Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to return the debate to budget 1998.
Over the last two weeks, I have had the occasion to meet with Canadians in many parts of the country and out of the country. I have discussed this budget in communities like Sudbury, Toronto, Vancouver, Oakville, London, Medicine Hat and Vancouver. I had the occasion last week to speak with business leaders at the Chicago Executive Club in Chicago, Illinois.
I can say that everywhere people are recognizing that this budget represents a major economic achievement. It is a national achievement, an achievement in which all Canadians can take pride because all Canadians have contributed to our victory over the deficit.
Congratulations are due to my colleague, the Minister of Finance, and the Prime Minister for their leadership in achieving a balanced budget by the end of this fiscal year—the first balanced budget in almost three decades.
In four years, with the commitment and support of all Canadians, we have wrestled a $42 billion deficit to the ground and set Canada on an irrevocable course to reduce the debt. The benefits are now clear. On the fiscal side, we are already moving on debt reduction. The 1998 budget delivers $7 billion in tax relief over the next three years.
This budget is more than a milestone in our battle against the deficit and debt. It sets the agenda for building a knowledge based Canadian economy for the 21st century. The knowledge revolution is changing the basis of success for individuals, businesses, communities and nations. It is breaking down the barriers of time and distance. It is redefining old notions of competitive advantage, giving greater prominence to the quality of people's skills and the inventiveness of their ideas. It affects all sectors of our economy.
To meet the demands of our knowledge economy, we face the challenge of developing a learning culture. It will spark the continuous improvement and the creation and application of new ideas that we need. It will feed a stronger Canadian innovation system.
The 1998 budget builds on initiatives that we have taken in previous budgets to build an innovative learning culture in our country, initiatives such as the technology partnerships Canada program and the Canada foundation for innovation. Budget 1998 expands and deepens that record of action across the industry portfolio. It injects new resources into key programs that invest in people and technology such as the agenda for connecting all Canadians.
Last September the Speech from the Throne included our commitment to reach an ambitious goal, to make Canada the most connected nation in the world by the year 2000. We want to make Canada the world leader in developing and using an advanced information infrastructure to achieve our social and economic goals in the knowledge economy.
This budget commits an additional $260 million to the agenda for connecting Canadians. Of that amount, $205 million will support the expansion of successful programs such as community access, CAP, and SchoolNet. Our old goal for SchoolNet was to connect every school in Canada to the Internet. We will achieve that goal this year, 1998. With the new funds we will go on to link every classroom in every school.
The new funding for CAP will allow us to surpass our old target of connecting 5,000 rural Canadian communities to the Internet by the year 2000. Now we will be able to expand CAP into urban areas, providing an additional 5,000 sites, making all centres sustainable and upgrading the network.
We will also create the Voluntary Sector Network Program (VolNet) to link voluntary and charitable organizations across Canada to the Internet and to each other. Our initial goal is to link at least 10,000 voluntary organizations to the Internet.
At the heart of connecting Canadians is the right infrastructure. The budget also responds to that need. It includes $55 million for CANARIE to build the next generation Internet, the world's first all optical broadband network.
Connecting Canadians is only one way the budget is investing in building Canada for the 21st century. We are making important investments in university research and the development of highly qualified people by increasing the budgets of the three university research granting councils by more than $400 million over the next three years.
We are expanding the National Research Council's successful industrial research assistance program, IRAP, by an additional $34 million this year. That support will help more Canadian small businesses to adopt new technologies. It will help them develop new products and processes for commercial markets here and internationally.
IRAP provides technical advice to more than 10,000 small and medium size enterprises each year. It provides financial assistance to help more than 3,000 businesses with research and development. These kinds of initiatives are changing the economic face of Canada.
If we look at this city in which we are now, Canada's high technology centre tells that story very well. As we all know, this was once a city seen as the home of the federal government and little more. Those days are gone. Over the past years a solid base of high technology employment has expanded enormously. I am proud to say that co-operation between federal research and development agencies and our private sector leaders have helped to spur that growth.
According to the Ottawa-Carleton Economic Development Corporation, in 1990 the Ottawa region had 300 high tech companies. By 1997 that figure was more than 800 and it is continuing to rise.
Some of these new leading-edge businesses are spinoffs from the work of the NRC, NSERC and our other agencies. For example, last October, the NRC announced five new spinoff companies, four of those setting up shop here in Ottawa.
The new and expanding companies in our high tech sector mean jobs. OCEDCO estimates that their growth will mean that Ottawa-area employers will need to fill nearly 20,000 positions in the telecommunications and information technology sectors alone over the next five years.
Once again the agencies that are getting increased support through this budget are helping to solve that need. The National Research Council is working with educational and private sector partners to address the critical shortage of software engineers through programs such as the O-Vitesse partnership.
The investments in learning and in our innovation system that the budget is making are important. They are creating opportunities for young people to learn and to find work. They are creating opportunities for businesses to master the tools of the new economy. They are building on our fiscal success to make Canada a strong trader in the global knowledge based economy of the 21st century.
I have travelled over the last two weeks literally from one end of Canada to the other. I met with people to talk about the important aspects that we find in this budget. We were talking not just about the realization of a long time target of reaching a budgetary balance, but of the new investments in the ability of Canadians to make the adaptations that are necessary to enter fully into the knowledge based economy of the 21st century.
I saw in each of the cities that I visited a realization that this indeed is the key to Canada's future. Our success in the past can be built upon by a success in the future that recognizes the importance of human resources, the importance of knowledge, the importance of learning and the importance of technology.