Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to add some comments on the budget. As the official opposition's social policy critic I look at the budget in terms of how it will affect average individual Canadians and their families.
As we all know, our federal government has lived on borrowed money every single year for the last 30 years. I ask Canadians watching this debate did you as a regular Canadian run your family finances that way? Did you borrow more and more money every single year for the last 30 years? What if you had done that? What shape would you be in now?
That is about the shape our federal government is in after its members have been such poor stewards and fiscal managers. Now we have a federal debt of $583 billion. That is a mortgage on our children. Every single year they have to pay interest on that debt. That is money they will not have to look after their own security. If we add provincial debts, even though five provinces have balanced their budgets in years past, the total debt of Canadians is $900 billion. Because of that each Canadian family of four owes $77,000 on the federal debt alone.
I ask Canadians, suppose the federal government took out a $77,000 mortgage on your house and expected you to make the monthly payments. That is exactly what has been done. Annual interest payments of $45 billion are made every year by Canadians on the federal mortgage. The average family of four pays $6,000 each and every year as its share of interest on the national debt. That has to come out of taxes. There is no money growing on trees yet.
I ask Canadians watching this debate what you and your family could do with an extra $6,000 every single year. Nearly one-third of total government spending goes down the drain to pay interest. That would be enough to pay for the total federal government support for all our important social services, for health, for education, for welfare, for equalization and for old age security. That is how much money we give to our lenders every year just in interest payments.
Because we have to pay so much each and every year in interest on our monstrous national mortgage this is what has happened to the transfers to support health care, education and welfare.
In 1994 the government supported those important programs to the tune of $19.3 billion. In 1995 it slipped to $18.6 billion. In 1996 it slipped to $14.9 billion. In 1997 it slipped to $12.5 billion. That is what has happened to the government's support for the programs which it has pretended to protect.
Since the government took office interest on the debt increased by $7.5 billion a year. It is no accident that the same government has reduced health and social transfers to the provinces by $7 billion. Interest goes up and social funding goes down.
If an individual has a credit card balance or a bank loan they have to pay finance charges. Those dollars are taken away from discretionary spending. They are taken away from saving for emergencies. They are taken away from the amount each of us has to educate our children. They are taken away from the amount each of us can put away for retirement.
In the same way our enormous national mortgage and the interest we must pay on it every year limits the social security which our citizens can expect.
We have seen that happen. I have just talked about it. We have seen $3.3 billion a year cut from EI benefits. We have lost $7 billion from the health care, education and welfare programs. What has that led to? It has led to hospital closures and longer waiting lists. Now the government is making a big deal about home care. I guess there has to be home care because there is no hospital care. Of course there is no money to fund home care.
Students are facing rising tuition fees and high levels of debt. There is less security for families.
What will happen when another recession hits, as it inevitably will? There is a business cycle. This will require an increase in social spending. Where will that money come from?
What will happen when interest rates rise? They are at historic lows. They will not stay that way forever.
Lower debt is the key to social security, both for us today and for our children and our grandchildren, but the government has no serious plan to tackle the mortgage which we have burdened our children with.
Not only has Liberal and Tory gross mismanagement of Canada's fiscal house for decades imperilled the security and social services to protect Canadians, their insatiable grasping for more and more tax revenues is impoverishing our citizens. The average Canadian family has suffered a $3,000 drop in real income since the Liberals took office. Canadian taxpayers must start paying taxes at under $6,500 a year of income. It is less than $12,000 for a family of four.
How many people do we know who can live comfortably on $6,500 a year? Anything they make after that the government starts taking out of their pocket.
The average Canadian family spends more on taxes, about $21,000 a year, than on food, shelter and clothing combined, which is about $17,000. Since 1961 families have spent less on shelter, food and clothing. What they pay in taxes has nearly doubled over the same time period. It is brutal taxation. People are not able to keep enough of their own money to meet basic needs and yet every year the government wants more.
I quote from a recent study by the Vanier Institute of the Family: “Because expenditures on basic necessities take a larger share of the monthly budget for lower income families, relatively little room is left for other items which can be very important for the health and well-being of our family members”.
The Liberals in their last budget made much of child poverty and how they were going to attack it. Liberal budgets have caused child poverty. Liberals should be hanging their head in shame.
The same study found that families need an average of 76.8 weeks of employment to pay for all of their expenses. Of course, there are only 52 weeks in a year. What happens is that many families become dependent on various income security programs to survive. Inflation and increasing tax bites are leaving even that security in tatters. The value of the child tax benefit declines every year. The refundable GST credit declines in value every year. Personal taxes payable creep up steadily every year. These stealth taxes fall most heavily on the working poor.
The government makes much of the tiny bit of tax reduction thrown into this budget but the facts are that over four years total tax relief will be $6.3 billion but bracket creep over the same period of time will bring in $8 billion, a net tax increase of $1.7 billion. Only a Liberal could call a $1.7 billion net tax increase tax relief.
Families and Canadians must have tax relief. They must have a sensible determined plan to get rid of this mortgage on our country. Because neither of these things were done in this budget, I will not be supporting the budget in the vote tonight.