Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on the budget speech, all the more so as it is ironically at complete odds with its title: Building Canada for the 21st Century.
What this budget really does is provide the tools to weaken Canada. It seems that a real blueprint for society should contain a genuine vision, and that is what this budget lacks. It should also respect its partners and be attentive to the needs of the disadvantaged. It is about this lack of vision, respect, compassion and transparency in the budget speech that I am going to talk to you today.
After four years of fighting the deficit on the backs of the provinces, the unemployed and the disadvantaged, the Liberal government is in a hurry to get back to its old habit of spending. In his budget, the Minister of Finance announced over $10 billion in new spending and tax cuts of $7.2 billion by 2001. But nowhere did he mention that his government wanted to pass an anti-deficit bill, the purpose of which would be to balance the budget.
The federal government will once again be interfering in provincial areas of jurisdiction, ones that do not belong to it. Instead, it should be looking in its own backyard, reducing its own expenditures so the people of Canada and of Quebec will never again have to experience the situation they were thrown into of battling the deficit. As we know, everyone contributed heavily to that effort.
The Minister of Finance's audacity does not stop there, moreover. The Liberal party bagman, the man with the heavy responsibility of deciding what he will do with the surplus, is talking about a balanced budget. The provinces, who got hit with 52% of federal cuts, are entitled to only 23% of the new expenditures. Individuals got hit with 37% of the federal cuts and are entitled to only 26% of the new expenditures. Federal spending was cut by only 12%, yet accounts for 51% of the new expenditures.
So it is easy to understand why the President of Treasury Board has said “When Mr. Bouchard has to cut in Quebec, we in Ottawa will be able to demonstrate that we are the only ones preserving the future of social programs”. We can say that this greatly desired objective of the President of Treasury Board has been attained.
What is happening in the provinces? Cuts are being made. What is happening at the federal level? Money is being spent left and right in areas under provincial jurisdiction, without any real vision or strategies. The deception has now been revealed, the figures are there to prove it.
How can the minister talk about balance when he has reduced his own spending by only 9 per cent? We all know that he had promised cuts of over 19 per cent. Therefore, it is not the first time the finance minister has made vague and contradictory statements.
On January 10, 1997, this same Minister of Finance said, and I quote: “I believe child poverty is the greatest political challenge of our time from a social point of view”. Whatever happened to this minister's willingness to fight poverty? Instead of eliminating the problem, I think he is making it worse.
The government just gave a meagre $600 million that will be added to the $250 million announced in 1995 for the child tax benefit. This increase will not take effect until next July. The finance minister also announced another $425 million for July 1999 and the same amount again for the year 2000.
He has been saying since 1996 that he would do something to fight poverty and he has not done anything yet. He is promising something for next July, but he is already $250 million behind. To be effective in our fight against poverty, we need $2 billion right now. Members of the Bloc deplore the present situation.
If the Minister of Finance took action to index the child tax benefit, 50,000 more children would be eligible for this benefit, children who are not eligible now because no indexation has been done in a very long time. There were indeed solutions, but the minister did not want to listen to the solutions proposed by various groups. That is what Campaign 2000, a very well known organization in Canada, had proposed to the finance minister to deal with the issue of child poverty.
In the fight against poverty, the government could have tackled the indexation of personal income tax tables and the GST. Once again, the minister failed to go after the real problem of poverty. Had he done so, 840,000 low income households would not have paid income tax. At the moment, because there is no indexation, they do.
These are therefore specific measures that the Minister of Finance often neglects. He could have taken real action to fight poverty among adults and children, because when children are poor their parents are poor too.
Another measure the Minister of Finance neglected was a reform of employment insurance. Such a reform has a negative impact on poverty. The reforms that took place were hard on people without work.
The first report on EI reform recently obtained by the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities is a great disappointment. You might say the Liberals are incapable of seeing the day to day reality, and are promising another report to evaluate the impact of these measures.
We all know that those who cannot get employment insurance are on welfare. Studies have been done in Quebec showing that 220,000 people are on welfare. When you are on welfare, you are not in the labour market. This is where to attack the problem of poverty.
That means an additional 194,000 welfare cases in Quebec. That means that Quebec has to pay out an additional $845 million in assistance to people who cannot find jobs. Countrywide, the figures are as follows: an additional 730,000 welfare cases or an additional cost of $2.5 billion to the provinces, while the federal government saves $6 billion. That will enable it to spend wildly, as it wishes, with its propensity for meddling in provincial jurisdictions.
The sum of $2.5 billion is destined for the millennium scholarship fund. That is not acceptable because it does not deal with the problem; rather, it amounts to investing money without vision or strategy. There have been cuts in Quebec. Canada has cut $10 billion in education, including $3 billion in Quebec.
The Bloc Quebecois has proposed many measures for analysis by the Minister of Finance. Instead of that, we get this skimpy budget. And who is going to pay for it in the end? We are paying too much in federal taxes for the strategy chosen by the Minister of Finance. It is a short term and shortsighted strategy that ignores the demands of the various stakeholders.
In education, for example, a number of people told the Minister of Finance that their energy was misdirected. They were ignoring educational priorities. Furthermore, a lot of people are dropping out of school and there is a shortage in funds for education because the transfers to the provinces are not there.
I will not name everyone in positions of authority in the various university and college administrations who want the money needed for education to be given to the provinces. The students federation and a lot of people are disappointed at the federal government's attitude regarding the millennium scholarships. It is ignoring what is happening in the provinces.
We have asked the minister to stop spending in areas of provincial jurisdiction, to not create any new programs and to give the money back to the provinces. The administration of the employment insurance plan must also be changed. There must be a targeted reduction in the tax burden. Legislation must be passed—