Nothing in any of the proposals put forward this morning deal with that fundamental challenge. We hear one of the Reform members say, “How about giving people a real job?” That is a good start. That might be one of the few things that has ever come from the Reform benches with which I agree. Let us look at the question of what it means to be concerned about making sure that people have jobs.
I do not hear the Reform Party saying this, but it is absolutely true that until last month individual Canadians, children and families, were living with an unemployment level above 9% for 86 consecutive months. Finally that unemployment level for the first time has come down a little bit and we have the government saying its policies are working, that it has the economic fundamentals right. We have Reform egging the Liberals on saying, “Therefore let us cut government funding even further, let us cause even more devastation”.
If the Reform Party were serious and if the government were serious about making jobs the centrepiece of its economic and social platform, for starters it would look at what it has done to erode the potential for jobs in this country because of the massive cuts to research that have taken place. Let me just zero in for a minute on the issue of medical research. This is a real challenge that we face in this country.
Over the last decade we have seen an erosion in the commitment to medical research in this country that puts Canada in the very worst position among the G-7 nations. I want to refer to an excellent paper that was presented by the associate dean of medicine at Dalhousie University in my home riding of Halifax. Dr. Dickson, the author of that paper, has put forward a very compelling set of facts and arguments why this government has to face up to the fact that it has caused a steady erosion of commitment to medical research over the last decade and what the implications of having done that are for the future prospects in this country.
There can be an argument made that there is no better way. This is an argument which in fact has been advanced by the OECD. There is no better way to advance the development of jobs in this country than to recognize the need to invest in research. In so doing we not only end up with a better educated nation, we end up with a better infrastructure and an increased capability to generate jobs, the kind of high wage jobs, the high end jobs, the value added jobs that are part of the new economy if we take it seriously and we seize that challenge.
But what do we hear from Reform? We hear advocacies that would take us in the direction of the worst kind of low paid jobs, unprotected because the marketplace is going to do it all.
I had the opportunity recently to spend five days meeting with a group of political economists, academic researchers in the Boston area from Harvard, Brandeis, Boston University and MIT. They had some warnings for Canadians with respect to where the Reform Party is trying to drive this country and the fact that the Liberal Party seems all too willing to accommodate the advocacies of the Reform Party.
What did those American political economists say to us? They said not to be too impressed by the unemployment level in the U.S. which is at 4.7% today. Frankly that surprised us because on the face of it, it looks like exactly what we would want. But that is what they said and we must heed their advice because not to heed their advice is a very short-sighted thing for us to do. They said, “If you keep pursuing the kinds of policies that the Government of Canada has been pursuing in recent years, very much advocated by the Reform Party, you will end up with jobs that are unprotected, jobs that are inadequate in their pay, jobs that have no security and no future attached to them. You want to look very carefully at what kind of country you are going to end up with”.
What kind of country we are going to end up with is exactly what those folks who were in my office wanted to talk to me today about with respect to policies affecting children and families. The kind of country we end up with when those are the kinds of new jobs we create when at the same time there is a greater amassing and concentration of wealth among the most privileged in society is a Canada that is badly divided, where the social fabric is being torn apart, where there is greater insecurity, where there are increased levels of violence and in the end where social solidarity is shattered.
Let us resist those continuing advocacies from the Reform Party. Let us persuade the Liberal government that there is a better way, that there is a fairer way for us to move forward. That means we have to recognize that investing is what a budget is about.
This party wants to only talk about spending and not recognize that what we are talking about is investing in our children, investing in our families, investing in our communities, investing in our futures. They want to always talk about taxes as if it is something that people throw out their window. Taxes are an investment and taxes are our way of sharing as a society in the burdens and the benefits.
I appreciate the opportunity to put forward some of these concerns. Let us heed the voices of those on behalf of children and families in this country. Understand the difference between spending and investing. Understand the difference between the notion of taxation as some form of punishment and the notion of taxation as a fair way, as a cost effective way for us to ensure that we have our social and economic infrastructure on a sound footing and that we are going to be in a position to move forward, to harness the benefits of the new prosperity if we have invested wisely.
We can make sure that we can offer our young people a sound future, a promising future if we recognize the need to invest in their education and in their well-being. Fundamentally that is a question of priorities.
That is what budgets are about. That is what this debate should be about. I hope that we would hear from some of the other members in the Reform Party and the Liberal Party on what their vision is for the kind of Canada we are going to create if we pursue the kind of divisive policies they keep advocating, as we heard once again from the leader of the Reform Party.