RRSPs for lifelong learning. He extended the education credit to part time students. He introduced the Canada education savings grant. He launched the Canada millennium scholarship foundation.

He improved Canadians' access to the information highway. He provided employees with EI premium holidays to hire youth and he offered tax relief to students who must pay interest on their debt.

What a difference five years of Liberal government make. Thanks to the Minister of Finance, Canada's most valuable resource are the first to benefit from a balanced budget.

William Ormond Mitchell

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the wonderful thing about life is that it always leaves us coming back for more. The wonderful thing about our writers and artists is that they remind us of that.

W.O. Mitchell did that for us. His prairie stories sing to all our hearts, whether or not we have ever seen the wind chase the sun across an ocean of wheat. His voice is stilled now, but life goes on.

It went on last night with the Ottawa premiere of the member for Dartmouth's play Glace Bay Miners' Museum . The play is a story from the east, a story about coal miners and their loved ones. It is a story about all of us.

We will not hide our joy and pride at having this playwright from Nova Scotia in our caucus, but we are happy to share her.

The gift our writers and artists give us is the most precious any nation can ever give, the gift of belief in ourselves, in the conviction we can and will see to it that today is better than yesterday but nowhere as good as tomorrow. And you can bet we will all keep coming back for more.

Student Aid

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Lucien Bouchard hid a few things from PQ militants last weekend.

Concerned as he was about scoring political points at the expense of the federal government, Mr. Bouchard forgot to tell PQ members that his government was about to tighten eligibility criteria for its own financial assistance program.

This, perhaps, explains the battle being waged by the separatist government against the millennium fund. Lucien Bouchard, looking like a clone of Maurice Duplessis, said “We are not interested in seeing the federal government helping young Quebeckers who want to continue their education, but give us the money, we will distribute it ourselves”.

Why did Mr. Bouchard not have the courage to announce that he would cut his own student loans and grants initiative? Unfortunately for separatists, the Canadian government has good news for young Quebeckers.

They will have direct access to federal assistance, so that they can continue their education. Our government does not need a dispensing counter managed by a separatist government that is about to cut its own programs.

This is where part of the taxes paid to the federal government go: directly to Quebeckers.

Granby Winter Festival

[Diane St-Jacques, Progressive Conservative, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, 1998 marks the fifth anniversary of Granby's Folies d'hiver festival.

This festival is host not just to local residents, but to many other people from all corners of the province, the country and even further afield.

It offers a variety of outdoor activities for the whole family. I would like to thank the organizers, the many volunteers, and all those whose efforts make this event possible.

On behalf of the Granby tourism office and the entire population of Granby, I invite you to pay us a visit between now and March 8. Follow the example of the 60,000 people who came last year for some great winter fun.

The Budget

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the budget figures show that the government had enough revenue in 1997-98 to eliminate the deficit, to meet its program spending target of $103 billion, and to put $3 billion into its contingency reserve, but the government in fact spent $106 billion and the contingency reserve went to zero with no payment on the debt.

My question is for the finance minister. Why did the minister spend the contingency reserve devoted to new spending after promising in three previous budgets that this would not occur?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear. The government did not spend the contingency reserve. The government did not spend the contingency reserve this year. The government did not spend the contingency reserve last year. The government did not spend the contingency reserve the year before that, nor the year before that.

The reason the government was able to bring in the first balanced budget in 30 years is that we did not spend the contingency reserve.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's statement does not square with the statements in his budget tabled earlier this week.

His budget shows that higher revenues and lower interest charges were enough to eliminate the deficit on its own without touching the contingency fund. Yet the contingency fund disappeared, the fund that was to go to the debt.

Will the minister answer plainly? Where did his contingency reserve go? If it did not go to the deficit and did not go to the debt, did it not go into new spending?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, it went to reducing the deficit.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the opposition, various analysts and much of the Canadian public disagree with the minister's explanation.

Either the minister's communications are wrong or his accounting is wrong. If his accounting is wrong, that is a very serious business.

To settle this, will the finance minister agree to ask the auditor general to audit the definition of contributions to and expenditures from the contingency reserve and report to the House when it reconvenes next week?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Leader of the Opposition has not noticed but the auditor general actually does audit the government's books and he does report to parliament.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister does not get it. We want to bring in the auditor general now.

Three billion dollars have gone missing from what is supposed to be a debt retirement fund, and the finance minister's fingerprints are all over it. The government's whole debt reduction strategy rests on using this fund to pay down our staggering national debt.

Last fall the finance minister said the fund “would be used to pay down the debt of the federal government”. He broke his word. Why should we believe he will not do it again?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the Reform Party has said to bring in the auditor general now. Let me point out to the member that the year is not over. There is still the month of March to go and there are the year end adjustments to go.

Perhaps the Reform Party might allow the year end to finish so the auditor general could make his report. He will make it to parliament and once again the Reform Party will have been found out not to know how to count.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, let us just see how good the finance minister's math is.

The government budgeted $103 billion. It had enough revenue to cover $103 billion. The problem is that the government spent $106 billion. The entire so-called debt retirement fund has been vaporized by new spending.

Again, how can we trust the Minister of Finance not to continue using the entire debt retirement fund as a political slush fund?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, if one ever needed better proof of the success of the budget, the tax reductions, the fact that we have balanced the budget and the fact that we have been able to invest in education, it is that the first five questions Reformers have posed in the House have to do with accounting.

They are afraid to talk about the budget because they know that it has been a tremendous success and they are right.

Millenium Scholarships

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

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Prime Minister admitted that the real objective of his millennium scholarship fund was to make sure students knew where the money was coming from.

The Minister of Human Resources Development even said that everything was negotiable, except the sending of cheques.

How does the minister reconcile the government's objective of visibility with the comments made last week by the Prime Minister at the Canadian Club, when he said, with a hand on his heart “I for one refuse to play politics at the expense of the future of our young people. They deserve a lot better”.

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, when we want to celebrate, when we want to have a party, when the government decides to celebrate the future of our economy, particularly with young Canadians, it is normal to draw everyone's attention to it.

This is what celebrating the millennium is all about. We want to allow our young generation to have the best possible access to the knowledge and skills required to build a very sound economy for the future.

To seek to give visibility to such a well intentioned and targeted party is to send a message of optimism about the future of our country.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable to hear the minister tell us the government will get involved in education, cut $10 billion, and then come back with a scholarship program, when one already exists in Quebec. The nerve of its all. They are throwing a nice party with our money.

I watched the Prime Minister on television today; he said he did not want squabbles.

Will the minister admit that, if the federal government does not want squabbles, it must get out of the education sector, where no one wants to see it?

[Pierre Pettigrew, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, our government has no intention of getting involved in education.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.